MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-02-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] The war on natural gas will soon be coming home
|
nypost.com
Favoring renewable energy over natural gas investment has led to the
mess in Texas
Kevin D. Williamson
6-7 minutes
February 20, 2021 | 12:14pm | Updated February 20, 2021 | 12:14pm
Enlarge Image
A line forms outside HEB grocery store in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 17 as
millions in the state go without power, partly thanks to outdated
natural gas pipeline infrastructure.
A line forms outside HEB grocery store in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 17 as
millions in the state go without power, partly thanks to outdated
natural gas pipeline infrastructure. Bloomberg via Getty Images
I’m writing from Texas, so I’ll try to finish this column before the
electricity goes out.
As you may have heard, we’ve had an unusually powerful winter storm down
here and, in spite of the fact that every third household has a
four-wheel-drive super-duty pickup truck, Texas has come to a
standstill. When a little bit of ice settled on the freeway, a half a
dozen people lost their lives in the ensuing 135-car pileup.
Meanwhile, after years of mocking Californians for their self-imposed
energy troubles, Texans are experiencing rolling blackouts — and a whole
lot of blackouts that refuse to roll on but instead sit obstinately in
place — because our power grid cannot keep up with the spike in demand.
As in California, Texas’s energy scarcity is largely artificial: The
state produces an extraordinary amount of natural gas, but there has
been a woeful underinvestment in infrastructure ranging from pipelines
to winterizing equipment at utilities. You may as well not have the fuel
at all if you can’t get it to where it’s needed or use it once it’s there.
What Texas has invested in is renewables, especially wind. These have
performed especially poorly: The state’s electric-grid regulator reports
that though wind and solar still make up a relatively small share of the
state’s overall energy mix, they accounted for 40 percent of the
capacity shut down by the storm: Out of the 45 gigawatts that went dark,
18 gigawatts were from wind and solar.
Wind is in many ways a good bet for Texas, especially in the western and
northern parts of the state, the Saudi Arabia of gales. The sunny parts
of the state also generate a fair bit of solar power, which also is
welcome. The problem is that these power sources are unreliable. Solar
panels don’t work with a couple of inches of snow on top of them, and an
icy storm can cause those massive wind turbines to freeze up and stop
working. As of right now, most of those Texas turbines are not
functioning power sources — they are modern art.
It may seem perverse to think about global warming when it’s so cold
outside, but the situation in Texas speaks directly to that question.
There are good-faith disputes to be had about climate policy.
The Left wants to use the threat of climate change as a license to
remake the entire economy and government along its preferred lines —
energy policy, yes, but also everything from transportation to
architecture, and from labor law to foreign relations and trade. The
argument for replacing natural-gas electricity with wind and solar is
that reducing our use of fossil fuels could, if the practice were
widespread enough, help to mitigate the effects of climate change
already underway.
Karla Perez and Esperanza Gonzalez stay in their apartment during a
power outage caused by the winter storm on February 16, 2021 in Houston,
Texas.
Karla Perez and Esperanza Gonzalez stay in their apartment during a
power outage caused by the winter storm on Feb. 16 in Houston, Texas.
Getty Images
But there is another way to look at the question. If the predictions are
correct and we are set to experience more extreme weather events,
including unusually powerful winter storms, then it may be more
advisable to invest in adaptation than in the much more uncertain
project of severely limiting greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, a
global effort that would require the willing and honest cooperation of
countries such as India and China, which are unlikely to comply.
We have a great deal of natural gas in the United States, but we have an
infrastructure that is inadequate, which makes much of that fuel useless
in a situation such as this one. We need more oil-and-gas pipeline
capacity rather than less — an issue the Biden administration is on the
wrong side of. Gas-fired electricity plants are much cleaner than
coal-fired plants, and they rely on a fuel that we have in abundance. We
should be adding gas-fired generating capacity on a large scale. And
rather than try to figure out how to run a modern industrial economy on
pixie dust and unicorn power, we might invest some of that money in
making sure the infrastructure we already have will function in the
conditions we can expect.
Out of the 45 gigawatts of power that went dark during the storm, 18
gigawatts were from wind and solar.
Out of the 45 gigawatts of power that went dark during the storm, 18
gigawatts were from wind and solar.
Corbis via Getty Images
Of course, we could add a great deal of electricity capacity at a very
low carbon cost, if we were so inclined: That means more nuclear power —
which, unlike wind and solar, provides a reliable baseline of
generation. The new flexible reactors being developed by Bill Gates’
TerraPower could be a game-changer — and the challenges to nuclear power
are more a matter of finance and regulation than of science and
engineering. Making it easier to bring nuclear power online is something
that can be fixed by policy.
Climate change is not, in spite of the insistence of some of my
conservative friends, a hoax. But conceding the reality of it is not the
same as conceding the Left’s far-reaching schemes, up to and including
the so-called Green New Deal. Instead, we should be looking at making
intelligent, economical decisions that maximize the use of the desirable
resources we already have at our command, balancing environmental
concerns with other pressing questions, such as being able to keep
Americans’ houses heated and their lights on when a little snow falls in
San Antonio.
Kevin D. Williamson’s book “Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold
Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the ‘Real America’”
(Regnery) is out now.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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