Posted on 12/24/2022 8:19:32 AM PST by nagant
Two winters back Texas plunged into a deep freeze which normally only northerners experience. This winter the cycle repeated. Unfortunately lots of Texans use inefficient electric heat pumps and heating strips for heat. So when Texas goes cold electricity demand skyrockets.
It was the late 1990s. Enron was promising cheap electric rates using pixie dust. Large east coast investors demanded that Texas electric generating companies lower generating plant expenses. As punishment these investors threatened Texas providers with connection with the national grid. George W. Bush was Texas governor. Bush avoided this punishment by setting up a system called Electric Regulatory Commission of Texas (ERCOT).
Previously Texas electricity providers, the companies which connected and sold electricity to customers, were legally responsible for generating the electricity. ERCOT ended the customer/provider relationship. ERCOT interconnected previously unconnected generators across Texas. Under ERCOT customers became reliant on a communist system where generating companies relied on each other for generating peak power, and nobody was ultimately responsible to customers for peak power.
For two of the latest three winters the inevitable has happened. Mother nature has exposed the Texas ERCOT system, for what it is, a ponzi scheme. During last year's cold blast ERCOT failed, and Texans froze in the dark. Subsequently Texas lawmakers put lipstick on the ERCOT pig, promising this could not happen again. Thankfully this year's cold front was about 5 degrees warmer, but the ERCOT grid came within a hair's breath of shutting down again.
The single biggest factor causing this generation shortfall has been the fact that the current system allows bigoted leftists to buy electricity generated from wind and solar power. Wind power is unreliable, and cuts out when the wind stops blowing. Solar power cuts out under clouds and at night. Then these customers are allowed to switch to natural gas-generated electricity. Reliance on wind generation has been the biggest factor causing failure of the ERCOT system.
When will Texas learn? Communism does not work. Scrap ERCOT and make electric providers responsible to its customers for providing electricity. Allow these providers to charge premium rates for inefficient loads such as electric heating. Failing these measures, create a system which disconnects wind and solar customers when demand peaks as the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
There were no major power outages in East Texas.
What specifically are you complaining about? There were no power issues, and we didn’t come close to shutting down.
I don’t see it:
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand
It was 10° in Charlotte this morning when I got up.
Now the daughter, coming over from just out of town, is telling us power is out in areas of Charlotte...as close as 10 minutes away from us.
Somebody must be trying out their new Red Ryder BB gun on the local electrical substations.
As a deep east Texan who experienced repeated outages yesterday (over the course of 6 hours during the coldest part of the day), I assure you it did not seem minor. As the temperature in the house was falling, it seemed very third-world.
Wind and solar are great with the following two caveats.
1. It must be cost competitive without subsidies.
2. Sufficient gas, coal, and oil-fired generators must be available to take over when the wind does not blow, and the sun does not shine.
It should be noted if they were cost competitive the electrical companies would build them without subsidies. All subsidies alter free market forces. They are bad.
US power outage map.
https://poweroutage.us/
The only ones I heard about were due to car wrecks into poles.
There have been no issues in Irving, though I did see an ONCOR truck outside an apartment complex yesterday.
We bought a portable generator two years ago, and have only had to use it twice, to keep the refrigerator operating.
Global warming...errr... climate change strikes again.
Back in Feb 2021 the amount of electrical power generated by ERCOT with renewables was about 28%. For 2022 it is about 34%. The rule of thumb for the maximum amount of renewables is 15%.
The winter is just getting started and we still have January and February for nature to break the ERCOT grid.
Power has gone out twice for more than thirty minutes here in Johnson City, TN this morning.
Before ERCOT and it’s non Texan board, before T Boone Pickens and his welfare windmills, power outages in Texas were completely unknown unless a storm toll lines down.
ERCOT is a modern ENRON
I forgot to add, the real solution is nuclear power. France is about 80% nuclear with no accidents. They came up with a reliable design and built many just like it all over France. Those Frogs are not stupid when it comes to energy.
In the USA all our reactors are “one off” projects and we lose the economics of just building the same reactor each time. Our reactors are thus much more expensive but even so produce cheap electricity. Nuclear waste disposal is not an engineering problem, it is a political problem.
Things were better under Reddy kilowatt. Note they actually cancel him as a mascot
All the liberals moving to Texas don’t help matters.
Now the daughter, coming over from just out of town, is telling us power is out in areas of Charlotte...as close as 10 minutes away from us.
Somebody must be trying out their new Red Ryder BB gun on the local electrical substations.
I'm just down the road from you and across the border in Indian Land. We've got quite a few outages around the countryside, but fortunately no Duke Power problems in my neighborhood. Saw several folks in the neighborhood are having furnace or hot water issues, though.
Eastern US Power Grid Declares Emergency, Power Outages Top One Million, Flight Disruptions Persist Amid Storm Chaos
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/eastern-us-power-grid-declares-emergency-power-outages-top-one-million-flight-disruptions
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