Dr. Ed Hirs - Energy Fellow University of Houston Joins Houston Morning News, June 19th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Life. It's stop and go.Well, just go time, cheap up
with our steady flow of updates tocontinue onward line with US Radio seven four
JGRH. But when the sun agedining and you can't store energy and batteries,
then that can lead to problems,in particular during the month of August.

(00:21):
So do they have a good reasonto be nervous? Let's ask doctor
ed Hers, energy fellow at theUniversity of Houston. There haven't really been
any changes, have there over thepast couple of years. And how work
God does things? So are theyprepared for what's going to happen in August
when we have the sun go down, it's still hot in the human Well,
it's the same problem we've had forthe last several years. We don't

(00:43):
have enough dispatchable power plants on thegrid to cover demand when it gets really
hot. And you know, we'vealready been into an emergency alert system this
year because a number of these plantswere offline. You know, the coal
fired power plants averaged fifty years inage, the natural gas power plants at
thirty years in age. They dobreak down. They need to be maintained.

(01:03):
And then our market also rewards theproducers who stay on the grid if
they're if some go offline. So, for example, if we have the
Jimmy Sharer and ED Power Company andwe have fifteen generators on the on urkat,
we see that tomorrow is going tobe a wickedly hot day, do

(01:25):
we turn all fifteen on to makesure the price stays at fifty cents of
meg lot at fifty dollars a mega lot hour, or do we leave
five of them turned off so thatthe price goes to five thousand dollars and
make a lot hour. That's thegame that the generators can play. I
understand that. I also understand theycome August. It's part of the problem

(01:47):
is we don't have enough power onlinefrom our solar energy plants feeding into the
sision because when the sun goes down, we don't have it when the demand
is really really high. Right,But we've been under in investing in our
coal, natural gas, and nuclearfleet from long before. For the last
twenty years, the state of Texasgrew from one point two to five trillion

(02:09):
dollars in GDP and in twenty tento one point nine to nine trillion dollars
in GDP. And twenty twenty onewhen we had the freeze and the fleet
the portfolio of nuclear, natural gasand coal fired power plants actually shrank over
that period of time, and we'veseen nobody building new natural gas power plants.

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The governor Lieutenant Governor Blackrock met herein Houston two months ago. Three
months ago. No one budged theTexas Energy Fund this loan bucket. There
are a lot of applications, butit's going to be five years before anything
happens out of that. If itdoes happen, we're in trouble for the

(02:52):
next five years. Well, youknow, black Rock has no interest,
as you know, in in producingenergy as it relates to that, especially
traditional energy. They're only interested insolar and wind. And when we had
that brown out a couple of yearsago, I think that was in August,
that was kind of the perfect stormed because not only was it hot
in himid and the sun had gonedown, but the wind wasn't blowing.
Well, those are the hot daysin Texas. And you know, the

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government, everybody in Austin understand thatwe don't have any incentives built. We
don't have any incentives built into themarket to reward anyone to build a new
natural gas fired power plant. Andthe other thing is the demand that's increasing.
It's not just population growth. Itis bitcoin mining, and it's are

(03:36):
data mining, and it's the incrediblepower that AI and computers draw and demand.
Well, that's true. Interestingly,the crypto miners now use much more
power than the city of Austin ona day to day basis, and as
Bloomberg reported last year, they havedeals where they can buy power at two

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and a half cents to kill alot hour and they can sell it back
to the grid shut down for fivedollars to kill a lot hour. You
know, the everyday Texan is subsidizingthese these crypto miners across the grid.
So the other thing that's ever goingto change anything is if we have some
other major brownout or blackout situation andthe citizens all get up in arms like

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we did after the Big Winner event. You know something that really upsets the
citizens to call their legislators and makethem take the bull by the horns if
you will, aren't we Well,last week we had the State Supreme Court
issue a decision ratifying the overcharges fromthe freeze in twenty twenty one, Nowhere

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in America does a public utility commissionactually take a position against its consumers.
The Third Court of Appeals had ruledthat the money that Urcott had overcharged,
the billions of dollars that are saddledon our bills right now, was to
be refunded, and the the PublicUtility Commission went to the State Supreme Court
to have that that decision overturned,and they did. Oh boy, all

(05:05):
right ed well, seems all stackedagainst us for now, anyway. Thank
you for joining us this morning.Good to hear from you, sir,
Doctor ed Hers, an Energy fellowat the University of Houston. It's six twenty eight