The March 20 commentary, "Skyrocketing electricity prices threaten Minnesota mining," written by a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, was not a surprising read. Conservative think tanks tend to come up with conservative conclusions.
The center's new study found that a 50 percent renewable energy mandate would cause electricity prices to increase 40.2 percent compared to 2018 prices. If there is one thing I learned while teaching economics and statistics, it is that just about any preconceived conclusion can be supported by using creative, selective analysis. Since the new study was not described, I can't critique it.
I can, however, critique the commentary's statement that, "If Minnesota was to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions under this mandate, it would only reduce, by .06 percent, the global total ... (a) microscopic reduction." Well, by golly, that just happens to be a terrific number since we Minnesotans are only .07 percent of the world population. (There are 5.6 million Minnesotans and 7.7 billion people in the world).
The poor math made me doubt the accuracy of the new study. An increase in electricity prices of 40.2 percent is hard to swallow compared to all other studies I have seen. Check out the Forbes article, "No, Wind And Solar Do Not Inherently Increase Electricity Prices," for an explanation of misleading and simplistic studies.
John McDonald
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Duluth
The writer is a retired professor of economics with a Ph.D. in economics.
