Buckle Up for Summer Blackouts: Wind Is Already Failing Texas in Spring

When the wind blows too much, natural gas plants are forced to shut down because they can’t underbid wind producers that can bid zero or negative. But when the wind doesn’t blow when it is needed, wind generators can afford the loss of revenue because they earn so much from tax subsidies.

It’s been all quiet on the electric grid front for a few months — but don’t get your hopes up. Over the last month, electricity prices came near the $5000/MWh regulatory cap three separate times because the wind wasn’t blowing enough when the sun went down.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not wrong.

You may hear from the drive-by media that the problem is unseasonably warm temperatures, or that there are a lot of power plants down for maintenance. But high 80s in April and low 90s in May are not unusual, and the Texas grid used to manage these weather changes with no problems. From 2014 to 2016, real-time prices only went over $1000/MWh twice, but it’s happened three times already this year.

If the grid is already on shaky ground, with many weeks to go before blistering triple-digit temperatures shoot electric demand through the roof, all signs are pointing to an unpleasant summer.

The problem with the Texas grid is so simple it’s infuriating: Relying too heavily on unpredictable wind and solar, without enough reliable reserve capacity, means higher volatility — leading to higher prices and increasing need for expensive interventions by ERCOT to avoid outages. This is why your electric bill is going up and up even though wind and solar are supposed to be cheap.

While Texas certainly has a lot of sun, peak solar output almost never aligns with peak electric usage. The Lone Star State also has plenty of wind, but wind generation is wildly unpredictable — by nature. It’s not unusual for a wind generator’s output to swing 60 percentage points or more in a single week.

Take last month, for example. On Tuesday, April 16, electricity prices reached their cap because ERCOT’s day-ahead wind forecast was off by 50%. Five gigawatts of wind we were counting on to power Texas as the sun went down didn’t show up. That was the equivalent of simultaneously shutting down 10 large natural gas units, or all of the state’s nuclear capacity. If the latter occurred, the news media would be up in arms (and rightfully so). But because the culprit was the political darling of both the left and the right, no one heard about it.

ERCOT hasn’t been the best at predicting wind output, and the problem isn’t entirely its fault. Wind veers so wildly between extremes it’s nearly impossible to plan a sustainable grid around its fickleness — yet wind makes up 26% of our generating capacity.

It’s all because lucrative tax breaks and subsidies at the state and federal level, combined with flaws in ERCOT’s market design, make it almost impossible for wind to lose money — and harder than ever for natural gas to compete, even though it’s far more reliable and affordable. When the wind blows too much, natural gas plants are forced to shut down because they can’t underbid wind producers that can bid zero or negative. But when the wind doesn’t blow when it is needed, wind generators can afford the loss of revenue because they earn so much from tax subsidies.

Imagine trying to open a restaurant when your competitor next door is paying its customers to eat there. It’s no wonder natural gas capacity in ERCOT has barely grown over the past decade, and not enough to make up for losses of coal plants, while demand has been steadily increasing.

All those subsidies are hurting our most reliable, affordable energy producers and putting our economy at risk — leaving you and me, the taxpayers on the hook.

While most political issues are far more complex and nuanced than brazen attack ads and headlines would lead you to believe, in this case, it really does boil down to one simple problem.

And it would be easy to solve — if lawmakers are willing to go against the grain of political correctness and set a clear reliability standard for the wind and solar generators that want to connect to our grid.

Unfortunately, that’s a gargantuan “if.”

As a former lawmaker, I understand the pressures our legislators are under to toe the line on alternative energy. Major utilities embracing World Economic Forum- and United Nations-aligned “energy transition” policies that seek to redefine what’s “clean” and what’s “pollution” are making matters worse. And the incessant misinformation from their well-funded lobby that promise rural “economic development” and “cheap energy” sound too good to be true, because they are.

Elected officials don’t serve the lobby. They serve Texans — or, at least, they should.

And Texans want a reliable, affordable grid. They want to not have to worry about losing power in the heat of the summer or the dead of winter. The Legislature must put a stop to these market-distorting subsidies and make reliability, not popularity, the priority for our electric grid.

Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter on July 6, 2021 to members of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) directing them to “take immediate action to improve electric reliability across the state.” The second directive was to “Allocate reliability costs to generation resources that cannot guarantee their own availability, such as wind or solar power.” Unfortunately, the PUC hasn’t acted on this directive or even studied it. The costs of scarcity on the grid are estimated to have exceeded $12B in 2023, which is equal to two-thirds of the property tax relief passed in the 88^th Legislature, all paid for by ratepayers.

