When it comes to powering the Texas energy grid, the answer is not blowing in the wind. After poor wind energy output was a key factor in the February 2021 winter storm grid failure, just two weeks ago it was again blamed for prompting an ERCOT conservation notice during unusually hot temperatures.
Now, as Texas heads into another hot summer with energy costs soaring and lingering questions about sustaining the grid through high demand, the Biden administration is pushing wind power as the answer, despite its dubious track record. Specifically, the administration wants to develop offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico, even as a similar project off the Northern Atlantic coast has failed to create the power or jobs promised. "The first challenge with offshore wind development is the same challenge you have with onshore wind, which is that wind is periodic, and you need to produce electricity when it's needed," says Chuck DeVore, vice president with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
"So without huge battery farms to back up the wind---to store the power for a time when it's not windy---you're just putting at risk the reliability of your grid," he continues. "And those battery farms are highly reliant on rare Earth minerals like lithium and cobalt, which we don't make a lot of here in America."
Offshore wind development also poses its own environmental challenges. Indeed, calling it "clean" energy is hardly accurate. DeVore points out the thousands of birds killed each year in wind turbines alone. "Yet somehow energy from wind is completely exempt from environmental regulations that would hinder the creation of a natural gas power plant or nuclear power plant," he tells KTRH. "There really is a double standard."
So while wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico may seem like a realistic alternative to oil rigs, they really aren't. "You've got all sorts of challenges when you're dealing with offshore development in the ocean," says DeVore. "You have the salt water, the corrosion, waves, hurricanes, then you've got the undersea cables that have to bring the power back onshore."
"The bottom line is wind power is not a particularly efficient method of generating electricity, because it's so unreliable and so periodic."
Photo: Aldrich, Beatrice (uploader)