In his State of the Union address, the President of the United States said that “We produce more natural gas than ever before – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it.” But the reality is far different for people in New England, according to a recent New York Times article:
Electricity prices in New England have been four to eight times higher than normal in the last few weeks, as the region’s extreme reliance on natural gas for power supplies has collided with a surge in demand for heating. Frigid temperatures and the snowstorm that hammered parts of the Northeast last week have revived concerns about the lack of alternatives to natural gas. Many plants that ran on coal or oil have been shuttered, and the few that remain cannot be put into service quickly enough to meet spikes in demand. The price of electricity is determined by the price of gas. . . . “It is certainly true that a region like New England that relies on a single fuel source like natural gas for the bulk of its power does leave itself open for more disruptions than a region with a more diverse fuel mix,” said Jay Apt, executive director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “It’s not a knock against natural gas; it’s a knock against a single fuel source.”(Wald, 2013)
If you live in New England and you think you’re paying more than your fair share to save the planet, you’re half right. You are paying more — significantly more — as a result of energy policies that favor one fuel source (natural gas) and exclude another (coal), policies the current administration is trying to extend to the rest of the nation. But as far as saving the planet goes, the evidence is mounting that the models used to predict catastrophic man-made climate change just aren’t matching up with observations.
I’ve said before that the price of natural gas will increase, and without coal-fired generating stations the cost of electricity will increase with it. The EPA is preparing to finalize regulations that will effectively prohibit the construction of any new coal-fired generating stations in the U.S., and when coal is no longer an option as a fuel source for U.S. energy producers the cost of energy will skyrocket. High energy prices, in the long term, will force manufacturers to relocate elsewhere. The wages those manufacturers paid will be gone, and that will devastate the communities where those wages were spent on food, gas, durable goods, and services. Misguided energy policies will result in a man-made economic catastrophe with no environmental benefit whatsoever.
Michaels, P. (2012, December 18). The UN’s global warming forecasts are performing very, very badly. Forbes, retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2012/12/18/the-uns-global-warming-forecasts-are-performing-very-very-badly/
Wald, M. (2013, February 16). The natural gas trap. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/business/electricity-costs-up-in-gas-dependent-new-england.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1&