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How one Texas storm exposed an energy grid unprepared for climate change
NBC News / Comcast ^ | February 17, 2021 | By Josh Lederman

Posted on 02/17/2021 6:13:45 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

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To: LegendHasIt

“How one Texas storm exposed how badly leftist ‘environmentalists’ destroyed the previously good Texas energy grid.”


Yep. That was pretty much my mental translation when I read the title.


21 posted on 02/17/2021 6:25:30 AM PST by cuban leaf (We killed our economy and damaged our culture. In 2021 we will pine for the salad days of 2020.)
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To: LegendHasIt

Instead of better technologies on the grid, the investment has been just to feed solar and wind into the grid and hope everything turns out ok at the delivery end.

Our friend Mr. Musk Wins Again. Power Walls and a limited amount of roof top solar for Everyone.


22 posted on 02/17/2021 6:27:47 AM PST by protoconservative (Been Conservative Before You Were Born )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I think they have that backwards


23 posted on 02/17/2021 6:28:29 AM PST by butlerweave
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Politicians going after the power companies because it was their fault the weather brought down their systems not the politicians who wouldn’t let them upgrade because of whatever.


24 posted on 02/17/2021 6:28:43 AM PST by SkyDancer (Remember Ashli Babbitt!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Dear NBC,

Any competent power EE could shred your arguments into pieces small enough to fit into your diminutive brain.

Journalism - for when even a studies major is too difficult.

Media, please stay away from STEM and use only the most simple tools unless you have adult supervision.


25 posted on 02/17/2021 6:28:55 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“”””Wind and solar, still fairly small slices of the state’s energy mix, played only a minimal role in the sudden power shortage, utility officials said — contrary to a wave of conservative critics who tried to falsely pin blame for the situation on renewable energy.”””


More gaslighting from NBC. 25% of the power in Texas comes from wind and solar. That is hardly a ‘fairly small slice’ of the energy mix.


“”””The picture of what went wrong in Texas is incomplete. But while some wind generators did go offline as turbines iced over, the state’s largest grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said the shortage was driven by a failure not of renewable sources but of traditional “thermal” sources: coal, nuclear and especially natural gas.””””


Until we are given the exact coal, nuclear and natural gas plants that were shutdown, I contend this is BS being pushed by the gaslighting media.


26 posted on 02/17/2021 6:29:06 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

what it exposes is that alternative sources are unreliable.


27 posted on 02/17/2021 6:29:37 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

>>Electric grid regulators said the U.S. will have to develop vast supplies of power storage — such as gigantic batteries — that rely on emerging technologies

NO

Wind and solar fail as significant producers


28 posted on 02/17/2021 6:30:23 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Call on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: CIB-173RDABN

NBS


29 posted on 02/17/2021 6:30:58 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Call on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: cuban leaf

The jobs of tomorrow.


30 posted on 02/17/2021 6:32:16 AM PST by pas
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Bravo Sierra. Our (Texas) power issues are 100% self-inflicted by government. We eliminated perfectly good power plants and installed virtue signaling wind turbines and solar panels that are much more expensive and close to useless.

Right this moment, wind turbine capacity in Texas is 25,000 MW and it is producing exactly 3% of that number. Solar is barely a trickle with this cloud cover. We do not need expensive vapor technology to store this pathetic, infrequently generated, expensive power from solar and wind, we need real, serious power plants. Coal, nuclear, gas. No more money on wind and solar, none.

We need to fire each and every person involved in the decision making process, and start over. It is basic stuff. Build and maintain real power plants, not toys, and build them for winter and summer conditions. Power plants do not have to fail in cold weather unless the people running them are incompetent.


31 posted on 02/17/2021 6:32:50 AM PST by rigelkentaurus
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To: pas

A perfect title to that picture: “Tesla owner walks to work.”


32 posted on 02/17/2021 6:32:56 AM PST by cuban leaf (We killed our economy and damaged our culture. In 2021 we will pine for the salad days of 2020.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Sadly being an oil n gas man the over reliance on gas is the problem here. Production crashed due to a number of factors from the well heads to the power plants and once the cascade stated 40,000 megawatts of power tripped off line. Texas lost a slew of.gas plants , one of four nuclear reactors went down due to cooling system freezing, and large coal went down for cooling towers freezing. The plant operators didn’t winterized them to take single digits temps which are once in a century rare in the parts of the state where the plants failed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/

While methane doesn’t freeze until minus 273 degrees the water that is produced with it at the well head does and the gathering lines are plastic on the surface which during normal Texas winter’s rarely freezes due to the high salt.content and 100_130f temps out the earth but in single.digits over days time the ground cold sinks and the lines freeze.


33 posted on 02/17/2021 6:34:23 AM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

When you shut down one gas generating facility, you need 10,000 wind generators to replace it. Factor in reliability and you need 30,000 to 60,000 to ensure they are all running and continuously, even in severe weather. The tax credits given on wind gens is unbelievable. They get more in credits than the cost to put them in place. THEN, they walk away and leave pieces of junk spinning until they break. Build back with reliable energy producing platforms, oil, gas, nukes. Time to reverse the fraudulent solar/wind scheme.


34 posted on 02/17/2021 6:34:52 AM PST by cozy3
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To: babble-on
Natural gas generation disappeared. Not sure why. I guess since everyone heats their homes with it, there were localized shortages. Wind performed as expected, solar did way better than expected.

According to articles posted on different threads, the problem with gas shortages was caused by problems at the well head. Evidently Texas doesn't use or have enough underground gas storage like the midwest does. So the gas has to be processed before sending it on its way. That is were the breakdown happened.

35 posted on 02/17/2021 6:34:55 AM PST by EVO X
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To: LegendHasIt

An honest title would be:

“How one Texas storm exposed how badly leftist ‘environmentalists’ destroyed the previously good Texas energy grid.”

I’m losing another day of work here. It’s 56 definite the house and that’s if the natural gas holds out and I can keep the fire going.

I survived 2 weeks of winter with no power in an ice storm in New York. People think politicians can keep them alive and functioning. They should. We pay the government enough. But I don’t count on them

Gov perry signed away 23% of our power to green advocates. Wimping our to them.

Every single mother in an apartment here struggling like crazy had the wimpiness of our politicians yo the leftists to blame

When people tell me Donald trump is too harsh I ask too whom?’

He would be all over this while Biden Katrina gets a pass.


36 posted on 02/17/2021 6:37:11 AM PST by stanne
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To: babble-on; JD_UTDallas

Please see this post from JD_UTDallas. It explains the issues with natural gas in Texas.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3935278/posts?page=79#79

Frozen windmills are part of the problem, natural gas production problems are a bigger part of the problem. Inadequate winterization of conventional plants is also a problem.

I’ve seen somewhere that the power planners were expecting 6 GW from wind, they’ve been getting around 4. I don’t see a 33% shortfall as “performing as expected”.


37 posted on 02/17/2021 6:39:13 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: PGR88

If that ice storm had hit Southern California, there would have been 20 million without power. Same thing if it had hit Arizona. The sun belt is not prepared for massive ice storms


38 posted on 02/17/2021 6:41:16 AM PST by realcleanguy
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To: rigelkentaurus

Wow! They’d been getting about 4 GW from wind most of yesterday. Right this moment it’s .7 GW, slightly less than your 3%.

http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html


39 posted on 02/17/2021 6:43:05 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

God works in mystery ways.
All continues to be Revealed.


40 posted on 02/17/2021 6:43:58 AM PST by DivineMomentsOfTruth ("There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." -GW)
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