Half of Texas Wind Turbines Freeze, Hurting Electricity Output

Brietbart ^ | Febuary 15.2021 | JOEL B. POLLAK

[rollo tomasi]

Backtrack Congressional periods when they were in session and look for legislation/regulations dealing with infrastructure/energy.

Search energy

[kenmcg]

Assholes all over, you would think TX. a large oil producer would be one of the last places to depend on wind. Maybe the country will learn a lesson.

[jpsb]

There are now over 3.5 million Texans that now hate green energy and I am one of them. I spend 2 days freezing in the dark. Texas need to build another nuke using the latest safe technology.

[crusty old prospector]

No one shuts in a well unless its operating costs (mainly salt water disposal or electricity if it is a pumping well) are causing them to lose money. We have wells that make about 5 MCFGD, which is the equivalent to about $10 a day. The reason is that if you shut the well in, you will lose the lease and be forced to plug the well. That will run you about $50,000. As far as the large gas play along the Gulf Coast, I am all ears.

[Beowulf9]

And that is why I said, ‘ due to the fluid injection’.

[eartick]

If you really are all ears you might want to listen for Anahuac. I wrote a paper on it back in my PE years in college (76ish). Modern technology now makes this zone obtainable but demand must be there

[crusty old prospector]

So, if I remember correctly, the Anahuac is the shale that sits on top of the Frio. The Frio is a major producer in the Gulf Coast, primarily from structural traps. Do you know of any geochemical work that has been done to prove that the Anahuac is a source rock, i.e. total organic carbon, vitrinite reflectance, and the like? Throughout my career, I have been charged with searching for these source rock-type resource plays. I could never find a source rock in the Gulf Coast that wasn’t out in the bowels of the Gulf. From what I remember, the Anahuac had generative capacity but it had too high of a clay content to be a reservoir, like what we would call a rubber mat instead of a pane of glass. You couldn’t frac it. Oh well, I am rambling now.

[eartick]

There was some work done back in the mid 70s. IIRC, the Anahuac is sandstone as well as mud shale. You are correct that some of it sits on top of the Frio but there are plunges that reach through the Frio heading toward the Upper Wilcox and is mostly mud shale.

Again, this from memory that is 50 years old. Dang, can not believe it has been that long.

We had two wells in SW Goliad county where the log showed there was NO separation between the U and L Wilcox. There was over 800’ of zone. Of course the oil company (small grave digger) did not know what they had and tried to straight hole produce it instead of directiknal and fracking it Of course it plugged off and the axid fracked it and screwed it up. They are both plugged now but man oh man I was counting the dollars

[boxlunch]

Yes but valves and controls can if not properly engineered or maintained.

[tbw2]

We went through the exact same thing in 2011 with a deep freeze and extended blackouts. And they never ensured that the infrastructure we needed to meet the demands of 200,000 people a year moving to north Texas got built.

Instead, they built expensive windmills that freeze up when it is freezing and have extensive conservation ad campaigns ... while refusing to expand the nuclear plant in east Texas or build more natural gas plants though we produce natural gas in DFW.

A Texas heat wave in August 2019 provides a good example of how renewables can distort electricity grid operations. In the prior ten years, wind capacity had grown from 10% to 26% of capacity in the Texas power market (ERCOT).[x] The low marginal cost of subsidized wind power depressed market prices for electricity to the point where over 5,000 MW of conventional generation chose to retire in 2018 rather than continue losing money. With electricity demand reaching record levels, these retirements combined with an unpredicted drop in wind generation to force ERCOT to enact emergency procedures to avoid blackouts. Although blackouts were avoided, electricity prices that were under $20 per MWh in the morning of August 13, 2019 rose to $9,000 per MWh in the afternoon.[xi]

It’s Time to End Subsidies for Renewable Energy
https://www.americaspower.org/its-time-to-end-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/