Posted on 02/12/2024 3:50:15 AM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
Starting this month, 145,000 Wyoming ratepayers will make a down payment on what's projected to add up to billions of dollars in additional costs.
Regulators recently approved Black Hills Energy's new $1.1 million surcharge on utility bills to research the viability of adding controversial carbon capture technologies to coal-fired power plants.
Rob Joyce, acting director of the Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the rate increases are due to the state's mandate for utilities to continue burning coal.
"The people who benefit from these kinds of policies are the legislators who are connected to legacy fossil fuel companies, utilities who are able to pass the buck on to the ratepayers," Joyce asserted. "It's certainly not the ratepayer who benefits from this." According to Wyofile, the price tag for actually installing carbon capture is projected to be between $500 million and $1 billion per coal-fired unit. Instead of allowing utilities to retire coal plants and switch to cheaper sources such as wind and solar, in 2020 Wyoming lawmakers passed a coal-use mandate to help keep those plants economically viable as other states work to mitigate climate change.
Joyce argued no legislation is going to stop the declining global demand for coal, which has become more costly than renewables for generating electricity and has caused Wyoming's coal output to plunge over the past 15 years. He pointed to a report from Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
declining global demand for coal, which has become more costly than renewables for generating electricity
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Why this? Because the guv put so much regulations and penalties on it. Remember, Obama promised to bankrupt the coal mines! He is fulfilling that promise!
My Black Hills gas bill is the highest I have ever had. On the other hand, I wonder what our local power plant(AEP) will do as they use Wyoming Coal to fire it.
China is responsible for 29% of the world’s greenhouse gases while we are 9%. Yet Americans must bear higher energy costs due to the demonization of fossil fuels.
Part of the demonization, to my view, is the phrase itself, "fossil fuels."
I usually steer conversations about this to "hydrocarbons," because it is a fine entry point to discuss "hyrdo" -- water -- and "carbon" as so many gifts to us are created in the crust of this world.
I would not be surprised that at some time in the future some method of making hydrocarbons of the petroleum sort chemically, i.e. by some as yet undiscovered process. Perhaps fanciful thinking, but we shall see.
I also suspect the "numbers" as to coal use are not wholly accurate, as the US is about four percent of the world's population, and we don't use exorbitant amounts of energy. Certainly not more than any nation with our level of seeming prosperity.
Best wishes.
Colorado energy industry is on the skids. All the solar panels in the state won’t be enough. And EXPENSIVE
The world is in a carbon dioxide DROUGHT! C02 is plant food and if the current 0.04 percent of the atmosphere drops to 0.02 Carbon Dioxide, plants will start dying.
Humans depend on plants!
Coal is the US greatest natural resource!
They say US is Saudi Arabia of coal. We have about 50-70% of coal worldwide. And it is the best coal there is, anthracite.
Not only coal generates electricity, it is also used in house and water heating, metallurgy and chemical processing.
Even gas can be manufactured out of coal.
I think that’s why Obama declared war on coal.
Off-grid decentralized power is a very strong sales pitch to sell solar technology to freedom loving Americans. For big government loving centralized power communists, that's a strong sales pitch to favor nuclear power. They can't control people they don't like if they can't cancel their economic existence at the push of a button. Nuclear power also has the feature of being prohibitively expensive, requiring taxpayers to take on debt up to their eyeballs and wait 25 years for the union construction to finish. It's hard for communists to envy their neighbors after spending their wealth for them, burying them in debt, and damaging their land value by building perpetual nuclear waste storage sites on Republican voter land, guarded by low-IQ imported Islamic fanatics. The communists will certainly mandate DEI hires, that can't even spell Chernobyl, to operate the reactor cores.
Nuclear = another excuse for the Dims to change their minds on our energy sources cuz nuclear is dangerous doncha know.
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