Nevada and other states are trying to switch completely to electricity from renewable energy, but it’s unlikely they will achieve that goal, Bill Peacock, policy director of The Energy Alliance, a project of the Texas Business Coalition, said.
“Renewable energy will never be able to power the world,” he wrote in a study titled “Subsidies to Nowhere.”
Renewable energy has proven to be less reliable and much more expensive than oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear, he wrote.
“Any future gains in efficiency or cost will be marginal,” he said. “Subsidies, whether from federal, state or local governments, will never change that — no matter how many billions of dollars Americans are forced to pay the big multinational businesses that are harming the electric grid.”
Nevada has adopted a goal of having all of its electricity produced by renewable energy by 2050, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states, including California, have similar goals, the group said.
“To date, 10 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam have set 100% clean or renewable portfolio requirements with deadlines ranging between 2030 and 2050,” the group said on its website. “An additional three states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, have goals of 50% or greater.”
But maintaining 100% would be difficult, according to Philip Rossetti, former director of energy policy at the American Action Forum.
“Solar power only produces its stated capacity roughly 25.7% of the day (its ‘capacity factor’),” Rosseti wrote in 2019. “Wind power on average only provides power for 34.6% of the day.”
Rosetti’s research also mentioned an analysis by Jessie Jenkins for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that concluded a 100% renewable energy grid would raise the consumer’s cost of power from 43% to 286%. Just the storage necessary for the power would cost nearly $2 trillion, the research showed.
However, wind turbines and solar panels are increasing in efficiency over time, according to the nonprofit group Environment America.
Wind, solar and geothermal energy accounted for only 0.5% of electricity generated in the United States in 2001, the group said. That has grown to more than 12% today, it said.
The growth rate of wind, solar and geothermal power averaged 15% a year between 2011 and 2020, the group said. If that rate continues, renewables could fully meet U.S. electricity demand by 2035, it said.
When signing the Nevada legislation in 2019 that set the goal of having all of the state’s electricity produced by carbon-free resources by 2050, Gov. Steve Sisolak was optimistic about the challenge.
“This milestone piece of legislation will also help reduce emissions that negatively affect the health and well-being of Nevadans,” he said, according to the Nevada Independent. “By using more clean energy, we’ll reduce our carbon emissions and smog-forming pollution that comes from fossil fuels, decreasing use of pollution in the air that our children, our seniors and everyone breathes everyday.”
