Policies that make energy scarce and expensive, promoted by wealthy elites, result in domestic unrest while diminishing a nation’s ability to vigorously pursue its national interests. Since 2011, this has been the case in Egypt, France, Kazakhstan, Germany, and others. Even California and Texas are grappling with similar problems.
Texas is approaching the one-year anniversary of its epic four-day electrical blackout, triggered by a polar vortex bringing record cold and freezing rain, but exacerbated by the state’s growing dependence on federally subsidized unreliable wind and solar.
That conservative Texas, America’s energy capital, isn’t immune to the trendy push to decarbonize at all costs, should be a warning that the forces of energy chaos are formidable. Decades of federal subsidies for wind and solar have caused those resources to be overbuilt in the Lone Star State, leading to extreme price volatility and distorted, sometimes even negative, wholesale prices.
Texas’s energy-only market relies on prices alone to incentivize new investment, and subsidies for more variable energy mean that the reliability of coal, natural gas, and nuclear is not properly valued. As a result, year after year, wind and solar capacity grow while coal and natural gas generation atrophy.
As this happens, the grid becomes more and more prone to blackouts — unless backup power sources are constructed. The question is, who pays? So far, reliability costs have been borne by consumers, giving unreliable wind and solar generators a free ride to produce electricity whenever they can and not paying for the cost of backup power or other costs arising from their volatility.
[Interesting Read]
See Also:
(1) EU gets it right on ‘green’ energy
(2) The West’s clean energy push empowered Russia and China
(3) Nova Scotia Power seeks 10 per cent rate hike and system to defer green energy costs
(4) What is green hydrogen and why do we need it? An expert explains
(5) German finmin backs early end to green energy levy
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