Can we get some cliffs here for those that don't follow the politics across the pond?
I’m behind so if this has already been answered… sorry.
Each country in Western Europe has a different power generation stack. Netherlands - gas, Germany- coal, France -nuclear, Switzerland -hydro. As they all moved towards more renewable policies they switched their profiles to go green.
Switzerland literally shut down hydroelectric plants for wind and solar.
Why, because it’s subsidized by the taxpayer.
The USA is doing the same thing. Coal and natural gas plants are retiring ahead of schedule. An example would be looking at MISO North and MISO South capacity prices (it’s public and you can google) intermittent resources are replacing base load units
Why? Because wind, solar, renewable identification numbers, RECs are all being subsidized by the American taxpayer.
It makes sense for a utility to mothball or retire certain plants early and receive the subsidies- while passing the actual cost to their rate base.
So while we are taking coal plants offline and saying we are saving the world- it gets sent to China and India
We lose a cheap resource of electricity and then replace it with a subsidized resource at a more expensive price.
This raises our cost of production, decreases wages and limits exports and manufacturing.
Eliminating fossil fuels completely from the USA power generation stack would be the nail in the coffin.
Feel free to send me a message if you have further questions
@tiderollsonu
creativedestructionmedia.com
