The Catastrophic Costs of Government-Dictated Green Energy
My testimony to the House Budget Committee on September 19, 2024
This week I testified front of the House Budget Committee on the topic “The Cost of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis.”
Watch my testimony and Q&A here, or read the transcript below.
Alex Epstein:
Thank you. My name is Alex Epstein. I’m a nonpartisan philosopher and energy expert. I’m very grateful today to share with members of both parties my analysis of what I call government-dictated green energy, which is the essential energy policy of the Biden-Harris administration and of much of today's world.
The basic idea of government-dictated green energy is that the government should force us to rapidly reduce our use of fossil fuel energy and replace it with so-called “green energy,” mostly solar and wind, such that we reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest.
There are three basic truths you need to know about the costs of government-dictated green energy. And I think these are really under-appreciated even by critics.
One is they have been enormous so far.
Two is they would have been catastrophic had it not been for the resistance of their opponents. This is very important when you hear the Biden administration has record production. That’s in spite of them, not because of them.
And three, they will be apocalyptic if not stopped in the future.
So let’s talk about the cost so far of government-dictated green energy. All the energy related problems we have experienced in recent years, which have been a lot: high gasoline prices, higher heating bills, higher electricity bills, and unreliable electricity, which is a huge problem we need to talk much more about, are the result of government-dictated green energy.
And its very simple. When you shackle the most cost effective and scalable source of energy, fossil fuels, and you subsidize unreliable solar and wind, that wouldn’t otherwise be competitive, energy necessarily becomes more expensive, less reliable and less secure. So again, it’s very simple.
Unfortunately the current administration and many others are engaged in a denial campaign blaming our energy problems on everything but their own policies.
And then their main targets for blame are Putin, which is a factor, but a derivative factor, and then industry greed, which is a lie. High fossil fuel prices are not a Putin price hike. They’re caused fundamentally by government-dictated green energy.
What happened is they made fossil fuel prices artificially high before Putin’s war, and they made our capacity much less than it should have been. They prevented the free world from quickly increasing production like it could have if we had actually had what I call energy freedom.
And high fossil fuel prices have certainly not been determined by greed, including so-called price gouging, which is a big focus right now.
Prices are determined by supply and demand. If oil and gas companies could control energy prices in their favor, why didn't they do this from 2015 to 2020 when they were losing money? The truth is that government-dictated green energy policies are fundamentally responsible for all the energy related costs we experience today compared to a decade ago.
And in fact, it’s worse than that. There’s an opportunity cost. Because were it not for these policies, energy would have gotten considerably cheaper and more reliable, especially with lower natural gas prices, which should have lowered electricity prices. Instead, they’ve gone up because we’ve added a bunch of wasteful energy and unreliable stuff. And it gets worse, since energy is the industry that powers every other industry. By making energy more expensive and less reliable, we make everything more expensive and less reliable, which means government-dictated green energy drives price inflation. Very important point.
But even blaming Biden-Harris’s government-dictated green energy policies and those of other countries for all the energy-related costs we experienced today, including inflation, is not enough, because we have to recognize that these policies would have done far more damage had they not been vigorously opposed.
In action after action, unfortunately, the Biden administration has shown us that it will do anything it can get away with politically to rapidly eliminate fossil fuels. So pipeline blocking, federal leasing bans, LNG prohibitions, power plant shutdowns, EV mandates, SEC rules.
Now, most of what this administration has tried to do to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use has thankfully been slowed by opposition. So Congressional battles, lawsuits over power plant shutdowns, courts reversing illegal leasing bans, etcetera.
But without this opposition, they would have already caused energy ruin. Consider our failing grid. We desperately need more reliable power plants, given huge demand from AI and EVs, which, that’s artificial demand mostly from the administration, but our EPA has tried to shut down all coal, which is one sixth of reliable capacity.
Were it not for the opponents of this administration’s government-dictated green energy policies, we’d already have a third-world grid. So, you have to think about the real cost.
I hope you can understand why I’m so concerned about our energy future. The costs of government-dictated green energy have been enormous and would have been truly catastrophic had this administration done everything it wanted to.
Here’s what scares me most. Our administration and others promised to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use to reach net-zero by 2050. But so far, they’ve only managed to slow fossil fuels’ growth. They haven't reduced it, they’ve just slowed its growth. And just that has caused an energy crisis. What happens if we really start going net-zero, which is the promise ahead of us?
Just think about agriculture. Our ability to feed 8 billion people is dependent on natural gas for fertilizer and diesel for farm equipment, neither of which has a near-term scalable substitute that's not fossil fuel.
