The Texas energy crisis

[GreekOrthodox]

The basic problem was the presumption that Texas is too big for any single adverse weather pattern to engulf the entire state, so therefore the state could function as its own grid, shifting power across the immense state as necessary. And 99 44/100% of the time, that's true.

Which all comes down to risk management. I have hurricane insurance but not earthquake insurance since I live in Virginia.

 

[RDKirk]

Which all comes down to risk management. I have hurricane insurance but not earthquake insurance since I live in Virginia.

But you would be smart to strap your water heater.

 

[Michael]

Let's get real. The primary reason that the power grid failed in Texas is because their privately owned utility company refused to learn from past mistakes. Texas had the same problem, albeit less severely, about a decade ago. They did a full study of that incident and they determined that the failure was directly related to a lack of wetherization/winterization of their power grid.

Instead of fixing the actual problem, they simply ignored the problem and then they doubled down on their own stupidity and greed by failing to even winterize even their *new* power systems, including their new wind generators they installed. The predictable outcome was a complete catastrophe. That's why they had massive problems across *every* sector of their energy grid.

The *second* major primary cause of their catastrophic failure is due to the fact that they also wanted to bypass all federal regulations so they disconnected themselves from the US power grid, thereby making it *impossible* to import power from external sources. Other neighboring states connected to the US grid did experience rolling blackouts too, but not for nearly as long, and far fewer customers were affected. That's the second most important cause of the power failures in Texas.

Now however the privately owned utility company is grasping at straws and looking for anything or anyone *else* to blame for their mistakes because the lawsuits are headed their way.

Montana and Wyoming experience *far* more severe weather than Texas, but they were intelligent enough to winterize their systems so they had no significant problems with their wind generators.

The whole blame game about "green" energy system being the culprit was pure gaslighting.

Everything else is just smoke and mirrors in the hope that Texans don't blame them for never winterizing the system and cutting them off from external help.

 

[Michael]

And to add insult to injury, their privatization process in Texas works a lot like the old Enron ponsi scheme, and some Texas customers are being hit with *massive* electricity bills.

Anger over huge power bills for Texas residents after storm

 

[Yarddog]

I realize that the media turned the Texas energy crisis into an attack piece by the Left to take down Ted Cruz and conservatives that live in Texas, but the media is ignoring two major glaring facts

1. The energy crisis was created because of the instance of relying on the green energy of wind. This crisis is a glaring reminder of the travesties that lie in wait for us all when coal powered electric will be shut down all across the country by the Left. In fact, I have never heard of anyone freezing to death because a coal powered plant stopped working, have you?

2. Where is FEMA? Where is Joe Biden? When Katrina wiped out New Orleans, we saw people standing on a bridge waving to flying helicopters for help, with the sound bites from the press saying that Bush had failed them because FEMA was no where to be seen to help those in crisis. But now that a democrat is in the White House, not a peep in the press about this.

It just amazes me how the Left wing press is able to be so hypocritical and glaringly partisan.

In fact, it sickens me.

It should sicken you since it's not true.

 

[The Barbarian]

1. The energy crisis was created because of the instance of relying on the green energy of wind.

Nope. It was because the unregulated utilities weren't required to winterize their thermal generators (which provide most of the electrical power in Texas). So when they went down, it was pretty much a disaster. There are wind generators (and thermal generators) doing just fine in Iowa, because they were built to handle freezing weather. Texas could have done that, but since it cost money,and absent regulation, they didn't have to. And there you are.

This crisis is a glaring reminder of the travesties that lie in wait for us all when coal powered
electric will be shut down all across the country by the Left.

The thermal generators went down, too. You were misled about that.

Officials for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of Texas’ grid, said the primary cause of the outages Tuesday appeared to be the state’s natural gas providers. Many are not designed to withstand such low temperatures on equipment or during production.
Texas largely relies on natural gas for power. It wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.

