We will be extremely lucky if electricity costs only go up 40% to 60%. The AEP CEO stated that natural gas prices will remain low for 25 years. Guess what the utilities will use to fuel the new generating capacity? Yep! Natural gas. My guess is that electricity costs will go up by multiples. It will more than double given the large percentage of coal fired units that will eventually have to be replaced.
Natural gas prices will also be forced up dramatically. It takes at least a pair of 16” pipelines to fuel a 200 megawatt combustion turbine.
Natural gas prices will also be forced up dramatically. It takes at least a pair of 16” pipelines to fuel a 200 megawatt combustion turbine.
Not to mention the security risk of those pipelines.
Google Earth a coal plant and you can see barges or rail supplying the coal, and the plant often having a large pile of coal on site. Now take one of Barry's Muslim friends or an Earth Liberation Front pal of the Left to disrupt the pipeline (or for that matter a cold snap that blacked out Texas during the SuperBowl), and the power goes off NOW and stays off until the pipe is repaired and legions of Federal Bureaucrats nap their way through the myriads upon myriads of regulations, permits and forms that need to be reviewed before the plant can be restarted.