They Never See it Coming: Really ????

The USA is the land of no memory... none, zero, zippo, nada, nothing. Its like no one can remember natural gas prices in the double digits -- or their tendency to spike. 

The USA must also have some impairment as it relates to evidentiary motives (except on TV crime shows).  How is it that 'we' cannot understand the direct financial linkage between natural gas and the so-called renewable industry...?

How is it that one Administration after the next, Congressional Energy Committees, the many hundreds of public utility commissions, the 50 state legislatures, public interest groups, or a single news outlet cannot piece together the obvious motive and collusion built into "Renewable Mandates" and the natural gas industry ?

Well the API (American Petroleum Institute), a lobby group who advocates for Natural Gas, thinks it is a great idea to eliminate all other forms of base-load and enter a exclusive relationship with natural gas. Of course the public will be responsible for the maintenance and endless subsidies for the resulting off-spring: renewables (like the kid who never leaves the basement). 

Golly gee-wiz, what could ever be wrong with this ?

How about it results in the decommissioning and deconstruction of all other forms of base-load -- by design.

And for you silly people who think that you are getting a dependable renewable electric grid; sorry, NO. Instead you get a natural gas base load system that also acts as a peaking-grid for when the sun goes down and the wind does not blow: like 70 to 80% of the total load balance.  And for you hold-outs, there is no net benefit from natural gas from a green house emissions stand point when you factor in methane leaks (just a detail, no worries).  

So if you are curious as to the graphic, its called the ISO Duck and it demonstrates how as you load on renewables to the system the system's dependence on natural gas jumps to 100% natural gas for all load and base-load (70 to 80% of the load-balance).

IF YOU DID NOT SEE THAT COMMING you must be a member of Congress, a public utility regulator or a green eye shade environmentalist ?

Okay, for the rest of is its now time to guess what happens next !

Do natural gas prices go up, or do they go down once 'we' have no other alternatives ?

If you have exceeded your prescribed medication levels you may think that we can count on the API (the folks how bring us one gulf war after the next) and the natural gas industry to provide steady low prices for natural gas when we have no other alternative... 

For everyone else we know what they plan on doing with their big steel pipelines.

Its CSI time - Who can figure out what these guys are up to.  Quotes from the linked articles below:

From Cub Scouts Den Mother, Humanitarian, and lover of the earth: Erica Bowman, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute:

"Natural gas "can offer all of the attributes that coal has. And then some," she said.

For example, "when you look at a coal generator and you look at ramp rates and you look at start times, they're a lot slower than a natural gas facility."

"Natural gas facilities, depending on the technology type, can go from zero to 100 megawatts in less than five minutes. For a coal generator, you can move maybe 5 to 7 MW per minute. So you're not able to load follow in the same way that you would be able to with natural gas generation," she said.

Opposition to subsidies

API has been politically active in states such as Ohio, Illinois and New York in trying to persuade lawmakers and regulators to reject calls for subsidies to nuclear and coal plants that are struggling in an electricity market defined by low wholesale prices and slumping demand.

Among the arguments put forth by subsidy proponents are that the plants offer fuel diversity.

API's state chapters are "100 percent opposing" the subsidies, Bowman said.

"We don't always understand what they mean by fuel diversity. We are in a more diverse fuel era than we've ever been," she said."

See: https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/23/stories/1060056478

and: https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/23/stories/1060056491