America Powers Down

Since 1973 U.S. energy consumption has grown 115%. Right now the U.S. has 760 gigawatts of power to meet consumption. Economists predict we will need 135 gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade to keep the lights on. Right now only 57 gigawatts of power are planned. And that number is falling fast.

Yesterday an EPA appeals board denied a proposed coal-fired power plant in Utah the necessary permits to begin construction. The boars sent the permit back to the EPA regional office because the plant did meet all the rest of the EPA’s environmental standards, it did not take into account the plant’s carbon emissions. The broad scope of this ruling now threatens construction of about 100 other coal-fired power plants nation wide. Wind and solar power will never be able to make up the power lost from these plants.

The Sierra Club was behind the revocation of the Utah plant’s permit, and this is just one small part of the left’s highly organized ongoing effort to end to stop construction of coal power plants nationwide.

But not only is the left preventing America from adding new power, they are also fighting to destroy existing power generation … even from renewable energy sources. The U.S. gets 8% of its power from renewable energy. 75% of America’s renewable energy comes from hydropower. So is the left trying to build more dams? Nope. They are tearing them down. Yesterday environmentalists, a power company, and federal and state officials signed an agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams in Oregon’s Klamath River basin.

In ten years when the lights don’t come on, you’ll know who to blame.