{"id":186,"date":"2017-09-09T01:54:58","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T01:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/?p=186"},"modified":"2017-09-10T18:51:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T18:51:11","slug":"donald-trump-and-the-cost-of-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/2017\/09\/09\/donald-trump-and-the-cost-of-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and the Cost of Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

While President Trump\u2019s letter is riddled with incorrect or misleading statements, I chose to check out a statement based on something I don\u2019t know too much about. Trump writes, \u201cWhile little would change for our climate under the Paris Agreement, our electricity prices would significantly increase.\u201d What interested me about this statement is his connection between the Paris Agreement and electricity prices. I\u2019m assuming he means to say that the energy targets we would create for ourselves (and which would be self-enforced) would require significant investment in renewables, which would increase electricity prices. His idea that switching to renewables would raise electricity prices is the crux of an entire paragraphs argument against the agreement so it seemed worthy of a fact check to me.<\/p>\n

Cost is always cited as one of the main obstacles to switching to renewable resources. As I began researching the topic I realized that most articles cite the examples of places like Denmark and Germany and explain that their electricity prices are the highest in the world which is easily attributed to their aggressive renewable transition plans. However, I found that the explanations given are often oversimplified or biased and don\u2019t explain why this is happening. I decided to focus on Denmark as it has the highest electricity prices in the EU. I discovered that while Denmark\u2019s citizens are paying more for their energy, the actual price of the electricity has gone down. The price of electricity is in Denmark is lower than the EU average; however huge taxes have basically tripled the price people actually pay. One of the reasons these taxes are so high is the PSO tax, which helps fund renewable resource development. However, at the end of 2016 the Danish government decided to slash the tax to save companies and taxpayers money and will instead find the money for green projects elsewhere. The completion of offshore wind turbine parks is are also expected to drop the price of electricity. Additionally, energy companies in Denmark are relying less on government subsidies, funding offshore wind projects through selling off the oil and gas divisions of their companies. In fact, Dong Energy has plans to build offshore turbines in Germany without any government subsidies at all. It seems that historically, the high prices of electricity are not due to the energy itself, they are caused by high initial construction costs and taxes imposed by the government to fund other projects.<\/p>\n

One of the things that makes it very difficult to compare Denmark to North America is that electricity prices vary a lot across each U.S. state. For example, according to the US Energy Information Administration, in June of 2017 the average price of electricity in my home state of New York cost 18.77 cents per Kilowatthour but it Washington it cost just under 10 cents per Kilowatthour, the cheapest of any state in that time frame. It turns out the Washington uses far more renewable hydroelectric power than any other type of energy. They generate so much that some of their hydropower is used in neighboring states. An NPR article about electricity prices explains the reasons for similarly low prices in Idaho, \u201cIdaho generates much of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, which require virtually no fuel. Also, the cost of constructing the dams have been spread out over many decades. This all has kept electricity prices in Idaho low.\u201d Right now, hydropower is an efficient source of energy because dams require little maintenance and so many have been built already. Since using wind power on a mass scale is relatively new (especially using offshore wind) the technology has been changing a lot. New innovations are lowering construction costs and increasing production capabilities. Additionally, as more and more renewable energy becomes available it will make natural gas and coal less competitive Trump\u2019s statement is technically correct in that in many places, sudden investment in renewable resources has risen electricity prices. However, he ignores the many aspects that contribute to this issue and they ways that new technologies and different government policies could and will bring prices down.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n

Amin, Adnan Z. \u201cThe Falling Costs of Renewable Energy: No More Excuses.\u201d Huffpost<\/em>. 30 November, 2015. http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/adnan-z-amin\/post_10557_b_8600240.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clark, Pilita. \u201cDong Energy breaks subsidy link with new offshore with new offshore wind farms.\u201d Financial Times. <\/em>14 April, 2017. https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/f5b164a6-20f8-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cusick, Daniel. \u201cEnergy Costs at Record Lows Thanks to Natural Gas and Clean Energy.\u201d Scientific American. <\/em>8 February, 2017. \u00a0<\/em>https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/energy-costs-at-record-lows-thanks-to-natural-gas-and-clean-energy\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Electric Power Monthly. \u201cAverage Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector by State, June 2017 and 2016.\u201d U.S. Energy Information Administration. <\/em>24 August, 2017. https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/electricity\/monthly\/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eurostat. \u201cElectricity prices for household consumers, second half of 2015.\u201d European Commission. <\/em>http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/statistics-explained\/index.php\/File:Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers,_second_half_2015_(%C2%B9)_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB16.png<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Green, Kenneth P. \u201cRenewable Energy Sources Mean Higher Electricity Bills.\u201d Huffpost.<\/em> 27 June, 2015. http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/kenneth-p-green\/renewable-energy-higher-bills_b_7155666.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump, Donald. Letter to Neil Leary. <\/em>2017.<\/p>\n

Jeppesen, Helle. \u201cDenmark Leads the Charge in Renewable Energy.\u201d Deutsche Welle. <\/em>\u00a02 May, 2014. http:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/denmark-leads-the-charge-in-renewable-energy\/a-17603695<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jiang, Jess. \u201cThe Price of Electricity in Your State.\u201d NPR. <\/em>28 October, 2011. http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/money\/2011\/10\/27\/141766341\/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Levring, Peter. \u201cWorld\u2019s Biggest Wind Turbine Maker Waves Goodbye to Oil Industry.\u201d Bloomberg.<\/em> 29 August, 2017. https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-08-29\/world-s-biggest-wind-turbine-maker-waves-oil-industry-goodbye<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richardson, Jake. \u201cHalf the Price of Coal and Natural Gas: Wind Power in Denmark.\u201d Clean Technica<\/em>. 28 July, 2014. https:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2014\/07\/28\/half-price-coal-natural-gas-wind-power-denmark\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

W, Christian. \u201cGovernment agrees to cut PSO tax.\u201d CPH Post.<\/em> 18 November, 2016. http:\/\/cphpost.dk\/news\/government-agrees-to-cut-pso-tax.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWashington: State Profile and Energy Estimates.\u201d U.S. Energy Information Administration.<\/em> 17 November, 2016. https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/state\/analysis.php?sid=WA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While President Trump\u2019s letter is riddled with incorrect or misleading statements, I chose to check out a statement based on something I don\u2019t know too much about. Trump writes, \u201cWhile little would change for our climate under the Paris Agreement, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3590,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100731,144457],"tags":[144454,2100,144455],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-risk-and-resilience","category-trump-paris-agreement","tag-electricity-costs","tag-renewable-energy","tag-wind-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/nepal2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}