Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Solving Texas Electricity

 As AOC has said, the catastrophe in Texas shows what happens when we don't have a Green New Deal.

And it also shows what happens when deregulation reigns.

The best solution to Texas Electricity is submitting to national regulation (including weatherization standards) and joining the the other continental grids to make a unified National Grid that is fully renewable as quickly as possible.

THAT is what needs to be done, and THAT is what needs to be done to help prevent increasing and ever more violent weather catastrophes than Texas saw this time by replacing fossil electricity as fast as possible and demanding others do the same.  Texas itself is in a good position for this, as a large sunny and windy state...with a coastline.  It's only the power of entrenched fossil fuel interests that has been standing in the way.

Renewable electricity works best when there are high requirements for reliability (not just letting the market "price risk") and when there is energy sharing over the widest area.

Where I live, in San Antonio Texas, there may not be opportunities for the most effective proven Electrical Energy Storage, which is hydropower storage (though, other ideas may work).  But solar power is great here, and Texas generally is great for solar energy and wind energy.  So Texas can share it's incredible ability to run wind turbines (only a tiny fraction of which has yet been tapped) and solar panels (even less tapped) and benefit from better hydropower storage, or diverse wind, or tidal, and/or solar energy elsewhere.  Also there is vast potential in Texas itself for tidal and geothermal energy, as well as higher electrical efficiency.

Ultimately, a National Grid offers the best solutions.  A National Grid can best be made based on entirely renewable energy the most quickly.

And that is what we must demand.  If capitalists won't do it we may need to nationalize electricity.


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