South of the border, U.S. states that have embraced renewable energy such as wind and solar are struggling to keep the power up and running. Canadians should take heed, as the Trudeau government wants to achieve “net-zero” electricity—where the production of conventional power sources such as natural gas is constrained to favour renewables—by 2035.
In the United States, federal and state governments have spent billions to increase renewable energy production, quadrupling the share of solar and wind electricity in the last decade. By 2021, renewables reached 33.6 per cent of electricity production in California while in Texas wind and solar recently overtook coal as the second-largest source of electricity.
The transition away from traditional energy sources to renewables in both of these massive states, however, has coincided with a marked deterioration in their electric systems. The number of interruptions in California’s power supply increased from 12 reported failures in 2012 to 42 in 2021. Texas went from 12 reported failures to 91 during the same time period. California narrowly avoided massive blackouts this past summer and calls for energy conservation are becoming more common in Texas.
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