100% Renewable Energy Claims Are 99% Misleading

City Pledges for ‘100% Renewable Energy’ Are 99% Misleading. The power grid is built on fossil fuels, and there’s no way to designate certain electrons as guilt free so says Charles McConnell of Rice University in the WSJ.

Although activists herald these pledges as major environmental accomplishments, they’re more of a marketing gimmick. Use my home state of Texas as an example. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas oversees 90% of the state’s electricity generation and distribution. Texas generates more wind and solar power than any other state. Yet more than 71% of the council’s total electricity still comes from coal and natural gas.

So how do cities make this 100% renewable claim while still receiving regular electricity from the grid? They pay to generate extra renewable energy that they then sell on the market. If they underwrite enough, they can claim to have offset whatever carbon-generated electricity they use. The proceeds from the sale go back to the city and are put toward its electric bill.

In essence, these cities are buying a “renewable” label to put on the regular power they’re using. Developers of wind and solar farms win because they can use mayoral commitments to finance their projects, which probably are already subsidized by taxpayers.

But the game would never work without complete confidence in the reliability of the grid, which is dependent on a strategy of “all of the above,” generating power from sources that include coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar.

The mayor of Georgetown, Texas, announced earlier this year that his city had reached its goal of 100% renewable electricity. But in a 2015 article announcing the pledge, he acknowledged what would happen if solar and wind were not able to cover the city’s needs: “The Texas grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, will ensure generation is available to meet demand.”

The headline-grabbing 100% renewable pledges intentionally overlook these facts. Fossil fuels are not only the largest and most critical component of the energy portfolio, they are the foundation upon which renewable power must stand. Wind and solar generators ride free into the electric grid on the backs of fossil generators that have installed and paid for the infrastructure on which all Americans depend. The rise of renewable generation is made possible by fossil fuels, not despite them. 

Finally someone has applied critical thinking skills to the hidden costs of renewable energy and the misleading claims being made by renewable energy advocates.

It is doubly true in Texas that the electric grid was built and maintained by fossil fuels and the money generated by fossil fuels. The Texas state budget receives enormous funds through taxes on the oil and gas industry. That is one reason Texas was able to fund the $7B transmission lines from west Texas, where the renewable energy is generated, to central and east Texas where the people live.