The world is a different place. I recently attended a conference about electricity and natural gas. By now the EPA has issued its regulations for coal-fired powered plants. Some plants will stay some will go. The thing that worries many industry leaders is last winter when we had every plant running wide open and still barely missed have rolling blackouts in the U.S. Many of these power units are huge and to replace them will take lots of natural gas. At that same period the U.S. strained to get enough natural gas to the plants that needed it. The U.S. has plenty of natural gas but the pipelines are not big enough to become the main choice in many cases. They can build pipelines but not overnight and the pressure on the supply makes it cost much more than coal. Plus, you simply can’t store gas like coal.
But the states that don’t allow drilling were the ones that ran out. I wonder how that happened? People complain on one hand and on the other demand supplies. It is almost funny. Through all this sudden discovery of new supplies of gas the U.S. becomes a supplier of the world overnight. I knew guys that worked for oil companies and they used testers on the ground, I think through sonar, which looked for oil all over the U.S. They said we had none anywhere and dwindling U.S. supplies made us pay the Sultan’s price for petroleum.
They shut down all gas-fired power plants fed by natural gas. They had to reserve what was left for residential customers. We were running out of it. Oil companies had spent millions looking for it – there was no more down there, doom days of what the future would bring.
Now we have wind farms all over except California, none located where they have the most wind, because they fear a condor, which must be a dumb bird, will fly into one. I bet cars kill more condors eating road kill than a fan blade. Maybe they should make everyone walk out there.
The thing that concerns people in the electric business the most is what this removal of coal-fired plants will do to your electric bill. Many of the sources for rural electric went to coal-fired plants to supply their members. They have added scrubbers to make cleaner air, now the EPA is complaining about a teacup left. We all want cleaner air, but coal is not adding to that in any amount.
Germany has all this business about renewables going to wind, sun, water and even a carbon tax on CO2. Their residents are paying on an average 35 percent more for electricity. I know that a third of the people on rural electric with fixed incomes don’t have $30 a month more to pay on an electric bill. Plants are coming back to the U.S. because businesses know they can have electricity at a lower rate. Let’s not fall in the German’s trap.
Any politician who favors a carbon tax needs to be looked at hard in the voting booth. We need to talk to local politicians that represent us about these new EPA rules that came out since I wrote this article. The power industry expects a big push to rush off into things that make the government the boss regardless of good sense or our electric bill. Thanks for listening.
May the Good Lord bless and keep you and all of America, Dusty Richards
