OPPD’s Twin Mandate: Low Cost and Reliability

Would you buy a car or a computer knowing in advance that it would only work less than half the time – and sporadically at that – even if you felt (emphasis on the word “felt”) that your purchase would save the planet from burning up in the year 2100?

But OPPD has done exactly that with its August 2023 Near Term Generation resolution. The price tag today is two billion dollars. That, however, doesn’t take into account that its engineers forced the OPPD Board to first spend about $450 million on two reliable natural gas-fired electricity production plants. These two new power stations are conveniently located very near to computer data centers that ostensibly only want renewable power. The prudent action, of course, would be not to waste two billion dollars on inefficient and unreliable wind and solar plants.

The wasteful and foolish spending of over two billion dollars by the OPPD Board is also contrary to its statutory duties. Nebraska law imposes a twin mandate on public power: reliability and low cost. Solar and wind power are neither. OPPD, however, ignores its statutory duty because its directors feel (emphasis on the word “feel”) that their personal beliefs come before their statutory duties. In other words, the rule of law doesn’t apply to OPPD because its directors say so. Ipse dixit.

OPPD is currently projecting that this spending spree will result in at least a 10% rate increase. Given OPPD’s record regarding projections, the rate increase will certainly be more than 10%. Wyoming is looking at a 29% rate increase.

OPPD’s directors believe that achieving net zero carbon by 2050 is essential to saving the planet from burning up in 2100. Little, tiny Omaha apparently has that power. In order to achieve the net zero carbon goal, OPPD has an ambitious plan to add 1,000 to 1,500 MW of solar and wind power. The belief is that carbon dioxide generated by coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants emit carbon dioxide which causes global warming.

            Statistics Norway, an official agency of the country of Norway, has just debunked that theory. “We find … that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be strong enough to cause systematic changes in temperature fluctuations during the last 200 years.” In other words, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory is the biggest scam in the history of the world. The billions spent on wind and solar power generation has all been for naught. It’s been a giant Keynesian ditch digging scheme.

            Mr. Corbin cites in his October 15 Midlands Voice piece the federal funding available to Nebraska via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This spending bill has fueled our record inflation that only benefits groups favored by the Democrats. Wind and solar already receive huge subsidies. But, per usual, the Left is never satisfied. Our $33 trillion debt will only grow higher as the IRA generates more unreliable power projects.

            People need to appreciate that the IRA creates federal income tax credits. That means that instead of corporations sending their tax money to the Treasury, the corporation gets a dollar-for-dollar credit to their federal tax bill. At a recent Berkshire-Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, CEO Warren Buffett acknowledged that MidAmerican Energy got a $1 billion federal tax credit for its purchase of wind turbines. Mr. Buffett also said that if it wasn’t for the federal tax credits, the wind turbines never would have been purchased. With the IRA, Wall Street will now be able to bundle and sell tax credits.  

            George W. Norris is the father of public power in Nebraska. He was spot on when he wrote, “Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and interests.”