Posted on 02/19/2021 3:21:38 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Questions arise regarding the failure of the Texas power grid as the state continues to recover from a historic winter storm.
New reports from the Texas Tribune on Friday suggest that the state was “Seconds and minutes” away from a “catastrophic” blackout that could have lasted months if grid operators did not take action to stop a massive drop in energy supply.
Unseasonably cold temperatures knocked natural gas and coal plants offline as well as froze wind turbines. As a result, operators had to resort to rolling blackouts to stop the surge in demand from overwhelming its circuits.
Several factors have been blamed for the sudden and severe energy crisis, with fossil-fuel proponents blaming frozen wind turbines and other alternative energy that was frozen over, BBC suggested. Others such as the New York Times have blamed natural gas pipes freezing and pointing responsibility on to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
However, there has been one component of the U.S. power grid that has not been looked into: The equipment itself.
An April 2014 report from the Department of Energy found that there were only six domestic manufacturers of power equipment in the United States, while China had 30 manufacturers.
Several Chinese-based companies, such as HICO and Siemens, have plants that export transformers to several countries. The report further suggested that the actual production of U.S.-built transformers was less than a fifth of China’s production.
The report showed that the U.S. has become dependent on foreign-made transformers to maintain capability of the power grid.
“In 2010, only 15 percent of the Nation’s demand for power transformers…was met through domestic production,” the report concluded.
In 2019, deputy director of counterintelligence at the DOE said that “There have been over 200 Chinese transformers that have come into the U.S. energy sector in the last ten years,” according to RealClearEnergy, highlighting the country’s dependence on energy.
One of the companies who makes these transformers, JiangSu HuaPeng Transformer Co., recently finished projects in Houston. The city was among the hardest hit in the recent energy crisis.
On May 1, 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that essentially made the U.S> power grid “America First” by allowing the Secretaries of Defense, Interior and Homeland Security along with the Director of National intelligence to identify equipment that was designed and owned by foreign jurisdictions, including China.
The E.O. aimed to prevent future transactions regarding the supplementation or manufacturing of any equipment that under “foreign adversary control.”
“The transaction…poses and undue risk of sabotage to or subversion of the design, integrity…or manufacturing of the bulk-power system in the United States.” The E.O. read in part.
The order would allow the appropriate departments to “identify” the equipment and “isolate or monitor” their behavior. A task force also formed to focus on vulnerabilities and procurement of the power system of the U.S.
The order may have stemmed from a report regarding the “Electric Panda” hacking group. POLITICO reported that the group had targeted 40 U.S. contracting facilities that specialize in numerous fields.
The U.S. energy secretary at the time also prohibited utilities that supply facilities from importing items from China. Secretary Dan Brouillette said that it was “imperative” the power system was secure from attacks and exploitation.
On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order seeking to address the Keystone XL pipeline. In the bottom part of the order, the action also suspended Trump’s order for 90 days to consider if a replacement should be issued.
The provision reportedly allows China to continue exporting transformers to the United States without any issues. It also comes on the heels of reports that Chinese hackers used the SolarWinds bug to spy on U.S. payrolls.
The order remains suspended until April, when the order will be replaced or expire. It is not clear what the Biden administration will replace the order with, if at all.
Before the winter storm, Biden approved an emergency declaration for Texas in the event of the worst. However, Biden’s response to the power outages has been slow, with new authorizations only coming yesterday regarding deliveries of supplies.
The situation in Texas, albeit caused mainly by unprecedented weather conditions, could have been mitigated significantly. The use of Chinese-built transformers may have had a role in exactly why the power grid catastrophically failed.
Although it’s unlikely a cyberattack may have caused the grid to undergo immense stress, the use of such technology should be of concern. The vulnerabilities of the U.S. power grid are now on display in the south and should not go unnoticed.
Yeah, that’s it. It’s them furriners again, durn em all.
Time for George Prescott Bush, spawn of Jebbie, to step up and explain his knowledge and understanding of the TEXAS power grid.
Where in the world is Governor Abbott? .... Same question.
This looks like Enron-2.
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Communists caused it. The end, case closed.
Microcosm of what the Leftists want for all of us.
Plain and simple - lack of PPP and action.
>Where in the world is Governor Abbott?
Don’t blame Abbott, he fought the Feds tooth and nail for years when he was AG over this crap...
This rather plays into the hands of people that don’t like Democrat run cities or a Democrat Oligarchy.
They cannot easily replace substation transformers that are
sabotaged. Small groups, untraceable, can easily disable power to major cities for months, perhaps years.
I’m not advocating this as FR is quick to ZOT! Just pointing out a weakness in the Grid.
Having seen what the DOE actually issued from this, it limited Texas to pre-freeze emissions, tying their hands.
Well, blaming it on frozen wind turbines didn't work, so this is the next logical step. Admitting Piss Poor Planning and pocketing profits rather than investing in infrastructure might have the torch and pitchfork folks looking at the utilities instead of greenies and chinese.
“...investing in infrastructure...”
The government provides incentives to invest in solar and wind. The government penalizes them for carbon emissions.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” (Obama, 2008)
Who ordered that junk?
It’s not the place of the equipment’s origin; it’s the environmental extremism that required its use in the first place.
I’m not arguing that unreliable solar/wind projects are good, they are not. But they were not the primary cause of the outages. The problem was failure to upgrade existing plants, as previously recommended after the 2011 freeze. Twice as much Coal/Natural Gas/Nuclear capacity was offline compared to renewables like wind and solar. But everyone jumped on “frozen turbines”. Now it’s “chinese equipment”. People should do their own research and decide who to hold accountable.
ERCOT shut down 5,000 MW of coal energy production in 2018 alone to meet EPA regulations. I hold obama and the liberals accountable for some/most of this.
If you think about it, It would be hard for a super heated steam boiler to freeze up, and coal, nuke, and nat gas, all work making super heated steam to turn a turbine.
The Windmills make about 25% of Texas power on a spring day. I believe they were down to about 2% on the 15th. We pay large subsidies to them and they produce almost nothing and need a lot of maintenance. Texas has loads of lignite coal, almost useless for any other purpose and we forbid it's use. Nat Gas would be my second choice after coal, but make no mistake, this failure is from Windmills and Windmills alone.
Your going to hear about Nat Gas failure, but that wouldn't happen if all the power didn't have to come from Nat Gas. Windmills make a fair amount of power out in West Texas in the spring through the fall, but even freeze up in the desert in winter. The problem this time is the whole state froze and needed more power than the gas plants could deliver on their own.
Another thing a little off topic,...Nat gas electricity cost about 10 cents a kw and windmills cost about 30-40 cents a kw and it's subsidized. A windmill needs about $300,000 of maintenance a year per windmill. That's why many places have blades not spinning while others do. Bearings, blades, and transmissions don't last in the dirt and sand. What the hell are we doing?
Repeat often
The Governor’s wheel chair wheel bearings froze up because he was too cheap to winterize them.
How much money could have gone for those upgrades if they hadn’t been Green virtue signaling by shutting down coal plants and installing wind farms that didn’t produce much during the event?
I have a screencap from ERCOT’s real time status page from I think Wednesday AM showing them getting 0.65 GW from wind. This on an installed nominal capacity in the range 25-31 GW of windmills, depending on whose numbers you’re looking at. The were getting about 4 GW the first bad day. It’s still atrocious for the amount of installed capacity.
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