Crenshaw wrong on wind and solar energy but right on nuclear
A reasonably informed voter would expect a Houston congressman representing the energy capital of the world to know something about Texas’s electric grid, but U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw demonstrated a deficit of information when trying to impress oil and gas lobbyists last week.
“Nuclear would be a far better energy resource than solar and wind if they cared about zero emissions,” Crenshaw told a virtual energy summit organized by Texas Oil & Gas Association. “So these things don’t work … these are silly solutions. They’re no solutions at all.”
Texas is the nation’s largest producer of wind power, and solar energy is the fastest-growing source of power on the state’s grid. Wind and solar employ 143,000 Texans, and Houston has become a hub for electricity trading.
For reasons I cannot fathom, conservatives such as Crenshaw like to mislead the public about the viability of wind and solar energy, limitless fuels that have kept electricity prices in Texas among the lowest in the nation. The only reason to dislike renewable energy is if your donors and supporters make their money from uncompetitive fossil fuels.
The good congressman clearly has not kept up with the latest developments in battery storage technology. Otherwise, he would stop parroting the tired, old line about the sun not always shining and the wind not always blowing. Times are changing. The old talking points no longer apply.
Crenshaw, who is among the few Republicans acknowledging the need to fight climate change, needs a staff briefing on Texas’s competitive wholesale electricity market, instituted by former Gov. Rick Perry and a very conservative Texas Legislature.
In the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, generators compete to sell electricity. ERCOT starts with the cheapest supplier and keeps contracting for power until the state’s needs are met for the following day. Generators are paid by how much Texans use
and what prices are realized.
Nuclear power plants in Texas operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for most of the year. Unlike natural gas plants, they cannot ramp up and down. They take whatever price they can get, and most of the time, those prices are quite low.
Conservatives will complain that federal tax credits allow wind and solar operators to offer electricity at negative rates, which is true. But that’s not exactly unfair, since fossil fuel plants do not pay taxes on the carbon dioxide they produce.
Nuclear plant owners complain they should get tax credits for carbon-free energy, and it’s not a bad argument. Until you consider the billions of dollars in research and development assistance and crazy tax benefits nuclear power has received from taxpayers over the decades.
Nuclear is arguably the most heavily subsidized form of generation in the country. Meanwhile, the tax credits for wind and solar are expiring over the next few years. But even if nuclear received the same clean energy credits as wind and solar, no new atomic plant could compete with wind, solar or batteries based on the all-in cost, what experts calls the levelized cost of energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Nuclear also has the rather large problem of what to do with the waste. President Donald Trump wants to send it to aWest Texas facility, but even Gov. Greg Abbott last week wrote a letter opposing that plan. With friends like that, nuclear power does not need enemies.
Crenshaw is right about one thing, though. We need to embrace nuclear power to meet our carbon emission goals. People who say otherwise are unrealistic.
We cannot afford to shut down the reactors we have now, and we need to keep working on advanced nuclear technologies that will generate cheaper and safe power.
For a decade, the Department of Energy has financed research into small modular reactors, which are much simpler than what we use today. Companies can assemble these reactors in factories and ship them around the country.
In August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the first-ever design certification to a small modular reactor developed by Nu-Scale Power. NuScale can now begin constructing a reactor. The company says it has signed agreements with entities in the United States, Canada, Romania, the Czech Republic and Jordan.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, meanwhile, report a breakthrough in designing a nuclear fusion reactor. Unlike Nu-Scale’s fission device, fusion produces no radioactive waste.
Neither of these technologies, though, will produce electricity before 2035, which should be about the same time Crenshaw gets the all the hightech toys featured in his silly superhero-themed campaign ad.
Wind turbines and nuclear power can combine to create cleaner, more affordable energy — an absolute necessity for weaning off of fossil fuels.