The availability and affordability of electricity has been central to the growth of every developed country. America’s rapid growth into an industrial, technological, and economic powerhouse has been fueled by the availability of a wide variety of electricity sources. Our nation’s diverse sources of electric generation currently provide America with an abundant, reliable and affordable electric supply to support the continued growth and development of our economy.
However, our nation is in danger of losing this underappreciated advantage due in part to aggressive new EPA regulations. In order to better understand the value of our diverse resource mix and the impact that losing it will have on our economy, the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy partnered with other groups to undertake a comprehensive new study conducted by the respected global research firm IHS.
The result is a new report—The Value of US Power Supply Diversity—which provides a detailed analysis as to the power sector and overall economic costs that will be incurred if EPA regulations, along with other factors, are permitted to eliminate the coal and nuclear generation resources that today play an indispensable role in keeping America’s electricity reliable, abundant, and affordable.
The IHS analysis calculates the higher electricity prices that would have been incurred from 2010-2012 with less resource diversity, and also forecasts the overall economic impacts that would be driven by the higher electricity prices resulting from a reduction in electricity resource diversity. This analysis is particularly timely given the impact of EPA’s pending power plant rules, which will have the direct effect of reducing the diversity of power supplies.
To help understand the key findings, you'll find a fact sheet as well as the report itself on this page. We encourage you to stay engaged on this important topic.