West Texas Renewable Projects Offer Hope

A couple of weeks ago I drove to Santa Fe, NM to visit a client and as I passed the area near Big Spring, TX I saw three very large clusters of windmills. I didn’t try to count them as that wouldn’t have been safe to do at 75 mph but I could see that there very many. Now two weeks later I’m reminded of those windmills again as I see news reports of the massive hurricane that destroyed Grand Bahama Island and threatens much of the east coast of the United States. I’m reminded because there is little question that hurricane Dorian is as powerful and slow moving as it is because global climate change has led to warmer air and seas which are the fuel for hurricanes.

Wind has generated 22% of the Texas’ electrical needs this year slightly more than the provided 21% provided by coal according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Just sixteen years ago, in 2003, wind made up less than 1% of the state's power, and coal satisfied 40% of electrical needs, according to ERCOT documents.

In 2017 utility scale solar generation is Texas equaled what wind generated back in 2003. Utility scale means a project big enough for a utility to buy from. By the end of this year it will be double that and indications are it will double again within the next year or two. Distributed solar generation, meaning primarily rooftop installations, provides about 25% as much as utility scale facilities at this time.

Projections indicate that Texas will become the second most prolific generator electricity from solar by 2021, as more solar farms are built in West Texas near existing wind farms. Investments in transmission lines to accommodate wind generators making building solar farms nearby very cost efficient because solar and wind energy production mostly occur at different times a day allowing them to share those transmission lines.

Despite the tariffs on Chinese solar panels imposed by the Trump administration, the price of solar power continues to drop so that every year electricity from solar energy gets a little cheaper while coal and natural gas costs are basically the same as the prior year and nuclear just keeps getting more expensive. It's often more cost effective to build a new solar plant than it is to keep running an existing coal power plant or gas plant.

Solar alone employs around 330,000 people in the United States while wind employs about 110,000. Coal mining and generation employs about 140,000. Taken together wind and solar energy jobs nearly triple the number of coal related jobs in the electricity sector.
Seeing that more than two thirds of Grand Bahama Island are now underwater should make anyone who believes climate change is not a big deal or a long way off rethink that position. The growth of renewable energy generation in Texas makes clear that what needs to be done to avoid the worst of the damage global climate change can cause it just takes the will to do it. We as voters must demand that our elected officials take this problem seriously and adjust the incentives and tax breaks offered to the energy industry in Texas and the nation to encourage speeding up the build out of renewable energy projects for the sake of our future and that of future generations.

To paraphrase Wendell Berry: We don't inherit the climate from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 6, 2019

The Cost of Trump's Fossil Fuel Agenda

2016 was the hottest year on record and as we’re experiencing right now, 2017 is already showing signs of another record setting hot year. Trump and his Republican enablers continue to deny the existence of global climate change. Trump even claims it’s a hoax perpetrated by China of all places. Apparently he hasn’t seen studies proving the Arctic ice cap is shrinking or the massive crack in the Antarctic ice shelf Larsen C that once it breaks loose will make an iceberg the size of the state of Delaware. Republicans in general deny that the carbon dioxide we’ve been spewing into the atmosphere for the last hundred years can affect the global climate but the numbers don’t lie. Our auto and power generation emissions have increased for decades and as the rest of the world’s economies have grown so have their emissions.

Even China, the world’s greatest polluter, recognizes the problem. Earlier this month China’s energy agency vowed to spend more than $360 billion on solar and wind and other renewable energy projects by 2020 in order to cut smog levels and carbon emissions while creating 13 million jobs in the process. While Republicans roll back efforts to build a clean energy economy in the United States, an industry that could employ ten times as many people as coal and gas generation China is taking advantage of the situation to be seen as a clean energy leader in the Third World. Chinese leaders recognize the opportunity to exert soft power and bring more countries into their sphere of influence.

Instead of moving forward on clean energy Trump promises to bring back coal mining jobs which is a fools errand if only on the grounds that coal is too expensive compared to the alternatives now available in form of natural gas. Wind and solar energy projects are now often competitive on cost with even natural gas so why even bother with coal? Of course one way to make it cheaper is to eliminate environmental rules regarding the waste from coal mines and that’s just what he’s done by rescinding the Stream Protection Rule which would have made it tougher to dump mining waste into nearby waterways.

The Republican energy program relies on fossil fuels thus damaging our environment through polluting our air and water with mercury, arsenic and other toxins. Their fossil fuel agenda also costs the economy in terms of the lost opportunity for job creation. The Trump/Republican energy agenda also harms us through our loss of international influence both in the developed and third world. The only beneficiaries of their agenda are the billionaires in the fossil fuel industry who finance their political campaigns.

Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." I think this clearly explains Republican intransigence but I have to wonder how long Republicans can persist in lying to the American people given that record setting high temperatures are likely to be set again in 2017 and beyond. I suppose if Exxon became a solar or wind energy company Republicans would overnight become firm believers in global climate change and clean energy advocates.