OPINION:
Two things are true about the “conservative” groups now urging young conservatives to embrace wind and solar. Wind and solar are not cheaper once system costs are counted, and these groups are not grassroots.
A handful of organizations with reassuringly right-of-center names — the American Conservation Coalition, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions and the Conservative Energy Network — pitch renewables as the smart free market choice that will lower bills.
Both halves collapse on contact with evidence.
Start with the messengers. Major funding flows from the same left-of-center foundations that bankroll the climate movement — MacArthur Foundation, U.S. Energy Foundation, Clean Future Forum and similar donors — foundations that also write large checks to progressive green groups conservatives routinely oppose.
These are not grassroots conservatives who studied the numbers and converted. They are financed by left-leaning climate philanthropy to carry a progressive energy message into conservative circles under a borrowed label.
The message does not survive contact with real grids.
They claim that renewables are “the cheapest option,” that wind is “the most economically competitive” and that families’ bills will become “much more affordable.”
Look at the places that went all-in.
Germany’s Energiewende left households with among the highest electricity prices in Europe. California leads the nation in wind and solar, yet has some of the highest residential rates in America, nearly double the U.S. average. Britain leaned hard on intermittent generation and now ranks among Europe’s most expensive power markets.
If more wind and solar truly delivered cheaper power, then their electricity would be a bargain. It is not.
Why does “cheap” energy keep producing expensive bills? These groups omit two key reasons.
The first is the backup problem. Wind and solar are intermittent, so the grid still requires a nearly full fleet of dispatchable plants or massive storage. Consumers pay for two systems, even though one reliable fleet once worked just fine.
It is like buying cars that run only on sunny or windy days while still owning and insuring a reliable vehicle for every other hour. No one calls that thrift.
The second is how wholesale markets actually clear. The price is set by the last, most expensive unit needed — almost always natural gas or another thermal plant.
Even when wind and solar flood the grid, the clearing price is usually the gas price. Subsidized intermittent generators receive that price when they run — no “cheap” power for us. We still pay for the reliability layer.
The brochure savings appear only if weather-dependent sources could power the entire grid every hour. They cannot. System costs, backup, transmission and curtailment (paying for wind and solar not to produce when the grid is full) keep the promised savings out of reach by design.
None of this is complicated, and the well-funded groups know it. So what are the donors buying?
They are paid to rebrand weather-dependent power as a free market conservative idea, softening resistance to the subsidies and mandates their funders have long sought.
That is not conservatism. It is the left’s energy agenda wearing a borrowed suit.
Real conservatives want what we have always wanted: affordable, reliable power. Abundant American clean coal, natural gas and nuclear power deliver it. Wind and solar, however dressed in free-market language, do not.
Young conservatives who say renewables are the cheap, patriotic choice should ask who signs the checks behind the messenger. Other countries have already run the experiment. Their electric bills are the receipts.
• Frank Lasee is a policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a Washington-based nonprofit that champions free markets, property rights and innovation as the keys to protecting both people and the environment.
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