The Great Texas Blackout of ‘21

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/\It was all those tamale steamers going full blast.
Like when China said their air pollution was caused by Tibetans burning yak dung to cook with.

It’s not just a cold front. Over a decade of misguided green energy policies are wreaking havoc in Texas and the lower Midwest right now — despite non-stop claims to the contrary.

The immediate cause for the power outages in Texas this week was extreme cold and insufficient winterization of the state’s energy systems. But there’s still no escaping the fact that, for years, Texas regulators have favored the construction of heavily subsidized renewable energy sources over more reliable electricity generation. These policies have pushed the state away from nuclear and coal and now millions in Texas and the Great Plains states are learning just how badly exposed they are when extreme weather hits.

Renewable’s defenders retort that Texas’ wind resource is “reliably unreliable.” Translation: It can’t be counted on when it’s needed most. The state has spent tens of billions of dollars on wind turbines that don’t work when millions of people desperately need electricity. As the cold weather has gotten worse, half the state’s wind generation has sat frozen and immobile. Where wind provided 42% of the state’s electricity on Feb. 7, it fell to 8% on Feb.11.

Unsurprisingly, the failure of wind has sparked a competing narrative that fossil fuel plants were the real cause of power outages. This claim can be quickly dispelled with a look at data from ERCOT, the state’s electricity regulator. Even though the extreme cold had frozen cooling systems on coal plants and natural gas pipelines, the state’s coal plants still upped their output by 47% in response to increasing demand. Natural gas plants across the state increased their output by an amazing 450%. Fossil fuels have done yeoman’s work to make up for wind’s reliable unreliability.

Sadly, even these herculean efforts weren’t enough. The loss of wind has been compounded by the loss of some natural gas and coal generation, and one nuclear reactor, which experienced a cold-related safety issue and shut down. Things are improving, but rolling power outages are still impacting millions. Had the state invested more heavily in nuclear plants instead of pushing wind power, Texans would have ample, reliable, safe, emission-free electricity powering their lives through the cold. Instead, over 20 have died.

The Texas energy crisis isn’t a one-off, either. The same thing happened in 2019 when Michigan endured the Polar Vortex. Extreme cold paired with limited natural gas supplies and non-existent renewable energy. Residents all received text messages warning them to reduce their thermostats to 65° or less to stave off a system wide failure.

California’s rolling blackouts last summer are another example. Dwindling solar generation in late afternoon, shuttered nuclear plants, and insufficient supply from gas plants could not compete with rising energy demands due to extreme heat.

As more states mandate unreliable renewables, incidents like this will become more frequent, not less. Every new wind turbine and solar panel means less reliable energy — the energy Americans need to weather the coldest nights and the hottest days.

And then there’s Joe Biden’s $2 trillion promise to wean America off reliable energy. If Biden’s aggressive climate plan is enacted, it will push tens of thousands of wind turbines and millions of solar panels in an expensive effort to achieve net zero emissions from the nation’s electricity sector by 2050. But doing this will only further spread the problems that Texans are currently experiencing.

Source: Texas blackouts warning to Biden and all of us: Renewables do play a role in grid problems

Au Contraire - You've been bamboozled by left wing spin doctors that are radical environmentalist, rent seekers, and profiteering billionaires who made vast fortunes from tax subsidies derived from renewable energy.

Texas wind production is under 24%.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnew ... cna1258185
It was the gas that failed them.

Last edited by Misslizard on 22 Feb 2021, 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sources????

According to the Texas Comptroller:
Renewable energy sources — mainly wind — contribute more than a fifth of Texas’ net electricity. Texas is the nation’s leader in wind-powered electricity generation, producing almost 30 percent of the U.S. total. According to the American Wind Energy Association, only four nations have more wind capacity than Texas.

Texas Electricity Generation by Fuel for 2019:
Natural Gas - 47.4%
Coal - 20.3%
Wind - 20.0%
Nuclear - 10.8%
Solar - 1.1%
Hydro - 0.2%
Biomass - 0.1%
Others - less than 0.1%

Source: Texas’ Electricity Resources

Gas lines freeze in cold weather if not maintained.
https://asgmt.com/wp-content/uploads/pd ... /1/T06.pdf

Wind turbines work in cold weather everywhere that has regulations that say they have to spend the extra money to winterize them so they don't freeze up. That big long post is some oil and gas executive's bs gaslighting.

Wind/Solar/Tidal etc are reliable. They're in use all over the world. Australia, China - almost everywhere. Tesla installed the world's largest battery in Australia to help manage their renewables grid - it works and makes money.

Source for 15.7% was google.

