Net-Zero Economy Plan Will Hit Consumers with Huge Electric Bills Warns New Energy Report from Discovery Institute

Seattle — Net-zero energy policies in the Pacific Northwest will produce staggering costs to individuals and businesses without providing any meaningful environmental benefits, warns a monumental new research report from Discovery Institute’s Reasonable Energy program.

Authors Jonathan Lesser and Mitchell Rolling find that Washington’s and Oregon’s plan to reach zero energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will double existing electricity demand at the cost of $549.9 billion, a burden which would be shouldered by Pacific Northwest households and small businesses. The plan will include requiring all new cars and light trucks sold to be electric by 2035, replacing all fossil-fuel space- and water-heating systems with electric heat pumps, and replacing existing fossil fuel generation with wind turbines and solar photovoltaics.

The report shows that prices for virtually all goods and services will dramatically increase, and jobs will be lost as businesses relocate to other states with lower-cost energy (download the full report here).

“The effects on your monthly electric bill are going to absolutely devastating,” says economist and report author, Jonathan Lesser. “The average person is going to see their electric bill balloon 450% by 2050. Small business owners won’t escape, they’ll see their bills going from an average of $600 a month today to almost $4,000 in the next 25 years.”

Should Washington and Oregon reach their goal, the resulting decrease in world temperature would only be 0.003⁰C (or less than three one-thousandths of a degree centigrade), a reduction in global temperature that the report calls “far too small to be measurable.”

By contrast, the cost to meet growing electricity demand with natural gas and nuclear power would be $85.9 billion, one-sixteenth of the cost of supplying that electricity with renewables.

The report concludes that the two states would be best served by abandoning these goals, focusing instead on providing reliable and far less costly electricity from new natural gas and nuclear plants.

Praising it as a “groundbreaking report,” Discovery President Steve Buri says the report “answers the most basic question about Washington and Oregon’s plan to move to a Net-Zero economy: What will it cost businesses and consumers? Sadly – and not surprisingly – it’s a question that those promoting the new ‘green economy’ either cannot or will not answer themselves.”

Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to advance a culture of purpose, creativity and innovation. Dr. Jonathan Lesser is an economist and serves as Senior Fellow at both Discovery Institute and the National Center for Energy Analytics. Mitchell Rolling is a co-founder and Director of Research at Always-On Energy Research.

Download the report here.

A summary of the report is below.

The Crippling Costs of Electrification and Net-Zero Energy Policies in the Pacific Northwest

Jonathan Lesser and Mitchell Rolling
September 2024

• Discovery Institute released a monumental new research report on September 18, 2024, which concludes that net-zero energy policies in the Pacific Northwest will produce staggering costs to individuals and businesses and will provide negligible environmental benefits.
• Authors Jonathan Lesser and Mitchell Rolling conclude that policies in Oregon and Washington State that require their state electrical utilities to eliminate fossil-fuel energy sources to produce 100% of electricity from zero-emissions sources by 2040 (Oregon) and 2045 (Washington) will double existing electricity demand.
  • Both states have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Car rules, which require 100% of all new cars and light trucks sold to be electric by 2035.
  • Both states intend to reach zero energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including replacing all fossil-fuel space- and water-heating systems with electric heat pumps.
  • Both states envision replacing existing fossil fuel generation and meeting the projected increase in electricity demand with thousands of megawatts (MW) of wind turbines and solar photovoltaics.
• The inherent intermittency of wind and solar power, together with peak electric demands taking place in the early evening hours when there is no solar generation available (and often no wind), means the two states will require large amounts of storage capacity, in addition to the existing hydroelectric storage dams that have been built on the Columbia River and its tributaries.
• Because no new hydroelectric dams will be built, the additional storage capacity required will need to come from large-scale battery storage facilities and perhaps a few new pumped hydroelectric storage facilities, whose siting remains controversial.
• Their research considered the costs by 2050 associated with three scenarios: 1) the renewables-only strategy; 2) a lower-cost renewable strategy (a more optimistic low-cost renewables scenario in which wind, solar, and storage capital costs decrease by 50% in real (inflation-adjusted) terms by 2050); and 3) an alternative scenario in which the electricity goal is achieved with new nuclear plants and additional natural gas generators. The assessed total costs (in inflation-adjusted dollars) are as follows:
  • Renewables Only: $549.9 Billion
  • Lower-cost Renewables: $418.5 Billion
  • Natural Gas and Nuclear: $85.9 Billion
• Their research indicates that the effects on electricity bills will be devastating.
  • A typical residential customer’s bill will increase by 450%, from about $110 per month today to over $700 per month in 2050 (assuming a modest inflation rate of just 2.0% annually).
  • Commercial customers will see their monthly bills increase from an average of about $600 per month today to approximately $3,800 per month in 2050.
• The negative economic impacts will not be limited to soaring electricity bills.
  • Prices for virtually all goods and services will dramatically increase.
  • Jobs will be lost as businesses relocate to other states with lower-cost energy.
  • Energy poverty rates will soar.
• The enormous costs to consumers and businesses will be accompanied by negligible environmental benefits.
  • The reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the policies would total about 1.8 billion metric tons between 2024 and 2050, which is a small fraction of estimated 35 billion metric tons world carbon emissions in just one year.
  • If both states eliminated all energy-related GHG emissions by 2040, the resulting decrease in world temperatures would be only 0.003 ⁰C. By comparison, the best outside thermometers have an accuracy of about +/- 0.5 ⁰C, about 170 times larger.
• The report concludes that the two states would be best served by abandoning these goals, focusing instead on providing reliable and far less costly electricity from new natural gas and nuclear plants.