Government-dictated green energy unopposed would starve much of the world. And I’ll just say as I conclude, there is an alternative to government-dictated green energy: energy freedom, which means the freedom to produce and use all sources of energy so long as they are subject to reasonable protections against pollution and other forms of endangerment.
And that’s really going to be the key to having energy abundance and resilience to climate in the near future and energy innovation, including among alternatives, long term.
Whatever party you’re from—again, I don’t affiliate with either party—I want to help you fight for energy freedom and I welcome your questions.
Representative Jodey Arrington (R, TX-19):
Let me, let me move to Mr. Epstein because this is a sincere, issue that I’ve mulled over ever since I read the Green New Deal plan and what I believe is a very extreme response to a very modest change in the climate in terms of temperature. The premise it seems like for my colleagues is as follows: climate change is significant, the consequences are catastrophic and in the near term, and we need massive government intervention or we’re going to destroy the planet. Therefore, it is the greatest existential crisis.
Never once in my entire career at a town hall anywhere has anybody raised the issue of the threat of climate. They’ve raised a lot of threats, a lot of them that Ms. Jackson mentioned, like this inflation tax that is regressive and hurting working people more than any single issue. They can’t even think beyond that because they’re trying to survive, which is why we have the highest consumer debt in history, the highest credit card debt in history.
It's real. The facts support that. Is this the right way to, I mean, is that premise accurate? Is that the right way to frame this? Because they may argue, yes, it’s painful. Yes, prices are going up, but we’re saving the planet, and we’re saving America from this existential threat. What do you, what do you say, Mr. Epstein?
Alex Epstein:
So I hope we get asked more about this, because I only have a little bit of time. I think the key to thinking about this is, the premise is that fossil-fueled climate change has been catastrophic so far and will be apocalyptic going forward. And to evaluate predictions about the future, I always look at their track record.
It is false that climate change is catastrophic so far, and we can measure this very clearly because we can measure how many people die from climate-related disasters, and that number not only hasn’t increased, it has decreased by a factor of 50, so a 98 percent decrease over the last century.
The basic mechanism is very simple. Any new climate challenges that have been caused by rising GHG emissions, and I think there are some particularly heat-related, they have been overwhelmed by our increased resilience, or what I call climate mastery. So the challenges, whatever they have been, are trivial compared to the increase in mastery.
If you try to think about the future of climate and you don’t recognize that we’re getting better and better at dealing with all kinds of climate disasters and climate challenges, then you can’t think about this issue intelligently.
So people say “climate change is real.” Yes, we do have an impact on climate, but equating that with climate catastrophe is wrong.
And then saying that the US, which is one seventh of the world’s emissions and has no control over global emissions, except for legitimate innovation, not government-dictated nonsense, but legitimate innovation like nuclear, to say that we’re going to save the planet.
A, the planet doesn’t need saving.
And B, it’s a farce that you're going to do it by forcing people to use a bunch of junk and then restricting our ability.
So I consider the whole IRA just ridiculously dishonest. I think that if they were honest, they would say, hey, we, everyone needs to be poor to avoid climate catastrophe. If they said that, I would take it seriously.
Representative Tom McClintock (R, CA-5):
Mr. Epstein, the ranking member boasts that American production is up. But doesn't production take years to bring online? And the production today was made possible by the regulatory relief under Trump.
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, so I mean, it’s really simple.
Joe Biden ran on, “I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuel,” and as I said, has done everything he could get away with to restrict production.
The fact that it’s gone up is obviously in spite of him, not because of him. He didn’t promise record oil production; it’s just something he wants to take credit for, much like President Obama.
Representative Tom McClintock (R, CA-5):
They keep telling us oil production is evil.
Alex Epstein:
Yeah. So it’s opportunistic. I don’t know if I can comment on California, but I’m a Californian. Is that okay?
Representative Tom McClintock (R, CA-5):
Yes.
Alex Epstein:
Oh, okay. I want to give people a resource, by the way, because there have been many false claims made today. And I looked at Mr. Higgins’ testimony last week. If people just go to alexepstein.substack.com, I refuted 12 of the myths that he said, I think, last week, which he also said today. And if you also go there, look up “every myth about net-zero refuted,” and you'll basically cover everything that's been said.
California, that report he mentioned by energy innovation, that is a total trash report. They excluded California and they blame California energy prices on climate change. You know that’s not true. And also our wildfire problems are because of green policies that prevent us from doing proper forest management to reduce the fuel load. It’s very easy to manage forests well. We don’t do it because of green policies. So California, which is a pretty self-contained grid, although we depend on a bunch of others, that’s a model of “green energy.”
