I’m a Dem here in Texas. Our wind turbines froze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue than the wind turbines freezing is that Texas has underinvested in its energy infrastructure and doesn't have cross-border connections to draw energy from neighboring states and alternative sources. This was done purposefully, and experts have been warning about this kind of event in Texas for years.

This is fully a political issue that is manifesting because of law taxes and non-action relation to climate change.

I am sorry it is happening, but it was a fully avoidable event.

Texas hasn’t underinvested in energy infrastructure. The dollars have simply been invested in intermittent renewable power. If 100% of Texas wind and solar capacity had been online yesterday then there would have been no blackouts.

Not during the winter it wouldn't. There's not enough wind in texas at this time and that was already known. The more you all lie to yourselves to pwn the libs the more harm you are doing to yourselves.

There isn’t enough wind in -1 degree temperatures? Do you even hear yourself?

[Anonymous]

You know what. I feel bad Texas is in this situation. And I’m glad Biden declared a national emergency and is sending the help her can. Which, let’s face it, isn’t much since Texas decided to be the only state not on the national power Grid. But, I’m glad the feds are helping, I hope this resolves very quickly and hope people stay safe and warm in the meantime.

All of this is much more generous than Rs were towards CA blackouts and wildfires under Trump or the NE after superstorm Sandy. Then, Texas gloated and told the states to figure it out (see also, Ted Cruz’s Twitter feed). It took weeks to get Sandy Aid. Most CA aid never came.

So hopefully, this will be a lesson in humility for Texas, and red states in general. Yes, it can happen to you too. And when it does, act like frigging American first and help where you can. And gloat later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do countries in Scandinavia deal with it? They get pretty cold weather in the winter. Do they lose power every winter when it's freezing?

I’ve seen wind turbines working in Iceland in January. They get 100% of their power from renewables- wind and to a greater extent geothermal because of their location in the middle of volcano central. Because they are an island without oil reserves, getting power any other way is expensive AF. But, -20 and a blizzard, all these tiny remote village have reliable power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue than the wind turbines freezing is that Texas has underinvested in its energy infrastructure and doesn't have cross-border connections to draw energy from neighboring states and alternative sources. This was done purposefully, and experts have been warning about this kind of event in Texas for years.

This is fully a political issue that is manifesting because of law taxes and non-action relation to climate change.

I am sorry it is happening, but it was a fully avoidable event.

Texas hasn’t underinvested in energy infrastructure. The dollars have simply been invested in intermittent renewable power. If 100% of Texas wind and solar capacity had been online yesterday then there would have been no blackouts.

Not during the winter it wouldn't. There's not enough wind in texas at this time and that was already known. The more you all lie to yourselves to pwn the libs the more harm you are doing to yourselves.

There isn’t enough wind in -1 degree temperatures? Do you even hear yourself?

According to the data, wind generation has exceeded expectations. Also, according to the data, even if wind generation was at 110% of summer capacity it still wouldn't have been enough to meet the demand surge.

The more you all lie to yourselves to pwn the libs the more you are hurting yourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue than the wind turbines freezing is that Texas has underinvested in its energy infrastructure and doesn't have cross-border connections to draw energy from neighboring states and alternative sources. This was done purposefully, and experts have been warning about this kind of event in Texas for years.

This is fully a political issue that is manifesting because of law taxes and non-action relation to climate change.

I am sorry it is happening, but it was a fully avoidable event.

Texas hasn’t underinvested in energy infrastructure. The dollars have simply been invested in intermittent renewable power. If 100% of Texas wind and solar capacity had been online yesterday then there would have been no blackouts.

Really working hard to make sure that fossil fuel and natural gas sector evading any responsibility here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue than the wind turbines freezing is that Texas has underinvested in its energy infrastructure and doesn't have cross-border connections to draw energy from neighboring states and alternative sources. This was done purposefully, and experts have been warning about this kind of event in Texas for years.

This is fully a political issue that is manifesting because of law taxes and non-action relation to climate change.

I am sorry it is happening, but it was a fully avoidable event.

Texas hasn’t underinvested in energy infrastructure. The dollars have simply been invested in intermittent renewable power. If 100% of Texas wind and solar capacity had been online yesterday then there would have been no blackouts.

Not during the winter it wouldn't. There's not enough wind in texas at this time and that was already known. The more you all lie to yourselves to pwn the libs the more harm you are doing to yourselves.

