Alex Epstein

Alex Epstein

2020 Talking Points on Joe Biden’s Energy Plan

Joe Biden’s energy plan calls for outlawing reliable fossil fuel electricity and mandating unreliable solar and wind electricity. This will not stop CO 2 emissions from rising but it will destroy American industry, impoverish American consumers, and jeopardize American security.

Quick summary

1. Energy schemes around the world based on “unreliables”— solar and wind—have been driving up electricity costs, harming economies, destroying domestic industries, and harming consumers. Germans pay 3 x US electricity prices to get just 1/3 of their electricity from solar and wind. 1 2. Instead of learning from the failures of unreliable energy schemes, the Biden Plan seeks to do far worse by outlawing reliable fossil fuel electricity and forcing Americans to pay $2 trillion--$7,500 a household--for a solar and wind-based grid that can’t possibly work. 2 3. Joe Biden says that forcing

Americans to rely on unreliable solar and wind will create jobs.

But making electricity unreliable and unaffordable doesn’t create jobs, it destroys them. Just ask the UK aluminum industry, which “green energy” schemes are driving out of business. 3 4. Joe Biden says that forcing

Americans to rely on unreliable solar and wind will help middle-class Americans. But the cost of energy affects the cost of everything. Skyrocketing energy costs will drive skyrocketing food, housing, healthcare, and transportation costs.

Center for Industrial Progress 5. America is already too reliant on unreliable solar and wind. That’s why utilities are already blacking out many of their industrial customers. And grids in Texas and the Northeast are warning of blackouts for everyone if policies don’t change. Biden’s

Plan will guarantee blackouts. 4 6. Joe Biden’s support of a ban on fracking, which is required to produce over 60% of American oil and 75% of American natural gas, would destroy millions of jobs and once again make us dangerously dependent on the

Middle East and Russia. Do we want to be at the mercy of the likes of Vladimir Putin? 5 6 7 8 7. Joe Biden’s plan to force Americans to use unreliable solar and wind won’t stop global CO2 levels from rising, because China and others won’t be stupid enough to follow suit. The only thing it will bring about is an economic and security crisis in

America. 9 8. If Joe Biden and other Democrats want to lower global CO 2 emissions, they should stop demonizing and criminalizing reliable, non-carbon nuclear energy and lower-carbon natural gas. Instead, the Biden Plan continues the overregulation of nuclear and supports banning natural gas.

References

1. Public generation of electricity was over 518 terawatt-hours in

Germany for 2019, solar and wind combined generated over 173 terawatt-hours (33.4%).

Fraunhofer ISE energy-charts.de German household electricity prices have more than doubled to over 0.3€ per kWh ($0.35 per kWh depending on currency exchange rate) since 2000 when the modern renewable energy law started to massively incentivize solar and wind capacity on the German grid. BDEW Strompreisanalyse

Jan 2020 p. 7

The average US household price in 2018 was $0.1287 per kWh. U.S. Energy Information

Administration Electric Power

Annual table 5a 2. “Biden will make a $2 trillion accelerated investment, with a plan to deploy those resources over his first term, setting us on an irreversible course to meet the ambitious climate progress that science demands.” Joe Biden’s

Build Back Better plan

“Biden’s climate and environmental justice proposal will make a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over the next ten years, leveraging additional private sector and state and local investments to total to more than $5 trillion.” -Joe Biden’s

Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice 3. “Together, these steps will unleash a clean energy revolution in America, create good paying union jobs that cannot be outsourced, and spur the installation of millions of solar panels – including utility-scale, rooftop, and community solar systems – and tens of thousands of wind turbines – including thousands of turbines off our coasts – in

Biden’s first term.” Joe Biden’s Energy Plan Continued on page 19