Representative Ron Estes (R-KS 4):
Mr. Epstein, how is energy freedom, which encompasses an all-of-the-above, more beneficial to the US consumers?
Alex Epstein:
Well, I would think of energy freedom as a best-of-the-above approach, not an all-of-the-above approach. I don’t really like the idea of all-of-the-above.
We don’t want to use anything that happens to exist. We don’t want to use wood and animal dung for electricity, right? So I think it’s important.
With energy freedom, all the sources would be allowed to compete, but they would have to compete in a fair way. And so, for example, with wind and solar, it’s really important that they be required in some way to provide reliable electricity.
Right now, they’re allowed to provide unreliable electricity and get the same amount or more than reliables. That's like a car rental company that rents you cars that work a third of the time and you don't know when. And you pay the same as for a reliable car; that would never work in rental cars.
So energy freedom allows you to have maximum energy abundance now and maximum energy innovation going forward. And I think both parties want energy innovation. You need to get the government out of the way with things like NEPA just ruining development of all kinds. You need to get the EPA to stop attacking things. You need to reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If we want innovation, we need to focus on freedom not on subsidizing things and robbing Americans.
And as you noted before that, even having solar and wind, you also have to provide a base percentage to compensate for the time when they're not producing.
Yeah. So you better make sure they’re cost-effective. We need grid reform so that people are actually incentivized to provide reliable electricity.
Representative Ron Estes (R-KS 4):
Great. And I appreciate y’all being here. We’re talking about, it’s so important to be able to talk about energy because that drives the economy. It drives, it drives our civilized life that we live today. So thank you all for today and I'll yield back Mr. Chairman.
Representative Scott Peters (D-CA 50):
I agree with Mr. Epstein on a couple things he just said.
And in fact, we’re going to face higher prices, in large part because of the demand pull, from the first increase in demand for energy we’ve seen in decades. We have been growing, but we've been efficient, so we haven’t needed big production increases.
Now we’re going to see a greater demand for energy because of manufacturing returning to the United States, somewhat because of the IRA, because of electrification, and because of the demand from AI for huge amounts of electricity. In fact, I heard the Microsoft facility for AI might require itself 5 gigawatts, which is bigger than the whole complex of nuclear power we just built in Georgia.
So this is a challenge for all of us, but let’s just recognize that we’ve never produced more oil and gas than we are today, despite the rhetoric either from the Biden administration or about the Biden administration.
Also, I couldn’t agree more we've done work on increasing the production of nuclear power, that’s been bipartisan. I'm working really hard to get NEPA out of the way. I agree with you, I think it's been a huge delaying effect with, with not the kind of environmental quality results we need.
And we need to reform the grid. I would just say, too, the problem I’ve had with the grid here is I can’t get Republicans interested in talking about transmission, interregional transmission. We couldn’t even have a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee. I’d love to have to do that bipartisan way. We’ve seen the Republicans in the way of transmission reform, but we all need to be in this together.
The other thing I’d just point out is that we are going to see the cost of climate change also affect consumers and recent studies found that the global cost of climate change stemming from extreme weather, natural disasters, the effects of a warming planet could reach 3.1 trillion a year by 2050.
So that includes costs of damage to infrastructure, property and public health, and these costs will only increase over time as the destruction from climate change becomes more severe. We’ve got to respond to that. I think the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act do try to do some of that and try to increase new technologies through subsidies in clean energy. I think that’s appropriate as these technologies are getting off the ground, because we do want, not all-of-the-above as you said, but we want many-of-the-above, and some of them won't get started on their own.
I would also point out wildfires have already burned over 6 million acres this year and as wildfire season continues, it's clear that the time for action is now.
That’s continuing to raise the cost of living, the cost of healthcare, lower the quality of life for my constituents. Earlier this year, insurance rates for California homeowners increased by an average of 34%. Utility wildlife prevention and mitigation costs are nearing 5 billion a year.
So I would point out that solutions exist. Our bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act will restore forest health, increase resilience to catastrophic wildfires and protect communities by enabling landscape scale work to increase the pace and effectiveness of forest management and restoration projects.
Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI 6):
I’d like to talk a little bit, whichever one of you feels most appropriate to speak on the cost of electric cars and the effect it’s going to have on the middle class. One of you feels like a champion of that? Okay, good. I think there are three things that go into the cost of a car. What is the effect of this demand that we buy these electric cars as far as the initial price of a car?
