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Obama’s war on coal hits your electric bill

May. 23, 2012 1:26pm Meredith Jessup

During his 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama promised that his energy policy would cause Americans’ electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” Well, count this as one promise kept.

Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a significant drop in power sector coal consumption. According to the report, coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36% of America’s electricity. Just one year ago, coal accounted for 44.6%.

According to Fox News’ Phil Kerpen, the drop is the result of “an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.”

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. …

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year’s because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.

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Comments (7)

Grace1798
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 8:54am
West Virginia voted in a RADICAL LEFT WINGER who has agreed with everything Obama wants and supports. They believed this Senator’s lies about restoring their coal industry……hey WVirginians………apparently he screwed you guys ……and you were WARNED that he would. Why in heaven’s name would you vote in a Democrat? How have they helped you and your coal industry? NADA….. Think about it before you vote for more democrats.

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Individualism
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 9:56pm
If Ron Paul or Gary Johnson don’t get presidency than crap like this will happen and the rats will get their punishment they got in Germany for pulling this crap in America.

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dan182j
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 6:59pm
If people don’t hear about this things will never change. I can’t believe people want to re-elect this guy after all the crap that has been going on. It’s scary

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OneTermPresident
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 6:22pm
All in the name of the biggest ponzi scheme in history… global warming, er… climate change. Just another reason in a long list of reasons that Obama has to go. When he goes… the head ( Lisa Jackson ) of the radical out of control EPA goes with him and then we can start coal mining and oil drilling again.

Just watch though… Obama will try and make himself look good by agreeing to let the Keystone pipeline be built…. The worst and most corrupt president in history will do or say ANYTHING for votes

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FLYOVERSTATEIOWA
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 5:26pm
Why is this NOT on the front page of the blaze?

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ertdfg
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 3:19pm
There’s a reason West Virginia gave 40% of their Democrat Primary vote to a man imprisoned in Texas instead of Obama.

He’s got a real problem in coal country; and if people see their electric bills “necessarily skyrocket” and realize why, he might have problems elsewhere.

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Hiswill
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 2:43pm
To all my family in PA. You voted Obama into office and he is making good on his threats. You thought your electic bill was high the past few years, now you’re really going to feel the pain. My advice, don’t vote for this lame duck president next time around.
NOBAMA 2012

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