754 #ClimateEmergency #Energy #IRAout is #BillsUp
"Gutting clean energy incentives would drive up electric bills"
by Jeff St. John for Grist [Mar 22, 2025] [audio available]
https://grist.org/energy/gutting-clean-energy-incentives-would-drive-up-electric-bills/
Quotes:
"Rising energy costs are a problem in the U.S. Ending Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and ramping up fossil fuels would make it even worse."
"The Trump administration insists that renewables are making energy more expensive and that more fossil-fueled power will reduce utility bills. But those claims are false../\..Americans will suffer the consequences in higher electric bills.
So finds a report released Thursday by think tank Energy Innovation warning lawmakers of the costs of repealing the clean-energy tax credits created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law."
"Key members of the Trump administration have disparaged clean energy as a wasteful distraction while praising fossil gas and coal."
“We looked at a state-by-state level at energy bills as well as jobs and economic growth,” said Robbie Orvis, Energy Innovation’s senior director of modeling and analysis. “Across the board, repealing the IRA is going to make it more expensive for the average household — and in some states, dramatically.”
"...Under the “repeal” scenario, annual consumer energy bills would be more than $6 billion higher for U.S. households in 2030 and more than $9 billion higher in 2035. Translated to individual households, energy costs would increase by an average of $48 per year in 2030 and $68 per year in 2035, and continue to rise in future years."
"Republican leaders have committed to slashing federal spending to pay for the cost of extending the multi-trillion-dollar tax cut passed during the first Trump administration, which primarily benefits corporations and wealthy individuals."
"Why clean power is cheaper power
The reason repealing these tax credits would drive up costs is simple, Orvis said. Solar and wind energy can supply U.S. power grids with electricity at lower long-term cost than alternatives such as coal, gas, and nuclear power plants."
"Over the past decade, solar and wind power have become the cheapest source of new electricity generation across the majority of the world,..."
"A study from think tank RMI found that portfolios of solar, wind, and batteries paired with utility energy-efficiency investments can serve grid needs at a lower cost than newly built gas-fired power plants."
"That lack of fuel cost, along with lower operations and maintenance costs, make wind and solar a long-run winner financially."
"Energy developers and utilities are following the money. Last year, solar, batteries, and wind made up more than 90 percent of the 56 gigawatts of power capacity built in the U.S."
"An ‘energy emergency’ — false claims versus real solutions
... It [Trump admin] has also declared a “national energy emergency” that casts renewable energy as a threat to grid reliability and calls for expanded use of fossil fuels as the solution."
"And while the variability of wind and solar power generation is intimately tied to weather, traditional power plants have proven to be far less reliable than their backers have claimed, particularly during winter cold snaps like those that led to massive grid outages in Texas in 2021 and across the U.S. Southeast in 2022."
"As for clean energy’s relationship to rising electricity prices, an Energy Innovation report last year highlighted that surging electric utility costs in recent years are linked not to renewables but other factors, including spikes in fossil gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increasing cost of expanding and maintaining utility power grids."
"Other states with aggressive clean-energy mandates, such as California and Massachusetts, also have some of the country’s most expensive electricity, the report says. But those costs are more closely driven by aging infrastructure, “expensive imported fossil fuels” in the case of Massachusetts, or in California, “natural disaster damage” — namely, the massive costs of wildfires, many caused by utility grid failures, and the investments meant to prevent more of them."
"Wright [Trump admin] also mocked the idea that wind, solar, and batteries could completely replace fossil fuels for providing reliable round-the-clock generation capacity."
"The U.S. is experiencing a first-in-decades boom in demand for electricity, driven by new data centers and factories in the short term,"
"New solar, wind, and battery projects can be built in roughly half that time, making them a vital near-term solution to rising power demand, NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum told The New York Times at CERAWeek, adding that “if you take renewables and storage off the table, we’re going to force electricity prices to the moon.”
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