Facing Brutal Heat, the Texas Electric Grid Has a New Ally: Solar Power
Facing Brutal Heat, the Texas Electric Grid Has a New Ally: Solar Power
The amount of solar energy generated in Texas has grown exponentially. Some Republicans question the state’s increasing reliance on renewable power.
TX lawmakers are going to doom the state, again. "make no mistake, the 9th largest economy in the world runs on natural gas" - more like the largest laughing stock in the world blacked out the whole state on natural gas...
Wind was hit far less by the 2021 freeze, and solar was hardly impacted at all. Meanwhile, they continue to advocate for overreliance on under equipped natural gas facilities that completely failed to maintain functionality - shutting down TX for days, and killing 200 people as a result. Solar is the best option they have to prevent it from happening again, short of a total power grid overhaul, but instead of celebrating growth there, they decide to fearmonger about scary renewables.
They came really close this year - one vote away from basically banning new large-scale renewable energy deployments.
Environmentalism must be local. One of my major criticisms of environmental political movements is that they advocate the same policies for Anchorage and Anaheim.
I think it's really stupid where I live to invest in solar because capacity collapses in winter and up here winter is a primary time energy needs to be used, and the geography for hydroelectric power exists and is proven to produce enough electricity to lower electricity prices enough to justify switching home heating from fossil fuels to electric. Texas on the other hand will pretty much always need the most energy in summer and particularly on sunny days, so it seems like a great choice.
One thing we always always need to remember is that industrial scale electricity generation is always going to have an environmental impact, and not using energy is not an option. For that reason, we need to understand that solar farms are going to have an environmentally back. The production of solar panels is going to have an environmental impact. Action of hydroelectric energy is going to have an environmental impact. And of course, burning fossil fuels is obviously going to have an environmental impact. Our choice is not to let everybody die from lack of energy for essential services or not, it's how to best balance long term environmental impacts with immediate needs for energy to make sure people survive and thrive.