-
Is Kleiner Perkins Sorry It Ever Met Al Gore?
May 13, 2013 | 32 comments
-
America’s Oil Revival
February 8, 2013 | 146 comments
-
Want to Stop Violence? Start in Hollywood
January 21, 2013 | 26 comments
-
Brandon in the Basement
January 8, 2013 | 2 comments
-
Time for Some Ju-Jitsu
December 10, 2012 | 51 comments
Special Report
It Will Be Hot in Texas This Summer
And thanks to federal policies the state likely will run out of electricity.
Texas, the most energy-intensive state in the nation, could be facing a severe electrical shortage this summer. How could such a thing happen? Mainly, it’s the result of a long series of federal interventions that have finally left the state turning in circles about what to do next.
First, the gory details. Last summer the state was hit with a heat wave in which the temperature was over 100 degrees for almost a month. Since most cities are barely habitable without air conditioning, electrical consumption rose to record levels. Whereas the state normally consumes around 40,000 megawatts of electricity, demand rose briefly to 60,000 (1,000 MW is the size of a large coal or nuclear plant). On several days the state came within about 300 MW of a statewide brownout.
Aggravating all this was the state’s new complex of windmills with 10,000 MW of “nameplate” capacity, nearly all of which proved virtually useless during the crisis period. Windmills have the unfortunate habit of going limp during summer doldrums when the wind doesn’t blow. The state’s entire wind capacity — largest in the nation and celebrated by environmentalists all over the country — operated at less than 10 percent of capacity during the summer heat wave.
Now after another year things are not much better. Not much new capacity has been built and with the state’s economy humming, things could get much hotter. In late April, the state hit a warm spell at a time when many generators are shut down for maintenance work to prepare for the coming summer. Day-ahead prices spiked to $500 per megawatt-hour — more than ten times their usual price of around $30 per mwh-h. Yet that was just a taste of things to come. Last summer prices soared briefly to $5000 per mwh-h — prompting state regulators to take the unfortunate step of putting a cap of $3,500 on electrical prices. Although it might seem inconsequential, in fact it may be those few hours a year that makes building a new power plant worthwhile. Power plants are like The Christmas Store. They may stay open all year waiting for that one rush of business that makes their entire season. Texas has a completely deregulated market that pays power companies only for electricity delivered, not for capacity built. By taking away those few days when power companies can cash in, the regulators are making a bad situation much worse.
The root of Texas’ electrical problems goes back to the bad old days of federal price controls of natural gas and the years Texas and Louisiana spent being exploited by the rest of the nation.
It all began in the 1920s, when improved welding techniques made it possible to build pipelines to carry the methane that was regarded as a waste product of oil production to northern cities to be burned for home heating and cooking. At the time, methane was made from coal and called “town gas,” manufactured at the “gas house,” a place rough and ready that earned the St. Louis Cardinals the nickname of the “gas house gang.” Like other public services, gashouses had been granted municipal monopolies and they weren’t too happy when pipeline companies showed up from Texas selling a new product we still today call “natural gas.” So the municipally regulated gas utilities did what companies do — they pressured to have the pipelines put under regulation as well.
As you might expect, the regulation soon expanded. Northern municipalities liked the idea of being able to tell pipelines that originated in Texas what they could charge for their gas. When the New Deal arrived, the whole thing was put under the jurisdiction of the new Federal Power Commission, the forerunner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Now the power of the federal government was behind the price controls. Still, the FPC could only regulate interstate pipelines. It couldn’t tell the thousands of wildcat operations all over Texas and Louisiana what to charge for their gas. But soon northern attorneys general were at work on the problem, arguing in the courts that the entire network of dozens of pipelines and thousands of individual wells constituted a vast “monopoly.” They kept plugging away until finally in 1954 in Phillips Petroleum vs. Wisconsin the Supreme Court ruled that FERC had the power to set the price of gas at the point where it entered the pipeline. Gas prices would now be set by politics alone, with the heavily populated northern states holding the upper hand.
