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Energy

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

Published

2 years ago

9 minute read

From Heartland Daily News

By Jason Isaac

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 88th 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

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Canada’s sudden rediscovery of energy ambition has been greeted with a familiar charge: hypocrisy

Energy

Energy security matters more than political rhetoric

Published on December 16, 2025

By

From Resource Works

By Stewart Muir

If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?

Finance expert warns that political timelines for transition defy the laws of physics and economics while threatening living standards.

In the polarized world of energy policy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find conversations that prioritize practical reality over political idealism. We are often presented with a binary choice: either you are for the planet, or you are against it. But as I often find when digging deeper into these issues on the Power Struggle podcast, the real world is far too complex for such simple narratives.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jerome Gessaroli to strip away the rhetoric and look at the hard numbers. For those who don’t know him, Gessaroli is a finance professor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a valued member of the Resource Works Advisory Council. He is a thinker who deals in data, not daydreams.

Stewart Muir with Jerome Gesaroli on Power Struggle Podcast

Our conversation focused on a topic that makes many policymakers uncomfortable: the widening gap between our energy transition targets and the physical capacity to meet them.

The Fundamental Equation

We began with a premise that should be obvious but is frequently forgotten in the halls of government in Ottawa or Brussels. Gessaroli laid it out as a fundamental fact that underscores every economic decision a nation makes.

“There is a direct link, a direct correlation, between energy consumption and living standards,” Gessaroli told me. “And so if we expect to improve our living standards in the future, then we will likely be expending more energy.”

This is the inescapable equation of modern life. In the West, where we have enjoyed stable grids and abundant fuel for a century, we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking we can maintain our prosperity while shrinking our energy footprint. But globally, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.

Gessaroli pointed out that while we debate carbon taxes and caps here, the majority of the planet is focused on survival and advancement.

“A lot of the growth in energy consumption will be through the Third World,” he explained. “They’ve just got a huge population, and they want to pursue economic growth, have a better standard of living, and that will require a lot more energy.”

The View from the Developing World

To illustrate this, Gessaroli drew on his observations from India. He described seeing farmers burning dung to create heat and energy—a practice born of necessity, but one that traps populations in poverty and creates localized health hazards. The path out of that poverty isn’t found in wishful thinking; it’s found in density.

“Now, if they expect to have a better standard of living in the future . . . they’re going to be looking at more intensive sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, nuclear, whatever,” Gessaroli said. “They need to use more energy in order to raise their living standards.”

This brings us to one of the most contentious points in the global climate dialogue. We often hear Western politicians ask, with a mix of confusion and frustration, why nations like China and India are still building new coal-power plants. If the technology for wind and solar exists, why aren’t they leaping straight to it?

I found Gessaroli’s answer to be a necessary dose of realism. It isn’t that these nations hate the environment; it’s that they love stability.

“They know how to do it extremely efficiently. They have the local domestic sources,” Gessaroli noted, referring to coal reserves. “There’s a source of energy security in that they don’t have to import the product.”

In an era of geopolitical instability, energy security is national security. Relying on domestic coal provides a safety net that imported fuels or intermittent renewables cannot yet match. As Gessaroli put it: “The type of power that is generated by a coal plant, for instance, is stable, reliable power.”

The Timeline Mismatch

This doesn’t mean the world isn’t changing. It is. Gessaroli was quick to acknowledge that the green energy sector is booming. Innovation is happening. But there is a massive disconnect between the pace of engineering and the pace of political promises.

“There is a lot of growth in terms of other types of energy production. They’re growing quite rapidly and they’re improving over time,” Gessaroli said. “But it’s just not in line with the time frames that our politicians and policymakers are telling us that the targets have to be met by.”

This is the crux of the “power struggle.” We are being sold a vision of the future with a delivery date that defies the laws of physics and economics.

The EV Challenge and the Scale of Site C

Perhaps nowhere is this disconnect more visible than in the push for electric vehicles (EVs). Governments are setting aggressive target dates to ban the sale of internal combustion engines. On paper, it looks like a victory for the climate. But as a finance professor, Gessaroli looks at the balance sheet of power generation.

“What they don’t realize is the activity, the investment, required to actually make that happen,” he said. “Where is all that extra power going to come from?”

This is not a rhetorical question. It is a logistical nightmare. To put it in a local context, we looked at British Columbia. We have just spent years and billions of dollars completing the Site C hydro dam, a massive engineering project designed to secure our grid for the future.

However, Gessaroli’s calculations suggest that the new power demand from a full EV transition alone means we would need two times the amount of power currently generated by the new Site C hydro dam.

Let that sink in. It took us decades of planning, regulatory hurdles, and construction to build one Site C. To meet the government’s EV mandates, we effectively need to build two more, immediately. And that doesn’t even account for the rest of the economy.

