Part 4
Energy & Water
West Texas has more power than it can use, more water than it can drink, and politicians who think the problem is scarcity.
The energy no one is using
West Texas is throwing away more power than most states produce.
ERCOT’s Load Zone West is one of the strangest power markets on earth. In 2024, West Texas curtailed 5.3 TWh of wind and solar — clean power thrown away because there aren’t enough wires or enough demand.
Solar curtailment hits 75% of available output on some spring days. Wholesale prices go negative regularly. ERCOT curtails an average of 1.2 GW every hour — 37 solar farms, shut down, around the clock.
The current West Texas transmission capacity can only transfer 40% of generated energy to consumption hubs. The rest must be consumed locally or thrown away.
65 GW
Wind + solar installed
ERCOT, 2025
109 GW
Projected by 2030
Planned projects
5.3 TWh
Curtailed in West
2024, thrown away
1.2 GW
Curtailed per hour
ERCOT average
Negative Pricing in Load Zone West
In the West Load Zone, electricity prices go below $0/MWhregularly — meaning generators are paying the grid to take their power. This isn’t a glitch. This is what happens when you produce more energy than the infrastructure can move.
19
Days per month with negative price events
1,000+
Negative-price intervals in peak months
-$244
Lowest recorded price ($/MWh), near ERCOT floor
LŌD Energy (2023 West Load Zone analysis), ERCOT, FactSet Energy, Modo Energy
This is not a power scarcity problem. West Texas has more energy than it can use. The question is what you do with the surplus.
ERCOT, FactSet Energy, Modo Energy, EIA
The 20-year math
1 million acres of solar in far West Texas. What does that produce?
At 5–7 acres per MW, 1 million acres = 143–200 GW nameplate. At West Texas capacity factors (25–28%):
340–456
terawatt-hours per year
~430 TWh
Total ERCOT generation, 2024
1M acres matches ALL of it
~4,000 TWh
Total US electricity
That's 8–11% of the whole country
2×
Texas daytime demand
Enough to run TX twice in daylight
At that scale, surplus power approaches $0.01/kWh. That changes everything:
Brackish water desalination
Energy cost drops to $0.05–0.15/1,000 gal. All-in desal falls to $1.00–2.50 — cheaper than pumping the Ogallala.
Data center power
100 MW facility: $8.76M/yr vs $40–80M at standard rates. This is why every hyperscaler is racing to West Texas.
Green hydrogen
Electrolysis at $0.01/kWh → ~$1.50/kg. Below the DOE's $2/kg Earthshot target.
Grid demand response
Data centers and miners absorb surplus, curtail at peak. They stabilize the grid — they don't stress it.
NREL, TX Comptroller, DOE/LBNL, ERCOT interconnection queue
The water nobody is using
200–500 million acre-feet of brackish water under I-20.
The I-20 corridor from Abilene to Midland sits on five brackish aquifer systems — the Dockum, Edwards-Trinity, Pecos Valley, Ogallala margins, and Santa Rosa/Rustler.
This water is too salty for farming. Too salty for drinking. Perfect for cooling data centers.
Brackish desalination costs $2–5 per 1,000 gallons — cheaper than municipal water in most West Texas cities. The Permian Basin has unlimited injection well capacity for brine disposal.
At current data center usage rates, the brackish water under this corridor could supply every DC in Texas for 1,300 to 3,300 years. Without touching a single gallon of freshwater.
TWDB BRACS Program, Pecos Valley Aquifer Study (2012), AWWA, Texas Desal Association
The smart policy
Not a moratorium. A mandate.
- →Require all new data centers in water-stressed regions to use brackish or produced water.
- →Require on-site desalination. The technology exists. The cost is competitive.
- →Mandate 80%+ water recycling rates for cooling loops.
- →Co-locate with surplus renewable generation. Absorb curtailment. Stabilize the grid.
- →Data centers that meet these standards proceed. No moratorium needed.
Surplus solar + brackish water + data centers that need both = a self-solving system. This is not a problem. This is the greatest economic opportunity in rural Texas in a generation.