Soon the District of Columbia Federal Court was managing the entire gas industry, developing such concepts as the “life-of-the-field doctrine,” which said that once gas was put in interstate commerce it couldn’t be withdrawn, even if the price no longer covered its costs. Even if you went bankrupt, you were obliged to keep sending gas to northern consumers until the well expired. There was one escape route, however. If you never put gas into an interstate pipeline, you were free to sell at a market rate in your home state. And so by the early 1970s, northern homeowners were waiting up to six months to be hooked into the local gas company while utilities in Texas were generating more than half their electricity with gas — which was regarded as extremely wasteful at the time.
All this came to a head after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1974. As northern homes and businesses tried desperately to convert to gas, shortages appeared. During the frigid winter of 1977, schools and factories in Pennsylvania and Ohio were forced to close for weeks for lack of fuel. The Carter Administration, in office only a few weeks, was appalled to discover that people in the north were freezing to death while Texas was generating more than half its electricity with gas. So it proposed a simple solution — extend the price controls into Texas as well! It was at this point that bumper stickers started appearing in Texas and Louisiana proclaiming, “Let the Yankees Freeze in the Dark.”
The Reagan Administration eventually straightened all this out, deregulating the price of natural gas in 1988 and setting off a long-delayed boom in exploration. But Texas had learned its lesson — when it comes to energy, have as little to do with the rest of the country as possible. This is the reason there are very few electrical transmission lines running across the Texas border. ERCOT, the Texas grid, is almost completely isolated from the rest of the country. Having been raided for its natural gas resources for decades, the state was determined it would not be raided for electricity.
What Texas did not count on, however, was the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and all the other federal bureaucracies that would soon arrive telling it what to do. Four years ago, TXU, the state’s largest power producer, had plans to built 11 coal plants to meet the demands of the state’s growing economy. Meeting with mounting opposition from environmental groups and the EPA, however, TXU sold out to KKR, a New York investment firm, which brought in the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the country’s leading environmental groups, to sanction the deal. KKR immediately canceled 8 of the 11 coal projects and announced it would pursue alternative energy instead.
The situation did not seem completely lost, since in 2007 NRG Energy, another of the nation’s leading merchant energy providers, had become the first company in 30 years to file an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new reactors. NRG CEO David Crane openly embraced nuclear and defended it in many public forums. But getting through NRC license application procedures was a different story. As the years dragged on, CPS Energy, the municipally owned utility of San Antonio, pulled out of the project. Then one month after Fukushima, when it became obvious the NRC would be posing all kinds of new delays, NRG threw in the towel. When last seen, the company was building solar panels in the Mojave Desert, guaranteed a profit by California’s renewable portfolio mandates. “I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20 years in the power industry that involved less risk than these projects,” Crane told the New York Times in an interview last November. “It is just filling the desert with panels.”
And so Texas will face the heat this summer with little more going for it than it did last summer, when the state came within a few hundred megawatts of overloading the entire state grid. Calpine has promised a new 240-MW gas plant but that won’t be ready until 2014. Regulators have indicated that they may ease up on peak price limits but producers are still wary. It costs $1/2 million per MW to build new capacity with no guarantee that it can sell electricity full time. Highly subsidized windmills, which can deliver electricity practically for free when the wind blows, are constantly cutting into the profits of other generating stations.
Texas remains by far the most energy-productive state in the union. Yet constant intervention by the federal government may yet manage to turn it into one of the biggest potential energy disasters as well.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (80) | Leave a comment
More Articles by William Tucker
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/11/it-will-be-hot-in-texas-this-s
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Jenfidel| 5.11.12 @ 6:19AM
Rick Perry is largely to blame: his Renewable Energy Act condemned all of Texas to using 10% wind power and insured him a big campaign contribution from T. Boone Pickens.
