Policymakers on both sides of the political aisle are increasingly advocating for affordable, reliable and clean energy. This is for good reason – modern society needs energy that is affordable and on demand. [emphasis, links added]
Environmental issues are also very important. Common affordability, reliability and cleanliness form the three pillars of ideal energy policy.
Two new analyses evaluate competitive power sources and produce an affordable, reliable and clean scorecard.
These two analyses – one published by Northwood University and the Mackinac Center and another published by my Heartland Institute, independently achieved nearly the same findings.
Both analyses found that natural gas is the most affordable, reliable and clean power supply. Not far from natural gas is nuclear, hydraulic and coal.
The bottom of the Affordable Scorecard is wind and solar.
Natural gas can easily become the lowest-cost power source, and coal is the second affordable. Natural gas and nuclear and coal are also reliable, with reliable production of large capacity, and high volume production scores.
While some claim that wind and solar are cheaper than conventional power, the opposite is true. Wind and solar power benefit from subsidies from other power sources, which simply transfers its high costs to taxpayers rather than directly transfers it to customers’ electricity bills.
Similarly, the intermittent and often unpredictable nature of wind and solar energy imposes a huge cost on the grid, requiring other power supply frequencies to rise frequently (quite inefficiency) to cover the variability of wind and solar energy.
Finally, wind turbines and solar panels often have to stay away from the center of the population and require a large and expensive network of transmissions to provide power to customers.
Taking into account all the above factors, a peer review analysis of the system-wide leveling cost of competitive energy shows that Wind power is seven times more powerful than natural gas, and solar energy is ten times more expensive.
This explains why most and almost all developing countries in the world are building natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants, rather than wind and solar facilities.
Perhaps the most noteworthy finding of these two independent analyses is the poor environmental performance of wind and solar energy. Wind and solar energy, such as hydraulic and nuclear, have no emissions.
However, for many other important environmental factors, wind and solar scores are poorly different. Wind and solar energy need to destroy and develop more land and ecosystems than other power sources.
Wind and solar energy produce much more animals directly killed than other sources of power, including many protected and endangered species.
The mining of toxic and rare earth minerals from wind turbines and solar panels is harmful to water and soil health.
But for consumer and grid integrity, natural gas is the gold standard for affordable, reliable and clean power generation.
Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order pointing to the affordability and abundance of coal and removing barriers to coal production and utilization.
The two new analyses support the Trump administration's energy policy, which highlights the increase in domestic oil, gas and coal production.
Meanwhile, these two analyses support similar actions to remove barriers to nuclear power, hydraulic power, and especially natural gas.
Don't expect large utilities to necessarily support natural gas and other affordable, reliable and clean power supplies. Utilities usually operate under a monopoly protected by governments, so they do not need to generate affordable capabilities to gain an advantage over their competitors.
Additionally, governments usually guarantee about 10% of the profits of utilities on so-called green power projects and expenditures. As a result, utilities are often the most expensive power supply to lobby for their total profits.
But for consumer and grid integrity, natural gas is the gold standard for affordable, reliable and clean power generation. Nuclear, hydraulics and coal are not far away.
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