Am I going to have to pay more for a new car than I did my last car if I buy it in 2023?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty obvious the reason they need to force it on us is because we wouldn’t buy it voluntarily. So that means it’s not the most cost-effective option. So, yeah, it increases the cost and it decreases the effectiveness. So for many families, it's not nearly as versatile as a gasoline car.
Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI 6):
Well, you’ve got the cost up front, and I, as I understand it, talking to my auto dealers, 20, 25,000 more for my next car than the car I just got if I got to buy electric.
Alex Epstein:
Well, there’s that, but then there’s many hidden costs. Texas Public Policy Foundation did a good study which shows 10,000 to 20,000 dollars of us subsidizing per car. So these are incredibly subsidized through all sorts of things like zero-emissions credits. And yeah, so we’re just paying a fortune for these things directly and indirectly.
Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI 6):
I really don’t like the way they’re trying to squeeze the middle class.
Representative Bob Good (R, VA-5):
Thank you particularly, Mr. Epstein, for your incredible leadership and expertise on this issue…
Mr. Epstein, you often talk about the concept of energy poverty or the difficulty of some people, and Ms. Jackson has spoken to this as well, to afford the most basic of their energy needs, whether it’s domestically or internationally and how much that hurts people.
Well, can you just speak a little bit more to that, Mr. Epstein, and then I’d like Ms. Jackson to speak to it as well?
Alex Epstein:
This is a problem globally and in the US. Energy poverty basically means you can’t afford to use a lot of energy. And you need to use a lot of energy to have a modern life, to have abundant food, clothing, shelter, medical care, et cetera.
Every single thing we do to restrict the availability of energy—and as I mentioned, by, restricting fossil fuels and by forcing us to pay money for uneconomic alternatives, both of those restrict the availability of energy—we make every single person poorer in the world, really, but particularly the poorest people feel it the most.
And I just want to give a mention of, we have three billion people in the world using less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. We have 6 billion people who use an amount of energy, people in this room would consider totally unacceptable. The world is desperately poor, and what they want to do is rise out of poverty, and that requires energy.
And for the foreseeable future, that means we need more fossil fuels. That’s why I said to one of the representatives, we need more fossil fuels, not less. That’s what I talk about in Fossil Future. So, it’s just crazy to think we’re sacrificing billions of people's opportunities in the name of preventing a degree or two of warming, when we’ve already shown we're incredibly good at dealing with a warmer planet.
And by the way, far more people still die of cold than of heat. There’s nothing to say even a warmer planet is worse, objectively. But, a warmer planet with abundant energy is a great planet. A colder planet, or the same planet with no energy is a terrible planet.
Representative Bob Good (R, VA-5):
It’s my understanding that burning wood actually is producing more energy on the planet still than solar and wind does.
Alex Epstein:
They juice up renewable numbers using that. They want to say X percent renewable. They like to add hydro even though the green movement is anti-hydro, anti-large-hydro. And yet in Europe often they juice up the renewable numbers by, they often buy wood pellets from America, take them across the sea with oil, and then they burn them there and they call that renewable.
Representative Bob Good (R, VA-5):
So oil tankers going across the ocean to…
Alex Epstein:
With wood made using diesel equipment in the United States. So this just points to a lot of this is a scam. If you think CO2 emissions are a grave threat, then you have to recognize the only way to deal with that is to make people poorer.
But we have to have an honest conversation. You can’t say we’re going to restrict fossil fuels, we’re going to force you to use uneconomic things, and you’re going to become rich. Let alone do it randomly to various cronies, which is what the IRA did. So it’s a very dishonest conversation right now.
Representative Bob Good (R, VA-5):
And nothing has brought more prosperity and industry to the world than fossil fuels.
In a wealthy country like the United States, which is harmed by these ridiculous unrealistic policies, far worse for third-world countries, poorer nations, who we pretend we want to help as we try to force upon them our woke policies.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
Mr. Epstein, you know, a lot of things are being said and we can go through a refute of, you wisely noted, you went through some refutations.
I can’t go through it all. But I think it’s important for people to understand the context that we’re operating under. We have China where, to the best of my rough knowledge, they have something like 1100 coal fired plants, and they’re building maybe a plant, plant and a half, or two plants a week, depending on the time of year. Is that roughly correct?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, they have something like 300 new plants in the pipeline, which is way more than the US’s total capacity.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
Correct. And we have basically zero coal-fired plants in the pipeline.
