“We can push solar, and that’s great. But somebody’s got to pay for it. You can’t have those who can barely afford their energy bills subsidizing it.”
– Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner, quoted in the Houston Chronicle
The Houston Democrat made a national statement, not just statewide one, in reference to proposed legislation to surcharge ratepayers to subsidize solar roofs. Such sentiment beat back a well-funded effort by national environmental pressure groups and the solar industry. Has the decade-old Enron-launched artificial stimulus to uneconomic, unreliable renewables reached its apogee? Might existing and planned renewable programs enacted at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers be reconsidered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the 82nd Texas Legislature in 2011?
Background
The Texas Legislature, which meets every two years, fell to Enron and environmental lobbyists back in 1999 when the nation’s strictest renewable energy mandate was passed and signed into law by then Gov.…
Continue ReadingThe steady winds of New Zealand have allowed the country’s wind turbines to have the highest capacity factors for the wind in the world (around 37–40 percent). However, wind still has a cost premium to alternatives and is intermittent. In addition, output is about 10 percent below average in the autumn and early winter when it is most needed in New Zealand. The country’s abundant hydro resources (and pumped storage) cannot rescue wind from its intermittency and seasonality problems.
Prospectively, greater reliance on wind from government edicts is throwing good money after bad. Non-intermittent sources are far cheaper, not just reliable. A let-the-market-decide policy is needed in New Zealand as for the rest of the world.
Background
The enthusiasm for renewable energy in the form of windpower, marine power, and the like, is driven by a belief that man-made greenhouse gases will cause dangerous global warming and that large-scale adoption of these technologies will “fight climate change.”…
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