Renewable Energy Is Prevailing Despite Political Pressure Favoring Fossil Fuels
In 2012, I interviewed Dr. Tom Konrad, owner of AltEnergyStocks.com, for my second book (Is Renewable Really Doable?). It would be hard to imagine someone more deeply immersed in the business/investment side of clean energy.
Tom (pictured above) was on CNBC recently, and told the interviewer, “I see the Trump administration not as a headwind for renewables, but as a reduced tailwind.” FWIW, I believe him. The market forces associated with solar and wind industries are too powerful to be destroyed, regardless of the determination of the fossil fuel industry (and the federal government it largely controls) to make that happen.
Here’s an announcement from FPL (Florida Power and Light) to build eight now solar plants in the state, each 55 MW. That’s impressive, and it’s evidence that Tom is correct.
Craig I think Tom frames it correctly. The tail winds will slow some – and there will be more efforts many of them economically dubious ones by extreme conservatives in various conservative states to pass discriminatory state policies and even taxes ( Gomers raising taxes , now you know there are more than Wild Fires going on in the Prairies!) on wind and solar farms in efforts to under mine the economics.
Serious debates in Wyoming , ND, Oklahoma and Indiana all are efforts to protect carbon fuel interests and slow down Wind and Solar. There are others too.
ND passed then withdrew a tax and a 2 year moratorium on new wind.
But Blowback from Farmers & landowners ( maybe some of our Mate Marco’s friends perhaps) who like the income they make from wind as it helps make farming a going concern etc. pressured the legislature to withdraw the STOP signs on Wind.
A week later NEXT ERA Resources announces 2 new Wind Farms for a total of 280 or so megawatts. Too much momentum in ND for Wind. Too much money being spread around which is a good thing.
wind spreads the economic benefit around so that is a strong Trump card ( no pun intended) in its Arrow Quiver! So grassroots support runs across party lines. Generates lots of state taxes and property taxes so the rural areas and schools get needed revenues. A winner.
Wyoming has a small tax now on wind and the coal driven political fever to slap wind with a 10 cent tax which will undermine future development and leave Wyoming with more stranded under-performing assets. So they are rethinking the whole thing. They need to export as their internal loads are small.
Oklahoma a carbon state now gets 20 % of its energy from Wind ( it must work to reach those numbers) in just 8 years. The economic impact is significant but the oil and gas folks are pushing hard for restrictions and they are debating a tax but cant get to a specific rate yet.
Iowa and Texas wind is going over 20 5 of the resource stack mix and there are times of day when it is making 40 to 45 % of the total generation in each state during lower load conditions. More is coming.
Any casual market observer can see that the carbon providers are trying to protect their invested assets and want to slow RE down as it is a definite threat to their future revenue streams. They see the writing on the wall.
So more of these energy option battles will be the way they try to slow things down …The corn ethanol folks are teaming up with oil in a campaign against Electric Cars as they sense the emerging EV market as reducing their future business. they will be working with their dark ally ALEC – who undermines good public policy and responsible government.
Coal is looking for a partner to politically team up with … Oil seems likely but only the oil companies that don’t also work gas. AS gas is the chief competitive enemy for coal and is undercutting coals base load market and causing closings, etc. So that is going to be a limited partnership, Oil only with coal alliances. Sorta goofy and very self limiting.
The other reduction in R E will be that many states are reaching their stated Renewable portfolio stds. Some states will expand them and certain conservative oil / coal lobby states will put caps in place to reduce RE Growth.
Exlon the owner and operator of the most nuclear plants in country is relying on significant rate payer subsidies in the Billions to keep mid life plants operating as they are struggling to compete with gas, wind , solar and need billions in subsidies to remain open. These decisions are being challenged in court.
In Illinois they formed partnerships with Solar and Wind to get the subsidies and blocked out coal so maybe a long awaited alliance of sorts with RE and Nuclear may form?
So Trumpers magic wands to use more coal and control thru tax breaks the fossil fuel industry RE competition is going to be a mixed bag as there is strong support across party lines – among st voters – but not GOP leaders or representatives. They are owned by the carbon industry lock stock and CO2 to boot.
In the US per Solar Industry news Feb. There are over 3,000,000 green energy related jobs in the US across the entire spectrum of the various technologies including end use efficiency – so this sector is Out performing job and income creation than most sectors and this economic force will be hard to totally undermine. This will pose a job challenge to trumpet’s Illusions about where the jobs really are !!!
So those that want to under cut progress are going to find their own Head winds to deal with.
China has now cut coal usage down to around 60 % of their energy supply from 66 % just 3 years ago. over 100 coal plants cancelled as their nukes come on line. So china imports of coal is expected to continue to decline.
US coal exporters from EAST coast are higher priced but the lower cost WY / Montana / Utah coal exporters lack easy access to the sea ports on west coast. However the Blue run states dont seem to want to allow expansion of needed export terminals.
Last but not least the US has to match Australia’s competitive pricing and reduced shipping costs as they are closer to markets in SE Asia. etc.
So these are just some of the head winds the carbon peddlers face …
So while they attack R E they have to fight their own battles ! Lots of market share fighting and competition. The political interference with unjustified taxes on wind / solar are all symptoms and classic examples that the entire concept of so called free markets is a Cold Cruel Fable – An illusion !! .
The irony though not surprising at all is that it is the GOP that resorts to market manipulation taxes to play the game and not cost or economic impact – Their playbook is to privatize those profits and socialize the costs. Sooner or later the Blow back will undermine these games.
In the mid term and long term RE prices going down while carbon prices going UP!
The Southern co announced in a press release that The Kemper CCCG with Carbon Capture etc would be more price competitive if they had left out the COAL component and gone with straight natural gas rather than converting low grade lignite coal into syn gas , etc. Basically they are admitting a uneconomic $ 7.3 billion coal mistake!!!
What is trumpet going to do when So Co. turns on the 2 new large Vogtle nuclear units in 2 years or less. More coal shut down!
Maybe Trumpet’s plan is to try to sell the excess coal to Russia or something??? Foreign Aid perhaps?
Grid prices for blended electricity in West TX and So NM is around 12 to 14 cents per kwhr. ( and will increase over time) Good solar on the roof is around 5 to 7 cents LCOE for 30 to 35 years. Fixed a price hedge.
This competitive advantage may prove to be the Tipping Point at the end of the day once the hubris of the trumpet ERA wears off.
California, Nevada both expanding utility scale solar and raising their RE Portfolio goals as are other states. Virginia has $ 1 Billion of solar planned and they dont have the greatest solar resource but the people are tired of dirty coal.
Yes we will see some setbacks and the carbon pushers will get some wins but not game changers . R E has too much Mo in the marketplace now.!
Suspect Jeff Sessions would have to make RE illegal as a last gasp effort at maintaining the Declining Old Word order so perhaps that is the Trumpet’s ultimate Trump card !