We owe those rolling blackouts to those 2 gentlemen.
Jack in Wi.| 5.11.12 @ 10:38AM
If natural gas was deregulated in 1978, it was done by Carter, not Reagan. I seem to remember that the airlines and the phone companies were deregulated under Carter, as well. Mr. Tucker must be wrong on the date or the President,or both. I think both.
As for wind power. It has a lot of problems. If Rick Perry did what you say, he should answer for it.
Don Morris| 5.12.12 @ 5:03PM
The article said that deregulation came in 1988, not 1978. Carter propsed extending price controls in 1977.
oldfart| 5.11.12 @ 6:21AM
Gee what a surprise! Everything the Federal Government touches turns to poop. The operation was a success but the patient died.
TLP| 5.11.12 @ 4:06PM
Indeed.
jan| 5.15.12 @ 7:43PM
What ever happened to " don't mess with Texas"
why don't the tell all these agencies to go EF themselves.
MadMadder| 5.11.12 @ 7:27AM
The issue with Texas is Perry's policies.... Texas should be using the hydro power it produces rather than selling off the power and only taking 1% for the State... or they could turn on the many already built, but not being used hydro plants, that are permitted to work, but they aren't turned on.
CraigTX| 5.11.12 @ 8:58PM
Texas hydro power ... ha, ha, ha
Von Mises Jr| 5.11.12 @ 7:54AM
This is Austrian Economics versus Keynesian Economics on display. The Free Market model involves individuals making local decisions based on resources and costs to maximize productivity and profit. The Keynesian big government model of central planning fails every time it is tried. One-size fits all and bureaucrats with other people's money who are never held responsible for maximizing productivity and profits always end up in disaster.
Once the results of central planning become obvious, they must be concealed. What better way to mask the problem than a diktat. So when corn or wheat prices increase, government imposes a cap. Then you get famine and starvation as happened in Mao's China and Lenin/Stalin's Russia, as well as today in North Korea. When Nixon through Carter implemented price and wage controls, you get gas shortages and stagflation. When Baracko Obamo, Salazar and the EPA regulate the snot out of electric and gas, you get brown outs and perhaps heat wave death tolls as they did in Europe a couple years ago.
Free Markets good. Socialism and central planning bad! When will we learn? When we are in the gulag for stealing bread or wood to stay alive?
Richard Ryan| 5.11.12 @ 8:09AM
Don't assume they (statists) haven't learned. They pretend to believe Keynesian economics to mask their true intentions perhaps. Which are ugly.
chuck| 5.11.12 @ 8:12AM
And to make matters worse, the would be socialists, communist, and fascist dictators get elected by buying votes from the lazy and corrupt with the money stolen,taxed, from the producers.
Von Mises Jr| 5.11.12 @ 9:10AM
Richard and chuck: good point. I was not referring to the liberal statist establishment not understanding the game, or conservative/libertarians calling them out. I was referring to the average watcher of MSM who is lied to and doesn't understand that they are being played as dupes. Thanks for the clarification.
Al Adab| 5.11.12 @ 11:13AM
It is hight ime that individual states take a strong stand against government by agency (the mandarin class) on the issues which most impact their situations. Here is Texas; Arizona has the "immigration" issue; Virginia and health care. Each state finds itself facing a threat to its identity from overbearing federal government. It is now that each must make it plain they will no longer play the game and abide by regulations having the force of law, promulgated by ignorant, faceless employees hidden in the recesses of these agency buildings in DC. Enough is enough. We will not comply.
play nice| 5.12.12 @ 2:12PM
" We will not comply."
the Borg begs to differ
Mike 3/505| 5.11.12 @ 8:10AM
This problem won't be solved until State Governors have the cojones to direct their state police to take federal regulators into custody and transport them to the state line with orders not to return absent an invitation.
chuck| 5.11.12 @ 8:16AM
Agreed! But who has the balls to do it? I think most Governors like at themselves in the mirror and see that next POTUS.
