Can Nuclear Solve the Renewables Problem?

Even in Texas, there are no free lunches

Letter to WSJ.

"“A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco” (April 15) is an excellent editorial on how ill-designed subsidies for renewable energy have led to unintended and costly consequences, requiring support for dispatchable fossil-fuel generation at the state level to play a supporting role. It should, however, have been expected.

In the U.K. and EU countries, subsidizing renewables has led to what we call “capacity payments” to dispatchable fossil-fuel plants to run at minimum stable generation to back up the intermittent and random output of renewable energy. In addition to the costs of random intermittence, renewables as distributed generation require a lot more wires and use a lot more land than fossil fuels.

Though their variable cost is virtually free when the sun shines and wind blows, their indirect costs and externalities are huge. Fully costed, renewable energy isn’t competitive. If such costs and indirect support were internalized, investors would never find the returns adequate given the paucity of generation hours. Even in Texas, there are no free lunches.

Lawrence Haar, Ph.D.

University of Brighton

Brighton, England"