Posted on 02/18/2021 8:47:37 AM PST by austinrepub
The story of how Texas was brought to its knees by crippling cold weather leaving millions without power is a complex one, yet entirely predictable and avoidable.
The details matter, so it is important to know the long story, but let’s start with the short version: For years, Texas’ grid operator (ERCOT) has overestimated the ability to maintain a reliable grid without a sufficient supply buffer, known as a “reserve margin.” That margin is the difference between demand for electricity and what the grid can produce. When demand exceeds production, you get blackouts. That buffer has been shrinking because reliable sources of energy have been retired, few reliable plants have been constructed, and the grid is depending more and more on weather-dependent renewable energy that repeatedly fails to perform when we need it most.
When wind and solar production predictably dropped as the winter storm hit, the buffer collapsed. ERCOT needed to execute a series of balancing measures that would have protected the grid. But it did not act soon enough, which caused many more gas and some coal power plants in the system to “trip.” (Think of it as a circuit breaker that triggers to prevent a fire or other emergency at your house when there is a system imbalance.) Other weather-related issues caused problems too but ERCOT’s failure to act sooner was a major factor.
(Excerpt) Read more at texaspolicy.com ...
That doesn’t sound like it had anything to do with the cold weather.
Where does it say it happened because of the cold??
The spokesman quoted stated that the “pumps were not hardened against the cold”. I’m not quite sure what that means, exactly, but that was the quote.
Bull poopy. Had coal and nuke provided 20 percent more baseline power it would work. That’s 20 percent more coal and 20 percent more nuke.
DoodleDawg is full of mockery and insinuations, but way short on facts. Note he hasn’t responded to post #19, etc...
I worked at a power plant many years ago in Arizona. We had one of our big units trip in the middle of the summer during the heat of the day. Fortunately, we had adequate reserve power to cover the outage. You don’t just turn a generating unit back on, it takes several hours.
Yes. That’s the hard truth behind the global warming lies, the green mania and the mass falsifications.
USA Article with images explaining the Polar Vortex and its dip down into the USA Area
It seems lack of imagination and poor planning were the cause of this disaster. Why wasn’t the possibility of severe cold considered in planning? Why wouldn’t it make sense to have people on a Board with extreme weather experience. Lower wind usage in winter is already expected. How do northern countries keep their wind generators from freezing up? Was Texas too cheap to consider such technology? The same questions for keeping the Natural Gas system working in cold weather. Why waste the tremendous wind resources of west Texas or the strong solar contribution because they didn’t have it when you were a kid? What are our grandchildren going to use for oil and gas if we use it all up in the next decades. A gradual, WELL PLANNED shift to more renewables is totally logical. The key is WELL PLANNED. Environmentalists need to be more aware of the issues for carbon fuel businesses. The carbon industry needs to start planning shifts of more business activity to environmentally smart applications. [Note: I own some BP stock and years ago was happy to see them talking about solar energies.] The smart people of Texas need to wake up and smell the future. There is plenty of business to be done and money to be made during this period of transition. Do we want to be dependent on Middle East oil production for our own national future forever? How many sons and daughters has Texas lost to this insanity?
The Jet stream often ‘wobbles’ throughout my area so you never know for sure what we’re going to get when storm warnings or weather is reported.
I dug around on their web page a little and couldn’t even find a listing of their board members. That’s absurd for a quasi-public non-profit organization.
....”Politics never contribute to a better design of anything”....
....and politics also prevents a lot of otherwise helpful developments!
Ever heard of matches?
When you’re buying Green Energy for fun, giggles and virtue signaling, it doesn’t leave money for all that boring stuff.
Eloithink: "fantasy meets reality".
“Opportunity Cost”
aka "Opportunity Cost", which failed English majors quacking the Green Fascist line will never understand in a hundred years.
“Each and every member of the ERCOT board who is NOT a Texan living in TEXAS needs to be FIRED, immediately. “
More important is they know power generation and the utility business .
I wonder how many are engineers ?
Excellent post, this is why I come here.
What makes you think adjacent regions had excess power? They were seeing extreme weather too.
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