"15.7%
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power.

Wind power in Texas - Wikipedia"

Interesting look at how some people react in times like this:


Source: https://twitter.com/JB_Weiner/status/1362772340812169219

^ that is really awesome.

Looks like the gas industry released a ton of pollution during the freeze.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... pollutants

It's so laughable to think people actually believe the crap being spewed on Faux News about renewable energy, The Paris Accord, and China etc.

1. Renewable energy is as reliable as the Sunrise & Sunset. Any suggestion that they aren't is completely absurd. We have the technology, folks! It's already in use all over the world - it's not the stuff of sci-fi, America is just lagging behind and clinging to their same old ways Because a handful of Billionaires make their money from American fossil fuels.

2. The USA rejoining The Paris Accord isn't going to cancel US energy jobs - they're simply going to shift.. and there will be more of them. It takes more electricians to install & maintain solar farms than the handful of pipeline operators required to watch profits flow through a tube.

3. China isn't waiting for the USA to reduce fossil fuel use so they can ignore rules & "burn baby burn," - they've been manufacturing & installing more solar panels and other renewable energy sources than any other country on the planet. Heck, America has a handful of electric car makers while China has 400. China & it's legions of engineers see the value and importance of making the shift to cleaner greener technologies, cleaning up the land air and sea for now & for future generations. It's climate science denying Americans (fed lies by Big Oil Billionaires through talking heads like Tucker Carlson & Laura Ingraham) that are the global hinderance.

It’s more likely China wants us to use fossil fuels so that they will surpass us in green energy.This keeps us dependent on foreign oil, which makes us vulnerable in a conflict.
If we had listened to President Carter we could have been the leaders of the world in green energy.
China is certainly heading that way, wise to be energy self -sufficient.
https://thegreenergroup.com/news/solar- ... ity-china/

You are using old numbers for 2017. Wind power in Texas has jumped up since then. The numbers I cited also came from ERCOT but were for 2019.

Actually it is probably the other way around.
China has a monopoly on rare earth metals.



Renewable energy and electric vehicles are heavily dependent on rare earth elements. They are vital to this industry.
China controls 80 percent of U.S. supplies, with Estonia, Japan and Malaysia making up most of the rest.
China is exploring limiting the export of rare earth minerals. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month proposed draft controls on the production and export of 17 rare earth minerals in China.

The rare earths and critical metals which are essential to make solar photovoltaic and wind turbines have a potential of become supply constrained as economically viable concentrations of elements such as neodymium, dysprosium, indium, selenium, tellurium, terbium and gallium are found in only a handful of countries.

So China has positioned itself to make a heavy profit from renewable energy and to exert national control over the production of this technology.

China is the largest global emitters of carbon dioxide by country 2019. In 2019, China was the biggest emitter of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. With a share of almost 30 percent of the world's total CO2 emissions that year, this was roughly twice the amount emitted by the second largest emitter the United States. China is only providing lip service to the goals of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases.

ERCOT got itself into this mess because of a naive belief that wind power would always be available in large quantities. This was an accident waiting to happen. And it will happen again if Texas does not get at least another 10 GW of proper dispatchable capacity.

1) The sudden drop in wind power of 4 GW on Sunday evening [2/15/21] left the already highly stressed grid in a critical state. It was only the ramping up of gas power that saved a calamitous total collapse there and then – one that would have been much worse.

2) Something happened around 1.00 am to push the whole thing over the edge, as the 1.10 am warning confirms.

3) Whatever this “something” was (and it may have been supply or demand orientated), it caused the tripping out of 6 GW of generating capacity (mainly gas) at precisely 1.55 am.

4) At that stage there was no easy way back, and the widespread blackouts were the inevitable result.

To sum up, the loss of gas generation resulted from tripping out, and not because of freezing up.

Source: Texas Blackouts–Critical New Data Revealed

That statement isn't exactly true. Photovoltaic cells (solar cells) do not provide electricity during the night. They also don't provide any meaningful electricity during sunrise and sunset. The sun needs to be quite a bit above the horizon before they generate electricity. When the sky is overcast, their output is dramatically reduced. When the panels are covered with snow, they also do not produce electricity. Wind turbines need wind in order to generate electrical power. If the wind isn't blowing, they will not generate. Also they can have a problem with too much wind. Also the turbines can freeze up in the winter. So they are not a reliable 24/7 source of generating electrical power.

They are also not cost effective. Otherwise they would not have to seek all kinds of financial incentives. It is the public that pays financially for including renewable energy into the mix. They pay for it with higher electrical bills and with taxes. These incentives are substantial.