Alej| 5.11.12 @ 8:42AM
In other words, young paratrooper, enforce the Tenth Amendment. But as you remarked, none of the governors so far have the stones to stand in the door and go.
Mike 3/505| 5.11.12 @ 9:49AM
This is where Ron Paul (don't shoot!) has the right idea. The Federal government controls all the money supply and can shut it off to discipline an unruly state, industry or individual.
Al Adab| 5.11.12 @ 4:03PM
Mike:
Interesting questio in that. Is Article I Sec. 10 still in effect? If so the States can coin their own money as long as its gold or silver. What if CA or NV or somewhere started making silver dollars? Full faith and credit right.
JD| 5.11.12 @ 6:25PM
It doesn't matter. The federal government extracts considerable wealth through taxes, and can stop sending one cent of that money back through spending. No state can survive a loss of such a substantial chunk of its money.
chuck| 5.12.12 @ 9:07AM
This all goes back to the Constitutional amendment that changed State appointed Senators to directly elected Senators. The individual States have no representation in Congress. This skewed the balance of power away from the States, where it belongs, to the omnipotent Federal government.
The only way to get the Federal government under control is to repeal the 15th and 16th amendments, abolish the income tax, and return to State-appointed Senators, which would be answerable to the State Legislatures.
This would defund, and effectively neuter the Federal government.
Alej| 5.11.12 @ 8:39AM
Correction, Mr. Tucker; The sticker on my truck and all the others read
"Let The Bastards Freeze In The Dark!"
We watched roughnecks come in from their two-week shift offshore to unheated homes in South Louisiana while South Louisiana natural gas was mandated to be pumped to Chicago.
And we still remember. Tenth Amendment or secession.
PattyMor| 5.11.12 @ 8:42AM
Well its going to be a long, hot summer in many places as O'Disaster has been going around the country with his EPA and shutting down coal fired electricity plants. One caller to Mark Levin's show said that San Diego will experience shortages because the EPA shut down a back up plant and drilled holes in the coal fired boiler.
Let's pray for 100 degree heat and lots of brown outs. Make people so damned uncomfortable that even the liberals will be jolted out of their stupor and vote O'Disaster out.
Von Mises Jr| 5.11.12 @ 9:20AM
Good point PattyMor. What is also happening is that business is going into hibernation phase II. Liberals in government that never had a real job do not understand business. Business owners plan a minimum of one year in advance for budgets, and five years for hiring and investment. With taxmegeddon coming in January 2013, economic reports are already worsening. They got the U-3 down to 8.1% by eliminating another 522K jobs from the Labor Force this month. This is added to the 1.2M fewer jobs available since OSlumper took office. Real unemployement at the U-3 level is 11%. This does not even count the underemployed and those giving up.
Gary B| 5.11.12 @ 11:02AM
Liberalism is a luxury, just like a yacht, a fancy car or a vacation home. When the money runs out - in this case other people's money - luxuries become expendable. Liberalism is finally being recognized as increasingly unaffordable. In the process, as the governing elite become more desperate, many people are being educated with hard lessons in both economics and tyranny. Lots of tough growing up is ahead for many people.
Von Mises Jr| 5.11.12 @ 11:33AM
Liberalism is anti-nature. Just as the earth and ecosystems operate by natural laws, so do man's "Human Action" in the markets. Liberalism is an attempt to control what cannot be controlled by man. "It is not nice to fool Mother Nature."
Gary B| 5.11.12 @ 2:54PM
Mother Nature's chickens coming home to roost. It's a tough trip 'cause they have to step carefully through the rubble of a wrecked economy.
richard ryan| 5.11.12 @ 3:44PM
A pretty good chunk of those who have given up are joining the disability rolls. I'm not referring to blindness, heart/kidney failure, neurological disease, or any other objective diagnosis. The massive influx of "disabled" into the system are using diagnoses that are impossible to disprove: chronic headaches, severe depression, low back pain (bulging discs, eg which are present in half the population) etc. Big time smokers and obese most of these folks, btw.
