Posted on 02/07/2011 2:23:17 PM PST by Michael van der Galien
It is the supreme irony that an outbreak of unusually cold weather has exposed the accelerating erosion of an already over-regulated industry about to be further hobbled by restrictions ostensibly imposed to combat global warming. It is doubly ironic that this should have occurred in a state whose name is more or less synonymous with energy production.
Texas, which produces and consumes more electricity than any other state, experienced power shortages last week sufficient to warrant rolling blackouts and an undertaking (subsequently reneged upon) to import power from Mexico.
In fairness to operators such as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – who caught the brunt of the public wrath over the rolling blackouts, especially when critical care facilities also had their lights turned out – it is true that the power shortages were caused by failures of power plants not designed to withstand the cold.
All power plants are built to a certain standard based on the weather expected in their location. The plants in the northern parts of the United States are more weatherized than those in the South, according to electricity traders who used to work at power plants.
In the North, plants have heaters and monitors on water pipes and other equipment outside in the cold that in the past may not have been needed on plants in the South.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
ERCOTs excuse may be valid in part but there is a lot of wind generation capacity in Texas and yet generation is curtailed (i.e some wind farms able to produce power at the time) because there is insufficient transmission line capacity to get the power to where it is needed. So ERCOT is at fault, the only question is, of what.
We had some power blackouts in Arizona due to two power plant failures which seemed to be weather related.
Interesting point, especially in light of the fact that Barry promised to put stimulus money into the infrastructure.
But what about all of those wonderful GREEN industrial wind turbines all over the place in Texas. Surely, those will cover the shortfall.
PINWHEEL PING!!
But what about all of those wonderful GREEN industrial wind turbines all over the place in Texas. Surely, those will cover the shortfall.
Yep lots of them scattered around for sure. But they make up less than 8,000 MWs of generation I believe. That’s about 10% of the total generation in Texas. They supplied some 3,500 MWs during some of the blackouts or so it has been reported. I think they had some problems also, maybe ice forming on the blades, etc.
Part of the wind farms are not connected to the system, especially those in west Texas.
The failure was to allow generation faclities to shut down for “maintenance” during what is routinely the coldest part of the year. Second, there was a failure to properly power the gas lines to keep the pressure up to gas fired systems. Finally, a lot of systems were not properly winterized. All of this is due to a lack of proper state oversight of the system.
However, the generation companies made out like bandits. They were able to charge over 1000% higher prices due to the PUCs system during the very time that there were blackouts taking place.
This system is broken.
“
Rolling Blackouts in Texas — Sneak Preview of the Brave New World of Deindustrialization
“
This is nothing new.
My brother and a friend went to Houston TX during winter break
sometime in the late 1980s; I stayed in Stillwater OK.
ONE H-LL of a cold front come through; busted a ton of water pipes
in Stillwater.
And arrived in Houston with rolling blackouts for a couple of days.
People’s memories are so short.
No, many of us remember that there are weather extremes that require a little bit of planning to ensure that power emergencies like those do not happen again. Sadly, the bureaucrats that wind up in the posts which actually do such planning, evidently have no such memories...
Designed for failure is a better description. As an EE I believe the solution will only be found not by building more infrastructure, but less. Fuel cells at each home or place of business that run on hydrogen, perhaps derived from CNG, a personal power plant, if you will. This will eliminate the need for tens of thousands of miles of transmission lines, the inefficiency added by constantly transforming line voltages, inefficiency from unbalanced loads, etc. Just like wireless telecom is replacing wired phones the future of energy distribution is small scale, rather than massive, costly additions to infrastructure.
Shine the mirrors on solar renewables, blow at the wind turbine renewables, and start yout green electric cars to go nowhere.... Oblabla’s green future. Just employ people, don’t worry about a thing, rich will pay for it
The cartels covered it the next day smuggling power in from Mexico.
I strongly believe that each house should have its own power generation capability. We don’t need all those power transmission lines.
LOL...........
Just add a heater to that blower and you have it covered....
Chalk it up to a lack of planning for cold weather and lay the blame on the managers of those plants ...
"Never let a good crises go to waste" eh?
While weather and other factors contributed to Texas’ rolling blackouts problem last week, at least part of the blame has to be laid at the feet of ERCOT. Following their rules, as soon as shortages developed power was curtailed to certain industrial consumers, including power to businesses which provided natural gas to plants that were supposed to spool up on short notice to provide backup power. This is the type of monumental stupidity that only a government agency is capable of.
You hit the nail on the head.
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.