Graeme wrote:This Big Texas City Will Soon Be Powered Entirely By Wind And SunThere’s a fast-growing city in Texas that also has one of the most progressive energy programs in the country — and it’s not Austin.
Located about 30 miles north of the Texas capital in a deeply conservative county, the city of Georgetown will be powered 100 percent by renewable energy within the next couple years. Georgetown’s residents and elected officials made the decision to invest in two large renewable energy projects, one solar and one wind, not because they reduced greenhouse gas emissions or sent a message about the viability of renewable energy — but because it just made sense, according to Mayor Dale Ross.
“This was a business decision and it was a no-brainer,” Ross told ThinkProgress from his office along one of the city’s main thoroughfares. “This is a long-term source of power that creates cost certainty, brings economic development, uses less water, and helps the environment.”
In a state better known for what it prospects for underground, Texas has one of the best aboveground renewable energy profiles in the country — especially west Texas, where the wind blows hard and consistently and the sun shines unabatedly. Texas also has its own electricity grid, which allowed state lawmakers to build the thing often lacking in the development of major renewable energy projects: transmission lines. As part of the state’s Competitive Renewable Energy Zone program, or CREZ, Texas has spent around $7 billion building transmission lines to make far-removed wind and solar projects accessible to population centers in the central and eastern parts of the state.
By bringing nearly 150 megawatts of wind energy from north Texas and another 150 megawatts of solar from far west Texas, Georgetown is taking full advantage of what the Lone Star State has to offer. And in doing so, it is getting some of the cheapest, most reliable, and most sustainable energy in the country.
thinkprogress
Graeme wrote:Yes they can and will. Georgetown is demonstrating it.
News that a Texas city is to be powered by 100% renewable energy sparked surprise in an oil-obsessed, Republican-dominated state where fossil fuels are king and climate change activists were described as “the equivalent of the flat-earthers” by US senator and GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz.
“I was called an Al Gore clone, a tree-hugger,” says Jim Briggs, interim city manager of Georgetown, a community of about 50,000 people some 25 miles north of Austin.
Briggs, who was a key player in Georgetown’s decision to become the first city in the Lone Star State to be powered by 100% renewable energy, has worked for the city for 30 years. He wears a belt with shiny silver decorations and a gold ring with a lone star motif, and is keen to point out that he is not some kind of California-style eco-warrior with a liberal agenda. In fact, he is a staunchly Texan pragmatist.
“I’m probably the furthest thing from an Al Gore clone you could find,” he says. “We didn’t do this to save the world – we did this to get a competitive rate and reduce the risk for our consumers.”
In many Texas cities the electricity market is deregulated, meaning that customers choose from a dizzying variety of providers and plans. In Houston, for example, there are more than 70 plans that offer energy from entirely renewable sources.
That makes it easy to switch, so in a dynamic marketplace, providers tend to focus on the immediate future. This discourages the creation of renewable energy facilities, which require long-term investment to be viable. But in Georgetown, the city utility company has a monopoly.
Fearing an imminent end to the government’s generosity, private green energy companies have scrambled to build facilities. At the same time, in recent years a glut of Chinese-made panels has made solar power more cost-effective. And while west Texas is an oil driller’s paradise, it is also sunny and gusty, making it a perfect corridor for renewable energy.
The region bordering New Mexico is one of the prime solar resource sites in the US and the wind whistles across the plains to such an extent that, as Scientific American pointed out last year, the state is America’s largest wind power producer – as well as leading the nation in the production of crude oil and the emission of greenhouse gases.
Renewable energy also uses much less water than traditional power generation – a bonus in a state where half the land and more than nine million people are affected by drought conditions, though Briggs said that for Georgetown, water conservation was only a “side benefit”.
“They were just looking out for the cheapest deal. That’s just business,” the 50-year-old said. “I don’t really think we should be relying too much on oil, even though they have to right now. That don’t last forever.
“Sun will, though. Long as the sun comes up, the wind will blow.”
C8 wrote:I wonder if renewables will cause people to spread out more as to where they live since the ratio of land to people matters
pstarr wrote: You might also want to ask what happens in the winter when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Will the city shut down completely? Or will it come back tail between it's collective legs to beg the power company to turn back on the gas/coal power plants? What if the gas/coal turbines are rusty, un-manned (womened) and can't afford to suddenly start up again.
dashster wrote:I always hope there will be more spreading out so people will always have farms and jobs near them. But it would be difficult to implement a plan to keep farms since every farm family wants the right to sell their place to a real estate developer at some point. And current property tax laws make working the same land more and more expensive as an area fills in and property values go up.
kanon wrote:I mean no disrespect, but this thinking is, IMHO, very wrong-headed. The spreading out virtually guarantees greater energy intensity and infrastructure costs.
People who believe the "economic growth" mantra of expansion of roadways and suburbia simply do not understand the bigger picture.
The economic growth is really an expansion of debt/credit supported by greater fossil fuel consumption. On the whole, people and communities are not better off due to spreading out because the ongoing expenses of debt, fossil fuels, and maintenance are greater than the advantages. A powerful grouping of special interests do benefit from spreading out, but overall there is an economic loss. This is seen in unpayable debt, unmanageable infrastructure costs, and households spending more on transportation than any other category.
The concern for small/family farms and greater self reliance is well intended, I'm sure, but that is a question of tax and subsidy policy, and not of spreading out.
I wish I could make a more detailed argument, but there is a huge problem in a lack of factual information. Promotional literature and selected facts are all that is available, but I repeat myself. Suffice it to say that Georgetown is only taking one step in a major transformation. Another part is what is known as "infill development," so that transportation and other infrastructure is simplified and far less energy intensive. Georgetown will have an enduring advantage over other Texas cities in terms of energy, but retrograde political policies in Texas may very well hide the advantage, since the state is on track to devote ever more subsidies to car-culture, sprawl, and corporate welfare.
dashster wrote:The densest parts of the country - like New York City, have had the longest and most infill. Rather than being cheaper places to live, they are more expensive. New York City residents must pay, not just a state income tax, but a city income tax. They pay more to live in higher density. They have subways, but they have to pay for them just like someone in another less-infilled city pays for a bus or light rail.
Graeme wrote:This Big Texas City Will Soon Be Powered Entirely By Wind And Sun
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 189 guests