The North Dakota Transmission Authority (NDTA) included AOER’s analysisas an exhibit for North Dakota’s participation along with 24 other states’ motion to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon regulations.

AOER’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling opined about their study and the new regulations on their Energy Bad Boys Substack post: “5.2 Million Americans Will Be Left in the Dark by EPA’s Carbon Rules on Power Plants.”

They write that the new rules are “worse than you can possibly imagine. This is especially true in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), where EPA regulations would leave five million people shivering in the dark”… because the “EPA doesn’t conduct hourly reliability analyses, it has no idea when wind and solar resources are available on the system to serve demand. As a result, the EPA simply assumes that wind and solar generation will magically match perfectly with demand.”

AOER was hired to model and analyze the cost and reliability of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently finalized carbon rules officially titled “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.”

These new rules will set limits on greenhouse gas emissions for existing coal and new natural gas power plants. Our analysis found that EPA’s proposal would cost Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) $382 billion and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) $66 billion through 2055 and, if implemented, lead to devasting blackouts, especially in SPP.