Mar 22, 2021
Department Of Energy Price Data Spotlights Regressive Nature of Electrifying Everything
Robert Bryce
Forbes
On Wednesday, a short item in the Federal Register underscored the regressive nature of the “everything†effort that is being promoted by some of America’s highest-profile environmental groups, climate-change activists, politicians, and academics. The item, published by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy, forecasts the “representative average unit costs of five residential energy sources for the year 2021.â€
The forecast shows that on an energy-equivalent basis, electricity will cost about $39 per million Btu. It also projects that one million Btu in the form of natural gas will cost about $11, propane will cost about $19, No. 2 heating oil will cost $20, and kerosene will cost $23. Thus, electricity will cost nearly four times as much as natural gas and twice as much as propane, a fuel that is commonly used by rural Americans in their homes, and on their farms and ranches.
The electrify everything push will impose regressive energy taxes on low-income consumers.
As I wrote in these pages last month during the deadly blizzard that paralyzed Texas for almost a week, there are a myriad of problems with attempting to electrify all of our transportation, industrial and residential energy systems. I wrote, “attempting to electrify everything would be the opposite of anti-fragile. Rather than make our networks and critical systems more resilient and less vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, bad actors, falling trees, or simple negligence, electrifying everything would concentrate our dependence on a single network, the electric grid, and in doing so make nearly every aspect of our society prone to catastrophic failure if - or rather, when - a widespread or extended blackout occurs.â€
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