Texas Power Grid: Officials Plan to Increase Support for Natural Gas

Oh boy, the Texas power grid saga just keeps getting better!

According to this article, state senators have come up with a plan to reduce renewable energy generation in Texas while pouring public money into building natural gas power plants.

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The lawmakers believe that this will increase energy reliability, especially after the catastrophic blackout of 2021. And what's their solution? Discouraging the fastest growing sources of energy in Texas - wind and solar power - while incentivizing the construction of natural gas power plants that will take years to build.

Failures at gas plants

Of course, it's worth mentioning that failures at gas plants during the winter freeze were the primary cause of the 2021 blackout, but let's not dwell on the details. Instead, let's focus on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's inspiring words: "We know that it will take several years from this day forward to get plants in the ground to add more power. But this is the beginning of that process." Wow, slow and steady wins the race, right?

Gas is green now

But wait, there's more! The plan also includes creating a backup fleet of power plants, forcing wind and solar power generators to pay extra fees, and requiring at least 50% of new power generators to be fossil fuel or nuclear. Oh, and to top it all off, they want to market gas-generated electricity as "green" energy. I mean, who needs honesty when you can just use fancy marketing terms, am I right?

Renewable energy? Ha!

Now, some environmental advocates and energy analysts might argue that investing in energy efficiency and conservation programs would be cheaper and easier to implement, but what do they know? Clearly, the state senators have it all figured out. So, get ready to say goodbye to clean air and hello to higher energy bills, because the Texas power grid is about to get a whole lot "better". And who knows, maybe in a few years, we'll all look back and laugh about how silly we were to ever believe in renewable energy.