I n 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation (SB 3) that forces electricity customers to pay higher prices by mandating that more expensive renewable energy sources be used to produce that electricity. Subsidies worth $72 million have been doled out to the builders of solar and wind energy plants, bio-energy operations, and other "renewable" energy sources in North Carolina. Efforts are under way to eliminate what amounts to a legislative mandate for higher electric bills.
Below are links to several resources to help you understand this important issue.
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 The JLF's Director of Regulatory Studies Jon Sanders writes in a Research Newsletter, that North Carolina is wasting money, time, and effort on so-called "renewable energy" sources, like wind and solar, while ignoring the many benefits of that could come from developing natural gas. |
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 Scholars from the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University have found that the net economic benefits to North Carolina of a renewable energy mandate claimed in a recent report from RTI International and La Capra Associates are "mismeasured and spurious." |
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The JLF's Jon Sanders writes in a JLF Spotlight report that the renewable energy portfolio standard mandate fails to meet its stated purposes, worsening consumers' energy needs with higher prices, undercutting 'energy security' and indigenous energy by incentivizing subsidies to out-of-state energy providers while not counting shale gas, harming energy investment, and making questionable choices for air quality. |
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 In this Carolina Journal Online column, JLF vice president for outreach Becki Gray writes that government should ensure that utility companies provide the lowest-cost, most efficient, and most reliable sources of electricity to consumers, and not mandate any specific any type of electricity source. |
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Jon Sanders, the John Locke Foundation's director of regulatory studies, gives some background on SB 3 and the general concept of renewable energy portfolio standards. He points out that North Carolina is the only Southeastern state that has adopted RPS mandates, much to its economic detriment. |
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 The John Locke Foundation's Dr. Roy Cordato writes that it is incumbent upon the News & Observer's editorial page to clarify its sources in editorials about the renewable energy portfolio, and explain why its numbers of jobs created from renewable energy are so much higher than even the numbers the key proponents of renewable energy are claiming have been created.
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 John Locke Foundation President John Hood offers a modest proposal regarding renewable energy, an amendment to SB 3, which, as ludicrous as it seems, makes as much sense what we've got now. |
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The John Locke Foundation's Dr. Roy Cordato says a report commissioned by the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association ignores the most basic principle of economics, that all resources are scarce and have alternative uses, what economists call opportunity costs.
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In this Carolina Journal Online column, the JLF's Dr. Roy Cordato notes that, five years after the passage of SB 3, which brought rising electric bills and little of the salutary effects it was supposed to have on the environment, many members of the N.C. General Assembly are realizing what a mistake they made in 2007.
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 The JLF's biennial Agenda report found that the renewable portfolio standard requires utilities to provide customers 7.5 percent of their electricity through renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, or biomass. These are all forms of energy that are significantly more expensive than traditional fossil fuels and nuclear power that North Carolina's utilities voluntarily choose when they are left free to pursue truly efficient energy.
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John Locke Foundation vice president for research and resident scholar Dr. Roy Cordato, in a JLF Spotlight Report, contends that the problem with the term "energy efficiency", as defined by those who embrace it as a policy guide, is that it is focused strictly on saving energy even if it means sacrificing overall economic efficiency. |
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John Locke Foundation vice president for research and resident scholar Dr. Roy Cordato, in a JLF Spotlight Report, writes that SB 3 has all of the negative effects of a cap-and-trade program similar to those that the Democratic Party at the national level has proposed, and that the North Carolina legislative leadership should put environmental policy into the context of the ideas of liberty, personal responsibility, and economic growth, and should repeal SB 3.
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In a JLF Spotlight report, Dr. Roy Cordato writes that the growing use of the "demand side management" (DSM) model of public policy that has crept into the state of North Carolina's approach to regulation is an effort to use public policy and government force to control the purchases and consumption habits — i.e., the behavior and choices — of citizens.
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 In a JLF Spotlight report, Daren Bakst and Dr. Carlo Stagnaro show that solar power can be called "affordable" only after huge federal and state subsidies are provided.
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In a 2009 JLF Policy report, the Beacon Hill Institute in conjunction with the John Locke Foundation concluded that the renewable portfolio standard would raise electricity prices for consumers and businesses in North Carolina and would not achieve enough energy savings necessary to offset the higher prices. |
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In a JLF Spotlight report, Daren Bakst points to the contradictory aims of environmentalists insisting on prohibiting all development along the state's mountain ridge lines, but favoring the erection of 500-foot-tall wind turbines along those very same ridges. |
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In a JLF Spotlight report, Daren Bakst writes that energy-efficiency programs force consumers to pay an extra hidden tax on their utility bills to subsidize financial incentives for the purchase of energy-efficient goods and services.
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Daren Bakst and Georff Lawrence write in this JLF Spotlight report that low-cost energy is not only critical to the economy, but also to our health, safety, and general welfare, and that despite concerns over energy prices, policymakers intentionally are increasing energy prices through new taxes and regulations.
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In this JLF Spotlight report, Daren Bakst point sout that, like the wind itself, wind power is intermittent and extremely unreliable. The wind must be strong enough, but not too strong, to generate power. So wind cannot be used for baseload generation nor to meet peak demand.
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In a JLF Spotlight report, Daren Bakst writes that SB 3, the new, hastily drafted energy bill that was touted as requiring utilities to provide at least 7.5 percent of their electricity from renewable resources, would require North Carolinians to pay for electricity used by out-of-state residents.
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Daren Bakst, in this JLF Spotlight report, describes the contents and likely effects of the renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standard (REPS), that was then making its way through the N.C. General Assembly as SB 3.
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