My Christmas Wish: End Alaska’s Renewable Portfolio Standard Stupidity in 2024

December 25, 2023

By Rick Whitbeck, Alaska State Director

When I was a child, making a Christmas wish-list and sending it off to “Santa” was an event to treasure.  It meant a break from school was coming and so were presents.

Today, my 9-year-old continues to enjoy the tradition.  His 2023 list?  Star Wars Lego sets, a fly rod and art supplies.  A little eclectic, but items that will bring him hours and hours of joy next year.

As an adult, it is easy to forego making such a list.  But in the spirit of Christmas, I’ll give you a single-item; one that will make Alaska much better in 2024.

End the anti-market, anti-jobs, anti-Alaskan Renewable Portfolio Standard push.

Alaska’s Legislature will soon decide whether to advance bills through both bodies that would impose a mandated move to 80% renewable power by 2040.  Aside from being completely unnecessary, as Alaska has decades (if not centuries) of coal and natural gas underground and available for heat and power generation, RPS rips apart market dynamics and leads to higher rates for consumers on multiple fronts.

First, as markets and studies have shown, renewable power is higher-cost – and lower-reliability – power.  Look no further than Continental Europe, where over a trillion dollars have been spent to ‘go green’.  But, when wind and solar fail to work?  They’ve been forced to turn back to traditional energy sources, at costs up to six times higher than their original, pre-green ‘solutions’.

Alaska’s RPS mandates will impose penalties on the utilities if they fail to meet transition deadlines. So, aside from higher-cost, less-reliable power, consumers and businesses would see rates jump, because the penalties will be passed onto the ratepayers.

Alaska doesn’t need a mandate to force us away from traditional energy sources.  We don’t need the risk of power outages from less-reliable solutions.  We certainly don’t need higher-cost power.  We don’t need a market manipulated by a ‘stick-over-carrot’ set of dates and penalties.

We don’t need Renewable Portfolio Standards.  My Christmas wish is that they meet their demise in early 2024 in Juneau.

Merry Christmas, everyone!