Alex Epstein:
We have negative coal plants in the pipeline, which is an existential threat to the grid.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
Correct. And we have limited natural gas plants in the pipeline because, and this is important, the subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, those subsidies, among other policies, are making it economically less feasible for people to invest in the production of natural gas in the market. Is that correct?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, so we have systematic preferences for unreliable electricity and the IRA made that considerably worse.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
And so even in Texas, which sits on a sea of available natural gas to be able to produce natural gas fired energy, Texas, putting aside the barriers to nuclear, which we ought to be talking more about, by the way, as well, and you speak about it regularly in Texas, we have to have the government of Texas already under strain, having spent 13 billion to make up for a federal government that refuses to secure the border.
The government of Texas is having to itself create natural gas production wisely or not. That’s a debate through its government action without relying on the market because the market has been constrained by these subsidies. Is that correct?
Alex Epstein:
Mostly, I mean, Texas has some responsibility itself because it has its own kind of isolated market with ERCOT, yeah, but if you look at the effect, just to elaborate a little bit on what you said like when you when you basically rob American taxpayers and require them to pay for solar and wind, what happens is people just always use solar and wind whenever it’s available and that depletes the funds available to natural gas plants. So then you need to do another artificial intervention. So the key is get rid of all the preferences for unreliable electricity, and then real electricity will win.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
Moving really quickly to the vehicles. The tailpipe rule. The tailpipe rule has been put in effect, and that will have, in effect, the requirement that we be producing, effectively, two thirds of the vehicles in this country be EV by 2032. Correct?
Alex Epstein:
Yes.
Representative Chip Roy (R, TX-21):
Roughly, the impact on the average American family of that rule, what would that do in terms of cost of vehicles, cost of existing internal combustion engine vehicles, used market or new, availability of vehicles, particularly with the lack of infrastructure and materials in the States, which I'll get to in a minute, what would be the impact of that?
Alex Epstein:
So just, just really quickly, it forces people to pay for more expensive vehicles.
People don’t realize how much they’re paying with the subsidies, in part because the internal combustion engine vehicles end up subsidizing the EVs. So there’s that whole thing. I think the biggest cost that we haven’t covered yet is the cost to the grid, because we’re artificially restricting the supply of reliable electricity, as I mentioned, with shutting down coal plants and new EPA rules would just destroy the grid.
So we really need to prevent those because they prevent new natural gas plants from being built to replace coal. But we’re talking about a grid that’s already in crisis, thanks to government-dictated green energy. We’re talking about forcing EVs, so you artificially restrict supply, you dramatically artificially increase demand.
That is just a guaranteed death sentence for the grid. We need to stop that immediately.
Representative Lloyd Smucker (R, PA-11):
And Mr. Goode is a good friend, but he said something to the effect, Mr. Epstein, that well, if folks here are saying that there’s nothing like climate change, we shouldn't even have this conversation. And it’s what I've heard so often, sort of the arrogance of individuals who believe that you really can’t even question any of the dogma around climate change.
I didn’t hear you say that climate change doesn’t exist. What I heard you say was that it's about the impact of climate change, how much that will impact us, and then how much resilience we will have to do that. So you know, just simply shutting down the conversation when someone doesn’t agree. It just seems pretty bizarre to me.
And I guess I’d like you to address that. We’ve heard a lot of claims here about how by 2050, you know, we’re going to see the food supply impact that we already talked about, wildfires, I know that hurricanes have been attributed to climate change, but that’s been debunked. So I guess I’d like to get your perspective on that statement that was made earlier and on the kind of feedback you get on your positions.
Alex Epstein:
Sure. So, yeah, I think it’s valuable here, I’m a philosopher and energy expert. So part of this is just the terminology and the arguments are very bad. So we want to be very precise. So, when people say climate change, what they mean is man-made climate impact. That's really what they’re focused on. And that's fine, and that’s a legitimate thing to focus on, but what that is, is that is primarily a side-effect of fossil fuel use, right.
So we burn fossil fuels, we add more CO2 to the atmosphere, and it has some effect on climate. We can’t quantify it perfectly, but it has some, and it’s generally a warming effect. And it’s important, if you think about it as a side effect of fossil fuel use, then you need to think both about the benefits of fossil fuels and about the side-effect. And with the side-effect itself, you need to be precise. So you mentioned you need to be clear about the magnitude. And you need to be even-handed. You can’t just look at negative side effects. You have to look at positive. For example, more warmth in a world where far more people die of cold than of heat.
The problem with the discussion is it's so biased. It only looks at negative side-effects of fossil fuels. It ignores the climate benefits directly. It ignores what I call the climate mastery or resilience benefits, so the fact that we’re far more resilient. And as I mentioned, this shows up very clearly in the fact that we’re far safer from climate than ever.
