How One Conservative Texas Town Went 100% Renewable

The High Price of Green Posturing moonbattery.com/the-high-price-of-green-posturing/ 6 Feb 2019 Green posturing comes at a high price. Fortunately for pols, they aren’t the ones who pay it - we are (" Texas town’s environmental narcissism makes Al Gore happy while sticking its citizens with the bill" www.foxnews.com/opinion/texas-towns-environmental-narcissism-makes-al-gore-happy-while-sticking-its-citizens-with-the-bill ) Political leaders in a college town in central Texas won wide praise from former Vice President Al Gore and the larger Green Movement when they decided to go “100 percent renewable” seven years ago. Now, however, they are on the defensive over electricity costs that have their residents paying more than $1,000 per household in higher electricity charges over the last four years. That’s right - $1,219 per household in higher electricity costs for the 71,000 residents of Georgetown, Texas, all thanks to the decision of its Republican mayor, Dale Ross, to launch a bold plan to shift the city’s municipal utility to 100 percent renewable power in 2012 when he was on the city council. … His decision to bet on renewables resulted in the city budget getting dinged by a total of $29.8 million in the four years from 2015 to 2018. Georgetown’s electric costs were $3.5 million over budget in 2015, ballooning to $6.3 million in 2016, the same year the mayor locked his municipal utility into 20- and 25-year wind and solar energy contracts to make good on his 100 percent renewable pledge Here’s what residents got for the money: Ross was elevated to celebrity status, appearing in scores of articles and videos, both at home and abroad. Al Gore made it a point to feature the Texas Republican mayor at renewable energy conferences as well. Ross was even featured in one of Gore’s documentaries They must be so proud - even if the 100% renewable energy claim is “nothing more than spurious sloganeering” because “wind and solar power can’t be relied on to keep the lights on 24/7/365.” After AOC and the rest of the radicalized Democrats take power, the whole country may be as proud - and as broke - as the residents of Georgetown, Texas.

Look at the plastic bottles, so you are not Zero Waste??? This is just as big a problem for the EARTH s future and clean and grean planet!

Still hate conservatives but him not so much. Should be a progressive

So proud of my little city!

Amazing

City Al Gore Featured in Movie Is Losing Millions After Going 100% Green Energy ruvid.net/video/видео-L4eeHpsAXaA.html&t=8s&pbjreload=10

Actually, according to latest reports, this town is losing big money due to their variable renewables plan...

Best republican mayer I have seen.

Please please please! I’m begging all elected officials, regardless of party affiliation, make decisions based on facts. The stereotypes associated with what you are ‘supposed’ to believe or choose based on affiliation are extremely damaging!! This is a perfect example of fact based decisions regardless of affiliation and stereotypes.

This is like the coal mining history museum in Kentucky that put up solar panels to save long term money.

"It's not rocket science." Tell that to ted Cruz and your Republican buds.

the words we use affect our thinking, and i'm convinced USA is hurting itself a lot by the false equivalence that liberal equals democrat. No, Liberal is not any random person that says "i'm a liberal" and then joins a party and then adopts the party agenda. No a Liberal is anyone that follows any of the branches of the general ideology of Liberalism, like Economic Liberalism (What Adam Smith created) or Classical Liberalism (what Austrian School created) or NeoLiberalism (more Austrian School Economists defending Classical Liberalism) or Social Democracy (Keynesianism) Both Republicans & Democrats are Liberals.

Not everybody on Earth has access to electricity.

Never mind that Williamson County voted for Beto O'Rourke over Ted Cruz and voted for the Democrat over Republican incumbent John Carter. Yeah, so much for that mumbo jumbo about being in the hotbed of conservatism. And forget about how we've been told for over a century how oil is a fossil fuel and how it's a depleting resource all the while oil pockets keep refilling and we have ample amounts of oil. There's some fact based science that repeatedly observable but who cares about real science right?

I'm a die hard Bernie Sanders' fan and I love this guy!!!

100% Renewables is not our real goal, our real goal is quitting fossil fuels and switching to 100% clean energy. insisting blindly on 100%renewables and opposing, excluding nuclear, which is a very powerful empirically proven tool, will mean winning the fight against climate change will be practically impossible.

in other words, it's only 100% renewable if you ignore the fact that most of the energy in the grid still comes from fossil fuels. this is just a cheap world play, it is not a real 100% renewable electricity town. you are misleading people

If you understand intermittency, then you should also be aware also of battery banks, flywheel energy storage, pumped hydro storage, compressed air storage, and soon... super capacitors. Any SMART grid will have these to balance intermittency. Still attached to your dumb grid? Can't help you there. If your thinking is still intermittently stuck in the 1900s, look them up. No magic bullets, -the magic is in the final result. The resulting grid is more complicated, but also more resilient and adaptable.

praising republicans for going clean is like praising a junkie for not shooting dope up their veins. Like, I got through my whole life without using dope, where are my compliments?

