“demand on natural gas power plants caused pressures to drop in its distribution chain which caused water vapor in the system to freeze in critical areas in the distribution system.”
I found a comment a week ago (unfortunately don’t remember where) made by a person who deals with water vapor issues in gas installations in Texas. He said whenever he found and tried to fix a water vapor issue, he was told to stop, they did not want to spend the money. In winter, wind is only about 10% of the electrical energy. If the power companies are not equipped to supply surges in need then they need to educate people to quickly limit their demand by turning heat way down, and only heating a room or two with auxiliary heat. This needs to be a well publicized announcement with official representation.
Texans may love the idea of independence, but if they are not going to approve of connection to the eastern and western US power grids, then they are going to pay the price, either as they are doing now, or by the higher bills they will get regularly when the power companies have to upgrade the quality and safety of the power system. By, for example, paying for systems that prevent water vapor, lines that are protected from freezing, wind machines that don’t freeze (like the ones in northern states, Canada, and northern Europe), etc. Since so much of the wind power is in west Texas at the very least it would make sense to connect with the western US power system including states like New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and on north into Canada. Then, of course, there are also possibilities in the eastern US power system. See link with MAP and explanations below.
https://www.energy.gov/oe/services/electricity-policy-coordination-and-implementation/transmission-planning/recovery-act-0
I don’t think Cruz did a bad thing by promoting Texas wind power. What’s needed is to figure out who was responsible for allowing the power people to set up a system that would not even meet the needs shown by the 2011 weather emergency, and get them to fix it or hire/vote people who can do that.
In winter, wind is only about 10% of the electrical energy. I thought that you shouod know that you were lied to by the media and apparently have still not realized it. The proportion of unreliable wind generated power has been steadily increasing in Texas. Here is a chart showing the proportion of wind power in 2019... You will not that February provided a higher proportion of wind power than every month other than April and May. The level of lies attempting to hide the abysmal failure of wind and solar power during this weather event has reached an all time high.
During February one through eight this year wind was providing 30% of the power being consumed in Texas. The next week it basically dropped of to nothing.
Ted Cruz has been one of the leading advocates of wind power in Texas. This has made the power grid in Texas vulnerable to this type of weather event, and other types of weather events as well.
https://www.triglobalenergy.com/news/u-s-senator-ted-cruz-receives-tri-global-energy-s-2019-wind-leadership-award#:~:text=23%2C%202019)%20%2D%2D%20Tri%20Global,rely%20on%20wind%20farms%20to