“If we want to decarbonize mines and other industrial projects as well, then we’re going to have to find the extra power,” Gessaroli added.

If we cannot build the generation capacity in time, the demand will simply outstrip supply. Prices will skyrocket, and reliability will plummet.

The Unintended Consequences

Towards the end of our discussion, Gessaroli posed a question that has stuck with me. It challenges the moral high ground often claimed by the most aggressive climate activists.

If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?

It all leads to his key question: What if the green revolution is hurting the people it aims to protect?

It is a question that deserves an honest answer, not more slogans. As we look toward a future of increased energy demand, we need to listen to experts like Gessaroli who understand that you cannot legislate your way around the laws of thermodynamics.

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Energy

Canada’s sudden rediscovery of energy ambition has been greeted with a familiar charge: hypocrisy

Published on December 16, 2025

By

From Resource Works

By Stewart Muir

Carney didn’t betray climate ambition. He confronted reality

Playing politics with pipelines is a time-honored Canadian tradition. Recent events in the House of Commons offered a delightful twist on the genre.

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The Conservatives introduced a motion quoting the Liberals’ own pipeline promises laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Alberta, nearly verbatim. The Liberals, true to form, killed it 196–139 with enthusiastic help from the NDP, Bloc, and Greens.

We all knew how this would end. Opposition motions like this never pass; no government, especially not one led by Mark Carney, is going to let the opposition dictate the agenda. There’s not much use feigning outrage that the Liberals voted it down. The more entertaining angle has been watching closely as Liberal MPs twist themselves into pretzels explaining why they had to vote “no” on a motion that cheers on a project they claim to support in principle.

Liberal MP Corey Hogan dismissed the motion as “game-playing” designed to “poke at people”.

And he’s absolutely right to call it a “trap” for the Liberals. But traps only work when you walk into them.

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty deemed the motion an “immature waste of parliamentary time” and “clearly an insult towards Indigenous Peoples” because it didn’t include every clause of the original agreement. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson decried it as a “cynical ploy to divide us” that “cherry-picked” the MOU.

Yet the prize for the most tortured metaphor goes to the prime minister himself. Defending his vote against his own pipeline promise, Carney lectured the House that “you have to eat the entire meal, not just the appetizer.”

It’s a clever line, and it also reveals the problem. The “meal” Carney is serving is stuffed with conditions. Environmental targets or meaningful engagement with Indigenous communities aren’t unrealistic asks. A crippling industrial carbon price as a precondition might be though.

But the prime minister has already said the quiet part out loud.

​Speaking in the House a few weeks ago, Carney admitted that the agreement creates “necessary conditions, but not sufficient conditions,” before explicitly stating: “We believe the government of British Columbia has to agree.”

​There is the poison pill. Handing a de facto veto to a provincial government that has spent years fighting oil infrastructure is neither constitutionally required nor politically likely. Elevating B.C.’s “agreement” to a condition, which is something the MOU text itself carefully avoids doing, means that Carney has made his own “meal” effectively inedible.

Hodgson’s repeated emphasis that the Liberal caucus supports “the entire MOU, the entire MOU” only reinforces this theory.

This entire episode forces us to ask whether the MOU is a real plan to build a pipeline, or just a national unity play designed to cool down the separatist temperature in Alberta. My sense is that Ottawa knew they had to throw a bone to Premier Danielle Smith because the threat of the sovereignty movement is gaining real traction. But you can’t just create the pretense of negotiation to buy time.

With the MOU getting Smith boo’ed at her own party’s convention by the separatists, it’s debatable whether that bone was even an effective one to throw.

There is a way. The federal government has the jurisdiction. If they really wanted to, they could just do it, provided the duty to consult with and accommodate Indigenous peoples was satisfied. Keep in mind: no reasonable interpretation equates Section 35 of the Charter to a veto.

Instead, the MOU is baked with so many conditions that the Liberals have effectively laid the groundwork for how they’re going to fail.

With overly-hedged, rather cryptic messaging, Liberals have themselves given considerable weight to a cynical theory, that the MOU is a stalling tactic, not a foundation to get more Canadian oil to the markets it’s needed in. Maybe Hodgson is telling the truth, and caucus is unified because the radicals are satisfied that “the entire MOU” ensures that a new oil pipeline will never reach tidewater through BC.

So, hats off to the legislative affairs strategists in the Conservative caucus. The real test of Carney’s political power continues: can he force a caucus that prefers fantasy economics into a mold of economic literacy to deliver on the vision Canadians signed off on? Or will he be hamstrung trying to appease the radicals from within?

Margareta Dovgal is managing director of Resource Works Society.

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