There isn’t enough wind in -1 degree temperatures? Do you even hear yourself?

Texas’ failure is purely economic. They do not pay companies to build excess capacity for emergencies. All other American power systems do except one. Texas only pays for the energy they consume. It’s called an “Energy Only Market”. The rest of the markets are “Capacity Markets”.

If you don’t pay for spare capacity you can’t guarantee spare capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.It looks like everybody else is an expert in Texas weather except for the Texan here. And sorry, Austin used to be a Texas bastion( third generation UT- Pappy was class of 1915), now it’s an absurd group of Silicon Valley idiots. We have an ice storm coming. I’m scared.

Maybe start by not blaming the Silicon Valley “idiots” who do not run the state and we’re not the brain trust who decided Texas could go it alone without the national Grid. I want to be sympathetic. But you are sitting in a state where Rs have controlled everything in government for 40 years blaming Austin based tech startups. So, you’re making the sympathy piece hard. Blame your elected officials. Blame the morons who decided against the national grid, blame to folks who thought lower taxes were more important that infrastructure upkeep. Blame the only people in the world whose plan is to operate wind turbines in freezing weather without weatherizing them. Blaming Austin tech companies is silly.

You, and a lot of Texas, will leave this mess with a deep and abiding belief that AOC and the liberal elite are to blame. You won’t upgrade your infrastructure. You won’t join the national Grid. You will vote for the same morons whose crappy decision making lead to this. You will hate on the NGD, which doesn’t even exist yet and find a 27 step conspiracy proving HRC and AOC caused this. And this will happen again next year. And that’s on you.

Personal responsibility. Get some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol they have wind turbines working in Antarctica but ok it’s the wind turbines that took down Texas.

Lol.

Republicans.

The anatomy of a coordinated rightwing disinformation propaganda campaign to deflect their failure:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/texas-frozen-wind-turbines-john-cornyn-b1803193.html

I hope the focus continues to be on the failures of the GOP and how that’s killed 14 more people (last numbers I saw, anyway).

And here’s Texas, bootstraps-we-can-secede-Texas, with their GOP hands out for the rest of us to bail them out.

When is that state turning blue? OP, do you think enough people will be seeing the gop for the frauds they are?

[Anonymous]

it's like texas bought a fleet of cars not only without heated steering wheels and heated seats but also without windshield defrosters.

they needed the cold-weather packages for their wind turbines -- heated blades with ice-resistant coatings.

"In Canada, where wind turbines can experience icing up to 20% of the time in winter months, special 'cold weather packages' are installed to provide heating to turbine components such as the gearbox, yaw and pitch motors and battery, according to the Canadian government. This can allow them to operate in temperatures down to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius).

"To prevent icing on rotor blades — which cause the blades to catch air less efficiently and to generate less power — heating and water-resistant coatings are used.

"One Swedish company, Skellefteå Kraft, which has experimented with operating wind turbines in the Arctic, coats turbine blades with thin layers of carbon fiber which are then heated to prevent ice from forming. Another method used by the company is to circulate hot air inside the blades.

"Major wind turbine manufacturers, such as General Electric GE -1.1% or Denmark's Vestas, regularly equip their turbines with such cold weather gear."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-wind-turbines-in-cold-climates-dont-freeze-de-icing-and-carbon-fiber/?sh=50edb4de1f59

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do countries in Scandinavia deal with it? They get pretty cold weather in the winter. Do they lose power every winter when it's freezing?

Different answer for each country but basically boils down to hydro and to a lesser extent nuclear.

My college kid is a geosciences major who does research in hydro (and volcanos and earthquakes). Loves Iceland, which is an amazing country. And Iceland to a large extent and Scandinavia to a lesser one are well situated for hydro. (So is part of the US). But, it’s like oil. You can’t just drill any old place and boom! You need a geographically unstable area, which often (usually) means earthquakes and volcanos). Hawaii makes great use of geothermal for that reason. It can also make geothermal in AP stable. Because extraction uses chemicals that react badly to volcanic eruptions (to out it mildly). My kids research is actually is more stable/ safer methods of employing geothermal. But, you still need the pressurized buildup of water.

See— I listen when we talks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The wind turbines froze, but so did everything else. Thermal plants actually, at least as of yesterday morning, accounted for more of the missing demand than wind. It's not a renewable issue but an overall infrastructure issue.

