Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[mongers]

Now that 'we' also have to move to adaptation, looking at the reports of the 65 tornados hitting the South and Mid-west yesterday, how many of the homes hit have concrete survival rooms?

[Josquius]

I don't get why you don't see more use of data centre heat for various purposes. It always seems to be cool and quirky but not scalable examples I read about.

[The Larch]

It seems that Texas has a new enemy: Renewables. Valmy, any insider insight you can share?

Texas leaders threaten wind and solar boom with legislative push
Bills that hobble renewables would slow decarbonisation in power-hungry state


A renewable energy boom in Texas is under threat at the state legislature, as lawmakers take up new bills that would hobble wind and solar projects.

Texas is well known as the top US state in oil and natural gas production. It has also become the leading state in wind power and is on track this year to surpass California with the largest solar capacity in the US.

The renewable technologies were already proliferating before the US Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act climate law last year, which with $369bn in clean-energy subsidies promises to supercharge solar and wind development.

The Republican-dominated state legislature is now debating bills that throw up new hurdles for wind and solar projects and guarantee fossil fuels' future as an energy source on the state power grid.

"We have invested heavily in renewables, but now it's time to focus on dispatchable," Dan Patrick, the Texas lieutenant-governor spearheading the effort, said at a recent press conference, using a term commonly used to refer to fossil fuel power generation.

One bill would impose new environmental permit requirements for renewable energy projects but not other types of power plants, evaluating factors such as encroachment on agricultural and wildlife lands. The measure would even require currently operating plants to apply for the permits.

"Texans have always prided themselves on having an open market, not picking and choosing which technologies should win, and being a state where we don't heavily regulate. None of those things are true about this," said Becky Diffen, a partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.

"It is absolutely being viewed as a real threat. Renewables is basically a bad word at the Capitol right now, there's just a lot of opposition," she added.

The proposed state permit regulations run counter to an important energy bill passed by the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives last week that would streamline federal permitting for big energy projects.

The swift rise of renewable energy has drawn a backlash from many Texas Republicans who argue the rising share of intermittent wind and solar resources on the grid has made the state's energy system less reliable and is hurting the oil and gas sector.

Many blame renewables for the devastating blackouts during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, which led to hundreds of deaths and more than $100bn in economic damage, although natural gas-fuelled generation was also significantly disrupted during the deep freeze.

Charles Schwertner, a Texas state senator, said Republicans wanted to offset "market distortions" created by federal subsidies for "less reliable generation" in the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden's flagship climate law, and ensure fossil-fuel generation was still being added in the state.

The clean energy backlash could hurt Texas' ability to take advantage of the subsidies in the IRA.

"Texas stands to be a major winner under [the IRA], but a lot of our political leaders just seem dead set on cutting off our nose to spite our face," said Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy, a consultancy.

Another bill under debate in the biennial legislative session would lead Texas to spend more than $10bn to back construction of 10 gigawatts of gas-fired power generating capacity, about 12 per cent of the state's total current grid capacity, that could be tapped when power demand peaks. The state would guarantee the plants an annual rate of return of around 10 per cent.

Patrick has also proposed using funds from the state's budget surplus to provide low-cost loans to fossil fuel power projects.

"We want to ensure there's an incentive for more thermal power to be built in this state as quickly as we can build it," Patrick said.

Governor Greg Abbott has said that he wants renewable projects excluded from any new state-backed economic incentive programmes, which have been critical to drawing big investors to the state, such as Elon Musk's Tesla and Samsung of South Korea.

"There's already a federal incentive for renewable projects," Abbott said. "Our focus is on dispatchable power to make sure that we will have the needed dispatchable power to provide reliable electricity to everybody in the state."

Texas has by far the highest electricity consumption of any state, so efforts to preserve fossil fuel use would deal a serious blow to federal goals of stripping carbon from the national power system.

Jeff Clark, president of the Advanced Power Alliance, an Austin-based renewable energy industry group, said the Republican legislative effort put the clean energy sector in the state "at risk".

"Companies looking at Texas and contemplating investment here should listen, because Texas is turning its back on clean energy," he said.

[Valmy]

Edit: Actually I will stick this in the Backroom

[Sheilbh]

It seems that Texas has a new enemy: Renewables. Valmy, any insider insight you can share?

Although at least they have an excuse. Texas is, as the article says, on course to beat California in renewable generation and, I believe, now has as muchof its energy supply from renewables as Germany.

Obviously this'd be bad, but they're a state with a big oil and gas sector and that's ideologically dubious about any climate action. I feel like we should be as, if not more, annoyed at the states that strongly believe in taking climate action (and may even have declared a climate emergency) but, despite that, are being overhauled by Texas.

[Valmy]

It seems that Texas has a new enemy: Renewables. Valmy, any insider insight you can share?

