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Cheap/clean energy and Texas don’t seem to line up. They have an oil and natural gas monopoly that goes all the way up to their elected officials. It’s literall

Cheap/clean energy and Texas don’t seem to line up. They have an oil and natural gas monopoly that goes all the way up to their elected officials. It’s literally why they had that massive grid failure. It wasn’t a capacity issue it was just greed.

jeffbee 3y ago
Texas nevertheless enjoys an abundance of renewable energy sources. They have more than any other state including California and are adding more faster than any other state. Their renewable fraction is still not as high as California, because they use so much more energy, but their absolute numbers are very high. Texas also has a natural advantage that their solar resources are far to the west of their population centers, so their "duck curve" looks a little more tolerable.
philwelch 3y ago
Texas produces the most wind power and the second most solar power of any American state. The most recent power shortage in September was caused by low evening winds; the US DoE responded by allowing Texas to temporarily exceed emissions limits from their gas plants: https://www.ercot.com/about/legal/doe202c https://www.ercot.com/about/legal/doe202c
singhrac 3y ago
Texas exists at the crossroads of both the Midwestern Wind Belt (actually, it gets SE coastal wind too) and the Sun Belt. Also, it has large open areas that are sparsely inhabited, pretty much ideal for building large renewable power plants. The only challenge is paying for transmission. There's a huge oil & gas industry too, but that energy is more easily exportable (see e.g. Freeport LNG), which can put a floor on prices.
beepbooptheory 3y ago
Indeed, 2021 was absolutely terrible: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis especially enraging to me: > To cover debt incurred due to high natural gas prices, utilities outside Texas have had to raise prices. Oklahoma Natural Gas is charging customers up to $7.80 per month for the next 25 years to securitize its costs of $1.4 billion during the crisis.[133] The natural gas industry reaped a windfall profit of $11 billion during the crisis.[22] Texas gas utilities were permitted by the Railroad Commission to issue bonds to cover what they paid to suppliers, to be paid off by customers. Municipal gas companies have also added surcharges to bills
nunez 3y ago
Texas has the biggest wind farm output in the US (5th biggest in the world) and the biggest solar power potential in the US.

jeffbee 3y ago

Texas nevertheless enjoys an abundance of renewable energy sources. They have more than any other state including California and are adding more faster than any other state. Their renewable fraction is still not as high as California, because they use so much more energy, but their absolute numbers are very high. Texas also has a natural advantage that their solar resources are far to the west of their population centers, so their "duck curve" looks a little more tolerable.

philwelch 3y ago

Texas produces the most wind power and the second most solar power of any American state. The most recent power shortage in September was caused by low evening winds; the US DoE responded by allowing Texas to temporarily exceed emissions limits from their gas plants: https://www.ercot.com/about/legal/doe202c https://www.ercot.com/about/legal/doe202c

singhrac 3y ago

Texas exists at the crossroads of both the Midwestern Wind Belt (actually, it gets SE coastal wind too) and the Sun Belt. Also, it has large open areas that are sparsely inhabited, pretty much ideal for building large renewable power plants. The only challenge is paying for transmission. There's a huge oil & gas industry too, but that energy is more easily exportable (see e.g. Freeport LNG), which can put a floor on prices.

beepbooptheory 3y ago

Indeed, 2021 was absolutely terrible: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis especially enraging to me: > To cover debt incurred due to high natural gas prices, utilities outside Texas have had to raise prices. Oklahoma Natural Gas is charging customers up to $7.80 per month for the next 25 years to securitize its costs of $1.4 billion during the crisis.[133] The natural gas industry reaped a windfall profit of $11 billion during the crisis.[22] Texas gas utilities were permitted by the Railroad Commission to issue bonds to cover what they paid to suppliers, to be paid off by customers. Municipal gas companies have also added surcharges to bills

nunez 3y ago

Texas has the biggest wind farm output in the US (5th biggest in the world) and the biggest solar power potential in the US.