Posted on 02/17/2021 2:15:49 PM PST by BipolarBob
"It's not convenient," Hogan told the Times. "It's not nice. It's necessary."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
“The NG pipes froze too.”
I keep hearing this and I am very confused about it. Because NG lines are exposed in places that are 30 below zero without problems.
I do not believe that NG will freeze in any climate on earth unless it is loaded with excess moisture. It is the moisture that freezes. So I would say that quality control in Texas NG is severely lacking. Their NG must be loaded with moisture.
Some people got rich and green agenda was advanced
It’s easy to be an arm-chair quarterback. Consider this investment. Science invents a hypothetical meteor-proof roof that will repel space rocks up to 2 meters in diameter, but it is going to cost you half a million dollars to buy and install. Are you going to do it, considering the very small likelihood of a meteorite hitting your house?
My only beef is with the dishonesty that’s been displayed. I would have been fine with an upfront admission that the power grid just wasn’t prepared for a,sub-zero event along with widespread freezing precipitation for so long, and that we’d likely experience prolonged power outages. Everything is a limited resource, if you are even marginally familiar with economics. Let’s not be like Democrats who think that health care just grows on the trees of an endless orchard, free for the picking.
2/3 of the power generated today was natural gas
Natural gas is a big part of the problem here - the deep cold has severely impacted production and distribution. Texas has little natural gas storage like they have back east. Power plants cannot burn gas they do not have. Like all major man-made disasters, there are multiple points of failure here, renewables are just part of the story. And all points need to be addressed. And making power generation resilient and redundant will mean higher bills - for events that happen about once a decade.
Hourly mix
https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/daily_generation_mix/regional/REG-TEX
Brine is produced along with the natural gas and is stored in the big tanks you see beside the well head, A truck has to come at regular intervals to collect it and send it to a disposal well.
What we had here is an event that “never happens” so not much is done to insulate stuff for anything more than the normal temperatures.
Back in 1983, we had about a 30 day period that it never got above freezing. Pipes froze in the ground but I don’t remember that much else going wrong.
Hogan said: “Higher electricity demand leads to higher prices, forcing consumers to cut back on energy use while encouraging power plants to increase their output of electricity.”
Can somebody ‘splain this to me?
Oh it’s working alright.
“And all points need to be addressed.”
Oh, they’ll address it. They’ll address your right into a concentration camp.
it’s complex - read the comments too:
17 Feb: WattsUpWithThat: The Day After Tomorrow: Renewables Fail Edition
Guest: “The best laid plans of mice and men…” by David Middleton
Note: I had originally titled this post, The Day After Tomorrow: ERCOT Fail Edition, and ERCOT did fail. But I changed the title because, even though the failure was system-wide, wind power totally failed, solar never showed up, while natural gas, coal and nuclear power were all that prevented the entire State of Texas from freezing in the dark. Despite these facts, some in the media are reporting that wind power saved the day, while fossil fuels and nuclear power failed...
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/17/the-day-after-tomorrow-ercot-fail-edition/
Gov. Abbott and the GOP State legislators are going to have to come down hard on ERCOT and utilities and forcing changes (one way or the other). However, the GOP doesn’t have a strong record of playing rough with people who are among contributors to GOP campaign funds.
It’s done like that here also but that is not gas coming off of the well head. The problems occurred at the well.
We are relatively lucky here and still very few vehicles are moving because it is a great sheet of ice. I sure haven’t seen pump trucks running today.
Thw Woke Executives, Greenies, and Libs need to be held accountable (morally, if not legally) for any deaths of Texas residents who died because of the extended lack of power in their homes or apartments during the supercold period.
Sadly I don’t expect any GOP politician to do that.
The investment has already been made. Shutting down coal fired power plants that exceed EPA's very very strict standards make no sense when China build power plants with NO emission devices and their economy is kicking our butt and they have electricity when we don't. Volcanoes produce thousands of times more emissions than power plants. All it takes is someone to say NO to the EPA or we'll secede.
17 Feb: Climate Depot: Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw on frozen wind power: ‘Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us’ – ‘If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse’
Rep. Crenshaw: ‘Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance. Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.
‘Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most? Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.’...
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/02/17/texas-congressman-dan-crenshaw-on-frozen-wind-power-bottom-line-fossil-fuels-are-the-only-thing-that-saved-us-if-we-were-even-more-reliant-on-the-wind-turbines-that-froze-the-outages-woul/
17 Feb: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: Claim: Wind power failure ‘not main culprit’ in Texas blackouts – Reality check: Oh yes it was
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/02/17/claim-wind-power-failure-not-main-culprit-in-texas-blackouts-reality-check-oh-yes-they-were/
I’ll give you that. But is that really the bulk of the energy woes that we’re facing now? Don’t states still have the last word on what they’ll allow if not on federal property?
“they took all the government grants for solar and wind and this is the end result”
CA did the same thing.
Take all the subsidies, comply with all the mandates and advertise how green you are.
Maybe put a butterfly in your ad.
AND there is no incentive for producers to invest in any conventional generation capacity, as they are forced to sell that power to any/all intermediaries at cost...generating no profit for the investment.
No regulatory requirement to keep generation capacity in reserve. No requirement to keep contracts with outside suppliers (exorbitant prices) “just in case”.
The worst of both regulation, and deregulation. And a recipe for disaster.
And entirely predictable.
NG CAN NOT freeze!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.