COMMENTARY: Summer Talking Points: Unreliable Power - Alex Epstein - Energy News, Top Headlines, Commentaries, Features & Events

Don’t blame the climate for unreliable power, blame climate policies that shut down reliable power

By Alex Epstein

This is Part 2 of a 4 part feature where I cover 4 of the top energy issues that will be discussed this summer, especially as politicians return home for August Recess.

Don’t blame the climate for unreliable power, blame climate policies that shut down reliable power.

In recent summers it’s become commonplace for Americans to experience electricity shortages, with calls to use less electricity and the frequent threat of brownouts or blackouts.This is an embarrassment, and it was totally preventable.¹
Anti-fossil-fuel politicians will blame our grid’s reliability problems on “climate change,” which is supposedly making it too hot for a grid to operate.This is absurd; countries with much hotter temperatures than ours, like Singapore, are easily able to have a reliable grid.²
The real cause of reliable problems is the obvious: government-dictated “green energy” policies that punish reliable fossil fuels and nuclear, while privileging unreliable solar and wind.
Since at any given time solar and wind can go near zero, using them to replace reliable power doesn’t work. E.g., during February 2021’s winter storm, TX solar and wind were totally out to lunch—but they’d taken tens of $billions that could have gone to reliable, resilient power.³
The Biden-Harris EPA has been at war with reliable power plants, above all the coal plants that our grid depends on for 1/6th of its reliable power.And they’re doing this while demand for power is increasing from data centers and EVs.

The Biden-Harris EPA’s recent power plant rules will not only shut down vital coal power plants more quickly, they will also prevent new natural gas plants from replacing them.