Well Texas seems to be planing to put in regulation on the electricity market. Seems like the current administration is out to completely gut any kind of cost savings for american businesses.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-markets/texas-bi...

> current administration is out to completely gut any kind of cost savings for american businesses

I am sure businesses that follow the administration's wishes will get government contracts, tax rebates, tariff exceptions, and other favorable treatment. I am not worried, the vast majority of businesses will learn within a few months that it is financially profitable to bend the knee.

CTRL+F 'Enron' 0 results.

Don't really trust something advocating for deregulated energy markets to not mention the elephant in the room.

As a counterpoint, I recommend this article: https://ketanjoshi.co/2024/08/12/texas-builds-clean-power-bu...

It looks into the numbers for the Texas renewable buildout, and there's a very important caveat: the amount of renewables you build is not the relevant metric. Emission reduction is. And Texas does not succeed there.

> Emission reduction is. And Texas does not succeed there.

Are you saying they would have released less CO2 had they installed natural gas power plants instead?

Maybe they are saying that if they'd followed California's policies they'd have a higher percentage of their power from renewables and they wouldn't be so wasteful with the energy they do generate.

Because that's the point of this article isn't it? To follow Texas policies, not California's, by pointing to absolute numbers of renewables.

If they looked at absolute numbers on coal and gas they'd look worse.

California is not plummeting in total emissions either, which is the point of the plots in there.

The only thing that could move this along faster is to shut down fully running and functional fossil fuel facilities, which means that the huge capital assets are stranded and a big loss to the people who paid for them.

There, Texas's approach of private investors bearing the cost of that poor investment will fare much better than California's approach of letting the utility bill customers for their poor decisions. (I say this as a Californian absolutely INFURIATED at our toothless public utility commission allowing six whole rate increases in the past year, making electricity for a heat pumpfar more expensive than burning gas for heating, and making EVs about the same cost as a gas car.)

They would have released less CO2 if they had regulated CO2 emissions.

> Emission reduction is. And Texas does not succeed there.

If we're talking about the impact of a particular tech, choosing the proper baseline is important, otherwise it's easy to reach fallacious results in counterfactual reasoning.

Emission reduction versus what? Per-capita emissions reductions? Per-kWh emissions reductions? Compared to whose usage?

Plotting total emission and saying "we've failed!" actually hides a lot of what's going on, it's only one aspect.

Gimme a break. Compare China's centralized economy's solar/wind/nuclear production to the entirety of the west's decentralized, privatized economy. not even close.

Well it really depends on who is control of the centralized decision making. In most states in the US it's fossil fuel interests that control utilities, and much of the government. Which means a very slow transition for nearly every state, when compared to Texas' decision to allow the cheapest energy to win.

In China, the government has the goal of deploying as much energy as possible as cheaply and fast as possible, and promoting their own industries too. Which means tons and tons and tons of renewables.

Good, all we need to do is become China and we're set!