Posted on 02/18/2021 5:06:56 PM PST by beancounter13
After winter storms continued to barrage the state Tuesday night, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the body overseeing the grid that serves 90 percent of the state’s homes, couldn’t offer a timeline for when power for every Texan would be restored. Over the long weekend, the council had advised local utilities to shed energy use with rolling outages in order to maintain the reliability of the electric system after a surge in demand, or otherwise risk uncontrolled blackouts that will take longer to reverse. Some four million homes in the state had been left in the lurch without energy in the bitter cold—many for over fifty hours—and as of Wednesday morning, 2.7 million homes still lacked power.
As Texans have fled for hotels, bunked with friends and family, or, without options, hunkered down in their homes watching pipes burst and the water in toilet bowls freeze, lawmakers have questioned whether the council has mismanaged the response. On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott said the situation was “unacceptable” and called for the council’s leaders to resign. State legislators are now planning to investigate what led energy generation to drop off when Texans needed it most.
To help make sense of what led to ERCOT’s trouble handling this energy crisis, Texas Monthly spoke with Joshua Rhodes, an energy guru—who was also frozen out of his South Austin home and had temporarily relocated to a warm location in Dripping Springs. Rhodes is a founding partner at IdeaSmiths LLC energy consulting firm and a research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin whose work focuses on the area of smart grid and bulk electricity systems. The interview has been edited for clarity.
(Excerpt) Read more at -texasmonthly-com.cdn.ampproject.org ...
I recall -24 in Knoxville,TN in 1985.
It happens. You better have a fireplace. Forecast was way off.
I was out splitting wood at 3am. It was damn cold and the underground oil line to the furnace broke.
May never happen again but we never lost power.
TVA
What Texan talked tough, who asked for money? Jealousy is a nasty trait.
The minimal amounts necessary for cold weather prep has nothing to do with wind power. And the tax treatment of wind or any other energy source isn’t a consideration to an energy distribution system.
I am not sure. The interviewee references an ERCOT note for the 40% number for wind.
Again, I am not aware of any of the nuke plants being down. Of course, there are only 2 in Texas to begin with.
Bingo! The wind power bugaboo is purely a distraction and deflection.
Another good reason to keep an old pile of junk tires and pallets around....to keep you warm!
So in your estimation Texas should reject Biden’s unwanted federal aid?
I’m surprised there wasn’t some kind of general announcement as to how shut your water down..
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny!!!
Is Biden offering Federal Aid?
I haven’t seen anything on that.
We have a propane generator and I can not recommend them highly enough. More expensive up front but less maintenance and cheaper fuel that can be stored easily and safely for a longer time.
South Dakota, Kansas, and Iowa all get 20% or more of their energy.
All solid red states with frigid winters and zero blackouts.
I read that the last time temps were this low inmost of Texas was during the “Big Freeze” in 1899. We probably should not spend a boatload of money to fight once in 122 year events. I am good with getting rid of windmills but that isn’t because of this cold snap.
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/02/01/texas-secession-bill-formally-filed-in-state-legislature/
When the majority of ads in the magazine are for high end cosmetics, electric luxury cars, and cosmetic surgeons, its a pretty good bet that it's a private jet type leftist rag ..
We made the mistake of appeasing the liberals/Democrats.
Now, reality raises up.
Nuke refueling outages tend to run on 16 month cycles. If the outage is in the spring, then the next one will be a year (plus) in the fall and back and forth it goes.
I participated in 6 refueling outages. No two were alike in down time, but they always kicked off as planned on the 16 month cycle. The one I worked at- when down, lost a million dollars a day net for the inability to produce and sell energy, AND there was the added cost (loss) in the refueling expenses.
I defer to others who might correct me.
Yes, personally, I think you have to reach really far to put these together in any meaningful way.
As a Texan, I pay an enormous amount of money to Washington so I expect Washington to help when the time demands. As the same time, I will say that if Texas is allowed to secede, then I will gladly not ask for help from Washington since those tax dollars would be going to Austin.
Fair enough?
Thanks for the recommendation!
Andrea Zelinski is a politics writer in Austin. Before joining Texas Monthly, she was hiking the Appalachian Trail, traveling a ribbon of dirt and stone for 2,193 miles stretching Maine to Georgia. She has written about politics for both the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. Like Davy Crockett, Andrea came to Texas by way of Tennessee where she wrote about state government for seven years, largely for the Nashville Scene and its sister publications. She won an award from the Association of Alternative News Media for a series on growing pains in Nashville’s schools. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield and reported on Illinois government, including the impeachment of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich for trying to sell President Barack Obama’s Senate seat for the Associated Press. She swears he winked at her after pleading his case to the state Senate. A midwestern native, she lives with her two hairy pups, Vuda and Buster.
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