EPA-Driven Apocalypse Predicted for the Electric Grid (Just Don't Mention It In Public, Unless You Want to Get Audited by the Feds)

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, [energy prices] would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was... [t]hey will pass that money on to consumers." --Barack Obama, 1 November 2008

He can run, he can hide, he can evade, he can blame Bush and James Buchanan. But this is one campaign promise Barack Obama actually followed through with. And you. Ain't. Seen. Nothing. Yet.

Clean Technica reports that the EPA's war on coal -- which produces the lion's share of electricity in the U.S. -- is working:

Power generation from coal is falling quickly...

...According to new figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011...

The U.S. coal industry if facing major headwinds... factors that will assist in pushing coal out of the electricity mix: An aging fleet of plants, cost-competitive renewables, new clean air regulations, and a strong anti-coal movement are working together to reduce the attractiveness of coal. Since 2010, plant operators have announced 106 retirements of coal facilities — representing 13 percent of the U.S. fleet, according to the Sierra Club.
Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1bVMC)

What's this mean for you and me? Electricity prices are going to rise like nothing you've ever seen before (curiously, only after the 2012 elections).

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.

The only thing that can stop this massive price hike now is an all-out effort to end Obama’s War on Coal and repeal this destructive regulatory agenda.

The Senate will have a critical opportunity to do just that when it votes on stopping Obama’s most expensive anti-coal regulation sometime in the next couple of weeks. The vote is on the Inhofe Resolution, S.J. Res 37, to overturn the so-called Utility MACT rule, which the EPA itself acknowledges is its most expensive rule ever.

This vote is protected from filibuster, and it will take just 51 votes to send a clear message to Obama that his War on Coal must end. ...Of course, Obama could veto the resolution and keep the rule intact, although that would force him to take full political responsibility for the massive impending jump in electricity prices.

That's not the only problem. Late last year, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation reported that new EPA regulations "threaten the stability of power grids". Blackouts, anyone?

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released a report yesterday concluding that proposed EPA regulations “may significantly affect bulk power system reliability depending on the scope and timing of the rule implementation and the mechanisms in place to preserve reliability.”

As this Platts report notes, NERC says that these proposed rules could create “insufficient generating resources” and “threaten the stability of power grids in Texas and New England within the next decade.”

Not to mention job losses and economic ruin. Hooray!

And what do you think happened after the NERC reported its concerns over the stability of the electric grid? What do you think? It was, of course, investigated by another arm of the Obama administration for publicizing the truth. Seriously. Reminds one of the old Soviet Union, no?

Mark my words: should this egregious disaster of a president win a second term in November, I can predict exactly what will happen.

Electricity rates, as candidate Obama promised, would "necessarily skyrocket".

And the Democrats will blame the electric companies -- having sabotaged them through regulation and intimidation.

And they will then attempt to nationalize those companies, Chavez-style, under the banner of efficiency and "fairness".

Mark my words.

Tell your friends. Tell your family members. Tell your colleagues.

Unless we boot these Statist hacks out in November, America is destined to become a Third World country faster than you can say "Jeremiah Wright".


Update: Obama wants the Electric Reliability Corporation to stop assessing electric reliability

Visit: WarOnCoal.com to voice your concerns. Hat tip: Mark Levin.