Von Mises Jr| 5.12.12 @ 7:40AM
The chronic headaches and severe depression are a direct result of Obama and the liberals. It sucks watching Marxist and morons destroying the greatest nation in the history of the world. All Americans for the last few generations have been the top 1% in world history. And it wasn't because of socialism. It was in spite of bad times under FDR, Carter and Obama.
A. C. Santore| 5.11.12 @ 9:40AM
Sorry to disagree with one of your points, Patty, and that's "Make people so damned uncomfortable that even the liberals will be jolted out of their stupor and vote O'Disaster out."
The dictator and his lackeys will only blame Bush, the Tea Party, Fox News, and any or all of their usual scapegoats.
One of the essentials of being a "liberal" - if that's what you want to call the Dictator's crowd - is that they absolutely never do anything wrong. It is always someone else's fault.
But you knew that.
Teaghan| 5.11.12 @ 10:56AM
And they have the whores at the MSM to back them up. SO! It must be true.
Anthony| 5.11.12 @ 9:56AM
Yes, Mr. Tucker, things will indeed get hot this summer, in so many ways.
rcb| 5.11.12 @ 10:06AM
This has more to do with minimizing Texas' and big oil's political influence than it has to do what is best for the environment. They will do this until hispanics get the majority and then turn Texas into a blue state.
Alej| 5.11.12 @ 10:20AM
Maybe that's when the bastards will freeze in the dark ? But the environment... you know, the snail darter, the Arizona kangaroo rat, and all those vastly crucial aspects of life, will be fat and happy.
BTW, Texas will turn back into a republic before Texans let their state turn blue. Ever wonder why there are only two tiny Indian reservations (population about 2800 total) in Texas ? Ever read about the Nueces Strip in the mid-1800s?
Ethnic cleansing wasn't invented in Serbia.
Kingofthenet| 5.11.12 @ 10:17AM
Well maybe if Texas put on it's 'Big Boy' pants and stopped threatening to leave the union, maybe companies will build interstate lines. Most land in Texas is worthless 'scrub' land, build some HUGE solar arrays and get some massive energy from the hot sun.
P.S. I LOVE the whining about the free wind energy, gotta like that!
Kingofthewhat?| 5.11.12 @ 12:44PM
I wish true believers like you would agree to receive your electrical power only from wind and solar sources with no recourse to fossil fuel backup when it's cloudy or calm. When you do, then please come back to TAS to complain...if you can. (BTW, the wind energy is free only because of the massive tax subsidies for the industry)
Gary B| 5.11.12 @ 3:02PM
On the way to lunch today my wife and I drove past a "limp" windmill. A lot of good it was doing. Its only function at the time was eyesore.
Seldom mentioned is the amount of conventional (goal, natural gas, hyroelectric) backup or standby power required to be immediately available when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. When you learn about this issue renewable energy doesn't sound so good. It's like global warming; the entire premise is bogus in the extreme. It's a government pander constructed of thin air.
jstwdring| 5.11.12 @ 3:58PM
Sarcasm is a subtlety apparently lost on you. The free energy Mr. Tucker was referring to is not actually free. It is heavily subsidized. He was mocking it.
Wow. Just, wow........
chuck| 5.12.12 @ 9:12AM
Yeah, what a dipshit! As if those bird-mashers just grow themselves out of the ground, and sprout out the 1000's of miles of transmission lines needed.
Typical damned stupid Obullshit voting liberal.
Alej| 5.11.12 @ 10:24AM
"...maybe companies will build interstate lines."
"Keystone" ring a bell ?
kevin | 5.11.12 @ 10:34AM
Reagan was President in '78 ? Correction please. And I say that as a Carter hater, but I'm pretty sure he & Teddy K started a round of deregulation, including airlines. Thanks.