In fact, I have never heard of anyone freezing to death because a coal powered plant stopped working, have you?

Texans have...

Of the 45,000 megawatts of power offline during the peak, 30,000 megawatts stemmed from natural gas, while 16,000 megawatts were from wind turbines.

"Of the power shortfall that hit Texas, over 80% was due to problems at coal- and gas-fired plants," PolitiFact reported.

Experts say traditional energy sources, including coal and natural gas, performed below expectations, while wind power actually performed above expectations.

"Main story continues to be the failure of thermal power plants — natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants — which ERCOT counts on to be there when needed. They've failed,"
Don't blame wind turbines for Texas' historic power outages

Where is FEMA? Where is Joe Biden?

Doing their jobs:

Today, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that an emergency exists in the State of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from a severe winter storm beginning on February 11, 2021, and continuing.


The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 254 Texas counties.


Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and direct federal assistance will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.

Robert J. Fenton, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Jerry S. Thomas as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Texas Emergency Declaration | The White House

But now that a democrat is in the White House, not a peep in the press about this.

Biden didn't make a big deal of it. In fact, he approved the aid immediately, but said he would wait to visit until his presence didn't interfere with the recovery work.

It just amazes me how the Left wing press is able to be so hypocritical and glaringly partisan.

I think if Biden would have tooted his own horn a little, the press would have picked up on it. But that's not what Biden is about.

Yep, it's going to be a different administration...

 

[The Barbarian]

The basic problem was the presumption that Texas is too big for any single adverse weather pattern to engulf the entire state, so therefore the state could function as its own grid, shifting power across the immense state as necessary. And 99 44/100% of the time, that's true.

The instructive thing is, El Paso, in far west Texas, is not on the Texas power grid, but on one that serves New Mexico and points north. They had no problems whatever. It was just the Texas system that failed. It was sort of an experiment; regulated vs. unregulated systems.

Unregulated collapsed when stressed.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

I realize that the media turned the Texas energy crisis into an attack piece by the Left to take down Ted Cruz and conservatives that live in Texas, but the media is ignoring two major glaring facts

1. The energy crisis was created because of the instance of relying on the green energy of wind. This crisis is a glaring reminder of the travesties that lie in wait for us all when coal powered electric will be shut down all across the country by the Left. In fact, I have never heard of anyone freezing to death because a coal powered plant stopped working, have you?

.

Lets get the facts straight. 24% of TX energy comes from renewable energy, other 75% are conventional.

If Ted Cruz was doing his duty rather then leaving, media wouldn’t criticize him. but hay you are free to criticize media any time you want . it doesn't cost any thing, as a matter of fact in certain group criticizing the media gives you extra points.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

It just seems ironic to me that democrats are pouncing on this to make Cruz look bad, when in reality, it just makes wind power look unreliably dangerous.

Again, I've never heard of people freezing to death who depended on coal burning plants.

If the Left really wanted to go carbon free, then nuclear is the answer, but once again, the Left inexplicably hates that as well. No, they just want us all to freeze to death depending on other unreliable energy that cannot be mass produced to meet the needs of the nation.

Scary.

I sure don't want to freeze to death under AOC's Green New Deal.

And I'm sure no one else wants to either.

Oh, and I'm sure if the power does go off in New York, AOC will probably be on a vacation herself.

I am in Wisconsin and no one is freeze to death here .. we had straight 40 days below freezing temperature …. may be it is not about wind power ( I replied your other post, your facts are not accurate.. TX renewable energy only produce 24% of energy demand) , it’s the Government TX has for past 30 years.. smaller government, hate the federal government, hate regulation etc.. is the reason TX energy crisis. AOC is congresswoman in NY, she has no power what is going on in TX. It is the “small government” “we don’t need federal government” republican running TX for past 30-40 years.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

Let's get real. The primary reason that the power grid failed in Texas is because their privately owned utility company refused to learn from past mistakes. Texas had the same problem, albeit less severely, about a decade ago. They did a full study of that incident and they determined that the failure was directly related to a lack of wetherization/winterization of their power grid.

