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

[Anonymous]

For some, the list is on a physical paper or bookmarked on a computer. For others, it's merely tattooed into their brains. It consists of which colleagues voted against Hurricane Sandy funding back in 2013, and it’s chock full of Texas Republicans.

In fact, nearly every Texas Republican who was serving in Congress at the time voted against the $50.5 billion aid bill. And now their own constituents are facing the biggest natural disaster in state history.

“There is deep and lingering resentment by members of Congress who needed help in their districts when Sandy just ravaged their constituents,” said former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat who represented Long Island until he retired last January. “[U.S. Sen] Ted Cruz and others led the fight against that aid, and a lot of people said there would be a day of reckoning.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/08/28/tempers-flare-texas-gop-delegation-over-hurricane-funding/

Guess Texas wants more money?

[Anonymous]

So basically Texas’s GOP cowboy attitude with regard to deregulation and safeguarding their energy infrastructure, plus global warming freak events, is to blame?

If I were a Pat Robertson-type, I might say that God is sending messages to Republican voters in Texas. Global warming is real and it is here. The free market will not save you. Fossil fuels will not save you. Repent and vote Democratic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically Texas’s GOP cowboy attitude with regard to deregulation and safeguarding their energy infrastructure, plus global warming freak events, is to blame?

If I were a Pat Robertson-type, I might say that God is sending messages to Republican voters in Texas. Global warming is real and it is here. The free market will not save you. Fossil fuels will not save you. Repent and vote Democratic.

Oh, I assure you that they're bending the narrative the other direction. Just got off the phone with my hard core Trumper dad in East Texas, and he brought up that "the world is getting colder." There's no reality down there in TX.

[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?

They use anti-icing and de-icing technology on their wind turbines. Anti-icing coatings, de-icing drones, etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm really sorry you're going through this, OP. This whole thing is such a scary, crazy situation. I hope you and your dogs stay safe - and that those in charge will take this seriously, and bolster your energy infrastructure so next time it isn't this fragile and dangerous.

[Anonymous]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I thought Texas wanted to secede? Why should we care?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php

Again, this doesn’t tell the full story. 80% of Texas renewable capacity is offline right now and about 20% of thermal capacity is offline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought Texas wanted to secede? Why should we care?

BC the secessionists don't speak for all of TX, just the stupid ones.

[Anonymous]

STOP POINTING FINGERS. ALL AMERICANS ARE TO BLAME FOR NOT ACKNOWLEDGING CLIMATE CHANGE SOONER, UNLIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD.

California, long Democrat-led, has suffered terribly from climate-change-related weather extremes. What's happening in Texas is another weather extreme that will become more frequent with our changing climate triggered by man.

It's not a Dem vs. Rep thing, even though Republicans are more likely to deny climate change than Democrats.

It's that we need a comprehensive, federal, effort to reduce pollution and strengthen our infrastructure so we can all withstand FLOODS, TORNADOES, HIGH WINDS, HIGH HEAT, and BITTER COLD.

[Anonymous]

this whole thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

STOP POINTING FINGERS. ALL AMERICANS ARE TO BLAME FOR NOT ACKNOWLEDGING CLIMATE CHANGE SOONER, UNLIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD.

California, long Democrat-led, has suffered terribly from climate-change-related weather extremes. What's happening in Texas is another weather extreme that will become more frequent with our changing climate triggered by man.

It's not a Dem vs. Rep thing, even though Republicans are more likely to deny climate change than Democrats.

It's that we need a comprehensive, federal, effort to reduce pollution and strengthen our infrastructure so we can all withstand FLOODS, TORNADOES, HIGH WINDS, HIGH HEAT, and BITTER COLD.

Until January, who controlled the Senate and Executive branch?
Who let all of the climate bills die on their desk?
Who let all of the infrastructure bills die on their desk?

This isn't a "both sides" issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php

Again, this doesn’t tell the full story. 80% of Texas renewable capacity is offline right now and about 20% of thermal capacity is offline.

How mcuh of that renewable capacity is normally online in winter? Hint: it's not 100%