New Englanders would save hundreds of billions of dollars and avoid deadly power blackouts by replacing state-mandated renewable energy projects with nuclear and natural gas power, a study released today by a coalition of New England think tanks finds.

Alternatives to New England’s Affordability Crisis, a new study released by a coalition of New England’s free-market think tanks, estimated the effects of trying to meet the region’s energy needs through 2050 with nuclear and natural gas plants instead of wind and solar power. 

The findings are striking:

•     Meeting New England’s 2050 energy needs with nuclear power would cost $415.3 billion and reduce the region’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 92%. 

•     Meeting the region’s 2050 energy needs with natural gas would cost $106.9 billion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 24.5%.

•     Meeting the region’s 2050 energy needs with a mix of nuclear and natural gas plants would cost $195.8 billion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent.

Each of these options comes with the added benefit of avoiding power blackouts caused by relying too heavily on wind and solar power, which cannot run continuously, as nuclear and natural gas plants can. 

All of the nuclear and natural gas options are significantly more affordable than the construction required by current renewable energy mandates imposed by five of the six New England states. 

Meeting the region’s energy demand by sticking with those renewable energy mandates due to the NetZero by 2050 climate mandate would cost New Englanders a stunning $815 billion, the coalition found in its previous 2024 study. That’s $399.5 billion more than it would cost to go nuclear and $708 billion more than it would cost to build more natural gas plants. 

“Again, we see that New England states would better serve their residents by adopting reality-based energy policies that prioritize reliability and costs. And again, New Hampshire leads the way,” said Drew Cline, President of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy.

“Affordability is the No. 1 political issue in the United States as we head into 2026. Any New England politician who wants to actually make substantial progress on affordability needs to read this report. Electricity prices are a top contributor to New England’s high cost of living. In building enough energy generation to meet the region’s needs in 2050, our report shows that energy prices would increase by 64.8 percent in the Nuclear scenario, 26.5 percent in the Happy Medium scenario, and just 13 percent in the Natural Gas scenario. These increases are a fraction of the Renewable scenario, which would increase prices by 126.4 percent,” Cline said.

The report did not calculate the cost savings to New Hampshire residents by our state’s continued reliance on natural gas. Instead, those cost savings are spread throughout the region.

By building a network of energy generation already focused on nuclear and natural gas, New Hampshire has kept its own costs lower than they otherwise would be, and also kept costs lower for the entire region. 

This report shows that if the rest of New England adopted New Hampshire’s approach, the entire region would save hundreds of billions of dollars, avoid dangerous energy shortages, and still make progress on emissions reductions. 

Our previous report in 2024 found that “the Granite State’s lack of electrification mandates for transportation and home heating reduces the projected peak system demand from 57 GW to 52.5 GW, and the continued use of natural gas provides critical dispatchable capacity for the system, allowing it to perform better during periods of low wind and solar output.”

“New Hampshire’s current energy policies would save all New Englanders $56.5 billion during the time period studied,” the report found.

New Hampshire has been a political pariah in New England for pursuing a reality-based energy policy focused on reliability and affordability. Political and media leaders from around the region boasted that their policies were virtuous and New Hampshire’s were selfish and immoral. Now, with the challenges of relying on wind and solar power in our region more clearly understood, policymakers in the Northeast have begun shifting more toward New Hampshire’s way of thinking about energy generation.

The new study was conducted by Always on Energy Research on behalf of the Maine Policy Institute, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, and the Yankee Institute, along with Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

The study draws on data from ISO-New England, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the Weldon Cooper Center and includes detailed modeling of generation capacity, cost-of-service, and peak demand scenarios through 2050.

Alternatives to New England’s Affordability Crisis offers a fact-based framework for policymakers, regulators, and the public to assess the economic and reliability consequences of competing energy strategies.

The full study can be found here: 1.13.2026 Alternatives to New Englands Energy Affordability Crisis.