Posted on 02/12/2024 3:50:15 AM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
Starting this month, 145,000 Wyoming ratepayers will make a down payment on what's projected to add up to billions of dollars in additional costs.
Regulators recently approved Black Hills Energy's new $1.1 million surcharge on utility bills to research the viability of adding controversial carbon capture technologies to coal-fired power plants.
Rob Joyce, acting director of the Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the rate increases are due to the state's mandate for utilities to continue burning coal.
"The people who benefit from these kinds of policies are the legislators who are connected to legacy fossil fuel companies, utilities who are able to pass the buck on to the ratepayers," Joyce asserted. "It's certainly not the ratepayer who benefits from this." According to Wyofile, the price tag for actually installing carbon capture is projected to be between $500 million and $1 billion per coal-fired unit. Instead of allowing utilities to retire coal plants and switch to cheaper sources such as wind and solar, in 2020 Wyoming lawmakers passed a coal-use mandate to help keep those plants economically viable as other states work to mitigate climate change.
Joyce argued no legislation is going to stop the declining global demand for coal, which has become more costly than renewables for generating electricity and has caused Wyoming's coal output to plunge over the past 15 years. He pointed to a report from Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Agreed. "Public radio," politicking for the Left for decades now.
Central to the whole cost explosion? As the article buries into a paragraph -- "controversial carbon capture technologies."
"Green" throughout the Western world is causing various versions of massively rising costs along with reduction in actual service.
Meanwhile China builds coal plants weekly. So we handicap ourselves severely because "green."
Reaearch.
Snort.
Iceland has been doing something similar with regard to carbon capture.
How well us that working out for Iceland?
Actually it is happening elsewhere.
And it's still a freaking boondoggle.
Lastly, as always, and especially as it pertains to that last link above...
FOLLOW THE FREAKING MONEY.
“The people who benefit from these kinds of policies are the legislators who are connected to legacy fossil fuel companies, utilities who are able to pass the buck on to the ratepayers,” Joyce asserted. “It’s certainly not the ratepayer who benefits from this.”
Hmmmmm...
Seems Public News Service could say the same thing about themselves and their “Government Sugar-Daddy” arrangement.
Did this “world’s largest carbon removal project” commit to single-sourcing their energy input to “renewable” only?
Will their emergency generators be likewise renewable “single source”?
Ask Iceland. :-)
Good! Solar and wind will save them. If it don’t [which it won’t]. They can freeze to death.
Well, they pumped all that nasty C02 back into the ground and now they have volcanoes erupting!
And their grid is a joke.
Don’t forget Hawaii.
China Was Responsible for 96% of Coal Plants Constructed in 2023
China was single-handedly responsible for 96% of global coal power capacity construction last year, cementing its position as the biggest coal builder in the world.
Per data, released by Global Energy Monitor and reported by Bloomberg, China last year also accounted for 68% of new coal generation capacity that came online last year and 81% of newly planned coal generation projects.
China’s attitude to coal has been hard to swallow for Europe and other transition advocates but Beijing has made a point of explaining that on its list of priorities, energy security comes before energy transition. Besides, officials have said that most of the new coal capacity will operate as backup for wind and solar, which cannot generate electricity round the clock, unlike coal power plants.
Which is a lot like Iceland.
Especially its government.
Article is total propaganda from the Sierra Club. Rate increase is due to “carbon capture” scam being forced on the coal-fired energy generators, not the mandate for coal use. Either way, at least Wyoming will not be having rolling blackouts from being dependent on the undependable.
The green scam is surely to make wealthy the few in the West while making poorer the many. As has been the results of the Left worldwide over the last century.
Friends have a coal-fired stove that heats the house. Wonderful, radiant heat.
We had a similar problem in Alabama. In the last year or so of Obama the EPA forced Alabama Power to shut down a coal plant and replace it with power generated from "clean burning natural gas" fueled plants. This process cost over a billion dollars. Yet a few years later, literally in Brandon's first week of office, Brandon issued EO's making it harder to drill for natural gas because the narrative had changed during the Trump years -- the Dims now say that natural gas is killing us all.
I saw both my natural gas bill and my power bill jump (my power bill has a fuel charge per kWh to make us power customers pay the fuel costs the power company has to pay, including when the Dims change their minds on things like natural gas being our "clean burning" savior or our devil).
Bull crap like that is why I went with decentralized solar and generate most of the energy we consume. The fact that I get most of my power from solar is not the good part -- I'm a firm believer in coal and natural gas being much more efficient energy sources. Same with me thinking ICE cars are better than EV's. The only thing solar brings to the table is it's an energy source I can set up on my own and regulate on my own (I hired a certified professional, but I called the shots, not the Dim cult regulators that put up road blocks between me and coal or natural gas or oil). It's a liberating feeling to buy only 20% of my energy from the grid for my all-electric home, including charging the EV (including the 16K miles we charged it at home last year, not including the extra 10K miles we charged it away from home in the total 26K miles we drove it last year). Basically the Dims' stupid energy policies impact our family's budget only one-fifth as much now.
I highly recommend everybody research if it's feasible to make his home more energy efficient...bonus points if you're in a climate situation to generate a significant portion of your own energy. Alabama is a great climate for decentralized solar (we get lots of sun, most of the energy we consume is for keeping our homes cool in the summer which is when we get even more sun...). Don't be surprised if within a few years there are many conservatives doing like I'm doing, particularly given that we tend to be homeowners and conservatism is more popular in the south.
And the teat dries up. As was said of Communism as of socialism, it is a cow which all want to milk but none want to feed.
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