Well, this might knock the "clean" wind out of some environmental group sails. What if all this new transmission "for renewables" actually enables more fossil fueled electricity production?
On their best day, these clean energy advocates aren't as smart as the fossil fuel industry is on their worst day. No matter all the new policies and rules developed to give a leg up to new renewable energy production, the fossil fuel industry will develop ways around them.
Maybe the environmental advocates should reconsider their love of big transmission after reading this opinion piece?
On their best day, these clean energy advocates aren't as smart as the fossil fuel industry is on their worst day. No matter all the new policies and rules developed to give a leg up to new renewable energy production, the fossil fuel industry will develop ways around them.
Maybe the environmental advocates should reconsider their love of big transmission after reading this opinion piece?
If natural gas pipelines are difficult to permit and build, and if the federal regulatory process has a durable bias for transmission, and if gas-fired generation will be a necessity especially as nuclear power plants and coal-fired generation retire at alarming rates, it seems reasonable to assume that eventually, companies are just going to start building power plants at natural gas wellheads and hooking up to the grid from those sites.
To assume otherwise is to assume that the people who run energy companies are incapable of second-order thought. It also requires one to assume that traditional fuels, which made up around 80% of primary energy use in 1970, 1995, and last year, will vanish in the next few years.
Clearly, both assumptions are likely to be wrong. So, it seems likely that we are heading towards a world of — throwback warning — gas by wire.
The lesson for this and pretty much everything in life? Be careful what you wish for.
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