You can believe in climate impact and not believe in climate catastrophe. And in fact, believe in a climate renaissance. Like we’re really safer than ever from climate. It’s just total BS to say, oh, do you believe in climate change? Do you believe fossil fuels have side effects? Therefore, you should get rid of them.
That’s like saying, do you believe antibiotics have side-effects? Oh, if so, no more antibiotics. It’s just like third grade thinking that unfortunately is practiced by many smart people, including scientists. I'm glad to have the chance to address it.
Representative Lloyd Smucker (R, PA-11):
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Representative Rudy Yakym (R, IN-2):
The EPA’s power plant rule is a de facto ban on coal-fired power plants and prohibits more natural gas power plants from being built.
Mr. Epstein, what sort of impact will this rule have on our ability to meet the nation's future energy demands and what are the economic consequences of failing to meet this demand?
Alex Epstein:
I just want to make clear that everyone needs to do everything possible not to let these rules go into effect. They are just a complete death sentence to the grid.
I mean, I’m not shocked often, but I'm shocked by this. Again, the fundamentals are: we already have a grid in crisis thanks to bad policy, shutting down reliable power plants, and then promoting more electrification. We have artificial more demand from EVs that the administration is forcing. And as you mentioned, we have a lot of organic, healthy demand from new uses of electricity.
And yet, we’re shutting down our reliable coal plants, which are one sixth of capacity. And we're passing restrictions that are going to prevent most new natural gas plants from being built. I don’t know what it’s saying. It’s like, “let’s just become Lebanon” or something like that. It’s just unbelievable that we’re not thinking about this.
These rules are so far beyond the pale. What does it mean to just have blackouts all the time? It just means a huge portion of people die. Look what happened to Texas just a few years ago with a tiny version of these policies. So, if you want to talk about existential threat, that’s life without a grid.
Representative Rudy Yakym (R, IN-2):
Thank you.
Representative Chuck Edwards (R, NC-11):
And Mr. Epstein, I’ll begin with you. I represent a district in the western part of North Carolina. It’s a mountainous region. And with all the calls for us to do away with fossil fuels—we have one major power plant in my district, by the way, in the mountains. Keep in mind, it's in the mountains.
But with all these calls to convert from fossil fuel to solar and wind, I’ve done some calculating on what it would take to for us to convert the one 566 megawatt power plant that we have to all solar, how many acres it would take for solar panels to generate that same amount of energy. It’s in the tens of thousands of acres. That’s just simply not available unless we were to carve up all of our agricultural land.
When I look at windmills, which by the way, appear to be 30 stories tall, and mind you, we’re in the mountains, it would be very difficult to put a 30 story tall windmill in a mountain region let alone, I think it was 2,400 acres that I calculated it would take of windmills to generate that same megawatt of power out of the one station that we have.
Have you calculated into the cost anywhere, the loss of residential land, farmland, and what it would take to convert into?
Alex Epstein:
I would say this is the least of the problems of solar and wind. So what you see is that in certain locations, it’s just totally not doable and in many countries, it’s totally not doable.
The United States is vast, so you can imagine, like Elon Musk will say—and it’s valid as far as it goes, but it’s not doesn't go very far—that oh, if you put a certain amount of solar panels in Utah, that could, “power the whole country.” One problem is, how do you get everything to the rest of the country?
The main problem is the reliability problem. So you mentioned what it would cost to replace fossil fuels with solar and wind. We don’t know because nobody’s ever even attempted it. Nobody’s attempted a self-sufficient solar and wind plant or set of plants in any sophisticated area around the world.
And the reason is it would be cost-prohibitive just to give you one number. Elon, I like him in a lot of ways, but he said he said publicly, all we need is just a bunch of my mega packs and solar panels, we can power the world. I ran the numbers. To back up the world for one day would be 100 to 200 trillion worth of megapacks. So 100 trillion dollars is global GDP. These last 10 years, you know, much like an EV. So it's just there is no such thing as replacing fossil fuels with unreliable solar and wind. The only way you can do it partially is because you have fossil fuels as a backup. So it's really important for people to know this is not a real thing.
I’m not against solar and wind, but they should provide their own reliability. And that’ll force them to actually make a contribution or get off the grid either way.
Representative Chuck Edwards (R, NC-11):
Well, thank you for that.
Representative Chuck Edwards (R, NC-11):
Mr. Epstein. I'm running out of time, but real quick I’d like to ask, because I believe the cleanest energy is the most readily available and convenient form, whether that’s solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, or fossil.
