This article was previously published at Real Clear Energy
Nevada’s Embrace of Solar Power
An Imaginary Solution for an Imaginary Problem
Norman Rogers
Solar energy is great for heating swimming pools. It’s a reasonable method of powering highway call boxes. Solar combined with batteries and diesel generators is manageable for families or small communities too far from the nearest power line.
If you live off the grid and must survive on solar electricity you won’t have air conditioning or electric heat. Your heat will be from wood or propane. If your location has many cloudy days, you’ll either have a backup generator or put up with many blackouts.
If you want to convert the electric grid to partly run on solar electricity, the solar electricity will cost seven times more than the electricity generated using natural gas or coal. The more solar you try to stuff into the electric grid, the more problems will be encountered. The problems are hidden by propaganda and subsidies.
It is not a sure thing that the new Trump administration will kill solar subsidies. Politics can be more important than good policy. For example, Trump is a big supporter of corn ethanol, a scheme for burning up the corn crop to support farmers in Republican states.
I estimate that if solar subsidies continue, the cost of electricity in Nevada will double within ten years. If the subsidies are cut or abolished the cost of electricity will soar even more. The rational alternative is for Nevada to put an end to solar development.
Here are some of the excuses for using solar power:
We are running out of fossil fuels – For a while we were running out of extremely cheap oil from the Persian Gulf. The development of fracking has released vast quantities of domestic oil and gas, enough for 100 years or more. Domestic coal reserves are gigantic. The Green River shale of Colorado, so far not exploited, is vast. These resources are interchangeable. Coal can be converted to oil or natural gas. Natural gas can be converted to diesel fuel.
Fossil fuels create air pollution – Wrong. Modern plants, including coal, are pristine.
Burning fossil fuels releases CO2. CO2 will create a climate catastrophe – The case against the climate catastrophe is overwhelming. The so-called science can be described as computer models gone wild. A good argument is to point out the hypocrisy of the advocates. For example, why does the Sierra Club, a powerful advocate for reducing CO2 emissions to prevent an alleged climate disaster hate nuclear electricity, the only practical solution for eliminating CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity? Why does the Sierra Club say very little about China’s and India’s emissions of CO2 that are three times ours and growing rapidly?
The Sierra Club and many politicians are in the business of selling imaginary solutions for imaginary problems. That works well for them. Any solution works for preventing an imaginary catastrophe.
A hundred years ago H.L. Mencken said: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
CO2 is plant food. Plants breathe CO2. Our atmosphere is low on CO2. The release of CO2 by burning fossil fuels is greening the deserts and improving agricultural productivity. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere allows plants to thrive with less water.
Nevada has three million people. Most of the state is desert. The wealthy California climate activist Tom Steyer spent $10 million to promote an amendment to the state constitution requiring the adoption of renewable electricity, in practice solar electricity. State senator Chris Brooks championed legislation to implement the constitutional amendment (Senate Bill 358). Brooks was in the solar energy business and later went to work for a large solar company.
The principal electric utility in Nevada, NV Energy, is owned by a Warren Buffet company. Warren Buffet is in business to make money, not to save the planet from an imaginary catastrophe, as easy that may be. For NV Energy solar energy is a financial bonanza. For example NV Energy is building a $4 billion “Greenlink” power line made necessary by increasing use of solar energy. That capital investment becomes part of NV Energy’s regulatory rate base, greatly increasing profits and cash flow.
Nevada is a small state with timid media. Politics is easily manipulated by monied interests. The previous governor, Democrat Steve Sisolak, was a big supporter of wasteful programs favoring big solar. The current governor, Republican Joe Lombardo, seems to understand that embracing solar energy is a disaster, but faced with a democrat majority in the legislature, his ability to fix the situation is limited.
There have been Nevada politicians that opposed wasteful solar. For example, U.S. Senate candidates Sam Brown in 2024 and Adam Laxalt in 2022. They both lost.
The public is ignorant concerning the very high cost of solar energy and the many practical problems it presents. Between two thirds and three fourths of the public think solar energy is a good idea.
Solar electricity is intermittent, peaky and doesn’t work at night. It must be backed up by traditional plants 100 percent.
To be price competitive with fossil fuels solar must cost less than the marginal cost of running the backup fossil fuel plants, or $20 per megawatt hour. Even with the large existing subsidies solar costs are double the price competitive point.
Peaky solar delivers most of its electricity in the middle of sunny days. In jurisdictions with ambitious goals for renewable energy, solar plants must have time shifting batteries to move midday power to later in the day. The batteries increase the cost of the solar farm by about 30 percent.
As a method of reducing emissions of CO2, solar is very expensive, costing about $400 for each ton of CO2 emissions avoided when solar displaces natural gas. Nuclear electricity is a much cheaper method of avoiding CO2 emissions. Nuclear emits no CO2 and can replace fossil fuel plants because nuclear is not intermittent.
Small scale residential rooftop solar never made any sense because the electricity produced costs an outrageous 30 cents per kilowatt hour. With subsidies and something called net metering, in some jurisdictions, the homeowner can reduce his electric bill with rooftop solar. Rooftop solar is a propaganda tool. Homeowners reduce their electric bill and become convinced that solar is a big breakthrough. Often the homeowner thinks he is saving money when he isn’t, due to a faulty method of calculating breakeven time used by solar salesmen.
Solar electricity is a mass delusion promoted for the benefit of special interests. Like other useless government programs it may be hard to kill.