"Forget the melting icecaps, we are on a collision course with a true energy emergency. Save your money folks - you will need it in 2040 - just to keep your lights on."
Get ready folks. It is coming. Part of it is already here. What does this have to do with Paris? Not much.What does this have to do with Obama's War on Coal? Quite a bit actually. What am I talking about? Your electric bill. And now that we are sliding into summer with 80's and 90's in the forecast, better dust off that trusty and dusty air conditioner.
This past year, I was floored with how much we are paying for electricity each month. Some months, it was a budget breaker - especially for retired folks on fixed income. But guess what? It is going to get a whole lot worse. And before we start to boil the tar and get the feathers ready for Donald Trump, remember one very important fact - pulling out of the Paris Accord was a huge "nothing burger". It takes four years to completely divorce ourselves from the Paris mess. And in those four years, our electric rates are projected to be 5 to 10 percent higher than today. And by 2040 (that be less than 25 years from now), they could be 150% higher than today.
Hundreds of coal fired power plants have already been shuttered. Many more are on the road to that same fate. In addition, individual states (about half the states, including Minnesota) have mandated that a certain percentage of the power they consume will come from renewable sources, no matter how expensive or impractical they are. Are you getting the picture? Pulling out of the Paris Accord was moot with a capital "M".
Here is the bottom line. Getting rid of coal was getting rid of our cheapest source of electricity. That is a cold, hard fact. To convert our coal burners into natural gas burners cost a boatload of money. And that transition money will be passed on to the consumers.
Can nuclear save us? We finally got our first new nuke online after waiting 20 years since the last one. We would need a lot more, and fast. But it takes just about forever to jump through all the legal and environment hoops to get a new one online. However, with coal going off the grid, we will need something to take up the slack. If not, brown outs and maybe some black outs can be in our future.
What is the whole point of this article? The people who the Democrats profess to help the most, will be hurt the most by our country becoming "greener". That would be the poor, lower middle class, and retirees. The upcoming electric bills are going to be back breakers. All the experts agree on that point. And there is no escaping it, unless someone unexpectedly discovers the golden goose of free energy. That is possible by 2040, but also very unlikely unless we really step up our R+D.
The upcoming electric bills will set off moaning and groaning throughout the land similar to what we heard when the ObamaCare insurance rates hit last year. Only with the electric rates, the poor will be on their own - no ObamaCare type subsidies.
This is the other side of Paris. This is reality. We can castigate Donald Trump all we want, but with or without Paris, everything was set in motion. Forget the melting icecaps, we are on a collision course with a true energy emergency. Save your money folks - you will need it in 2040 - just to keep your lights on.
Trumps actions re: Paris Accords will have no effect on the future. Coal plants will close due to economics, not science. No miners will gain jobs. They are the same as buggy whip mfgs. of the past.
ReplyDeleteWe are on a path to destruction that will make your electricity bill something you would love to pay, but won't be able too. Too late. We are doomed.
The science says, continued increases in CO2 levels from China, India and the US, will lead to several meters of sea-level rise—putting many coastal areas, housing hundreds of millions of people, completely underwater. Before about 35 million years ago, the planet was completely ice free, so warm-water alligators and lush redwood forests thrived above the Arctic Circle. The transition to large-scale glaciation in Antarctica began, when CO2 dropped to 425 ppm. Most of the ice should therefore disappear again if we rise to that point—and if all of Antarctica’s and Greenland’s glaciers were to melt, sea level would rise many tens of meters. The only way to keep CO2 concentrations low enough is to have the entire world adopt California’s strictest-in-the-nation proposals for limiting carbon emissions—something that is hard to imagine even the other U.S. states agreeing to, let alone developing nations such as India and China.
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ReplyDeletean excellent read if you have a moment.............
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/climate-scientist-explains-worst-can-happen-after-paris-withdrawal-n767811?cid=par-xfinity_20170604