The week of Valentine's Day 2021,
the temperature dropped below zero. Nobody could remember it
being this cold for this long. This was Texas, not Siberia. But Texas is the energy state. There
was nothing to fear. Just go home, turn on the heat, and hunker down. That's how it should have gone. Instead, over five days, four million
Texans lost power during what turned out to be the coldest winter storm
in a half a century. Hundreds died, including an 11-year-old boy
who froze to death in his sleep. The state's electric grid operator, the
Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, later reported the state was just
four minutes away from total grid collapse. The media was quick to blame the state government for not being fully prepared
and not acting fast enough. This may be true, but ERCOT's mistakes were
symptoms, not the cause, of the problem. The real cause is decades of
misguided policies that have left the Lone Star state with an
unreliable energy infrastructure. It's a cautionary tale that the rest
of the country needs to learn from. From 2010 to 2020, the population of
Texas increased by 4 million people, and the state's economy grew by 35%. But
while all this growth was happening, the state's reliable energy
capacity was actually shrinking. Meanwhile, its unreliable energy capacity
was surging. In fact, it almost tripled. Let's break this down. Reliable energy is fossil fuels—coal and
natural gas—and nuclear. These fuels produce a near-constant flow of electricity. Unreliable,
or variable energy, is renewable energy—wind and solar. They're unreliable because they
depend on the whims of Mother Nature. In 2020, Texans got 25% of their energy
from renewables. During the February storm, however, that fell to 8%, at one point
reaching a deadly low of just 1.5%. The reason? Renewable energy only
works when the weather cooperates, but it's useless when it doesn't—like
when it conjures up a giant snowstorm. Solar panels don't capture sunlight and wind
turbines don't spin when covered in snow and ice. Given renewables' unreliability, how is it that
Texas, of all places, became so dependent on them? That story begins in 1999, when Texas politicians
on the left and the right fell in love with the idea that they could turn the state into a green
energy powerhouse. It sounded like a great idea at the time: Instead of passing any new mandates,
they would do it by offering massive subsidies, marketed as "incentives," to produce wind
and solar power. This ended up working out great for the wind and solar companies, but
not so great for reliable energy providers. To illustrate this, imagine that you own a
restaurant. One day you learn that your competitor down the street is getting government support.
He gets so much help that, instead of charging his customers, he can pay them to eat his food.
Not surprisingly, your customers abandon your restaurant for his. Your competitor prospers off
the taxpayers' backs while your business withers. Let's apply this analogy to the
real world of renewable energy. Wind and solar get so much in
subsidies they're guaranteed a profit. And unlike fossil fuel producers, they're
not even required to provide reliable power. It's no wonder fossil fuel plants are closing,
and nuclear plants are not being built. The wind and solar companies are protected
from the laws of supply and demand. They can't lose, and the fossil fuel plants can't compete. That's how out of whack
the Texas electricity market has become. Since 2006, the state has subsidized
renewable energy to the tune of $19 billion. All of this came right out of Texans' wallets,
courtesy of ever-increasing electric bills and rising property taxes. And what
does Texas have to show for it? An electric grid that failed
when Texans needed it most. Unfortunately, this scenario
is playing out across America. Over the past decade, the federal government
has spent over $230 billion on energy subsidies, and that doesn't even include
subsidies the states give away. It's true that Uncle Sam also grants
favors to fossil fuel companies. Renewable energy advocates love to point this
out, but here's what they neglect to mention: compared to fossil fuel companies, for
every unit of electricity generated, Washington subsidizes wind 17
times and solar 75 times more. Yet, despite all this aid, renewables provide just
4 percent of the country's total energy supply. The verdict is in: renewable energy
is expensive and unreliable. And if it can render America's leading power producer
powerless, it can do the same to your state. Government meddling got us into this mess.
It's time for politicians to step aside and let the free market get us out of it. I'm Jason Isaac from the Texas Public
Policy Foundation, for Prager University.
