A bad week for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts nationally was even worse for their Louisiana counterparts.
Since their taking of offices, Republican Pres. Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress have turned off the firehose of tax dollars going to the renewable power industry. Additionally, greater administrative scrutiny and more precise application of existing environmental and conservation law have held the permitting and startup of solar and wind to a higher standard, if not outright banning their presences in federal offshore waters, with the latest announcement this week that eligibility for financial aid would become further curtailed.
This mean Louisiana may have no wind projects going on for years to come. None were active before Trump announced a permit moratorium earlier this year, and now that subsidies have been yanked and the permit process presented with an end date even the contemplated one at Port Fourchon looks like it never will get off the ground (pun intended).
Solar is somewhat farther advanced, with several facilities in operation generating a potential 1.1 gigawatts maximum. Just over 120 megawatts from two north Louisiana farms should come online soon. However, the remaining half-dozen in development that promise 880 MW may not come to fruition, given the loss of subsidies that take from taxpayers as much as a third of costs to build out and now increased federal review.
This is the correct policy. Electricity prices rise as the proportion of renewable sources rise because inserting them into the energy provision mix is relatively more expensive than fossil fuels generally, particularly combined cycle natural gas, due to dispatchability issues. There’s no reason to force higher prices onto ratepayers just cater to the unscientific, faith-based CAGW delusion.
That’s on the side of the ledger of increasing non-fossil fuel sources of energy, which in the state now faces a major cutback. For renewable energy enthusiasts with faith in CAGW, the news also gets worse on the other side of the ledger concerning the supply of fossil fuel sources. This week, the Louisiana Public Service Commission approved plans by Entergy Louisiana to supply power to the new Meta data center in northeast Louisiana that relies heavily on additional natural gas power generation. That capacity would be more than three times the entire contemplated new solar capacity now made uncertain.
To add insult to energy (yes, another intended pun), Meta as part of the plan pledged eventually to draw a significant chunk of that power ultimately needed from renewable sources. But with the changes at the federal level, that becomes a more and more expensive proposition that therefore may require passing costs along to Louisiana ratepayers to have the infrastructure to get to more distant sources of it, which will become more expensive still if artificially demand escalates because of promises like this while renewable energy supply doesn’t grow much, if at all. The PSC seems unlikely to grant rate increases just to satisfy fashion.
And to cap it all off, fossil fuel use will increase significantly in one chunk of the state. West Feliciana Parish has had its ground broken for an artificial intelligence setup like Meta’s by the firm Hut 8, requiring billions of dollars of computing power potentially for producing bitcoin and farming out capacity for a tenant.
This is great news, because it is not anticipated to need extra power from utilities and in fact may be able to use stranded natural gas and/or methane to power its activities. These energy sources typically exist unused that if used bring extra jobs and tax revenues. They also release more carbon and (obviously in the one case) methane into the atmosphere, making CAGW acolytes apoplectic.
All of which means more economic activity at less ratepayer cost for Louisiana. Its residents having this kind of good week contrasts with the Chicken Littles of the world wailing and gnashing their teeth over these latest developments.
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