“Doubling Down on Failure: How a 50% by 2030 Renewable Energy Standard Would Cost Minnesota $80.1 Billion” is the title of a new report from the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment:
- Building and maintaining “green” wind and solar facilities, along with transmission lines and necessary natural gas complementary plants (to provide electricity when the wind isn’t blowing, i.e., 60% of the time), would cost $80.2 billion through 2050. For a state like Minnesota, that number is out of the question.
- Every household in Minnesota would pay an average of $1,200 per year, in 2016 dollars, through higher electricity rates and otherwise.
- Electricity prices would rise by 40.2%.
- Electricity-intensive industries like mining, agriculture, manufacturing and health care would be hurt the most.
- Higher electricity prices are a dead loss that will reduce spending in other areas as household budgets are squeezed. Therefore, achieving the 50% renewable goal would cost Minnesota 21,000 permanent jobs, and reduce the state’s GDP by $3.1 billion annually. It is one small step on the road to Venezuela.
- The big winners are the regulated utilities, whose profits would increase under the “green” scenario by $30 billion. This is why utilities lobby enthusiastically to be subjected to “green” mandates, and assure their customers that wind and solar energy are saving the planet.
Cross-posted from AEI