> Texas is in a funny place. They are pumping oil like crazy, but they are building wind like crazy as well.

There isn't really anything contradictory about that. Oil has a vastly different set of use-cases than wind energy. There are no electric alternatives for most long distance transportation, which is a huge chunk of our energy consumption.

Gaining independence from OPEC by supporting local oil extraction while simultaneously moving as much of the grid to renewable as possible is a completely rational choice.

>There are no electric alternatives for most long distance transportation, which is a huge chunk of our energy consumption.

What about trains?

At this point, there are no long distance electric trains in the US. Odd, it seems like it would be mutually beneficial to have the electric grid run on rail right of way and be used to power trains.

I imagine it would bring some ability for load balancing moving more freight during specific hours.

This seemed like a good idea at first, but I have a suspicion that it would mess with schedules.

Power lines can climb much steeper hills than trains.

Exactly! Hillclimbing is a huge weakness of trains which significantly increases the cost of rail construction.

Texas has plenty of cargo trains with a pretty sophisticated setup.

There are currently at least two groups trying to do passenger trains between Austin, Dallas / Fort Worth, and Houston. I'm not sure what they want for Federal or State money.

Trains don't get you and your overseas goods across oceans (yet).

It may not be fast, but wind power is a proven technology for that application.

It’s also not as economical. If your competitor uses shipping that’s weeks faster and more reliable, then you’re not staying in business long.

At some point, we'll make shipping companies pay for their heavy externalities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative) and we'll have to choose between slow, clean and cheap or fast, dirty and expensive.

Shipping (boats onna water) aren't the 90% problem to solve, that is all on land. You solve that before you worry about the other 10%

Nothing is a "90% problem", even on land.

Tankers' environmental impact is disastrous, although they actually are comparatively quite CO2-efficient for shipping goods. It's just that there is so many of them now.

Shipping accounts for ~2% of total US oil consumption so that's a tiny little chunk.

Source: https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/w...

Air is listed right beside that, which is probably closer to what he was referring two. Combined, they sit at 10%. Not as much as he thought, but nothing to scoff at.

Neither do cars or trucks.

> (yet)

I do wonder what happened to the Transatlantic tunnel

Natural gas is an alternative to oil for long distance transportation, although both are still fossil fuels. Progress is being made on algae biofuels. If electricity gets cheap enough it can be used to make synthetic hydrocarbon liquid fuels.

But again, if electricity is cheap enough, why not electric trains like we do in Europe? Or hydrogen if you need some energy storage on board? See http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/could-hydrogen-train...

I bet that this would be much better for the environment than algae.

Short range commuter rail will be electrified in some places like Caltrain.

http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/CaltrainModernization/...

Hydrogen is probably a dead end. It's too bulky, hard to handle, and the energy efficiency is terrible. Most hydrogen fuel today is produced from natural gas, which is just stupid.

>why not electric trains like we do in Europe?

While electrification of the US freight rail network certainly may happen, you have to remember the US is twice as large as the EU (9.1M sq km vs 4.5M sq km) and only a quarter the population density (33 vs 117 per sq km). Long distance passenger train routes don't really make sense (electrified or not, very few people want to spend 2 days on the train when a flight is 4 hours), meaning rail in the US is almost entirely freight.

China has a similar size to the USA and has invested heavily in HSR as an alternative to flying. Beijing to Guangzhou is 9 hours by train, which is pretty competitive with a flight when considering travel time to/from airports as well as the other hassle.

China also does a lot of freight and has gone through a lot of electrification (75%). Freight runs between Beijing and Lhasa, which is similar to NYC to LA.

I haven't gone deep into the economics, but I've found rail cost several times as much for a 30 hour ride with nowhere to sleep, compared to the 2 hour flight or 20 hour drive. So of course ridership is low.

Some intersection of actually-competitive pricing and higher speed tracks, and it seems like rail would have the potential to be plenty competitive. Lower vehicle purchae, maintenance & fuel costs, greater comfort. If I could make a 2 hour flight in 4 or 6 hours by train for 90% of the cost, I'd probably never fly again.

To my knowledge, Europe doesn't have an extensive network of freight railways, instead it has a working network of passenger rail, with lots of electrification.