This is misleading. Many of the green energy folks in Texas are making this argument. First, as a percentage of available capacity, more renewable energy is offline than thermal. Second, investment in thermal infrastructure has basically dried up in the past 5-6 years as wind and now solar have commanded dollars. Thermal has its real problems, but renewable advocates need to be honest about what is happening here. Intermittent actually means intermittent.

Let's be honest then. The VAST majority of down power plants are fossil fuel ones. Wind isn't a substantial part of winter energy production in Texas. Wind turbines are used in freaking Antartica. The wind turbines in Texas were not weatherized. Texas doesnt keep backup power plants running which means they can't handle demand surges. Had Texas been connected to the national grid then they could have handled the demand surge.

The elecrical grid does need a variety of sources. Redundancies are important. Green power cannot be one hundred percent until battery storage technology is improved. That's all true but has absolutely nothing to do with this manmade catastrophe.

Thermal infrastructure has been underinvested in in Texas for the better part of the past decade while renewable has soaked up dollars. Coal capacity (second best performing in this type of weather behind nuke) has been cut in half. Natural gas power gen has seen minimal investments. Meanwhile, the state’s population has exploded over the past twenty years. Hint, less thermal capacity expected to serve more people is not going to be a recipe for success.

There is no national grid. Please come back when you understand that. We have regional grids and interconnection isn’t as simple as running an extension cord across the Red River. And, not for nothing, the neighboring regional power coordinator is also going through rolling black outs.

I’m not arguing against renewables as part of a generation portfolio. I am arguing for honesty that this isn’t as simple as wishing a green transition occurs and you’re done. There is a reason why power authorities in Massachusetts are arguing that people will need to get used to living without home heating....

The future requires a mix of energy solutions. The “transition” will take decades.
But it’s ridiculous to blame the current catastrophe in Texas on green energy. Nuclear power plants were shut down due to freezing cooling pipes.
The fact of the matter is that (1) the energy infrastructure is not weatherized to handle more extreme weather events (which will become more frequent) and (2) the Texan energy network is not plugged in to nearby regional networks from where they could pull excess energy.

These conditions are the natural result of under-investment and a hesitancy to address climate change.

Texans should get ready for a tax hike. It’s going to be expensive to make your state more resilient to climate change. Alternatively, you can just die during weather events.

Death or taxes - they’re always waiting for you.

Germany tried to go full green. They decommissioned nuke plants. Their manufacturing sector suffered and they’re now burning more coal than ever.

We’ve seen problems in California and Texas and we’re seeing secondary problems in places like MA and NY. But sure, at least partially assigning blame to renewables is unreasonable.

The SPP is currently experiencing rolling blackouts. What excess power would an interconnected Texas be pulling right now?

Can you explain why green energy sources are bad? Those sources are extremely reliable and predictable in terms of energy out put. You seem to be an expert. Can you also explain the spot market for electricity in Texas? Who is making money when prices jump from $25 a megawatt to $9,000 a megawatt? Also explain how deregulation of the Texas grid results in what is happening now.

This is a complex system. Basic gist is that in advanced economies voters expect to have generating capacity available when they flip the power switch. Renewables are intermittent. We know from historical data that there are days when the wind won’t blow and the sun won’t shine enough to meet extreme power demands. 99% reliability isn’t good enough when you need 100% availability. Those situations are rare, but they happen enough that they are foreseeable. Maintaining legacy generating capacity for those days when renewables can’t meet demand is super expensive and voters from California to Texas to NY have no desire to pay for legacy assets or infrastructure. So, in Texas, extreme cold drives outages and in Northern/western states very very hot (as opposed to extreme heat) days cause outages.

First step is to make a choice between always having availability and accepting intermittent power.

That’s what this is about:

https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/02/05/baker-climate-official-blasted-for-comments-to-break-your-will-over-emissionsvideo/" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/02/05/baker-climate-official-blasted-for-comments-to-break-your-will-over-emissionsvideo/

If you want 100% availability, embrace backup legacy assets (including continued investment in those assets).

As far as who is making money right now in Texas. The price spikes are a feature, not a bug. These price spikes are designed to keep marginal fossil power producers in business. Think about it this way: about 80% of renewable capacity in Texas is offline right now (about 20 MW). If you assume that offline renewable capacity runs 80% of the year, in order to keep back up generators in business for the whole year, they have to make all their money on the 10 or 20 days out of the year they actually run.

