Obits for Texas renewables can be shelved for now. Efforts in legislature to slow the rapid growth of wind and solar were stymied last night. Strong interests still back renewables in the state, which lower energy costs, even if governor is not among the supporters. @ckrausss
The Texas Legislature blinked and, and the last minute, blunted, a push to essentially destroy the fantastically successful clean energy industry in the state.
“In a legislative session that saw an unprecedented effort to hogtie the growth of wind and solar energy, we are thankful that the Legislature ultimately rejected the measures most damaging to clean energy. Renewable energy is reducing pollution, saving consumers money, and playing a critical role in powering the grid.
“The anti-renewable efforts were premised on a false claim. Lt. Gov Patrick claimed that “renewable energy failed to keep the lights on for millions of Texans” during Winter Storm Uri. Multiple studies and fact-checkers have found such claims are not true. While every energy source struggled under the extreme cold, failure to weatherize gas power plants and the gas supply chain were primarily responsible for the blackouts. Doubling down on gas is not going to make our grid more reliable, but it is going to make electricity more expensive and more polluting.
“We need, and Texans want, more clean energy, not less. There is strong support for more wind and solar energy, more battery storage, more energy efficiency, and more interconnection with the national grid. Unfortunately, the Legislature ignored these solutions to strengthen our electric grid while protecting consumers and the environment.”
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The aborted effort does illustrate the success that the fossil fuel industry, through its vast network of influence, has had in positioning clean energy as a culture war issue. Paul Krugman has a take.
Here’s how it works. A significant faction of Americans, which increasingly dominates the Republican Party, hates anything it considers woke — which in this faction’s eyes means both any acknowledgment of social injustice and any suggestion that people should make sacrifices, or even accept mild inconvenience, in the name of the public good. So there’s rage against the idea that racism was and still is an evil for which society should make some amends; there’s also rage against the idea that people should, say, wear masks during a pandemic to protect others, or cut down on activities that harm the environment.
This rage is somewhat understandable, if not forgivable. But the weird thing is the way that it infects attitudes on issues that don’t actually involve wokeism but are seen as woke-adjacent.
The now-classic example is the way hostility to mask mandates, which were mainly about protecting others, turned into highly partisan opposition to Covid vaccination, which is mainly about protecting yourself. Logically, this carry-over makes no sense; but it happened anyway.
The same thing, I’d argue, applies to energy policy. At this point, investing in renewable energy is simply a good business proposition; Texas Republicans have had to abandon their own free-market, anti-regulation ideology in the effort to strangle wind and solar power. But renewable energy is something environmentalists favor; it’s being promoted by the Biden administration. So in the minds of Texas right-wingers the wind has become woke, and wind power has become something to be fought even if it hurts business and costs the state both money and jobs.
If all this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. But that’s Texas — and, I fear, much of America — in 2023.
It’s what we’ve been seeing across the midwest for more than a decade – the effort has been to tribalize clean energy, and it’s had some success, as illustrated by the memes below. As ridiculous as they sound, – what is the connection between clean energy and Obamacare? – the logic, from the fossil fuel persuader’s perspective, is, to connect clean energy with the culture wars, with another tribe, with the black President, with AOC, with abortion, with gun control, with everything “we” hate about “them”.
Argh. This is ridiculously stupid — infantile resentment (“I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue”), incited by liars aiming to fill their own pockets, no matter what the consequences for the future. I think we should change our scientific name: calling ourselves “Homo Sapiens” is a blatant act of self-deception.
The thing is as biased as someone might be by tribalism in the end dollars will win. Either because as in case of land- and offshore-based wind, or solar PV generation, or EVs vs ICEs, these are each all cheaper, as well as emissions lower, and healthier, for users and makers
Wind and solar do NOT make electricity cheaper! They need more land, transmission, non-existent storage and backup. This backup is mostly gas. The more wind and solar you add, the more expensive this backup becomes because of underutilization. California, which can run almost fully on the worst kind of RE (solar during the afternoon spike) generates half its electricity from gas.
This is not true for U.S. East Coast offshore wind and not true for networked solar, like Community Choice.
Even our own solar in Massachusetts on a property with many trees only is offline significant time with heavy snowfall covering panels, and most of those days we use power we have generated and saved at the utility.
Solar generates a bunch from open blue sky as well as clouds and direct sunlight.
If there’s a dam with turbines and generators, it can store a lot of energy. Hydrogen from electrolysis can too. As can water pumped to be stored at 50 m depth.
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You make a big deal of the old system’s flat availability throughout the night.
