“One wonders what might have happened if over the last 20 years or so investors and generators had not been chasing the $21 billion worth of subsidies and benefits they received by building renewable generation in Texas.”

“With economics being about the unseen, not only the seen, it is fair to imagine a more robust, resilient power sector without the grand distraction of integrating intermittent renewables and otherwise ‘decarbonizing.'”

Much debate has ensued since Texas’s rolling blackouts last month in the face of an historic winter storm.

Poor winterization, lack of integration with the national grid, bureaucrats, deregulation, Enron (Ken Lay), and frozen natural gas pipelines have been targeted by politicians and media pundits.

However, the mainstream does not discuss the central player, renewable energies, except to say wind and solar were not the cause.…

ERCOT is chartered by government, directed by government regulation, and governed by government entities. Its funding is from a tax on electric consumers on each monthly bill. The fact that its board is ‘independent’ is a fig leaf, as is its status as a 501c4 organization.

There has been discussion a free-market circles about whether the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is a government agency.

The answer is provided by simple facts provided by ERCOT itself. That ERCOT is chartered as “a membership 501c(4) nonprofit corporation” should not put form over substance, certainly to political economists, not to mention analysts, media, and the general public. [1]

ERCOT is chartered by government, directed by government regulation, and governed by government entities. Its funding is from a surcharge (tax) on electric consumers’ monthly bill.…