“The answer to ensuring a reliable and affordable supply of electricity in Texas is not more subsidies, it is less subsidies. It is getting politicians out of the electricity business.” (Bill Peacock, below)
“The conundrum is that the greater the overall share of renewables in the energy mix, the more customers will have to spend on these largely redundant backups.” (Financial Times, below)
Economists have warned against central planning where a government monopoly is invoked and decisions are made from the center. Free-market analysts also long warned Texas that the government-enabled takeover of the grid with wind and solar (dilute, intermittent all) would cripple the ability of the reliables (gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear) to make the grid stable and secure, short of ‘Acts of God.’
But Acts of Political Man won out, and the Great Texas Blackout of February 2021 happened.…
“In a free energy market, Solar + Wind would be whittled down to less than 1-2% of total electricity on [India’s] Grid.” (C. S. Krishandev, below)
“Yokosuka is one of the 22 new coal-fired power plants planned to be built in Japan by 2025, and it is the only coal-fired facility being constructed in Japan’s Greater Tokyo area.” (NS Energy, below)
Two recent social media posts by independent energy consultant C. S. Krishnadev provide an interesting look at recent coal developments. One is on India electricity demand, the other on a coal-for-oil/gas plant conversion in Japan. The upshot: Coal has many decades left as a primary energy to generate electricity.
Krishnadev provided an interesting update on India’s electrical generation mix:
…In a 24 hr period, India consumes 4.2 billion Kwh of electricity.
“But make no mistake, [Bradley]’s as venomous an antinuke as the most biased Greenpeacer.” (Colin Hunt, Canadian Nuclear Society)
Social media exchanges are educational and informative. Going head-to-head with an intellectual foe is a great opportunity to learn and unmask error–and to find out what you do not know. I report, you decide on the exchanges below, which get into some basic issues and the history of a troubled, government-subsidized technology.
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This LinkedIn exchange began with a post by Chris Keefer, Physician and President Canadians for Nuclear Energy:
Nuclear to the rescue. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Nuclear is best suited to replace many fossil fuel services. When fossil fuels become constrained nuclear doesn’t just become attractive, it becomes inevitable.
I responded as follows:
…New nuclear capacity is just way too expensive and complicated compared to the alternatives.