00:00Politicians tell us, big tech tells us, and researchers tell us why.
00:04America needs more power on its electric grid.
00:08That they all agree on. But where to draft that power from?
00:11That's where politics divides. The Republican team
00:14generally wants to keep coal around and build more gas power plants.
00:19Democrats largely want to shut down coal and rely on renewables
00:22like wind and solar. But when the grid is running on overtime,
00:26most Americans aren't thinking about where the power comes from.
00:29They just want it to stay on through the final buzzer.
00:39I'm Keaton Peters, an energy reporter with Straight Arrow News.
00:43And we're stripping away the party politics to find out,
00:46from an economic perspective, what is the most effective source of power in 2026.
00:52And since energy technologies are already pitted against each other,
00:56like long-standing sports rivalries, we figured, why not have a little fun with it?
01:01Straight Arrow News created a bracket with 16 types of power-generating technologies and fuels.
01:06We sent it to dozens of experts on energy economics and the power grid,
01:11to have them pick winners in head-to-head matchups.
01:14I'm here for a University of Texas Longthorns NCAA game,
01:18so that I can really get into the competitive spirit.
01:29Let's start off our tournament with a mini-game called Decoding the Power Grid in 30 Seconds,
01:35the length of the NCAA shot clock.
01:37Close to 80% of electricity in the US comes from conventional power plants,
01:41fueled by gas, coal, and nuclear.
01:43More than 20% comes from renewables, including wind, hydropower, and solar.
01:48Over the past decade, coal's been slipping, replaced by gas, wind, and most recently,
01:53the rise of solar and batteries.
01:55Because of those AI data centers you keep hearing about,
01:58electricity demand is expected to increase by about 4% through 2027.
02:02That's a ton of power, with little time to bring in new recruits.
02:05I mean, resources.
02:07The brackets are in.
02:08Many of the experts I spoke with were a little skeptical.
02:11They told me the grid is too complicated to pick just one resource.
02:15We'll come back to the reasons why.
02:17But for now, here are the results.
02:19On the right side, we've got conventional power plants and modern versions of them.
02:25Nuclear never made it past round two.
02:27Existing nuclear plants might have low operating costs,
02:30but they're just too expensive to build.
02:32The track record of conventional nuclear in recent years has been pretty dismal.
02:36You know, it's tremendous cost overruns, tremendous delays.
02:41It's very hard to make it work in term financial terms.
02:45And modern designs for scaled back nuclear plants that can be manufactured instead of custom built each
02:51time, aka small modular reactors, SMRs, those aren't significantly more affordable yet.
02:58Nor have they been commercially proven.
03:00Oil and diesel power plants are expensive and more of a niche market these days.
03:06Biomass, those are power plants that burn dead vegetation and other organic materials.
03:11They don't make sense on a large scale either.
03:14No one picked these past round two.
03:16That leaves gas, coal, and geothermal power.
03:19That's where the Earth's natural heat is harnessed to generate steam and spin a turbine.
03:24Coal versus geothermal was an inevitable quarterfinals matchup.
03:28And this one split both ways.
03:30But most experts picked geothermal to advance to the final four.
03:34People are betting on so-called enhanced or
03:37thinking about in the future about enhanced geothermal technologies,
03:41which are using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that's been used
03:44in the oil and gas industry and perfected, but then also perfecting it
03:48to drill into different types of rocks for geothermal heat extraction.
03:52That reflects a bet on a growing technology that could play a bigger role in the future,
03:57even if it's expensive to build right now, as opposed to coal,
04:01where even existing plants with low marginal costs struggle to compete against other resources.
04:07Now, to the left side of the bracket, where we have technologies that rely on wind,
04:11water, or sunlight.
04:13Every source contacted by SAN picked solar PV, that's your classic solar panel,
04:18along with onshore wind, hydropower, and solar plus batteries to advance to the second round.
04:25That's where the competition gets heated.
04:27Up until a few years ago, wind was much more affordable than solar.
04:32And some cost analyses still show that's the case.
04:36Solar is growing faster right now, but the grid has more wind as an overall share of electricity production.
04:42Our sources were split. This one's a toss-up, but solar PV had a slight edge.
04:47In the solar plus storage versus hydropower matchup, everyone agreed.
04:52I'm a big believer in solar. I think it's really the fastest growing technology that we have these days.
04:58And combining it with storage helps deal with a lot of the problems with solar.
05:03The obvious problem with solar is that it doesn't generate anything when there's no sun.
05:07So you need to have some backup, and storage can provide at least some part of that backup.
05:13We've reached the final four.
05:14Going head-to-head for the championship, according to our experts,
05:18are combined cycle gas power plants versus geothermal,
05:21and solar plus storage versus standalone solar panels.
05:25Out of these, one emerged as the clear winner on nearly all of the brackets.
05:30Solar plus storage.
05:32So that's what power companies should build to efficiently run the grid, right?
05:37Well, not so fast.
05:39Properly or well-functioning grids have a mix of technologies,
05:42just like a basketball team has a mix of different types of players on the team.
05:48Instead of looking at energy resources like competing teams trying to beat one another,
05:52it's better to look at them like individual athletes.
05:55For utilities, power companies, and lawmakers, think of them as the team's general manager,
06:00the challenge is crafting the best roster to build an affordable and reliable grid.
06:06Storage and solar are coming along to, you know,
06:08fill out the team that was already competitive, but maybe not winning the championship.
06:12Each technology has different characteristics.
06:15Solar is like a streaky three-point shooter.
06:20When it gets hot, it's unstoppable.
06:23But if it's cold, you can't depend on it to win the game.
06:27Add storage, and it's a player that can rebound the ball to get you extra possessions to win the game.
06:34Combined cycle gas plants are like a super efficient player you can count on to get you through the season,
06:39providing a majority of your bulk power.
06:41But they're known for having an attitude that pollutes the atmosphere in the locker room.
06:46If a team can afford to pay higher salaries, maybe they'll pick nuclear instead.
06:50Then there are the role players.
06:52Gas peaker plants that turn on quickly and fill in the gaps.
06:56That's who you bring off the bench for a quick burst of energy when another player gets hurt.
07:02Coal and hydropower are the veteran players who consistently contribute to the team,
07:07but they're on minutes restrictions without much room to grow.
07:10Then there's the young, freshly recruited talent.
07:13Geothermal, offshore wind, small modular reactors.
07:17Each of these has potential.
07:19But the costs have to come down, and the technology has more to prove,
07:23before putting the ball in their hands as the clock ticks down.
07:26Until then, a seasoned coach will likely drop a play that gets everyone involved.
07:31But they'll lean on the players they know can deliver for the final shot.
07:39For Straight Arrow News, I'm Keaton Peters.
07:43For more on this story, download the Straight Arrow News mobile app today or go to san.com.
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