Stats show folly of cap and trade

A Fence Post reader asked for facts as to why cap and trade will create a shortage of electricity. Here are some:

Growth in demand, caused almost entirely by population growth, will require 609,258 megawatts of new generating capacity by 2050.

Cutting CO2 by 80 percent means no new coal or natural gas power plants can be built. It also means all existing coal-fired power plants must be retrofitted for carbon capture, which cuts their capacity by 30 to 40 percent. This requires building at least an additional 150,000 megawatts of new generation capacity to replace the power lost from retrofitting coal plants for carbon capture.

The total "electricity gap" without additions equals 759,000 megawatts.

If wind and solar are built to replace 332,000 megawatts, which is 20 percent of total demand (an upper limit to how much wind and solar the grid can accommodate), it leaves a shortfall in generating capacity of more than 427,000 megawatts (More than 660,000 new wind turbines rated 1.5 megawatts or comparable solar would have to be built to achieve the 20 percent limit, which is also highly unlikely thereby resulting in an even larger shortfall.)

It would require over 330 new nuclear power plants to fill the resulting "electricity gap."

Because Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, etc. oppose nuclear, it's highly unlikely more than 20 new nuclear power plants will be built.

The end result is that cap and trade will result in a shortage of electricity, which means lost jobs and blackouts. The problem with gasoline is even starker, which also means rationing.

Donn Dears

Geneva