The Green New Deal: A Raw Deal for American Taxpayers, Energy Consumers, and the Economy
On February 7, 2019, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D–MA) released their plan for a Green New Deal in a non-binding resolution. The goal of the Green New Deal as outlined is to achieve global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human activity of 40...
www.heritage.org
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November 2018 has perhaps the most detailed model estimating the costs of deep decarbonization in the electricity sector.22
Nestor A. Sepulveda, “The Role of Firm Low-Carbon Electricity Resources in Deep Decarbonization of Power Generation,” Joule, Vol. 2, No. 11 (November 21, 2018), pp. 2403–2420,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435118303866 (accessed February 5, 2019).
The authors run 912 scenarios looking at a wide range of uncertainties that take into account geographical differences in renewable potential, different technology cost assumptions, and different carbon-dioxide-emission-reduction targets. In some scenarios they include “firm” low-carbon power sources, such as nuclear power, natural gas, and coal with carbon capture and sequestration and high-capacity reservoirs for hydroelectric power. In the scenario that achieves zero carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector by using 100 percent renewable power, the study projects that average electricity prices would increase to $150 to $300 per megawatt hour.23
Ibid.
(In 2017, the average was $105 per megawatt hour.24
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual 2017, December 2018,
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/pdf/epa.pdf (accessed February 5, 2019).
) As calculated by Philip Rossetti at the American Action Forum, families would face electricity costs that are between
43 percent and 286 percent higher,
resulting in households paying hundreds of dollars more in their monthly electricity bill.25
Ineffectiveness. No matter where one stands on the urgency to combat climate change, the Green New Deal policies would be ineffective in combatting climate change. In fact, the U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions 100 percent and it would not make a difference in global warming. Using the same climate sensitivity (the warming effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide emissions) as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes in its modeling, the world would only be less than 0.2 degree Celsius cooler by 2100