This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, December 30th,

2022. I'm Caleb Brown. Energy grids throughout the US are

notoriously complex and when balancing the environmental impact against the cost of various forms of energy,

many policy makers have made some profound discoveries about economic trade-offs, actual

environmental impact, and externalities. Andre Bellavo of the actual environmental

actual environmental impact and externalities.

Andre Bellavo of the John Locke Center in North Carolina

makes the case for considering a broader range of environmentally friendly energy.

For states that want to be attractive to business, an absolutely key component of that is energy production

about the cost of energy.

In some states more than others.

It might be, you know, how environmentally friendly

is that energy production, that sort of thing.

What is North Carolina done and why do you think it holds promise for other states?

Sure, so one of the things that our state legislature has done is mandated carbon reduction into statute.

So what does that mean?

It means while they didn't say what

energy sources could be used, they did set forward guardrails like the energy

sources have to be at least cost to ratepayersers. The energy fuel sources that are chosen cannot

jeopardize the reliability of the grid. So while that helps, as rate payers in mind, also helps

making sure we don't have rolling blackouts like in other places.

It also makes us attractive to companies who have their own environmental goals.

...