The Left’s Energy Efficiency Gamble
Conn Carroll /
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Glenn English and Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperative CEO Jackson Reasor write in the Washington Post:
In the past five years, utility bills have risen 30 percent, largely because of the rising cost of fuel, mainly coal and natural gas. The country’s leading consumer organizations, including the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, recently wrote to President-elect Barack Obama, calling on him “to devote as much attention to the affordability of electricity as has been devoted to gasoline.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that by 2030, demand for electricity will be 30 percent higher, the equivalent of adding four Californias to the power grid.
In some regions, demand will soon outstrip supply. The North America Electric Reliability Corp., which oversees the reliability of the U.S. electric power grid, projects that the desert Southwest will be at risk for blackouts in 2010 because of a shortage of power generation capacity. An Agriculture Department report this year on rural electric power generation found that “brownouts are probable unless investment in transmission is increased and simultaneously, energy efficiency efforts and demand side management must be intensified.”
These warnings echo what we’ve reported before from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. According to NERC, over the next decade 135 gigawatts of new capacity will be needed to meet the growth in consumption. But right now plants producing a total of 57 gigawatts are planned. Renewable sources of power will not be able to make up the difference. Despite decades of subsidies, alternative energies such as wind and solar power contribute only 1% of our nation’s energy needs. And states that have set renewable energy goals are failing to meet them.
But the left has its own solution: energy efficiency. The Center for American Progress’ Joe Romm writes: (more…)