Although at least they have an excuse. Texas is, as the article says, on course to beat California in renewable generation and, I believe, now has as muchof its energy supply from renewables as Germany.

Obviously this'd be bad, but they're a state with a big oil and gas sector and that's ideologically dubious about any climate action. I feel like we should be as, if not more, annoyed at the states that strongly believe in taking climate action (and may even have declared a climate emergency) but, despite that, are being overhauled by Texas.

It is because our geography is really well suited to wind and solar. Like ridiculously so. The generation was put there to generate cheap electricity, not for climate reasons (though obviously those who do care about climate were enthusiastic supporters).

Germany would kill to have the solar and wind resources Texas has...well hopefully not literally knowing how Germany traditionally has done killing for resources.

[Sheilbh]

It is because our geography is really well suited to wind and solar. Like ridiculously so. The generation was put there to generate cheap electricity, not for climate reasons (though obviously those who do care about climate were enthusiastic supporters).

Germany would kill to have the solar and wind resources Texas has...well hopefully not literally knowing how Germany traditionally has done killing for resources.

It'll be a different mix everywhere - but is California really bereft of wind and sun?

The other thing that springs to mind is all of thsoe requirements Texas legislators are now proposing to impose on renewables (only) are already, I imagine, standard in California and Germany for everything including renewables. I don't fully have a NIMBYism theory of everything but in addition to good sun and wind it feels like part of the reason is it's quite easy (at least until now) to build things in Texas. Add that to the conditions and of course it'll boom - the question is more why states that care about climate like California, Germany or the UK are still getting in the way if it's a climate emergency.

[Josquius]

New Mexicos time is now?

[Valmy]

It'll be a different mix everywhere - but is California really bereft of wind and sun?

Only in comparison to us. We have the great plains, the holy grail of wind energy. A huge area of high winds virtually all the time that is sparsely inhabited with little economic activity and the economic activity that there is can easily go on unimpeded alongside the wind farms.

If you don't have something like that then you can use coastal winds...which hey Texas also has a shitload of.

[The Larch]

It seems that Texas has a new enemy: Renewables. Valmy, any insider insight you can share?

Although at least they have an excuse. Texas is, as the article says, on course to beat California in renewable generation and, I believe, now has as muchof its energy supply from renewables as Germany.

Obviously this'd be bad, but they're a state with a big oil and gas sector and that's ideologically dubious about any climate action. I feel like we should be as, if not more, annoyed at the states that strongly believe in taking climate action (and may even have declared a climate emergency) but, despite that, are being overhauled by Texas.

But this has absolutely nothing to do with climate action whatsoever. The Texas renewables sector should be the ideal of any free market absolutist, as it has risen to that position of prevalence on a sheer economic rationale. There's so much of it because it is very profitable and technically feasible. No sane administration would put undue restrictions on it besides the ones that would be needed to regulate any similar economic activity, but what Texas seems to want to do is exactly that, to put them at a regulatory disadvantage in relation to oil and gas, because reasons.

[Valmy]

New Mexicos time is now?

God I hope so. New Mexico is one of the poorest and most depressing places in the United States (outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque anyway). The poverty and desolation of the place is really sobering, it looks like a developing nation out there. So far New Mexico's time has been never so I hope it's time has come.

[Sheilbh]

But this has absolutely nothing to do with climate action whatsoever. The Texas renewables sector should be the ideal of any free market absolutist, as it has risen to that position of prevalence on a sheer economic rationale. There's so much of it because it is very profitable and technically feasible. No sane administration would put undue restrictions on it besides the ones that would be needed to regulate any similar economic activity, but what Texas seems to want to do is exactly that, to put them at a regulatory disadvantage in relation to oil and gas, because reasons.

It does because they're generating a lot of low carbon energy - the impact of their current policy choices is absolutely to do with climate action, even if their motives are impure.

You're right that doing this is mad and against their stated free market ideals because reasons. My point is the same is true of states and countries who have ideals of really caring about the climate emergency but are being overtaken by Texas in terms of low carbon energy production because reasons (largely ones that make it difficult to build infrastructure and I think should be overridden or disapplied if decarbonisation is a real priority).

Edit: Or simply put - which of these states looks like it's responding to an emergency:


Maybe we should learn something from it now (and hope they don't stop).

[The Larch]

Why do you bring up California at all? We're talking about how retarded Texas' planned bills are. There are many reasons that can explain why renewables are so successful in Texas that have nothing to do with regulations.

[Valmy]

And that completely leaves out distributed generation resources. Granted those are huge in both states.

I don't know enough about utility scale solar in California to explain why there isn't more of it. But one thing to remember about non-Texas western states is they have tons of federal land that is off limits to them. Texas can use its huge desert and plains to put solar facilities in. Nevada, for example, cannot as all of that belongs to the Feds. So maybe something like that is going on.

[Valmy]

Yeah check this out:

California is limited in their cheap land to put solar farms on that we are not.