Its mostly because of this guy(1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Osborne

"Renewable Energy Policy. In 1984 Osborne co-founded the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association (now Alliance) (TREIA)[1] with two partners and worked with other key individuals and organizations to bring the nascent renewable energy industry to the attention of policymakers on the state and federal level. "

This was a unplanned, unanticipated freak accident that gave Texas an early transmission for wind power. Because most of the farmers are republican, they built a transmission network for the farmers. This led to CREZ (Competitive Renewable Energy Zones), the goal of which is to integrate the wind supply regions with the large demand centers. Rich farmers are a much larger voting block than the dozens of fossil fuel billionaires.

The bragging by Texas about renewables is entirely accidental and is a side-effect of building a transmission network for the rich farmers. Not because Texas runs markets efficiently, pro-business or pro-efficiency or anything like that. Thats just nonsense.

Today, Texas tries very hard to limit renewables, but fails. They only want coal and natural gas, and use the legislation and state money to fund them: https://www.powermag.com/texas-moves-forward-with-5-38b-in-l...

(1) I think this is the guy, but am not entirely sure. I read an article about this curious case of renewables in Texas, a long time back. It is hard to find that article, I've been searching for an hour and most of what I find credits politicians for CREZ. But there was a private person who made this possible. I'm assuming its this guy.

For a very very long time, fracking was not economical, and only through massive government investment did it become cost effective.

Same goes for renewables, and electrolyzers. All evidence points to a future with renewable energy costing a small fraction of fossil fuels, and electrolyzers being cheaper than hydrogen from gas. But the future needs to be built. We can either lose out and buy the tech from others, or be leaders and reap the early rewards.

The US is centrally planned to some degree, just in different ways and by different interests.

I suspect the interests/actions of lobbyists for certain companies/sectors had significant influence on things like taxes, and is a type of central planning.

It's different than most central planned economies because there are two entities operating in parallel (a quasi-private corporate state in addition to the usual government state), but I'd say it's still centralized/planned, even if it's not the state/government doing the planning.

Fossil fuel being heavily subsidised kind of undermines both of your points.

Mostly because the carbon dioxide emission is not properly reflected in the fossil fuel pricing.

Basically, every single person on earth is subsiding the big oil by bearing the consequence/cost of the higher CO2 concentration.

Like it or not every, non-failed-state, modern economy is a centrally-planned one. The economy never lives in a vacuum, it's always a product of the institutions that govern them (regulations, subsidies, taxes, etc.) Something is always “the most cost-effective option” because the institutions made it so.

No they don’t. They remain subsidized. Solar surpassed fossil fuels in efficiency ages ago, and I don’t even LIKE solar. Fossil fuels have no redeeming qualities in the major energy sectors anymore, aside from ONE: the plants are VERY cheap to build.

Solar and wind energy have been more economical than fossil fuel on a cost per unit energy basis for quite some time. The reasons we're still so tied to fossil fuel are largely political, not economic.

Technology Connections goes into this in exhaustive detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

Also, you may not have heard that the Trump administration is actively stonewalling green energy projects, regardless of their economic prospects: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2026/06/29/87...

If you're not accounting for all the wildfire smoke costing billions of dollars maybe your calculations for cost effectiveness have some adjustments to be made

Yeah I can see your problem

> owned by farmer cooperatives

No way for a Corp to benefit=communism

lol

> awful to wildlife

I think this has been greatly exaggerated, but even if the claims are true it's as nothing compared to fossil fuel.

Calling wind power "wasteful" is just silly. We need to be a bit more hard nosed when it comes to energy policy. Not only does wind save tons of money, t is hyper efficient, and anti-correlates with solar in most geographies. Meaning a small amount of cheap battery storage mixed with wind plus solar delivers extremely cheap, reliable energy, with amazing dispatch characteristics.

People get all emotional about views, but most people find it beautiful and a few people's visual aesthetics should not override one of the pillars of the future economy.

Additionally, the fix for runoff from farms into the gulf is mere regulation and fining, but that's not going to stop the need for ammonia! Plus, try to regulate these farmers, they are largely parasites in the country through the farm bill yet still remain one of the most potent political factions in the country.

The runoff from farms in rural Minnesota is being dumped into the sea? There's almost no place farther from the sea in North America than upper midwest rural farms.

How are you going to recapture fertilizer runoff.

Built infrastructure for hydrogen storage and transport is always a challenge, it's a slippery little molecule that's expensive to contain in human built stuff.

That said, there's almost always a 'cheat' and for bulk hydrogen storage:

  Using salt caverns (cavities leached from salt deposits in the subsurface) for gas storage is an established technology. Salt caverns are good for storing gas because they have a very low permeability and cracks or fractures can re-seal to prevent leakage. The UK has salt deposits that are suitable for cavern storage and that have been used store natural gas since the 1960s. Hydrogen, used as a chemical feedstock, has been stored in salt caverns in Teesside since the 1970s.

Currently there are a few geological structures in Australia being tested for suitability and pilot storage.

It's providing an alternative to middle east sourced fertiliser from plants that can no longer ship or, in some cases, can no longer operate due to war damage.

US states aren't the only places on the globe building out renewable powered green hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, etc.

Another PoV is not the profit from producing home ground fertiliser but the risk of not having fertiliser at "just the right time".

Locally (Western Australia) there are some 8.3 (ish) million hectares of grain planted annually; that's a high spike demand for both fertiliser and fuel that can be interrupted by supply chain issues (eg: war) leading to extensive losses wrt expected harvests.

Sort of, but there are important details you miss. First the nitrogen triple bond is one of the strongest in nature so it takes a lot of energy to break it. So we don't actually do that in the way you think in a real ammonia plant. Instead we heat (usually) Magnesium and that extracts Nitrogen from the air (actually a pure nitrogen atmosphere). That's not what is happening in this plant. And the difference in the effectiveness of those two different methods is probably pretty big. This seems more like a PR stunt to get investment.

Typically the natural gas is the source of the hydrogen. Usually natural gas is burned to form steam to split more natural gas (CH4) into carbon and hydrogen. That’s traditionally cheaper than electrolysis.

It’s mot powered with fossil fuels. It uses fossil fuels as an ingredient.

Yes, the Green Revolution. I agree it's not black and white, which may well be an ironic turn of phrase.

It depends who's definition of organic you are using. Demeter and Biogro, which are the certifications I am familiar with prohibit most conventional artificial fertilisers.

"We would probably have large scale use of renewable ammonia"

I seriously doubt that. Using natural gas to make ammonia is cost effective even if natural gas prices go up by a lot...and by that I mean they could go up 10x and it still makes sense. Its a really, really efficient industrial process.

Its horrendously inefficient...and inefficiency is usually bad for the environment. For example, the solar PV when sited in Minnesota is so inefficient just making the electricity from natural gas would produce less CO2 per watt. So there is that, and that's before you look at if all the equipment you use to build the plant was better used elsewhere. And then you could put the solar PV somewhere where it would actually been better than just burning natural gas for electricity.

That is a bit extreme. Wanting to preserve the environment isn't the same as wanting to let everyone starve, it's quite the opposite. Spend a minute or two looking up soil erosion, and extrapolate 100 years.

you might be thinking of https://www.greenlightning.ag/ - seems really cool tech. combined with variable cheap power source like solar or wind, seems like a good way to give ai bit more control over inputs for farmers.