6:35 I think Yeah

This story makes me smile....my faith in humanity is restored(a bit but at least)

That kind of business deal is called collective bargaining. The more you know.

Now the mayor just needs to go 100% whole food vegan!

That's precisely what we need to do to get those aboard who care only about the bottom line and nothing else - bring the price of carbon emissions up to make sure they're no longer competitive.

I want London to go down Georgetown path, 🙏 hopefully, we will reach that goal of 100% green energy in London, I hope more LNDNers will turn to more Hybrids and pure EV cars. Other than that I love this.

finally, Republicans are wising up ( a few of them, to say the least).

cars

That’s nice , keep it up!

Virtually all new utility power generation contracts are solar and wind so in the very near future, the entire U.S. grid will be renewable energy, it's inevitable.

I love how your voice gets slightly lower when you're talking to the mayor vs. in the cut aways

Fantastic job on this video. I hope to use this in my college class. You will actually find that most Republicans are open to innovation and certainly good business and being accountable to their citizens. I am a Conservative minded scientist but politics never colors my teaching as science and fact are sacred to me.

conservatives like the environment to you know

Great for the town. Please stop calling electrical energy just energy.

Another problem in the US is that a lot of energy is wasted, like the fan in the shop.There you could install a motion sensor, the same with fridges, light bulbs and of course in industrial processes.

Well, they still seem to have a lot of big cars...

Definitely not 100% renewable, maybe if they all gave up their cars, and actually generated and stored the electricity and made all of the own food and goods, instead they are buying the electricity from a source that literally couldn't supply 100% renewable, using oil for their cars and buying products shipped from around the world.

This made me feel really good

It is great, but 100% renewable electricity ≠ 100% green/renewable energy. Heating/cooling and transportation is not included. Let alone footprint of goods and services.

Where's that "why Texas has its own electric grid" video? ¶=

Now if he could set another example and hit the gym and a diet...

Unlike Democrats, he didnt force the entire city to spend their own money to buy solar panels they dont need. He didnt infringe on the free will of his citizens just to go green.... liberals take notes! No tax raises, no infringement!

How does Georgetown get it's clean energy at night when the wind isn't blowing? They use credits that buy even more RE during the day or windy times. However, there's only so many credits to go around. Not all of America (or world) will be able to power themselves 100% _all the time_ unless MORE is built, much more. And then, put most of that extra into storage. Now, it ain't cheap. This is why we need to just demand a *molten salt reactor for every town.* Screw the fossil fuels backup, which is most of the time (not "just a little backup").

I usually vote Republican and love this guy and everything he represents in this interview. This is how to win the environmental debate: it has to make sense for the individual as well as the community/nation. Republicans aren't against the environment, we just don't want the community at large to trounce or put down the individual. And no,the individual isn't more important than the community, they are equal. That's a hard balance to make and compromise and concessions need to be made in both directions. When going green makes financial sense, everyone will do it, or almost everyone. Without coercion.

does nuclear ount as renewable according to these renewable energy credits

What does $18 per MW really means? (@2:32) Doesn't make sense.

Great video, great story. But when saying that the town runs on "100% renewable *energy*", you really mean that it runs on 100% *electricity*. Energy would include industrial processes, transport, agriculture etc.. 100% renewable energy would be totally amazing (while 100% renewable electricity is great nonetheless!).

Let's move this mayor up in politics!

Can you generate power from hot sauce?

And then you see the vehicles. A good start but a long way to go

"We let the facts dictate the best decision" Republicans haven't used facts in twenty years; he is clearly an independent in disguise as a Republican.

Joe, your accent is coming out.

Damn, Joe is reeeeally tall

As a chili lover, I'm jealous of that Hot Sauce Shop

"Clean water, clean air is not a Republican or a Democrat issue, it's an American issue." IT'S A GLOBAL ISSUE

why didnt you mention anything about their giant storage battery on Rabbit Hill. 10MWh (and growing)

The problem is that when there aren't sun and wind you can't produce elettricity by renewable and you have to produce whit fossil fuel, we need new tecnology and storage system

👍🏽

+++++

I would love to hear the story of how and why Texas has its own power grid.