I’m not sure this is a deregulation issue vs regulation issue. It’s an economic efficiency issue.

Get real. The first step is to invest heavily in the battery technologies that allow us to to store renewable energy efficiently and long periods of time so we can cover the 1%. Then we don’t need to maintain legacy systems. And the tech is being developed. This isn’t an overnight solve. But on the 10-20 year hosts on, batteries will store excess renewable energy when we have a sunny day and we won’t need legacy nuclear plants. Less expensive, more sizable. Safer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The wind turbines froze, but so did everything else. Thermal plants actually, at least as of yesterday morning, accounted for more of the missing demand than wind. It's not a renewable issue but an overall infrastructure issue.

This is misleading. Many of the green energy folks in Texas are making this argument. First, as a percentage of available capacity, more renewable energy is offline than thermal. Second, investment in thermal infrastructure has basically dried up in the past 5-6 years as wind and now solar have commanded dollars. Thermal has its real problems, but renewable advocates need to be honest about what is happening here. Intermittent actually means intermittent.

Let's be honest then. The VAST majority of down power plants are fossil fuel ones. Wind isn't a substantial part of winter energy production in Texas. Wind turbines are used in freaking Antartica. The wind turbines in Texas were not weatherized. Texas doesnt keep backup power plants running which means they can't handle demand surges. Had Texas been connected to the national grid then they could have handled the demand surge.

The elecrical grid does need a variety of sources. Redundancies are important. Green power cannot be one hundred percent until battery storage technology is improved. That's all true but has absolutely nothing to do with this manmade catastrophe.

Thermal infrastructure has been underinvested in in Texas for the better part of the past decade while renewable has soaked up dollars. Coal capacity (second best performing in this type of weather behind nuke) has been cut in half. Natural gas power gen has seen minimal investments. Meanwhile, the state’s population has exploded over the past twenty years. Hint, less thermal capacity expected to serve more people is not going to be a recipe for success.

There is no national grid. Please come back when you understand that. We have regional grids and interconnection isn’t as simple as running an extension cord across the Red River. And, not for nothing, the neighboring regional power coordinator is also going through rolling black outs.

I’m not arguing against renewables as part of a generation portfolio. I am arguing for honesty that this isn’t as simple as wishing a green transition occurs and you’re done. There is a reason why power authorities in Massachusetts are arguing that people will need to get used to living without home heating....

The future requires a mix of energy solutions. The “transition” will take decades.
But it’s ridiculous to blame the current catastrophe in Texas on green energy. Nuclear power plants were shut down due to freezing cooling pipes.
The fact of the matter is that (1) the energy infrastructure is not weatherized to handle more extreme weather events (which will become more frequent) and (2) the Texan energy network is not plugged in to nearby regional networks from where they could pull excess energy.

These conditions are the natural result of under-investment and a hesitancy to address climate change.

Texans should get ready for a tax hike. It’s going to be expensive to make your state more resilient to climate change. Alternatively, you can just die during weather events.

Death or taxes - they’re always waiting for you.

Germany tried to go full green. They decommissioned nuke plants. Their manufacturing sector suffered and they’re now burning more coal than ever.

We’ve seen problems in California and Texas and we’re seeing secondary problems in places like MA and NY. But sure, at least partially assigning blame to renewables is unreasonable.

The SPP is currently experiencing rolling blackouts. What excess power would an interconnected Texas be pulling right now?

From the rest of the freaking North America grid.

SPP—the neighboring operator that borders Texas on all sides and is interconnected into the eastern grid—is also experiencing rolling blackouts. If there were simply an interconnect issue then SPP wouldn’t have blackouts right now.

They key is rolling blackouts. If you are offline 4 hours, online 4 hours, repeat, it’s not convenient, or idea, but people can charge things, warm their homes cook with electric stoves, heat water. Rolling blackouts isn’t good— by a long shot. But it’s lot better than days if nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The wind turbines froze, but so did everything else. Thermal plants actually, at least as of yesterday morning, accounted for more of the missing demand than wind. It's not a renewable issue but an overall infrastructure issue.

