Texas Approves US $5B for Transmission

If we put the solar collectors on the roof of our house, we would not have to spend as many billions on transmission lines.

Wind is ~$2MM/MW installed with a ~35+% capacity factor in West Texas. PV is $6MM/MW with ~18% CF in Dallas. PV is 3x as the price per stated watt, with half the annual output per stated watt. That 6X price difference is the economic justification for transmission.

We need both rooftop solar and wind power if we are going to find ways to avoid building more coal and nuclear plants. it is not a competition between wind and solar as much as it is between renewable and non-renewable. The Governor of Texas (Rick Perry) has tried very hard to fast-track coal fired plants in Texas. Only by continuing to add renewable sources of energy and by making all energy consumed in more efficient ways will there be any answer to the fears of not having enough energy.

The only hope of reducing climate change is both wind and solar as fast as possible. If you actually run the numbers, you'll find out that if the country installs both 1,000 GW of wind and 1,000 GW of solar, we'd almost meet our electrical needs. At the current rate, the wind would take us until 2040 (and yes, it would require transmission lines), and the solar would take until the year 2500 (long after all the ice melted). Compounding growth will help, but we need all the wind we can get as soon as possible to have the slightest chance.

Capacity factors, 35%, 18%. Herein lies the problem. Renewables are unpredictable, expensive and no long term storage facilities are in the near future, therefore traditional base load generation is necessary to backup renewable generation. Coal and nuclear are our most plentiful fuel source in the US, and we need to continue to rely on these generation sources. Coal in the US is like oil in the mid-east regarding quantity of resources. We need to continue to develop clean coal technologies, but technologies i.e., IGCC, carbon sequester and capture etc. are far too cost prohibitive at this time. In the near future, more funds need to be expended on "Back End" coal solutions, i.e., reducing NOX/SOX, ash removal, reducing mercury, etc. until new technologies are perfected. In addition, Europe is miles ahead of us regarding the development of nuclear energy. 85% of the generation in Europe is nuclear. We need to spend more time on developing fusion, waste fuel enrichment, etc. In closing, I support the $5B investment in transmission lines in Texas to resolve constraints for wind, but additional emphasis needs to be placed on cleaning up/improving our traditional generation sources.