Minnesota study shows the cost of going to 50 percent alternative energy will do great harm to the economy and to families

Power Line:

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These are some of the headline conclusions, from the executive summary:

* Building and maintaining “green” wind and solar facilities, along with transmission lines and necessary natural gas complementary plants (to provide electricity when the wind isn’t blowing, i.e. 60% of the time), would cost $80.2 billion through 2050. For a state like Minnesota, that number is out of the question.

* Every household in Minnesota would pay an average of $1,200 per year, in 2016 dollars, through higher electricity rates and otherwise.

* Electricity prices would rise by 40.2%.

* Electricity-intensive industries like mining, agriculture, manufacturing and health care would be hurt the most. Once again, urban greenies are hammering rural, and physically productive, America. [That last is my commentary, not found in the executive summary.]

* Higher electricity prices are a dead loss that will reduce spending in other areas as household budgets are squeezed. Therefore, according to economist John Phelan, using the generally accepted IMPLAN software, achieving the 50% renewable goal would cost Minnesota 21,000 permanent jobs, and reduce the state’s GDP by $3.1 billion annually. It is one small step on the road to Venezuela.

* The big winners are the regulated utilities, whose profits would increase under the “green” scenario by $30 billion. This is why utilities lobby enthusiastically to be subjected to “green” mandates, and assure their customers that wind and solar energy are saving the planet.

Greenies will tell us, of course, that $80.2 billion, a declining economy and tens of thousands of jobs lost are a small price to pay to save the planet. But in fact, the reduction in CO2 emissions would be infinitesimal. Using the Obama administration’s highly questionable assumptions, achieving the 50% renewable target would reduce the Earth’s average temperature by 0.0006 degree Centigrade by 2100–an amount that is far too small to detect with even the most sophisticated equipment.
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Alternative energy is a poor investment any way you look at it. If you were to choose a more effective alternative to fossil fuels it would be nuclear energy that is at least dependable and does not eat up as much of the landscape.  But the proponents of the global warming theory also oppose nuclear energy too.

The Minnesota plan is not as ambitious as the Green New Deal which looks like something dreamed up by a doomsday cult.  Neither proposal looks viable.