“Their ‘all of the above’ debate wasn’t all of the above…. It was a propaganda stage for a ‘clean energy’ pact between EEI and NRDC for announcing their joint indoctrination campaign aimed at increasing market share of electricity at the expense of natural gas.”

“What this ‘powerful’ cabal intends to do is to monopolize energy by electricity under the guise of environmental necessity.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), the national trade association representing state public service commissioners who regulate investor-owned utilities, was recently the site of a political war against natural gas. [1] On the last day of NARUC’s annual Winter Policy Summit (February 14), E&E News reported (Nation’s regulators get down to business at winter meeting): [2]

The final NARUC session on Wednesday will feature a debate of sorts between Phil Moeller, executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, and Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, on an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy.

[Editor note: Mark Krebs has been a leading advocate (see here) for free-market decision-making between natural gas and electricity in homes and places of business, challenging the ‘deep decarbonization’ push of energy interventionists to disciminate against fossil fuels at point of use. This is the first of a two-part post.]

“Grid reliability should not eclipse energy reliability; especially during weather emergencies. Yet, much of the discussion looks like more of the same rent-seeking by interests looking for rebuilding damaged electricity infrastructure with inherently unreliable wind and solar generation based ‘microgrids’.”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is undertaking an in-depth review of the laws and regulations affecting electric energy. Much of that review is through a series of hearing that started last July. The objectives for this series of hearings were officially stated as follows:

Today, the nation’s electricity industry is undergoing a period of transformation due to technological innovation and market competition, creating tremendous benefits to American consumers.

“The fundamentally anti-fossil fuel energy efficiency and renewable energy advocates ran with Obama’s Executive Order 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, to turn ‘deep decarbonization’ theories into official public policy. The goal? Convert all consumer natural gas use to electricity by 2050.”

“In short, U.S efforts within the DDPP infrastructure are orchestrated by the United Nations through one consulting firm, reviewed by two DOE labs, and funded by Tom Steyer. How’s that for a concentration of power in opposition to a free market economy?”

“Advocacy of ‘electrify everything’ and ‘Deep Decarbonization’ are still being funded by taxpayer dollars. While we assume the Trump Administration is not fully aware of this, the fact remains: This cannot be reconciled with the President’s America First Energy Plan to “lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources.”

“What Secretary Perry has yet to recognize is that the same hostile forces behind the ‘war against coal’ are now focused on eliminating the direct use of natural gas…. By taking a fresh look at the economic importance of natural gas direct use, this path can be changed; assuming the political will exists to do the right thing by consumers.”

Nationwide, natural gas is distributed to over 73.5 million homes and businesses for a wide variety of uses, such as cooking, water and home heating. [1] In doing so, it delivers 38% more energy [2] for 15% of the costs of electricity. [3] Natural gas energy losses are only about 10 percent of its usable energy from the point of wellhead extraction to the consumers’ utility meter. For electricity, about 70% of initial energy content is lost by the time it reaches consumer’s electric meters.…