I hope we can break the cycle with hydrogen. It holds so much promise for the medium term future (10+ years out), but with no immediate payback for investors, this is a spot where the federal government can really make an enormous impact... and not just domestically. Fingers crossed!
Not to be a downer here, but the renewable story has 2 problems. First, if we hadn't built all those renewables we'd have built more natural gas plants (something else we have lots of). The easy to permit bits help with those too. (Indeed, we are building more of them https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50436 )
Second, and more importantly, Texas is (surprisingly to outsiders) not especially property rights friendly for landowners in landowner vs utilities fights over eminent domain. (If you want to know why, utilities have lobbyists in Austin, most ordinary people don't). Yes, lots of sun and wind. Sadly mostly far from where people want electricity. Which means we get lots of power lines built via eminent domain. Having had my wife's family's ranch get one of these turkeys, I'm not a fan - and wrote about why at length here, for anyone interested: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/157/ ) That people get stuck with property-devaluing power lines without proper compensation isn't necessarily a reason to not make big bets on renewables but it is a reason why lots of people aren't happy about those bets and why we ought to be thinking more carefully about how we build utility infrastructure. (Robert Bryce has documented rural pushback on renewable projects here: https://robertbryce.com/renewable-rejection-database/
Renewables are more complicated than they appear and a tip off that something is not being presented in a very nuanced way is that it is appearing in the Washington Post.
Texas also spends over $200m a year curtailing excess electricity.
The reality is that Texas is so advanced because they are not regulated - they don't have the interconnections or interdependency with other states but they also don't have to follow FERC/NERC regulations to anywhere the same extent.
Texas is also so advanced because they are the epicenter of cheap natural gas. When natural gas prices rose last year due to a combination of weather in Texas demand and Europe LNG demand, Texas retail electricity prices spiked. So much for alternative energy reducing costs; the experience last year made it clear that Texas has low electricity prices in spite of solar PV and wind - not because of it.
I hope we can break the cycle with hydrogen. It holds so much promise for the medium term future (10+ years out), but with no immediate payback for investors, this is a spot where the federal government can really make an enormous impact... and not just domestically. Fingers crossed!
Not to be a downer here, but the renewable story has 2 problems. First, if we hadn't built all those renewables we'd have built more natural gas plants (something else we have lots of). The easy to permit bits help with those too. (Indeed, we are building more of them https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50436 )
Second, and more importantly, Texas is (surprisingly to outsiders) not especially property rights friendly for landowners in landowner vs utilities fights over eminent domain. (If you want to know why, utilities have lobbyists in Austin, most ordinary people don't). Yes, lots of sun and wind. Sadly mostly far from where people want electricity. Which means we get lots of power lines built via eminent domain. Having had my wife's family's ranch get one of these turkeys, I'm not a fan - and wrote about why at length here, for anyone interested: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/157/ ) That people get stuck with property-devaluing power lines without proper compensation isn't necessarily a reason to not make big bets on renewables but it is a reason why lots of people aren't happy about those bets and why we ought to be thinking more carefully about how we build utility infrastructure. (Robert Bryce has documented rural pushback on renewable projects here: https://robertbryce.com/renewable-rejection-database/
Renewables are more complicated than they appear and a tip off that something is not being presented in a very nuanced way is that it is appearing in the Washington Post.
Texas also spends over $200m a year curtailing excess electricity.
The reality is that Texas is so advanced because they are not regulated - they don't have the interconnections or interdependency with other states but they also don't have to follow FERC/NERC regulations to anywhere the same extent.
Texas is also so advanced because they are the epicenter of cheap natural gas. When natural gas prices rose last year due to a combination of weather in Texas demand and Europe LNG demand, Texas retail electricity prices spiked. So much for alternative energy reducing costs; the experience last year made it clear that Texas has low electricity prices in spite of solar PV and wind - not because of it.
Great speech there by Dimon