William Tucker| 5.11.12 @ 11:51AM
Sorry, I made a mistake. Natural gas prices were finally lifted in 1988 lifted. Deregulation of airlines and trucking did begin in 1978.
Frekki| 5.11.12 @ 10:52AM
State's rights, it's State's rights all the way. Let the Yankees freeze. We will never get out of the hole the Liberals dug for us if we do not embrace State's Rights. Just like 1860, we have to stand up and fight.
Occam's Tool| 5.11.12 @ 12:00PM
Many, many more things are handled better by deregulation and letting market forces, and the situation on the ground, determine outcome rather than blindly imposing from above. Energy production is one of those things.
As for myself, we have geothermal heating/cooling installed with gas backup in winter. Our airconditioning in far northwestern Minnesota only gets a workout 2 weeks a year, in August, when the temp can hit 90.
Right now it's 45 degrees, and may hit 59. Shortsleeves, shorts, and flip flop weather in the Great White North.
Occam's Tool| 5.11.12 @ 12:07PM
Hell, my Liberal DON today was grousing about spending taxpayer money on CT scans for patients without insurance.
Myself, I'm not a fan of spending 400 million of taxpayer money to help Mr. Wulf build a new football stadium for the Vikings, but I'm overruled there. Why I should be taxed to help out a billionaire is beyond me; of course, if it actually is a positive gain for the state's economy that's OK, but nobody will release the damn numbers.
John Navratil| 5.11.12 @ 2:30PM
Occam's Tool,
The last study I read indicated that the best of all the stadium projects was a negative 2 percent, or so, ROI.
Along the lines of "watch the money", watch the money for "public" investment - that is, when the public is told to invest. If the big boys saw a return building stadia, the public would not have the opportunity to invest.
Kingofthenet| 5.11.12 @ 12:48PM
Hey Occam, I always thought about buying some lakeside undeveloped/Log Cabin land to build a little vacation place, but with the run up in prices in the mid 2000's it put a break on that, how are prices now?
Warrior | 5.11.12 @ 5:13PM
Try Detroit. Your liberal buddies have made real estate very affordable there.
Joseph| 5.11.12 @ 1:07PM
O Tool..I suspect you could find fault in building a stadium with taxpayer money by stating its good for all of us. Why not put it to a vote and let the people have their say.
John Navratil| 5.11.12 @ 2:38PM
Joseph,
It generally survives a vote. After all, the ticket pays for the building, right? Or a tax on car rentals? It makes us a "world class" city, doesn't it? The tax payer is never on the hook- or so it is claimed.
Look then at the vote by precinct and notice that the support comes from the poorer and richer precincts - those who like the affordable sky boxes and those who think it brings employment.
A year, or so, ago, Harris county kicked in $2 million to the "Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation". That agency which touted this as such an economic gold mine.
Mikecampbelly2k| 5.11.12 @ 1:17PM
Time to resurrect the 10th Amendment - the Governor should declare all federal environmental dictates null and void, immediately grant building permits for the power plants, and call any federal judges bluff that holds him in contempt. How many federal agents want to take on Texas Rangers? Does Barrack Hussein want blood spilled in an election year??? Does he want the spectacle of a violent showdown over a power plant? NULLIFICATION NOW! Time to tell the federal "emperor" that he has no clothes! If not now, when????
John Navratil| 5.11.12 @ 2:26PM
Before we sing that last sad song for the pipeline industry of the day, let's remember that regulation had them spending their way to prosperity. If it got into the rate base, a profit was guaranteed. Northeast of Houston (Cypress) there was a pumping station which of course needed to acquire sufficient acreage so that nothing nearby would be damaged if there was a mishap. Just enough acreage for a private golf course for the company. It was the consumer who took it in the shorts with the most expensive energy in the country at $.10/KW back in the 70's. Its still $.10, expensive by national standards, but the deregulation (Rule 636) is what made the pipeline a carrier of rather than an owner of the gas within.
