Big Shoes to Fill

Planet Gore on National Review Online

As a follow-up on my “Everything’s Bigger in Texas” post, here is a petition from Environment Texas, the group calling for 30-mile-by-30-mile solar plants in west Texas that they say will power the entire state. Here is the text of the email linking to the petition:
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For those not familiar with just how big Texas is — and how big its growing energy needs are: according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas: (1) Texas’ energy demand is expected to grow 1.8 percent per year for the next decade; (2) Texas’ population of 24.3 million is expected to grow to 29.7 million by 2020 and 40.1 million by 2040. As of January 2008, the year-to-date contributions of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to our nation’s total energy generation were 50.3 percent, 19.8 percent, and 19.5 percent, respectively. And wind and solar are supposed to bear that whole load?

According to the Energy Information Administration, for YTD through January 2008, wind energy provided just 1 percent of our nation’s energy needs (The figure for YTD through January 2007 was just under 0.7 percent.). And solar, well, you can do the math: Out of the 363,268 units of energy generated in 2007 (measured in 1,000 mWh), solar thermal and photovoltaic energy did their part by producing 15 units. Yep, wind and solar are well on their way to meeting all of our needs.