Illinois’ looming energy crisis: ‘It appears the alarmists were right, and Pritzker and the green lobby were wrong’ – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

“An electricity crisis is looming for Illinois. Is anybody paying attention in Springfield?” A Chicago Tribune headline asked that last week.  Not yet, is the answer, but reality is now giving a swift kick in the butt to Illinois’ ruling climate fabulists. In this column, we will review the latest and look at how the regular media has ignored a crisis that what was entirely predictable. In a second piece, we will look at Gov. JB Pritzker’s response and what should be done now to head it off.

Illinois passed a massive clean energy bill in 2021 (“CEJA, “the Clean Energy and Jobs Act) mandating closing of all coal and natural gas fired power plants by 2045. It was an impossible goal to meet, but just pursing it would be astronomically expensive and certain to jeopardize reliable electricity supply, warned critics — “carnival barkers” — as Pritzker likes to call them, including Wirepoints.

But the carnival barkers were ignored by lawmakers and most of Illinois’ regular media.

It therefore surely came as a surprise to Illinoisans who saw that Tribune editorial last week: Just three years after passage of CEJA, it says, ” it appears the alarmists were right, and Pritzker and the green lobby were wrong.”

It’s a breakthrough for the Tribune to say that. The Tribune was long among the major media playing along with the green fairy tales while ignoring the warnings from energy realists. However, the facts described by the Tribune should have come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to the alarmists.

The spark that set off the Tribune’s editorial is the jump in retail electricity costs that’s coming for most of Northern Illinois, where the electrical grid is managed by PJM Interconnection. PJM, like other grid operators, occasionally runs an auction for “capacity,” which is the electricity PJM needs in times of peak demand to keep its grid supplied. For northern Illinois, that electricity goes mostly to ComEd.

Those capacity costs get passed along to consumers, and capacity costs at the last auction soared more than 800%. The bottom line for consumers is that ComEd residential bills will soon rise by about 10.5% due to the capacity charge alone. But that’s just the start. In two years, capacity charges are predicted to be 2,200% higher than today, hiking average monthly ComEd residential bills by more than $35 compared with current charges, the Tribune wrote.

Central and southern Illinois may have a bigger problem. We’ve written earlier about dire warnings from that area’s grid operator, MISO, which says the area is at “high risk” for brownouts. Much of the area has already seen retail price hikes of 50%.

Three causes are widely agreed to be primarily responsible for these problems.

First, Illinois and some other states simply set too fast a deadline for shutting down power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. “Simple supply-and-demand realities are the reason,” as the Tribune said, and “growth in renewable power facilities such as wind and solar isn’t making up enough of the difference.”

Second, many new power sources have no way to connect to the grid. It’s a policy blunder of historic proportions that still hasn’t reached most of mainstream media. Hundreds of billions of dollars of federal subsidies were authorized for wind and solar projects and Illinois passed its mandates while ignoring the interconnection issue. As we wrote before, experts say a fix may cost trillions of dollars — and perhaps is not feasible at any price.

Third, artificial intelligence in computers consumes an astonishing amount of electricity, with some experts saying AI data centers could consume as much as 20% to 25% of U.S. power requirements by the end of this decade.

On that third point, you might cut lawmakers some slack because AI’s enormous energy demands only became fully recognized over the last couple years. The other two causes, however, were policy blunders that were apparent as they were made. Wirepoints is certainly not the only carnival barker that has been writing about those matters from the start. Some Republican lawmakers in Springfield have long objected to Illinois’ unrealistic green goals. Jeanne Ives wrote an excellent column yesterday at Break Through Ideas summarizing what critics of Illinois’ energy policy have long said.

Let’s return to that Tribune editorial because there’s something you should know about it.

Many reacted to it by asking why it took so long for the Tribune to write about the folly of Illinois energy policy. The Tribune has indeed been among the media blind to impending crisis.

But consider who wrote the editorial. Undoubtedly, it was Steve Daniels, who joined the board only last fall and was previously an energy reporter at Crain’s. The Tribune’s editorials improved markedly after Daniels arrived, and he should not be included among those guilty of ignoring Illinois energy problems.

At Crain’s, he was among the few in regular media to report on what critics were saying.  In fact, he wrote specifically in March 2023 about the warnings PJM gave about what has now come to pass. His article began by saying, “The power grid operator serving northern Illinois and points east to the Mid-Atlantic is sounding the alarm about potential electricity shortages over the coming seven years, driven in part by state policies like Illinois’ clean-energy law that are forcing power plants to close.”

Perhaps most enlightening, Daniels wrote back in July 2022 about the blockheaded comments by the Pritzker Administration’s point man for negotiating CEJA. That was then-Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell, a political operative who had zero experience in the complicated energy field. When asked about reopening CEJA to loosen the timetable for closing fossil plants, Mitchell told Daniels in an interview, “The answer to that question is a very firm no.”

What about all the warnings that power companies themselves were giving about the new law? The Pritzker Administration wouldn’t have any of that, Daniels wrote, and Mitchell said the power companies lack credibility because they have profit motives.

There you have it, I suspect — the mentality of the folks who gave us CEJA: People trying to make a profit? Who cares what they say?

Mitchell, mercifully, is gone, and maybe the coming price hikes will finally pressure the state to fix what’s wrong with CEJA. In our next installment we’ll look at what those steps might be.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

Earlier pertinent Wirepoints columns:

• Progressive lawmakers line up behind costly fix for error they made in renewable energy plan

• Electricity cost rising 50% in much of Illinois and risk of brownouts looms

• Pritzker’s veto of bill to look at nuclear power reeks of petty, extremist politics

• More Signs That Illinois’ Green ‘Industrial Policy’ Is Failing: Taxpayer Assistance for Utility Bills

•  Floundering Illinois wind energy program blamed partly on (you guessed it) climate change

• Should Illinois Follow Norway’s Lead To Break Impasse On Energy Bill By Just Writing A Check?

• New CUB Scandal Is Another Reason To Kill The Clean Energy Jobs Act