Crapitalization is what Stossel calls it.
nathan| 5.11.12 @ 3:45PM
Well sooner or later, say in a hundred years or so, maybe two hudred, carbon based energy is going to start running short, getting expensive. We are fortunate that given gas reserves in the Great Lakes region, oil shale elswhere we can move "intelligently" towards the day of renewables. I say intelligently folks but however far out, and none of us alive today will see it perhaps, the day when we do need to switch to renewables will happen. The notion that oil and gas is unlimited is a fairy tale. So let's start doing the R&D now for our great grand kids.
JayDick| 5.11.12 @ 4:31PM
I don't see a future for renewables as we know them today. In a hundred years, nuclear fusion will likely supply more energy than we will ever need. However, I guess you could classify fusion as a renewable. If controlled fusion eludes us, there are several fission technologies on the horizon that will also suffice.
R&D, sure, but production? Not if it has to be subsidized like present renewables.
austin x| 5.11.12 @ 3:48PM
I got solar panels on my roof, bring on the sun!
chuck| 5.12.12 @ 9:18AM
Congratulations, you wasted your money! Those damned things will never pay for themselves. Do the math.
Just another liberal feeling good about how much they are doing to "save the planet". AHHHHHH, I'm such a good person.
You probably drive a Prius, don't you?
austin x| 5.13.12 @ 12:32PM
They'll pay for themselves this summer when my neighbors are complaining that the government is talking carre of their every need while I'm chilling in the AC. Be able to take care of your self or be ready to whine like a baby.
cicero| 5.11.12 @ 4:02PM
As in all such ventures that are touted to be for the good of the "people", follow the money. When was the last time anyone saw a politition leave office poorer than when they came into office? The Obama's entered politics, never having worked for a living, and never having earned a living wage. From the time he entered the Illinois Senate onward, they have reaped rewards only dreamed of by the middle class. They will leave the White House multi-millionaires, after having lived like royalty for 4 years. Their record, as far as the public is concerned, will show nothing of positive merit. The Clintons had a similar track record. All of these schemes to control the economy always result in devastation for the public, and wealth for the elected class. The only hope is to shrink the public sector. Fewer beaurocrats, fewer elected officials, fewer parasites on the public payroll, or in a position to gain by their actions in public roles.
AllantheK| 5.12.12 @ 12:41PM
Speaking for states rights, we could take the payroll purse away from congress and set reasonable rates of pay based on the average of individuals working in their respective states for their own state reps. Retirement accounts could be added to at the same rates as of the citizenry. All lobbying has to be done through the state house that has jurisdiction for your pet project, singularly or through each state that your project affects. Any other lobbying will be illegal. With prison terms for conviction of both parties in the lobbying scheme. This hopefully would end the subverting of our reps in the US Congress. I also like the repeal of the 15th and 16th.
Konnie| 5.12.12 @ 10:36PM
Love, love your ideas.
Nite| 5.11.12 @ 4:21PM
Obama and his regulation minions have been trying to destroy the energy industry in TX for the past nearly 4 years. Sounds like they are making some headway. Governor Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott have sued them over and over. Big Challenge.
podbaydoors| 5.11.12 @ 5:59PM
"The Reagan Administration eventually straightened all this out, deregulating the price of natural gas in 1978 and setting off a long-delayed boom in exploration." Sorry, I thought the Reagan administration took office in 1981?
POST American| 5.11.12 @ 10:33PM
---And speaking of hot!
Could we get that FIRST spot of REAL
coverage of the yet unfolding FUKISHIMA
world nuclear disaster?
Japanese reports ---EVEN Japanese reports!
disclosing that, should that GE reactor #4 collapse,
the radiation from the equivalent of some 84
Chernobyls would be blown over Canada,
the US, and across the northern hemisphere.
So, again, we know it's tough, but really,
a thimble full of actual news every now
and again --really does wonders for readership.
