The cost of energy in Texas is between a third and two thirds less than in California. The reason is simple. First, Texas allows the consumer to choose its utility provider, California mandates you take the one given a government monopoly. Second, Texas allows the utilities to use the most advance, efficient, clean energy possible—California forces you to buy unreliable, unstable very expensive alternative energy. This is part of the reason families and firms are fleeing California for Texas.
“The Golden State has been trying for years to get rid of all of its fossil fuel generation capacity. Spreading a mythological doom-and-gloom narrative about catastrophic, world-ending climate change, California’s government has nonetheless moved toward shuttering all of its carbon-free nuclear power plants in favor of creating a grid based almost entirely on wind and solar power.
There is just one problem with this: It cannot be done, at least not with existing technology.
Not only has this forced upon Californians electricity prices 80% higher than the national average, but it has also saddled them with a power grid that relies far too heavily on intermittent (that is, unreliable) sources of electricity. Wind power only works when the wind blows. Solar cannot generate electricity at night.
Economic and scientific illiterates are running California—ideologues that hate the middle class have forced decent people, for their own economic survival and physical safety to leave the State. Energy policy is one of the causes of the collapse of California.
California wises up and chooses natural gas
by Washington Examiner, 8/28/21
Eventually, reality catches up with you — even in California.
The Golden State has been trying for years to get rid of all of its fossil fuel generation capacity. Spreading a mythological doom-and-gloom narrative about catastrophic, world-ending climate change, California’s government has nonetheless moved toward shuttering all of its carbon-free nuclear power plants in favor of creating a grid based almost entirely on wind and solar power.
There is just one problem with this: It cannot be done, at least not with existing technology.
Not only has this forced upon Californians electricity prices 80% higher than the national average, but it has also saddled them with a power grid that relies far too heavily on intermittent (that is, unreliable) sources of electricity. Wind power only works when the wind blows. Solar cannot generate electricity at night.
And so temporarily, or so they say, the state has been forced to set up five natural gas power plants in order to avoid rolling blackouts. This move is the result of an emergency order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month.
We hate to be cynical, but we wonder whether the sudden adoption of gas power is an effort to spare Newsom additional political damage in the last weeks leading up to the Sept. 14 recall election being held against him.
Even so, it is doing the right thing.
This spring, when some uninsulated natural gas pipelines failed in Texas, the nation received a lesson in what happens when a massive swathe of one’s generating capacity cannot be counted on to produce anything. Texas, a national leader in wind power due to huge government subsidies, suffered destructive blackouts amid freezing weather while its windmills sat by in forced idleness.
Renewable power advocates were quick to point out that no one was counting on wind power for much at that time of year, but their response merely begs the question. One can always insulate gas lines, but why would anyone invest so much in a resource like wind that can’t be counted on when it is most needed?
The good news is that natural gas is an ideal partner for intermittent sources of power such as solar and wind. When the sun goes down, gas can be ramped up quickly to provide needed electricity. When the wind surges or dies down, gas can easily be turned up or down by degrees to compensate.
Because natural gas emits only half the carbon dioxide that coal emits per unit of energy, it has allowed the United States to reduce the carbon footprint of its electrical utilities significantly over the last 15 years. In fact, thanks to fracking and the cheaper price of natural gas, and not at all thanks to environmentalists or Greta Thunberg or dire predictions that global warming will end the universe in 12 years, the U.S. has regularly led the world in emissions reductions.
If you really believe that carbon emissions are threatening life on Earth within the next century or two, then the answer is to embrace nuclear power. France showed that this can be done in the late 20th century. Nuclear power is reliable, safe, and completely carbon-free.
On the other hand, if global warming isn’t a big enough deal to take such a measure, then natural gas is a terrific resource that the U.S. possesses in abundance.
Good on California for recognizing this reality, albeit temporarily, and telling its local Chicken Littles to pound sand.
