Last week, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced a federal plan to subsidize coal and nuclear plants, reports Texas Monthly.
The move surprised many observers in the energy community, as the former Texas Governor had made a name for himself in the Lone Star State as a champion of renewable energy, especially wind power.
The new plan would require the nation’s electricity consumers to pay for non-renewable energy facilities that would otherwise not be economically viable. Perry’s proposal was made in the wake of grid failures caused by recent hurricanes in Florida and Texas. The idea drew widespread criticism. Vox called the proposal “bonkers.”
A more measured L.A. Times asserted that, “Any serious attempt to improve the country’s energy resilience needs to take advantage of emerging solutions rather than prop up 20th-century ones.”