But not everybody agrees, as you’re well aware. This administration seems to be obsessed with eliminating fossil fuels in the name of climate change. In your opinion, what do you think’s the most dangerous and potentially longest lasting impact of the Harris-Biden administration's attack on fossil fuels?
Alex Epstein:
Right, so it’s them and it's the global movement. I mean, it’s very simple. They're pushing for the rapid elimination of fossil fuels. I mentioned if they had remotely gotten their way so far, we’d already have a catastrophe. Net-zero by 2050 is the single most destructive idea human beings have ever come up with.
And I mean that literally, and I’m very familiar with all the other acts, but taking a world of 8 billion people with no cost effective replacement for fossil fuels and starving them of energy, there would never be anything like it. So we’re not going to do it in practice, but we're going to do something really, really bad along the way.
And with Biden-Harris in particular, it’s the U.S. will do it and others won't. So that means we cede our economic and security position. And in a dangerous world, I do not want that.
Representative Chuck Edwards (R, NC-11):
Thank you.
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
So if I’m somebody who's concerned about high costs and I’m concerned about climate, what do you think we need to be doing right now to try and reduce the impacts of greenhouse gases on climate change while also trying to keep the cost down. So, Mr Epstein, you seem most anxious to talk.
Alex Epstein:
I'm very anxious. Thank you for the great question. So I would say, I'll just make this a sidebar, but I wouldn’t be as concerned as you are because—
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
About what?
Alex Epstein:
About climate. I’m not saying to have no concern, but our ability to deal with it is— well, I might someday, I’ll give you a copy of Fossil Future.
But okay, on this issue, if you are concerned, you have to recognize one fundamental truth, which is the US has very limited control over global emissions and emissions are a global issue. So we have—
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
No, no, I listen, I recognize that we, in the 80s and 70s, 80s, 90s, we chased a lot of industry out of America and it goes to other countries and they’re polluting way worse than we ever did.
And they’re building coal plants and, you know, they’re—
Alex Epstein:
So that’s our leverage point. Our only leverage point, on your terms, is to liberate truly globally cost-competitive alternatives. I think the most promising is nuclear. It’s hypothetical you might be able to do it with solar and wind if you can figure out reliability.
Nobody’s figured that out yet. Geothermal has some potential. But you need to move all the roadblocks out of the way for alternative forms of energy, and that requires radical NEPA reform, requires radical reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, something I’m working on. So I’d love to talk to you sometime or anyone else about how to do this, because what we’ve done to nuclear is a crime, and what New York has done to nuclear is a crime.
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
Yeah, awful. I really think that we should be building more nuclear power in America. I’m concerned, however, you know, when they try to do it in dense areas, that's a problem. I’m concerned about getting rid of nuclear waste. Where are we going to put the nuclear waste?
Alex Epstein:
Right, so nuclear waste is the leading—
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
And I’m concerned about transmission lines, when you build these facilities, whether it be wind or solar or nuclear, in these very far off locations, transmitting it to where you need the power.
Alex Epstein:
I think nuclear is a lot safer than you’ve been led to believe. Certainly what’s called the “waste,” the used fuel, that’s the safest form of waste we have.
It’s very small, it’s very manageable, it hasn’t damaged anyone, we can store it indefinitely. So nuclear unfortunately has been demonized even more than fossil fuels. It has the advantage of, it’s very dense, it’s stored energy. There’s a lot we can do with it, but we need to get the government out of the way.
We can’t—subsidizing specific American boutique energy does nothing globally.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
If I could add that New York State, you all have the Marcellus Shale, but you’re not using it, and there’s a lot of clean natural gas that could come out of that, which Pennsylvania is using right now, and you all are not.
And New York State has a 70 percent renewable portfolio standard goal, and that's also driving up the price of energy in New York State.
Representative Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3):
Yeah, I think that you know, I just take the end of my, we have to figure out how to balance our two systems, okay? Capitalism is the best system in the history of the world.
It’s created more wealth. It’s created more innovation. It’s lifted more people out of poverty. It’s the best system, but it’s based upon competition, and the better competitor you are, the better you’re going to do. If you're a bad competitor, you’re not going to do well. But we don’t want people who are bad competitors to be relegated to a life of misery.
So we have another system called democracy, which says all men and women are created equal. So we got to put some protections in place. So the question, the challenge for us, is how to find a balance between these two systems on a knife's edge. Because if we go too far, too many protections, we kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
We do no protections, we end up with people with a bunch of miserable lives. The challenge of our current environment in America is nobody finds balance. Everybody’s saying, you're one of those, no, you’re one of those, and we don’t find that balance anymore. So we’ve got to work together and find some balance.