This is misleading. Many of the green energy folks in Texas are making this argument. First, as a percentage of available capacity, more renewable energy is offline than thermal. Second, investment in thermal infrastructure has basically dried up in the past 5-6 years as wind and now solar have commanded dollars. Thermal has its real problems, but renewable advocates need to be honest about what is happening here. Intermittent actually means intermittent.

Let's be honest then. The VAST majority of down power plants are fossil fuel ones. Wind isn't a substantial part of winter energy production in Texas. Wind turbines are used in freaking Antartica. The wind turbines in Texas were not weatherized. Texas doesnt keep backup power plants running which means they can't handle demand surges. Had Texas been connected to the national grid then they could have handled the demand surge.

The elecrical grid does need a variety of sources. Redundancies are important. Green power cannot be one hundred percent until battery storage technology is improved. That's all true but has absolutely nothing to do with this manmade catastrophe.

Thermal infrastructure has been underinvested in in Texas for the better part of the past decade while renewable has soaked up dollars. Coal capacity (second best performing in this type of weather behind nuke) has been cut in half. Natural gas power gen has seen minimal investments. Meanwhile, the state’s population has exploded over the past twenty years. Hint, less thermal capacity expected to serve more people is not going to be a recipe for success.

There is no national grid. Please come back when you understand that. We have regional grids and interconnection isn’t as simple as running an extension cord across the Red River. And, not for nothing, the neighboring regional power coordinator is also going through rolling black outs.

I’m not arguing against renewables as part of a generation portfolio. I am arguing for honesty that this isn’t as simple as wishing a green transition occurs and you’re done. There is a reason why power authorities in Massachusetts are arguing that people will need to get used to living without home heating....

The future requires a mix of energy solutions. The “transition” will take decades.
But it’s ridiculous to blame the current catastrophe in Texas on green energy. Nuclear power plants were shut down due to freezing cooling pipes.
The fact of the matter is that (1) the energy infrastructure is not weatherized to handle more extreme weather events (which will become more frequent) and (2) the Texan energy network is not plugged in to nearby regional networks from where they could pull excess energy.

These conditions are the natural result of under-investment and a hesitancy to address climate change.

Texans should get ready for a tax hike. It’s going to be expensive to make your state more resilient to climate change. Alternatively, you can just die during weather events.

Death or taxes - they’re always waiting for you.

Germany tried to go full green. They decommissioned nuke plants. Their manufacturing sector suffered and they’re now burning more coal than ever.

We’ve seen problems in California and Texas and we’re seeing secondary problems in places like MA and NY. But sure, at least partially assigning blame to renewables is unreasonable.

The SPP is currently experiencing rolling blackouts. What excess power would an interconnected Texas be pulling right now?

From the rest of the freaking North America grid.

SPP—the neighboring operator that borders Texas on all sides and is interconnected into the eastern grid—is also experiencing rolling blackouts. If there were simply an interconnect issue then SPP wouldn’t have blackouts right now.

They key is rolling blackouts. If you are offline 4 hours, online 4 hours, repeat, it’s not convenient, or idea, but people can charge things, warm their homes cook with electric stoves, heat water. Rolling blackouts isn’t good— by a long shot. But it’s lot better than days if nothing.

+1 The companies are saying they have “rolling blackouts” right now but for most people it’s ten minutes with power and 24 hours without.

[Anonymous]

Good Cliff Notes on the history of the electricity companies and the power grid in Texas from a former Texan and history professor. My Pepco employee grandparents are rolling over in their graves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do countries in Scandinavia deal with it? They get pretty cold weather in the winter. Do they lose power every winter when it's freezing?

Different answer for each country but basically boils down to hydro and to a lesser extent nuclear.

My college kid is a geosciences major who does research in hydro (and volcanos and earthquakes). Loves Iceland, which is an amazing country. And Iceland to a large extent and Scandinavia to a lesser one are well situated for hydro. (So is part of the US). But, it’s like oil. You can’t just drill any old place and boom! You need a geographically unstable area, which often (usually) means earthquakes and volcanos). Hawaii makes great use of geothermal for that reason. It can also make geothermal in AP stable. Because extraction uses chemicals that react badly to volcanic eruptions (to out it mildly). My kids research is actually is more stable/ safer methods of employing geothermal. But, you still need the pressurized buildup of water.

See— I listen when we talks.

For big, commercial level, yes. Homes can get geothermal power anywhere; one of my mother’s friends retrofitted her home in the stable Midwest with geothermal.