“Unfortunately for Texans, the ERCOT grid is moving from a single grid with gas and coal power plants running efficiently all day to two grids: one for wind and solar and one for expensive backup power that fills in the gaps when there is not enough wind and sun,” says Dr. Brent Bennett, policy director for Life:Powered at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Every time these scarcity events occur, whether due to real scarcity or artificial scarcity created by ERCOT’s operating policies, ratepayers are shelling out tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for backup power. It is the most expensive way to operate a grid, and Texans will feel the bite as these costs are absorbed over time.”

The Californication of our grid is unfolding before our eyes. If the Legislature and the PUC don’t act fast, the Texas miracle won’t last.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is CEO of the American Energy Institute and a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives

Related Topics:#HeartlandDailyNews #JasonIsaac #SummerBlackouts #TexasPowerGrid #WindFailingTexas #WindSubsidies

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Politicians should be honest about environmental pros and cons of electric vehicles

Automotive

Politicians should be honest about environmental pros and cons of electric vehicles

Published on December 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Annika Segelhorst and Elmira Aliakbari

According to Steven Guilbeault, former environment minister under Justin Trudeau and former member of Prime Minister Carney’s cabinet, “Switching to an electric vehicle is one of the most impactful things Canadians can do to help fight climate change.”

And the Carney government has only paused Trudeau’s electric vehicle (EV) sales mandate to conduct a “review” of the policy, despite industry pressure to scrap the policy altogether.

So clearly, according to policymakers in Ottawa, EVs are essentially “zero emission” and thus good for environment.

But is that true?

Clearly, EVs have some environmental advantages over traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. Unlike cars with engines that directly burn fossil fuels, EVs do not produce tailpipe emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, and do not release greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide. These benefits are real. But when you consider the entire lifecycle of an EV, the picture becomes much more complicated.

Unlike traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, battery-powered EVs and plug-in hybrids generate most of their GHG emissions before the vehicles roll off the assembly line. Compared with conventional gas-powered cars, EVs typically require more fossil fuel energy to manufacture, largely because to produce EVs batteries, producers require a variety of mined materials including cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese and nickel, which all take lots of energy to extract and process. Once these raw materials are mined, processed and transported across often vast distances to manufacturing sites, they must be assembled into battery packs. Consequently, the manufacturing process of an EV—from the initial mining of materials to final assembly—produces twice the quantity of GHGs (on average) as the manufacturing process for a comparable gas-powered car.

Once an EV is on the road, its carbon footprint depends on how the electricity used to charge its battery is generated. According to a report from the Canada Energy Regulator (the federal agency responsible for overseeing oil, gas and electric utilities), in British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario, electricity is largely produced from low- or even zero-carbon sources such as hydro, so EVs in these provinces have a low level of “indirect” emissions.

However, in other provinces—particularly Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia—electricity generation is more heavily reliant on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, so EVs produce much higher indirect emissions. And according to research from the University of Toronto, in coal-dependent U.S. states such as West Virginia, an EV can emit about 6 per cent more GHG emissions over its entire lifetime—from initial mining, manufacturing and charging to eventual disposal—than a gas-powered vehicle of the same size. This means that in regions with especially coal-dependent energy grids, EVs could impose more climate costs than benefits. Put simply, for an EV to help meaningfully reduce emissions while on the road, its electricity must come from low-carbon electricity sources—something that does not happen in certain areas of Canada and the United States.

Finally, even after an EV is off the road, it continues to produce emissions, mainly because of the battery. EV batteries contain components that are energy-intensive to extract but also notoriously challenging to recycle. While EV battery recycling technologies are still emerging, approximately 5 per cent of lithium-ion batteries, which are commonly used in EVs, are actually recycled worldwide. This means that most new EVs feature batteries with no recycled components—further weakening the environmental benefit of EVs.

So what’s the final analysis? The technology continues to evolve and therefore the calculations will continue to change. But right now, while electric vehicles clearly help reduce tailpipe emissions, they’re not necessarily “zero emission” vehicles. And after you consider the full lifecycle—manufacturing, charging, scrapping—a more accurate picture of their environmental impact comes into view.

Annika Segelhorst

Junior Economist

Elmira Aliakbari

Director, Natural Resource Studies, Fraser Institute

Energy

Canada’s future prosperity runs through the northwest coast

Published on December 13, 2025

Todayville

From Resource Works

By Deborah Jaremko

A strategic gateway to the world

Tucked into the north coast of B.C. is the deepest natural harbour in North America and the port with the shortest travel times to Asia.

With growing capacity for exports including agricultural products, lumber, plastic pellets, propane and butane, it’s no wonder the Port of Prince Rupert often comes up as a potential new global gateway for oil from Alberta, said CEO Shaun Stevenson.

Thanks to its location and natural advantages, the port can efficiently move a wide range of commodities, he said.

That could include oil, if not for the federal tanker ban in northern B.C.’s coastal waters.