To balance in this question, in this issue, there's a lot of us concerned about climate change, and there's a lot of us concerned about cost, but we've got to find a balance between the two.
Representative Michael Burgess (R, TX-26):
In December of 2019, front page of the Dent Record Chronicle, front page story, dismantling, not just we're not going to use a coal plant anymore in South Texas, they actually physically dismantled it.
They bulldozed it. It’s never going to be used again. And then in February of 2021, we had that cold snap where hundreds of people died because there was no energy from that coal plant to put on the grid when they really needed it. So that is the existential threat. You flip the switch and nothing happens.
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, I’d love to comment on that. I mean, I was one of the people on the record before Winter Storm Uri and that disaster happened, saying Texas’s reserve margin is dangerously low. The problem is people equate the so-called “capacity” of unreliable electricity with the capacity of reliable electricity.
But reliable electricity or dispatchable electricity, that means you can have it when you need it in the quantity you need it. Unreliable electricity you don’t know when, and what happened during winter storm Uri was solar and wind when needed most went out to lunch at one percent they were at one point they were less than one percent of theoretical capacity, which is why it should be called fantasy not capacity, and relying on that is very dangerous.
Representative Michael Burgess (R, TX-26):
And it was dangerous.
Representative Ralph Norman (R, SC-5):
Mr. Epstein I see your book, I’ve heard great things about, I need to get one before I leave.
Alex Epstein:
I have one for any representative who's interested.
Representative Ralph Norman (R, SC-5):
Well you have mentioned that the administration’s pause on liquefied LNG exports is deadly. Can you explain why it is deadly?
Alex Epstein:
Natural gas is, like all forms of energy, is life-giving, but natural gas in particular is crucial to food.
We use natural gas as the basis for modern fertilizer. We have no near-term replacement for natural gas, just for fertilizer. And so you’re talking about making everyone’s food more expensive, and you’re talking about depriving people of a clean, reliable source of energy around the world. Natural gas, we should have talked about more today.
This is the huge opportunity cost of the current administration and past administrations. We could be radically increasing our natural gas capacity if not for some domestic bans like in New York, but mainly pipeline capacity. We can’t build pipelines, so all of our gas is locked away in certain places.
If we could build pipelines, we could have it more around the country, and we could have it more around the world. And this is, I mentioned this in my testimony, the opportunity cost of not having energy freedom, and instead replacing it with government-dictated green energy. People have no idea how prosperous we could be, and they have no idea how poor we will be if we keep going in this direction.
Representative Ralph Norman (R, SC-5):
I wish all of you could have heard the testimony of the governor of Alaska talking about the damage that they are doing to Alaska. That’s their source of income. They’re putting them out of business. And the look on his face during the testimony, it’s unconscionable that they’re continuing to do this.
So it’s not just here in America. You mentioned that the, the Biden, and I call it the border czar’s, EPA power plant rule, destroy our US electrical grid. Given that we’ve already done, already in the midst of an electricity reliability crisis, what else can we do in these last two months of hopefully the end of this?
Alex Epstein:
What can Congress do?
Representative Ralph Norman (R, SC-5):
What would you urge us to do specifically?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, I would urge, so, the most immediate thing is do whatever you can to pause the shutdown of reliable power plants, not just the EPA rule, which is just mass destruction, but all the other rules too. So we could document all the different things, but basically we should not be shutting down any reliable power plants right now because it is a threat to the health and safety of Americans.
EPA is supposed to protect our health, you cannot have health with a reliable grid, so they’re doing the exact opposite. I’ve talked to some people about legislation to do that, but I think we should put a pause on these shutdowns.
Representative Ralph Norman (R, SC-5):
Well, the regulations that they’ve imposed on companies and not just gas and oil, it’s, I’m in the real estate business. And as I’ve told, people realize that so goes the real estate market, mainly housing, so goes the economy. There are no battery operated dump trucks that deliver concrete. There are no battery operated dump truck trucks that deliver our food. It’s gas. Gas and oil. So I just want to thank you.
I’m out of time, but we’re going to do what we can to remain to this term to hopefully reverse some regulations and the next administration we’ll make a change.
Alex Epstein:
I'm happy to help any way I can.
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There is no scientific or logical reason that I know of for belief in the proposition that man kind faces "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" absent decarbonization. If anyone knows of such a reason please share it with me.
Cordially,
Terry Oldberg
Engineer/ Scientist/public policy researcher
Los Altos Hills, California
terry_oldberg@yahoo.com