The ideal energy supply matches the energy demand curve, but that doesn’t exist. In the past, utilities have set up programs* to change the energy demand curve to use the otherwise unneeded power supplied by thermal plants (including nuclear) overnight. That is, much of the overnight demand has been artificially inflated to compensate for the less flexible power supply of the old days.
By more modern methods of tying the cost to the difference between supply and demand, and making that information available to energy consumers, companies will have a means to automatically shift their own use profile, including buffering energy with on-site storage.
______
*Like having buildings install equipment to make ice overnight for cooling during the day.
Why are you more worried about land use of solar farms than about the 10x amount used for inefficient corn ethanol? Are you pretending that dual-use applications for solar farms (co-existing agriculture) don’t exist? Are building roofs and parking lots useful for any other form of energy generation? Do increasing household and community energy storage for their PV installations not count?
Why are you declaring grid storage “non-existent” when the MISO grid alone has 300 active connection projects and MISO formally added Electric Storage Resource (ESR) to their portfolio in Q3 2022?
Uncheck Select All and select only Battery Storage:
PG&E has had to take time to design interface standards for use by the great demand for various California Independent System Operators (CAISO) storage providers. (How long did it take to design your favorite nuclear fucking power plants?)
I seethe when people make a big deal about RE subsidies while neglecting the ongoing high military and political cost of protecting the oil&gas industry.
That Kevon sure seems to be a real peach.
I’m wondering what in the heck Peter is going to do with all those guns.
Probably put them under or into his bed, where he is corrupting farmers, don’t you know.
Argh. This is ridiculously stupid — infantile resentment (“I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue”), incited by liars aiming to fill their own pockets, no matter what the consequences for the future. I think we should change our scientific name: calling ourselves “Homo Sapiens” is a blatant act of self-deception.
“Homo Saps”
Keeper.
That should be “Homo sapiens”…
The thing is as biased as someone might be by tribalism in the end dollars will win. Either because as in case of land- and offshore-based wind, or solar PV generation, or EVs vs ICEs, these are each all cheaper, as well as emissions lower, and healthier, for users and makers
Wind and solar do NOT make electricity cheaper! They need more land, transmission, non-existent storage and backup. This backup is mostly gas. The more wind and solar you add, the more expensive this backup becomes because of underutilization. California, which can run almost fully on the worst kind of RE (solar during the afternoon spike) generates half its electricity from gas.
This is not true for U.S. East Coast offshore wind and not true for networked solar, like Community Choice.
Even our own solar in Massachusetts on a property with many trees only is offline significant time with heavy snowfall covering panels, and most of those days we use power we have generated and saved at the utility.
Solar generates a bunch from open blue sky as well as clouds and direct sunlight.
Solar gives zero energy anywhere in the US when it’s noon in China. Although I suppose you could count minor territories like Guam.
As I wrote, Eversource can serve as a BIG battery, as can batteries at our neighbors and, soon, those in our and their EVs.
If there’s a dam with turbines and generators, it can store a lot of energy. Hydrogen from electrolysis can too. As can water pumped to be stored at 50 m depth.
You make a big deal of the old system’s flat availability throughout the night.
The ideal energy supply matches the energy demand curve, but that doesn’t exist. In the past, utilities have set up programs* to change the energy demand curve to use the otherwise unneeded power supplied by thermal plants (including nuclear) overnight. That is, much of the overnight demand has been artificially inflated to compensate for the less flexible power supply of the old days.
By more modern methods of tying the cost to the difference between supply and demand, and making that information available to energy consumers, companies will have a means to automatically shift their own use profile, including buffering energy with on-site storage.
______
*Like having buildings install equipment to make ice overnight for cooling during the day.
Tell me about the land that wind uses.
Why are you more worried about land use of solar farms than about the 10x amount used for inefficient corn ethanol? Are you pretending that dual-use applications for solar farms (co-existing agriculture) don’t exist? Are building roofs and parking lots useful for any other form of energy generation? Do increasing household and community energy storage for their PV installations not count?
Why are you declaring grid storage “non-existent” when the MISO grid alone has 300 active connection projects and MISO formally added Electric Storage Resource (ESR) to their portfolio in Q3 2022?
Uncheck
Select Alland select onlyBattery Storage:https://giqueue.misoenergy.org/PublicGiQueueMap/index.html
PG&E has had to take time to design interface standards for use by the great demand for various California Independent System Operators (CAISO) storage providers. (How long did it take to design your favorite nuclear fucking power plants?)
So Peter, are farmers fans of widespread ownership of AR-15s rather than just hunting rifles and anti-varmint shotguns?
I seethe when people make a big deal about RE subsidies while neglecting the ongoing high military and political cost of protecting the oil&gas industry.