By Assemblyman Alex Sauickie
By the time you read this, Memorial Day weekend of 2023 will have already passed, and the unofficial start of summer will have begun.
Perhaps you have great summer plans, whether it’s travel to a new destination, enjoying the beautiful Jersey shore, grilling in the backyard, or some com- bination of those. Whatever they may be, I hope you have a wonderful time.
In the evenings or when it’s raining, perhaps you like to stream movies in the comfort of your air-conditioned home. If that’s the case, I hope the people in charge of energy policy ha- ven’t made your indoor summer time too dark and hot this year and in the years to follow.
Why is that even a question?
PJM – known by these letters since it became the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Inter- connection but it now manages electricity grids
in 13 states – issued a report in Febru- ary showing that coal, gas and nuclear power plants are being shut down faster than their generation capacity is being replaced. PJM expects to eliminate 21% of its generating capacity by 2030.
Translation: we’ll have lost thousands of megawatts of available power while demand for electricity continues to increase. We all know what happens when electricity demand exceeds sup- ply: blackouts.
Now, to be clear, the available infor- mation suggests that complete disaster won’t necessarily come as early as this summer. But as I’ve written before, New Jersey power companies asked customers to cut back on electricity
usage during the particularly cold days around Christmas last year. The warnings for more of this in the near future are clear and are coming from multiple sources.
But back to PJM for now. The report projects that PJM will lose 40,000 megawatts of capacity by 2030. At best, 30,000 megawatts will be replaced by solar, wind and other types of power – a loss of 25%. At worst, only half that will be replaced, meaning 37.5% of available power will be lost. PJM’s reserve margin, meaning spare capac- ity compared to peak demand, will fall from 26% to 15% or lower, according to the report.
In May, a US Senate committee held a hearing on the issue. A member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commis- sion told the committee, “I’m afraid to say it, but I think the United States is heading towards a catastrophic situa- tion. The problem is not the addition of wind and solar, it’s the subtraction of dispatchable resources like coal and gas.”
“Dispatchable” means they can be readily cranked up when demand is high, unlike solar and wind which only create energy while the sun is out and the wind is blowing.
Also in May, the North Ameri- can Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a report finding that two-thirds of North America may have
power shortages this summer during extreme heat. NERC’s director of re- liability assessment said, “The system is closer to the edge. More needs to be done.”
Not all of the expanding energy gap is directly related to government pol- icy. Some new energy projects have been delayed by other factors such as supply-chain issues and other market problems.
But government policy is certainly a big factor. New federal regulations require coal and gas power plants to cut carbon emissions by an incredi- ble 90% between 2035 and 2040. The government says plants should do this using “carbon capture” technology, which is very expensive and not well supported scientifically at this point. The effect is to force large investments with uncertain results, likely to cause even more reliable plants to shut down.
In our state, the governor has been praised for setting a goal of 100% clean energy by 2035.
Both remind me of the old saying, “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
That hotel chain with the ads saying “we’ll leave the light on for you” may have to find a new tag line.
Alex Sauickie is a life-long Jackson resident who represents his home town and 13 other towns in the State Assembly.
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Note: This opinion piece originally appeared in The Jackson Times by Jersey Shore Online in its publication dated June 3, 2023.