Brady: The reality of unrealistic, expensive energy mandates

Jane Brady is the chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as state attorney general and as a judge of the Delaware Superior Court.

Delaware’s government has made decisions in successive legislative sessions with regard to energy that impact the poorest of our citizens most negatively. Those families in our state that struggle with the costs of basic necessities, such as food and housing, are now going to face additional costs for electricity and transportation.

The electric vehicle mandate the General Assembly enacted would require families to pay about $10,000-$20,000 more for a car that is electric than they would for a gas-fueled car. The cost of installation of a charger at your home is significant. But, of course, if you live — as many lower-income people do — in an apartment or rowhome in the city, you won’t be able to charge your electric car at home. Additionally, there are very few public places you can do so. Public transportation is limited and not a realistic option for many to use to get to work or the store. So, apart from the fact that we at A Better Delaware don’t think government should tell us what kind of car to buy, the impacts of this policy have been underappreciated.

And many of the wealthier among us who purchased electric vehicles are having second thoughts. Why? Because electric vehicles lack the range, safety and ease of refueling that make getting from here to there comfortable and reliable. The realities of the limited range, costs, safety concerns and lack of reliability are hitting home, and they are returning to gas-powered cars.

But government is not learning any lessons from its experience or others’. Recently, the Delaware legislature passed legislation that would mandate conversion of school buses from gas to electric. Lawmakers should learn from other school districts’ experiences. Just in March, it was reported that 20% of the entire fleet of electric school buses was not operating on any given day, according to the director of the New York Association for Public Transportation, because of problems with the electric buses or their charging devices. Compare that breakdown rate with diesel buses, which have a failure rate of 1% or 2%, and it’s easy to see that diesel is more reliable. More cost-effective, too: The average cost for a diesel school bus is reportedly between $100,000-$150,000. Electric school buses cost between $300,000-$400,000. And that lack of reliability may also affect our poorest students, many of whom already have school attendance issues. Absenteeism is an increasing problem, exacerbated by the lack of stewardship in the delivery of education resources to Delaware students during the pandemic. Many of the poorest students rely on a bus to go to school. Reliable transportation is a necessity — they don’t have the independent means to provide their own transportation. The General Assembly needs to accept the reality that technology is not where its members aspire it to be, and until it is, they should spend our limited tax dollars responsibly, providing the most good to the greatest number of Delawareans.

But the electric vehicle mandate isn’t the only failed energy policy objective that is unrealistic and expensive. This past session, the General Assembly passed the Delaware Energy Solutions Act, which prioritizes procurement of offshore wind energy. Offshore wind is an intermittent energy source. That means it is not available all the time. Any energy policy that relies on wind — or solar for that matter — must have provisions for the gaps in reliability it inherently has.

Offshore wind is expensive. When the legislature previously passed a bill that would require 25% of all electricity used in Delaware to come from renewable sources, wind and solar, it put a 3% cap on any increase that customers could be required to pay as a result. Currently, according to an analysis by the Caesar Rodney Institute, the cost is twice that to customers. In the past, the governor’s Offshore Wind Working Group found that offshore wind was simply too expensive. The costs of offshore wind have not gone down since then. So, what can we expect if this policy is implemented in Delaware? Higher costs for electric, huge subsidies for companies willing to put your money on the line when they take the risky venture to try to produce electric in offshore turbine fields and uncertainty that our electric will be reliably available in the heat and cold. Not much of a bargain.

Finally, with regard to offshore wind, the public needs to know that the governor has signed an agreement with a company that has a commitment to provide electricity from an offshore wind farm to Maryland. The agreement is not for electricity. The agreement is to allow the company to bring four huge conduits of cables from the wind turbines ashore in our state park at 3R’s Road. Why? Because no town or government in Maryland would agree to let them come ashore there. But our environmental concerns do not stop at the ocean’s edge. There are also plans to transmit the electricity the turbines generate through those same conduits, buried only 3-7 feet deep under the inland bays, to property adjacent to the Indian River Power Plant. There are opportunities to be heard on this issue. To submit your comments, go to the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control website .

Exercise your right to be heard about your concerns about the environment in our state, the health of our inland bays and the integrity of our beaches, and question why we would be willing to do something to bring electric to Maryland customers that no one in Maryland was willing to do.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org .