{"id":372050,"date":"2025-03-26T07:55:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T06:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=372050"},"modified":"2025-03-26T07:55:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T06:55:28","slug":"nuclear-subsidies-in-texas-ouch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=372050","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Subsidies in Texas? Ouch!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bradley Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c\u2026 our legislative leaders think that the answer to overcoming renewable subsidies is to give subsidies to everyone else.\u201d (- Bill Peacock, below)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Subsidized wind and solar power\u2013dilute, intermittent, and fragile\u2013wounded the Texas grid (ERCOT, covering 90 percent of the state), resulting in the greatest blackout in the history of U.S. electricity in February 2021<\/a>. With the tricked grid continuing to attract inferior energies, Texas politicians have tried to wrong a wrong into a right. Instead of halting the cancers in the system (wind, solar, and battery investments), the Republicans are now subsidizing new capacity from natural gas technologies as well as nuclear fission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New nuclear plants are a real stretch, but Texas can lose a few billion taxpayer dollars, right? The bad news from Texas is that the legislature is planning to increase spending by $48 billion with only $6 billion going to property tax relief<\/a>. This is the lesson of concentrated benefits, diffused costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest with nuclear? Bill Peacock reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Yesterday, Rep. Cody Harris filed House Bill 14 that would establish the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Program. Among other things, this would provide state subsidies for the building of nuclear energy generation of electricity in Texas. Gov. Gregg Abbott has made this one of his priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program follows in the footsteps of the Texas Energy Fund created in 2023 by the Legislature and funded with $5 billion<\/strong>. The funding level for the nuclear energy fund has not yet been revealed, but the proposed Texas budget already has another $5 billion<\/strong> set aside for the Energy Fund, which provides subsidies for natural gas generation plants.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Peacock gets to the underlying problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Where the federal government is cutting corporate welfare, it is big business in Texas. The push for these energy subsidies stems from the unwillingness of the Texas Legislature\u2014unlike President Trump\u2014to eliminate subsidies for the \u201cGreen New Scam\u201d despite the fact that renewable energy is gutting the reliability of the Texas electric grid. Instead, our legislative leaders think that the answer to overcoming renewable subsidies is to give subsidies to everyone else.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Two wrongs do not make a right. All subsidies for all energies should immediately cease, federal and state. Texas should not add any new wind, solar, or battery capacity nor subsidize transmission access for the same. Existing wind, solar, and battery facilities should be retired as they wear out or otherwise underperform. A real free market requires a phaseout of ERCOT in favor of nonregulated utilities assuming the supply function, a story for another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Subsidized wind and solar power\u2013dilute, intermittent, and fragile\u2013wounded the Texas grid (ERCOT, covering 90 percent of the state), resulting in the\u00a0greatest blackout in the history of U.S. electricity in February 2021. With the tricked grid continuing to attract inferior energies, Texas politicians have tried to wrong a wrong into a right. Instead of halting the cancers in the system (wind, solar, and battery investments), the Republicans are now subsidizing new capacity from natural gas technologies as well as nuclear fission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":372052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691832877,691818589,691829744,691822157,691834056,691818728],"class_list":{"0":"post-372050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-green-new-scam","9":"tag-nuclear-plants","10":"tag-texas-energy-fund","11":"tag-texas-grid","12":"tag-texas-gov-gregg-abbott","13":"tag-wind-and-solar","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=2070%2C1375&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1yMO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":264332,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=264332","url_meta":{"origin":372050,"position":0},"title":"Wind Fails Texas Again","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"28\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"One last thing. Beyond the problems of intermittency and unreliability, wind and solar generation is vastly more expensive than natural gas, coal, and nuclear generation. The 2023 cost in Texas of renewable subsidies and protecting the grid from renewables will exceed $2.7 billion (it was 2.04 billion in 2021).","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate warning\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate warning","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-warning"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/059a9b0876eac401b008b7f18.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/059a9b0876eac401b008b7f18.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/059a9b0876eac401b008b7f18.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/059a9b0876eac401b008b7f18.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/059a9b0876eac401b008b7f18.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":211778,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=211778","url_meta":{"origin":372050,"position":1},"title":"Excusing Wind in Texas? (ICN in spin mode)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Robert Bradley Jr.\u00a0 \u201cOn Monday, wind was functioning at 8 percent, which is not unheard of,\u201d so it was weird to be called out in the press release, because it\u2019s something that we know happens so we should be ready for that sort of thing.\u201d \u2013 Joshua Rhodes, Webber\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Wind_Solar_24956215852_5ca6c01d93_o_AquaMechanicalFlickr.jpg?fit=1200%2C884&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Wind_Solar_24956215852_5ca6c01d93_o_AquaMechanicalFlickr.jpg?fit=1200%2C884&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Wind_Solar_24956215852_5ca6c01d93_o_AquaMechanicalFlickr.jpg?fit=1200%2C884&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Wind_Solar_24956215852_5ca6c01d93_o_AquaMechanicalFlickr.jpg?fit=1200%2C884&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Wind_Solar_24956215852_5ca6c01d93_o_AquaMechanicalFlickr.jpg?fit=1200%2C884&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":274731,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274731","url_meta":{"origin":372050,"position":2},"title":"Wind Output Plaguing Texas (ERCOT weathers on)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"21\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Wind and solar are not reliable enough to maintain grid stability and therefore require dispatchable power sources such as coal, nuclear, and natural gas-powered generation to stabilize the grid. 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