Virtually every American has a cellphone. Most have a fridge and freezer — as well as TVs, computers, air conditioning and heating units. As recently as the past 20 years, some of these items were luxuries; today, they are commonplace necessities.

These appliances are part of people’s everyday lives. If the electricity goes out, being unable to charge a phone to get news is a real inconvenience. Having a refrigerator full of spoiled food can be a serious economic setback.

But blackouts can cause an even greater threat. A full 87% of New England households rely on electricity for heat during the cold winter months, whether that means natural gas furnaces, heating oil tanks or heat pumps. Elderly and sick individuals depend on electricity to stay warm and to power their medical devices, including dialysis machines and oxygen concentrators. In those cases, more blackouts mean more fatalities.

Energy instability poses a real threat to New England’s most vulnerable residents. But rolling blackouts (power outages) throughout the winter are part of the region’s future — that is, if regional state governments insist on rigid adherence to “decarbonization plans” that call for at least 80% reductions in their states’ carbon emissions by 2050.

A new joint report, The Staggering Costs of New England’s Green Energy Policies, compiled by Always on Energy Research (AOER) — along with Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy in New Hampshire, the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont, Maine Policy Institute, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation in Massachusetts, Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity and Yankee Institute in Connecticut —finds that residents and businesses can expect their rates to double under the decarbonization regime. Rolling blackouts will occur as “green” energies, like wind and solar, fail to meet electricity demands.

Compliance with the New England Decarbonization Plans would cost $815 billion through 2050. Meanwhile, families would see their electric bills increase by an average of nearly $99 per year; costs for commercial businesses would increase by $489 per year; and the electric bills for industrial (manufacturing) customers would skyrocket by an average of almost $5,280 per year.

Certainly, a cleaner environment is an important and worthy goal. The report finds, however, that a shift to green energy as the region’s primary energy source is not entirely feasible for the electrical grid of ISO-New England — an independent, not-for-profit corporation responsible for keeping electricity flowing across the six New England states. According to AOER and the policy organizations, ISO-NE simply may not be able to power the region within 11 years. What’s more, should the New England states stay on the same “renewable-intensive path, a blackout scenario could be dire indeed.”

To supply New England with constant electricity during a year in which wind and sunshine are plentiful, 225 gigawatts (GW) of renewables would be required — more than 12,000 wind turbines and 129 million solar panels. But in a cloudier year with less wind, even 225 GW wouldn’t be enough — and blackouts should be expected.

As if that weren’t enough, some states and utility companies are considering new Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) proposals. In response, the region’s companies are exploring the introduction of gaseous hydrogen into pipelines to reduce emissions, which could increase the cost of natural gas heating as much as $1,588 a year for every New England ratepayer by 2050. For households grappling with electricity price increases, this will prove a significant hardship.

ESG policies also reduce the potential investment returns for public pension funds, which are already struggling to reach full funding. The Paris Climate Accords, closely associated with ESG policies, are being prioritized over retirement security for thousands of New England state employees and teachers. ESG pension legislation in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island already force pension investors to bypass the most profitable pension investments and divest from potentially lucrative opportunities. Nearly a dozen bills have been introduced in Massachusetts and Connecticut with a similar goal in mind.

Net Zero and ESG policies will cripple economic growth by denying businesses and households the most cost-efficient way to meet their energy needs. Resources that could have been invested in innovation and production will instead be diverted toward meeting arbitrary mandates with few tangible benefits.

In many cases, these policies have been enacted without any effort to quantify the environmental benefits they will secure. New England is responsible for less than 0.4% of global emissions; it is unclear just how much cleaner the environment will become in exchange for the costs that have been imposed on the region and its people.

And those costs are likely to be significant. If New England’s net-zero policies are fully enacted, the region is likely to see a mass exodus of businesses and workers to other regions of the United States.

It is time for a sensible energy policy — one that balances prudent environmental stewardship with economic productivity, growth, prosperity and the interests of the individual ratepayers. That is the way we bequeath to our children an energy-reliable future in a flourishing region as part of a greener and more beautiful world.

Paul D. Craney is the spokesperson for the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. Andy Fowler is the Communications Specialist for the Yankee Institute.