Posted on 02/17/2021 5:04:05 AM PST by Hojczyk
What did happen, though, is we have no power at our home. Haven’t had any since 6:00 a.m. Monday, and it now looks like we won’t have any again until Friday at the earliest. In case you hadn’t heard, the entire state of Texas looks an awful lot like Alaska right now.
Ok, well, West Texas looks more like South Dakota, but you get the picture. We’re covered up in snow and ice, the low temperature where I live near Fort Worth was -1 Fahrenheit this morning, we haven’t seen a temperature at my house above freezing since last Wednesday, and won’t see one until Friday. Again, that’s if we’re lucky.
Unfortunately, and with little public fanfare, the Republican-led Texas government has also allowed wind power to take a steadily-growing role in the state’s power generation mix over the past decade. Last year, in fact, wind surpassed coal in terms of the percentage of electricity provided to the ERCOT-managed grid, delivering 23% of the total mix, coming in second only to natural gas power plants.
That’s all great so long as you’re willing to pay the price, much of which becomes hidden from ratepayers by ERCOT and the state’s electricity providers, so everybody can pretend to be happy about “going green.” It’s also not so great when well over half the turbines in the state freeze up in near-zero temperatures and 3-12 inches of snowfall.
The state’s policymakers had better take advantage of this disastrous situation to act to really improve the resiliency of the state’s power grid, or there will be hell to pay in next year’s elections.
This situation is simply not acceptable, even if it only happens once a decade. Enough is enough.
I’ll post more when I can.
Most of Texas has its own power grid.
That’s because they don’t shut off power if you’re close and connected in those places. I’m close to a grocery and drug store so haven’t lost power. Water is another story. Parts of town ran out of water and a main busted, so since yesterday it’s just very low pressure.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal.
11:00 PM · Feb 16, 2021
“Upgrading equipment to withstand extremely low temperatures and other changes, such as providing incentives for customers to conserve power or upgrade to smart appliances, could help avoid disasters like this one, said Le Xie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M University and assistant director of energy digitization at A&M’s Energy Institute.
“We used to not worry too much about such extreme cold weather in places like Texas, but we probably need to get ready for more in the future,” Xie said. With climate change, he said, “We’re going to have more extreme weather conditions throughout the country.””
The fact is this entire country, Texas and Florida included, has become a “green” sh*thole. And it’s only going to get worse.
The HE’LL WE ARE!
There is - it's called "winterizing" the equipment. They just didn't want to spend the money to implement the plan.
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