Grading the Grid: Natural Gas and Nuclear Top List of Reliable and Affordable Energy Sources

A joint report from Northwood University’s McNair Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

We often hear that transitioning from fossil fuels and nuclear energy is essential. We are told we must transition to energy sources that are widely referred to as renewable, such as wind and solar. Fossil fuels, we are instructed, emit planet-warming greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Nuclear energy produces spent fuels that raise the long-term risks of radiation. The transition is painted as an essential energy policy, needed to protect humanity and the natural environment from the harm caused by traditional energy sources and to stave off the imminent and existential threat of climate change.

However, many details associated with this transition are brushed over or ignored. For example, before we commit to abandoning our foundational energy supplies, we should ask basic questions about the potential environmental harms associated with relying on wind and solar for much of our electricity. We should investigate what is involved with mining and refining the bulk and critical minerals and metals needed to manufacture wind turbines and solar panels and their components. We should ask very simple and straightforward questions to determine if wind and solar can even provide sufficient and consistent electricity to meet the needs of our energy-hungry society. The details of this transition need to be more intently scrutinized. Unlike conventional energy sources, wind turbines and solar panels are subject to the vagaries of weather patterns and diurnal cycles. On cloudy, windless days, electricity genera on from this pair can drop to near zero (or zero), challenging grid reliability.

The transition to wind and solar also entails significant infrastructure changes in a grid designed for the steady output of traditional, baseload power plants. But we are now assured that the grid that has provided safe and reliable electricity for decades must be substantially altered to address the variable nature of renewable genera on. Instead, we should ask if the variable nature of wind and solar is well-suited to pair with our me-tested and reliable grid. We should ask if these intermittent resources are ready to meet our energy needs.

Integrating intermittent renewables into our electric grid requires that we also deploy backup mechanisms to forestall blackouts. However, the single most reliable and accessible backup op on is natural gas, one of the fossil fuels that proponents of the transition tell us must be “let in the ground.” Additionally, relying on renewable energy systems and the backup sources they require entails building duplicate infrastructure that operates alongside wind, solar, and batteries to provide power when wind and solar go to near-zero or zero. These backups and duplicative efforts all must be borne by ratepayers and taxpayers. The push for a rapid transition must be tempered by an understanding of the financial, environmental, and intermitiency burdens imposed on electricity consumers.

In this paper, we review the arguments for and against eight major sources of electric power: natural gas, coal, petroleum fuels, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar, and geothermal.