---BTW, has anyone noticed
GE's Jeff 'I--Melt--down's'
taste in summer eyewear lately?
--or where he himself will be
summering this year?
---------------Just 'Q---re--isss'.
------------HUAC is NOW --Nuremberg 2012---------
chuck| 5.12.12 @ 9:20AM
Still crazy, after all these years.
Purp| 5.12.12 @ 12:13PM
It's God's punishment for Texas bigotry.
Stup| 5.12.12 @ 12:41PM
What about God's punishment for your bigotry towards Texas?
Dick Nome| 5.12.12 @ 4:14PM
What bigotry Twurp??
Alej| 5.12.12 @ 6:49PM
When did your ass get run out of Texas ? And why ?
Purp| 5.13.12 @ 2:05PM
It sounds just as stupid as when anyone says anything is God's punishment, doesn't it? Just thought you should hear how your side sounds when they use God as a club.
David| 5.12.12 @ 4:27PM
Everyone in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana should be paying 1.50 a gallon for gas, the remainder of the country should pay 5 or 6 bucks a gallon.
You want to keep your pristine coastlines and shit, then pay for it.
Personally, I would be happy if Texas (a Republic in its own right) would just secede. We are self-sufficient. America needs Texas - we don't need America. We can defend our own borders and have everything we need in the great Lone Star State.
We also have the right attitude. We can stop the BS welfare programs for the people who are not truly in need - like the young 20 something chick with 3 small children who had at least 5,000 worth of tatoos on her bod, and then paid for her groceries with the Lone Star Card (same as food stamps). We can stop that kind of BS.
Alej| 5.12.12 @ 6:53PM
If Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma seceded and formed a confederation, those differential gas prices would be a reality. And the entire Mississippi River would be owned by that confederation, since New Orleans is tied with New York for the No. 1 import/export foreign trade port in America. Serves the center two thirds of agricultural America. Somebody with attitudes might be starving in the dark, as well.
Purp| 5.13.12 @ 2:08PM
By all means - go. The Federal Government gives more to Texas than Tx gives back. The rest of us are tired of Texas sucking on the Federal tit and acting so high and mighty, so go. Good Luck.
See how long it is before you become the Mexican State of Texas. Can't really get over that you lost the Civil War, can you?
Obie Wan| 5.12.12 @ 6:12PM
Ha,ha,juuuuuuuust wait. All those greenies are going to have to pay for their "carbon costs " as well as the rest of us. Let's see if they enjoy the escalating cost of energy as much as everybody else with a brain does !!!
Purp| 5.13.12 @ 2:09PM
Have no fear, the rise of natural gas in other parts of the country will replace the depletion of the oil in Texas. Maybe the hot air in Texas can drive the windmills for their electricity.
POST American| 5.13.12 @ 10:45AM
---------------------FINAL WORD-----------------------
---------------ALEX JONES is the PRESS--------------
Jim Woodward| 5.13.12 @ 12:09PM
Just an aside to you Texans on this thread.
One of your best passed away last week.
Carrol Shelby 1923-2012, may he RIP.
He defined HOT for those of us who appreciate cars.
Tony | 5.14.12 @ 11:22PM
When Baracko Obamo, Salazar and therefore the EPA regulate the snot out of electrical and gas, you get brown outs and maybe heat wave death tolls as they did in Europe a few years ago.
Howard Hirsch| 5.15.12 @ 12:47AM
What is a "mwh-h"? A "megawatt-hour-hour" perhaps? (Distantly related to the "ATM machine")
Howard Hirsch| 5.15.12 @ 12:47AM
What is a "mwh-h"? A "megawatt-hour-hour" perhaps? (Distantly related to the "ATM machine")
pyeatte| 5.15.12 @ 8:47PM
All problems can be traced back to government mandates and mindless, political regulation. Keep the stupid government out and let the market decide how to supply power.