By Chris Talgo
When it comes to assessing power sources, the three most significant metrics are affordability, reliability, and environmental friendliness.
For several years, we’ve been told that so-called green energy sources like wind and solar check all three of these boxes, thus making them the best choice for America.
However, this is not true. Actually, a strong case can be made that wind and solar are some of the least affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources.
On the other hand, natural gas, which has been inaccurately portrayed as being terrible for the planet and more expensive than wind and solar, is, by far, more affordable, reliable, and environmentally friendly.
This is not mere opinion. It is based on taking the whole picture into account.
According to James Taylor, President of The Heartland Institute, “America needs affordable and reliable energy sources to power our economy, provide prosperous personal living standards, and compete with global competitors.”
Yes, we certainly do. As we enter the age of AI and quantum computing, abundant, affordable, dependable, and clean energy will be paramount.
In a recent Policy Brief titled “Affordable, Reliable, and Clean: An Objective Scorecard to Assess Competing Energy Sources,” Taylor analyzes and assigns “an objective numerical score for competing energy sources regarding each of the three factors.”
“Pricing data for competing power sources is more complicated than most people assume,” Taylor notes.
This is partly due to generous subsidies that mask the real cost of wind and solar. In fact, “wind power receives more source-specific federal subsidies than all conventional energy sources combined,” per the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Another “hidden” cost that is often overlooked when it comes to wind and solar is that their intermittent nature “require baseload power facilities like natural gas plants to be cycling and available – racking up costs but selling no power – in the background in case they are needed at a moment’s notice when wind or solar power ramp down.”
Because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, wind and solar necessitate “cycling in the background, which adds to the cost of operating natural gas power plants, even though wind and solar power are gaining the sales and imposing those additional operating costs on natural gas power.”
Unlike conventional power plants that can be built nearly anywhere, wind and solar facilities are typically located far from the population centers they serve, which requires the building of transmission lines. “The costs for those additional transmission lines typically soak up additional taxpayer dollars and/or get buried in overall utility bills, even though they are imposed specifically by wind and solar power,” Taylor writes.
Due to these factors, the best way to analyze the actual cost of power sources is called the Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity (LFCOE).
Applying the LFCOE, “using the relatively wind-friendly and solar-friendly geography of Texas as a baseline, is as follows, in dollars per megawatt-hour: natural gas: $40; coal: $90; biomass: $117; nuclear: $122; wind: $291; solar: $413.”
“Coal, natural gas, and nuclear are considered baseload power because they can dependably provide reliable, on-demand power whenever they are needed.” Conversely, “Wind turbines generate, on average, only about 35 percent of the power that would be possible under consistently ideal conditions.” Even worse, “Solar equipment generates, on average, only about 25 percent of the power that would be possible under sunny skies at high noon.”
As such, wind and solar cannot solely power the grid. Moreover, their inherent unreliability means they are dependent upon conventional energy sources, which must be constantly dialed up and down. This process is “more than merely inconvenient – it is also quite expensive.”
Once again, natural gas “holds an advantage in that it is more capable than any other baseload source for quickly ramping up and down power generation to meet supply and demand variations.”
No wonder natural gas is the most reliable form of energy, according to Taylor’s assessment.
RELATED: New: Italy to Purchase $15 Billion in US Natural Gas
AI Dominance Relies Upon Energy Dominance
Finally, let’s examine the total environmental impact of natural gas versus wind and solar.
First, we need to get one thing straight: “Natural gas produces some emissions but is relatively clean burning.”
Second, wind and solar are antithetical to land conservation. “Wind and solar power pose unique threats to open spaces and species protection. It requires approximately 60 square miles of solar panels to generate the same amount of power as a conventional power plant. It requires approximately 320 square miles of wind turbines to do the same.”
Third, windmills and solar panels kill animals. “Wind turbines and solar power equipment in the United States kill more than one million birds and bats, including many protected and endangered species, each year.” Offshore wind turbines are no safer, as they have led to whale deaths and many other problems.
Fourth, the thousands of miles of new transmission lines required to connect wind and solar to faraway customers often result in vast clear-cutting of forests and other pristine landscapes.
Fifth, wind and solar are not viable without components that “require the mining, refining, and utilization of substantial amounts of toxic metals and rare-earth minerals. Rare-earth mining and the refining of rare-earth minerals are among the most environmentally destructive practices on the planet, typically resulting in widespread and heavily toxic pollution of soil and water.”
In sum, according to objective analysis that considers the full scope of reliability, affordability, and environmental friendliness, the verdict is in: Natural gas is king!
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!