*The Port of Prince Rupert on the north coast of British Columbia. Photo courtesy Prince Rupert Port Authority*

“Notwithstanding the moratorium that was put in place, when you look at the attributes of the Port of Prince Rupert, there’s arguably no safer place in Canada to do it,” Stevenson said.

“I think that speaks to the need to build trust and confidence that it can be done safely, with protection of environmental risks. You can’t talk about the economic opportunity before you address safety and environmental protection.”

Safe transit at Prince Rupert

About a 16-hour drive from Vancouver, the Port of Prince Rupert’s terminals are one to two sailing days closer to Asia than other West Coast ports.

The entrance to the inner harbour is wider than the length of three Canadian football fields.

The water is 35 metres deep — about the height of a 10-storey building — compared to 22 metres at Los Angeles and 16 metres at Seattle.

Shipmasters spend two hours navigating into the port with local pilot guides, compared to four hours at Vancouver and eight at Seattle.

“We’ve got wide open, very simple shipping lanes. It’s not moving through complex navigational channels into the site,” Stevenson said.

A port on the rise

The Prince Rupert Port Authority says it has entered a new era of expansion, strengthening Canada’s economic security.

The port estimates it anchors about $60 billion of Canada’s annual global trade today. Even without adding oil exports, Stevenson said that figure could grow to $100 billion.

“We need better access to the huge and growing Asian market,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“Prince Rupert seems purpose-built for that.”

Roughly $3 billion in new infrastructure is already taking shape, including the $750 million rail-to-container CANXPORT transloading complex for bulk commodities like specialty agricultural products, lumber and plastic pellets.

*The Ridley Island Propane Export Terminal, Canada’s first marine propane export terminal, started shipping in May 2019. Photo courtesy AltaGas Ltd.*

Canadian propane goes global

A centrepiece of new development is the $1.35-billion Ridley Energy Export Facility — the port’s third propane terminal since 2019.

“Prince Rupert is already emerging as a globally significant gateway for propane exports to Asia,” Exner-Pirot said.

Thanks to shipments from Prince Rupert, Canadian propane – primarily from Alberta – has gone global, no longer confined to U.S. markets.

More than 45 per cent of Canada’s propane exports now reach destinations outside the United States, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

“Twenty-five per cent of Japan’s propane imports come through Prince Rupert, and just shy of 15 per cent of Korea’s imports. It’s created a lift on every barrel produced in Western Canada,” Stevenson said.

“When we look at natural gas liquids, propane and butane, we think there’s an opportunity for Canada via Prince Rupert becoming the trading benchmark for the Asia-Pacific region.”

That would give Canadian production an enduring competitive advantage when serving key markets in Asia, he said.

Deep connection to Alberta

The Port of Prince Rupert has been a key export hub for Alberta commodities for more than four decades.

Through the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, the province invested $134 million — roughly half the total cost — to build the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal, which opened in 1985.

The largest grain terminal on the West Coast, it primarily handles wheat, barley, and canola from the prairies.

*The Prince Rupert Grain Terminal. Photo courtesy Prince Rupert Port Authority*

Today, the connection to Alberta remains strong.

In 2022, $3.8 billion worth of Alberta exports — mainly propane, agricultural products and wood pulp — were shipped through the Port of Prince Rupert, according to the province’s Ministry of Transportation and Economic Corridors.

In 2024, Alberta awarded a $250,000 grant to the Prince Rupert Port Authority to lead discussions on expanding transportation links with the province’s Industrial Heartland region near Edmonton.

Handling some of the world’s biggest vessels

The Port of Prince Rupert could safely handle oil tankers, including Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), Stevenson said.

“We would have the capacity both in water depth and access and egress to the port that could handle Aframax, Suezmax and even VLCCs,” he said.

“We don’t have terminal capacity to handle oil at this point, but there’s certainly terminal capacities within the port complex that could be either expanded or diversified in their capability.”

Market access lessons from TMX

Like propane, Canada’s oil exports have gained traction in Asia, thanks to the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline and the Westridge Marine Terminal near Vancouver — about 1,600 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, where there is no oil tanker ban.

The Trans Mountain expansion project included the largest expansion of ocean oil spill response in Canadian history, doubling capacity of the West Coast Marine Response Corporation.

*The K.J. Gardner is the largest-ever spill response vessel in Canada. Photo courtesy Western Canada Marine Response Corporation*

The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) reports that Canadian oil exports to Asia more than tripled after the expanded pipeline and terminal went into service in May 2024.

As a result, the price for Canadian oil has gone up.

The gap between Western Canadian Select (WCS) and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has narrowed to about $12 per barrel this year, compared to $19 per barrel in 2023, according to GLJ Petroleum Consultants.

Each additional dollar earned per barrel adds about $280 million in annual government royalties and tax revenues, according to economist Peter Tertzakian.