The US freight network hasn't yet managed to fully rollout positive train control, electrification seems like a much harder problem. Moving freight requires a lot more power than moving people, and also has a lot more sidings and things. Some lines run double height cars, which I'm guessing would add additonal complications.

Europe has freight rail, they often use separate tracks, and most of it is electrified.

China has a lot of freight, is as large as the USA, and has a decent amount of electrification as well.

In other news, coal prices are actually going up! And China's coal exports began to ramp up, for first time in a decade!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtreadgold/2018/09/20/the-inc...

Make no mistake: Big oil, coal, etc. will move to "green" energy. However, this is how they want to do so:

- Maximize returns on existing investments: Mineral rights and leases and options and equipment.

- Maintain and gain control. Renewable energy is just fine, then, as long as they are in control and profiting from it.

The problem is, this screws over a lot of people and environments, in the meantime. Slows investment -- the U.S. has already lost much of the technology lead and even more of the manufacturing lead, to overseas. And, it vests the least progressive elements of our society with control over our energy future.

Oh, and environmental pollution -- not just CO2, but the outfall of CO2, heavy metals, radioactive byproducts (yes, from fossil fuels), continued support of authoritarian and criminal regimes...

Oh, yes, they can actually slow deployment, as well. Such as trying to get state legislatures to "outlaw" self-sufficient home deployments. Fighting, as they did for some time, end user feeds back into the grid (that can require grid upgrades to handle, at scale).

Anyway, these are not the people and organizations I want in control of our future energy production and distribution. Nor, in my opinion, do they deserve to profit from it.

But that's their goal.

Don't forget that Texas is also one of the largest producer of nuclear energy in the nation.

Lots of people in Texas have gotten good at making money from producing energy. Simple as that.

It is probably the most innovative place in the world for energy production. Hydraulic fracturing was invented there. Well, not invented, but innovated upon enough to the point where it was basically invented there. Without discussing the environmental problems that came with its onset, it’s easy to acknowledge how that one technique completely transformed the natural gas industry and the overall energy industry in the last 20-30 years.

We're also the largest electricity consumer, so that might not mean anything special.

I'm curious whether they see some kind of writing on the wall and realize that while they embrace renewable energy and lead the nation in Wind Power they also need to pump hard so this vast resource of oil (1 trillion barrels) is not left stranded when/if the day ever comes where oil is not required (in vast quantity).

They are incredibly smart business people and a State Gov that is incredibly business friendly, which has made Texas an energy powerhouse from renewable energy, oil, natural gas, refining capabilities and the infrastructure to move it all to market.

Isn't that what Norway has been doing for years?

I mean, sure. But Texas produces almost 3x as much as Norway.

Yes, but mostly hydro for power generation.

It makes sense. Like how the Gulf countries invest in solar. It's because they have the interested parties (Energy industry) on the phone every day.

You should know that oil is hardly used for elec. gen in developed countries. They are only indirect competitors - through the automobile.

You in fact shouldn't know this as the EIA reports that 3,239,699 barrels of petroleum products were consumed in august of this year alone for electrical generation in the US (source https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... )

I'll change my comment from not -> hardly.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

While your number seems like a lot, it's really just a drop in the bucket. The US consumes close to 8 billion barrels of oil annually. I was, however, surprised that it was still as high as 0.5%.

Hawaii likes to generate power that way. Northern parts of Alaska do too.

>You should know that oil is not used for elec. gen in developed countries.

Eh? When I worked for a United States generation company our coal-burning plants could and would be switched to bunker fuel if the price was right. To be fair it's not much (less than 5%) depending on how you slice it, but in their 2016 annual report [1] Dynegy reported 2.6 TWh (terawatt hours) sold into the wholesale market and .7 TWh into retail.

Be careful about blanket statements unless you're an expert in the area because other HN readers are experts.

[1] = https://www.dynegy.com/sites/default/files/Dynegy_2016_Annua...

> To be fair it's not much (less than 5%)

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Here's a better source. It's 0.5%. I felt that was enough to warrant using "not used in developed countries," but fair enough.

>Be careful about blanket statements unless you're an expert in the area because other HN readers are experts.

Easy there hotshot

> You should know that oil is hardly used for elec. gen in developed countries.

Visit Hawaii sometime. Oil on Oahu. Diesel on the other islands.

