Pritzker responds to Illinois’ looming electricity crisis with words only. The General Assembly must act, and fast. – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

The reality of an impending electricity crisis is now widely accepted across most of America. Hardly a day passes without a headline in some national source about approaching price hikes, shortages and brownouts. Attention is focused mostly on the need for new nuclear plants. The Biden Administration has accepted that reality, having announced in May its full support for new nukes. Investors are now pouring money into nukes and other power sources beyond wind and solar.

That reality has belatedly begun reaching Illinois. A recent Chicago Tribune editorial warned sternly that “an electricity crisis is looming for Illinois,” and asked whether anybody is paying attention in Springfield. “It appears the alarmists were right, and Pritzker and the green lobby were wrong,” the Tribune wrote. Central and Southern Illinois have already seen electricity costs often jump 50%, and we’ve already reached the silly stage of the state having to provide financial assistance for the energy bills the state itself helped to spike.

Gov. JB Pritzker responded in a way that might seem encouraging. Well, maybe kinda sort of.

“The headline idea of the Tribune editorial is accurate — that we need to do more,” he said on a recent panel appearance. He signaled particular support for new nuclear plants, quoting with approval a comment by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm that America needs 198 more nukes. At one point he even sounded like an imposter — a free marketeer — saying “some of this problems is that government needs to get out of the way.” We need to incentivize private investment and innovation, he said, seemingly being open even to new natural gas fired plants.

But we’ve seen nothing in the way of proposals for legislative or administrative changes from Pritzker or anybody else in Illinois leadership. And you can be sure that climate zealots behind the state’s energy policy will have none of it. A retort on behalf of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, for example, quickly appeared in the Tribune saying, “Now is the time for action, not retreat.”

Pritzker’s prior conduct leaves no reason for optimism that his new words will amount to anything.

Take nuclear power, for example.

With large, bipartisan majorities, both the Illinois House and Senate last year passed a bill to lift Illinois’ ban on construction of new nuclear power projects. That ban, passed 36 years ago, imposed a blanket, permanent moratorium against development of any new nuclear production of electricity. Lifting that ban was a bipartisan no-brainer, as we put it earlier.

But Pritzker vetoed the bill, stunning even many fellow Democrats, for specious reasons we described here. What actually happened is that radically anti-growth lawmakers like House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston) and environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Illinois Environmental Council pressured Pritzker to kill the bill. Pritzker eventually signed a far weaker bill ending the moratorium only for tiny nukes used for limited purposes called small modular reactors (SMRs). But SMRs, while promising, are experimental, and Pritzker admitted on the panel that they are five to eight years away from being commercially viable. Nobody is planning one for Illinois.

Electric vehicles reflect a similar unwillingness to reconsider failing Illinois energy policy. The state shows no signs of backing off on its huge EV bet, even though all four of the state’s marquee, subsidized EV projects are foundering — Stellantis, Rivian, Gotion and Lion Electric.

What should be done?

One who strenuously opposed Illinois’ misguided energy policies from the start was Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur). He was beside himself with disgust when I spoke to him recently about the late recognition of Illinois’ problem.

But Caulkins focused on what’s important: potential solutions. He thinks they may include going back to the fossil fuel power plant owners that are shutting down to see if some can be kept open longer; lifting the restrictions on “peeker” power plants, which are small, fossil fueled plants that help address times of peek demand; and, most importantly, getting serious about making it easier to build nuclear and natural gas fired plants.

Illinois does not bear all the blame for the makings of the crisis. New power plants aren’t being built nationally at the pace needed. Like Illinois, some other states set too fast a deadline for shutting down power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.

Perhaps most importantly, many new power sources have no way to connect to the grid, as we discussed in detail here. Experts say a fix may cost trillions of dollars — and perhaps is not feasible at any price. Congress gets primary blame for that, though some critics, including Caulkins, also place blame on the regional grid operators that are responsible for administering new connections to the grid.

Addressing Illinois’ self-inflicted crisis will require eating some crow. It would mean acknowledging, as the Tribune did, that the alarmists and critics were right from the start. Illinois’ ruling class isn’t fond of admitting mistakes like that. Maybe that’s the real reason we are seeing no action so far. Perhaps we should just let them blame the problem on unforeseen electricity demands of artificial intelligence in computers. Those demands are indeed part of the problem and only became fully recognized over the past couple years. If giving politicians an excuse for reversing course is what it takes to fix the problem, so be it.

As for exactly what kind of new power projects and grid solutions should be pursued, don’t look for answers here and don’t trust our discredited lawmakers. For matters so technical, so expensive and so consequential, there’s only one expert to turn to: Mr. Market.

Somehow, Springfield must be forced into turning Pritzker’s words — that the government should get out of the way — into action. Let the private sector and their experts make the bets with their own money. Let them do it with the goal of giving us a reliable power supply at the best possible price, subject to sensible environmental goals that are feasible.

The central goal of Illinois’ energy policy never was attainable, which is zero emissions by 2050. That impossible goal put us on a path toward exorbitant prices and brownouts.

We need a change of direction ASAP. With little else on the agenda for the General Assembly’s veto session that starts in November, that’s when to start.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.