I'm okay with this. Nice to see an R with common sense -- at least in the energy department. We'll see about the rest.

Green Energy being a political agenda really looks silly to the rest of the world which is not america. In other countries, the opposition to green energy mainly comes from corporates and not politicians. It's time america(both democrats and republicans) to move beyond the idea that green energy being democrat or a liberal thing. Cheers to that cheery Mayor.

I Love that guy! (the mayor)

Hey, way to go Georgetown!!!

It's always nice to have someone in power that execute decisions based on facts and reality. In his conservative perspective, the fact that renewable energy provider gave his town a better deal than traditional ones is a very sensible option, and he took it. I wish all politician from any ideology and platform could think and act like him, the society will benefit more.

why wasn't he the republican candidate instead of trumpuss!?

Dude, I want to go to that hot sauce shop.

www.ecowatch.com/greensburg-kansas-renewable-energy-2051037395.html

I want to expend on that quote: "It's not an American problem, it's not a Chinese problem. It's a Humanity problem."

Texas is the best state in America!

Ok, I gonna recommend it to people now

there was an aspect missing from this episode. how are they dealing with production shortages (still air nights in the generating region)? the pool of water analogy doesn't quite work for electricity because the grid doesn't inherently have any storage capacity. there are storage options available (batteries, pumped hydro) but they are additional services you have to pay for. and the default solution for peak power demands and lulls in renewable production is gas turbines. before you say your power is 100% renewable you should have sourced a renewable solution to this problem. and I am disappointed that it wasn't mentioned in this episode.

Doesnt matter that tehir conservative.

I don't think many electrons have been generated in power plants...

Belief is not knowledge. Faith is not fact. Science deniers Hold us all back. Honesty is not truth. “Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people.” - Thomas Jefferson

wait, electric grids? what about Alaska and the pacific territories what do they get?

1058

And a scintilla of optimism was born...

Buying 'renewable energy' on the electricity market does not change the carbon emissions output. Instead, other consumers who don't care about renewable buy more non-renewable energy on the market. That'a apart from the fact that wind and solar energy supply totally not correlate with a cities usual demand, so they are actually dependent from non-renewables when there is lack of wind and sunlight. Please, continue to promote renewable energy and other low CO2 power generation. But don't delude yourself by stating it comes with no cost.

The fact that this town exists makes me happy.

Kind of sounds like an accounting trick since they're not really using much/any/entirely renewable. Still it's an effort.

solar requires ~50% overcapacity and wind ~30 % I am all for green futher, but our storage capacity/technologie isn't close to being enough if you want a full solar and wind energie sector. Maybe make a video about how we are going to cover this greenpower weakness In my opionion we push a side nuclear to fast, we need a solution fast, and nuclear is a necery evil in my opion. Sorry for my english

Came here for the environmental story, stayed for the flirty glances the mayor was giving the presenter in the hot sauce shop 🏳️‍🌈

Yep, that's why I preach that the enviorment is NOT a bipartisan issue.

That was a really good description of buying energy off the grid without getting caught up in the minutia of renewable energy credits and community choice aggregation! From a girl studying renewable energy, ya’ll are doing a great job!

I'm moving to Georgetown

but to innovate is opposite to the word "conservative" So title should be Republican instead. pedant out

Hi, you always talk about making your videos more carbon neutral. Can you make a video about carbon offsetting? Is it reliable? What are the best options? Is it a good way to compensate for when I need to fly?

Btw the new Brazilian president is willing to open the Amazon up for logging. Great vid btw.

god damn that mayor was full of himself. Why take pride when he literally said his motives were cheaper energy...? lol

I love this channel so much! Keep up the great work bringing us the climate change stories we need to hear!

SOUTH SIDE REPRESENT

TLDR: It's cheaper

Good video but does make things blurry in the cost department when you consider ITC and PTC's, which isn't discussed in the video, but I love your clarity on the grid and the grid pool :D www.energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc

I love this mayor so much. He's the best of the Republican party

Great video, if only everyone in the world watched it

I love this

Go texas!

Lets go Hot Mess breaks the mold L E T S. G O S K R E W. L I B T A R D S

He sounds like Lil’ Gideon, only older :D

Fantastic episode!!! 4 months ago I started paying a fee to switch all my power usage to renewable energy. I work at home and use a good deal of power, so it just makes me feel like I did something. It was SciShow that first convinced me.Keep up the great work!