JANUARY 24, 2022
By Paul Homewood
Joe Biden promised to “achieve net zero carbon emissions in the power sector by 2035.”
I’m sure the inhabitants of New England will be on the moon. It’s been a pretty good week of average temperatures there, and electricity demand has been moderate, peaking below the highs of air conditioning in the summer:
However, even then wind and solar would only provide 3% of electricity. Much of that is solar at midday.
New England was dependent on imports for a third of its power, mainly from the border in Canada:
Canadian exports about 50 TWh per year for the United States, about one-tenth of production, of which hydropower and nuclear account for 75% (BP Energy Review). New England mainly derives surplus hydroelectric power from Quebec and New Brunswick, but transmission capacity limits New England’s reach to consume more than the 2 GW currently available.
In any event. Canada is boosting exports to the US, which it can only do by ramping up fossil fuel production, as other sources are already fixed.
It all begs the question – where will New England get all the energy it needs when fossil fuels, which currently provide 65%, are left out of the mix. We believe that nuclear has no future in Biden’s green utopia. Instead, his main hope is solar, which has provided only half a percent this week so far.
But it got worse!
Although natural gas provides nearly half of New England’s electricity, about three-quarters of the gas consumed is diverted elsewhere, primarily for residential heating:
As in the UK, the use of gas for heating will have to drop dramatically very quickly, if the decarbonization target is to be achieved.
Gas usage in New England is at around 3 bcf/d this time of year, excluding electricity generation. This is the energy equivalent of 879 GWh/day, or 36 GW.
In other words, if this heating was switched from gas to electricity, New England’s electricity demand would increase from about 17 GW to 53 GW. That’s three times the current demand and more than double what it was during the summer peak.
Most of the US will be in a similar situation in the winter, so they can’t all rely on solar pipelines from Nevada.
There is no easy way to say this. People will die, and a lot of them, if Joe Biden’s crazy green agenda is implemented.
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