You’ll see diesel generators powering islands in Southeast Asia as well.

Diesel is a useful option for places not connected to a larger grid.

I do know that. I'm commenting on the fact that Texas is investing in renewables while at the same time investing nonrenewables at the same time.

Renewables are primarily for domestic consumption, oil is an export good.

At my last apartment, I was paying only about $40/mo for 100% wind/solar. It's incredible what a little government-mandated competition can do.

Isn't it typical for each economy to export the thing it is best at producing?

Also look at Norway--huge petroleum wealth, lots of Teslas because oil is dirty.

Not quite. It exports everywhere there is a comparative advantage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Ah, but this too, not quite. If your economy is better than other economies at producing cars, but _far_ better than anyone else at producing microprocessors, it may be rational to produce microprocessors exclusively and import cars. Cf. revealed comparative advantage.

One mind-blowing item at a time. ;-)

But seriously, thanks for sharing. TIL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_comparative_advanta...

Depending on where you get the electricity to charge your Tesla it could be worse than oil. But seeing as Norway gets almost all of it's electricity from renewable energy that's not the case there.

There is no electrical generation source that is worse than oil, for any electric car. Only 12-30% [1] (EDIT: replaced 1% after correction from nradov) of energy makes it to the wheels when burning petroleum to propel a vehicle forward.

Your electric car will get cleaner over time (90-95% of new generation coming online each year are renewables), your petrol vehicle will burn petrol forever.

[1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

> There is no electrical generation source that is worse than oil, for any electric car. Only 1% of energy makes it to the wheels when burning petroleum to propel a vehicle forward.

What? You say "there is no electrical generation source that is worse than oil" then say "Only 1% of energy makes it to the wheels when burning petroleum to propel a vehicle forward." A gasoline powered car is not an electrical generation source so I'm sure what your saying, especially because coal is a much dirtier source for generating electricity. Also a quick google search shows that gasoline powered vehicles have a tank to wheel efficiency around 16%[1][2] which is much higher then the 1% you stated.

And my original point was, If a electric vehicle is being charged from a dirty source like a coal plant then it can be more polluting then driving an efficient petroleum car. Coal is more polluting then Oil when burned and converting the heat to electricity is a huge hit to efficiency. Only about 30% of the energy from coal is turned into electricity. Plus you have transmission loss from getting the electricity from the power plant to the EV.

[1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/10/electric-car-myth-buste...

[2]: https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/wells-to-whee...

> A gasoline powered car is not an electrical generation source

Just a minor thing, and doesn't change your point, but have you considered that cars have alternators which use the turning of the engine to generate electricity?

You're way off. Modern cars turn about 30% of the energy in gasoline into forward motion. However, electric cars do have a lower carbon impact in almost all cases.

Even though Norway is the perfect country where it makes sense to go full EV, few countries would gains from switching to electric (even from coal)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe#Carbon_footp...

And all grids get greener every year. And this accelerates, so your argument gets weaker over time.

A couple year ago, they were the highest producer of energy of any form in the US (including oil, coal, solar, and wind).

This sounds like a preeminently practical strategy.

The only funny thing about it is people learn their world view is incorrect. Texans are capitalists: if there was a dollar to be made pumping water uphill, there'd be the world's largest salt lake in West Texas.

Oil is an important automotive fuel, but it's a chemical stock for everything that's touching your skin at the second. Hilariously, we should probably start wondering if our plastics come from oil sourced from "ethicality regulated states" or something.

Another interesting thing about Texas is that it has an independent power grid.

> Texas is in a funny place. They are pumping oil like crazy

Texas had always pumped a lot of oil. Texas was the oil capital of the world for a long time before saudi arabia came around.

> but they are building wind like crazy as well.

That's because one of the wealthiest men in the world has been a big fan of wind energy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19231397/ns/us_news-environment/t/...

> I could easily see Texas being a majority renewables while at the same time exporting more and more Oil.

No major state or country is going to be renewable majority for a very long time ( if ever ). Least of all texas.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/images/charts/primary-en...

Now if we would only take on smart modern nuclear reactors, but I'm afraid the greenies in the USA will keep killing that and eventually we'll be buying advanced modular nuclear power from the Chinese in about 10 years.

Look up information on the PUCT's "CREZ" project.