Instead of fixing the actual problem, they simply ignored the problem and then they doubled down on their own stupidity and greed by failing to even winterize even their *new* power systems, including their new wind generators they installed. The predictable outcome was a complete catastrophe. That's why they had massive problems across *every* sector of their energy grid.

The *second* major primary cause of their catastrophic failure is due to the fact that they also wanted to bypass all federal regulations so they disconnected themselves from the US power grid, thereby making it *impossible* to import power from external sources. Other neighboring states connected to the US grid did experience rolling blackouts too, but not for nearly as long, and far fewer customers were affected. That's the second most important cause of the power failures in Texas.

Now however the privately owned utility company is grasping at straws and looking for anything or anyone *else* to blame for their mistakes because the lawsuits are headed their way.

Montana and Wyoming experience *far* more severe weather than Texas, but they were intelligent enough to winterize their systems so they had no significant problems with their wind generators.

The whole blame game about "green" energy system being the culprit was pure gaslighting.

Everything else is just smoke and mirrors in the hope that Texans don't blame them for never winterizing the system and cutting them off from external help.

What you said are true but I blame people of TX for everything.

Who cares if “privately owned utility company refused to learn from past mistakes”? If there is state regulation that energy company has to comply then privet company would have no choice but comply with the regulation. But State government didn’t have that regulation.

Every other week TX wants to “succeed from the union” because they hate federal government, they think government is the enemy, they think people are better off without government and free market without regulation is the answer for everything.

People of TX chose these politician who wants to downsize government, who wants to abolish regulation, and have open free market without accountability and elect politician who wants to go on vacation during crisis. TX has been ruby red state for past 40 years. And if you notice , instated of blaming their own government for the crisis they blame AOC who has nothing to do with this, they blame media for talking about Ted Cruz, even though it is the Cruz who left them.

When all settle down, people of TX will elect another set of republican who wants to abolish government and “succeed from the union”.

 

[RDKirk]

Lets get the facts straight. 24% of TX energy comes from renewable energy, other 75% are conventional.

Up to twenty-five percent of Texas' energy potential can come from renewable sources. Texas is not, at any given moment, necessarily getting 25% from renewable sources. And during the winter, the planning factor is much less than 25%.

 

[RDKirk]

What you said are true but I blame people of TX for everything.

Who cares if “privately owned utility company refused to learn from past mistakes”? If there is state regulation that energy company has to comply then privet company would have no choice but comply with the regulation. But State government didn’t have that regulation.

Every other week TX wants to “succeed from the union” because they hate federal government, they think government is the enemy, they think people are better off without government and free market without regulation is the answer for everything.

People of TX chose these politician who wants to downsize government, who wants to abolish regulation, and have open free market without accountability and elect politician who wants to go on vacation during crisis. TX has been ruby red state for past 40 years. And if you notice , instated of blaming their own government for the crisis they blame AOC who has nothing to do with this, they blame media for talking about Ted Cruz, even though it is the Cruz who left them.

When all settle down, people of TX will elect another set of republican who wants to abolish government and “succeed from the union”.

Unfortunately, that's been true so far.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Failure of wind power on Sunday night / Monday morning forced rolling black outs to begin... and those blackouts were allowed to depower Natural Gas supplying pumping equipment

A Giant Flaw in Texas Blackouts: It Cut Power to Gas Supplies

 

[The Barbarian]

Lets get the facts straight. 24% of TX energy comes from renewable energy, other 75% are conventional.

Yep. As Texas now admits the failure of thermal generating plants was a much larger problem than the utilities failing to protect wind generators.

AOC is congresswoman in NY, she has no power what is going on in TX.

She rounded up over $3 million to help affected Texans. More than Texas Republicans were willing to do.

 

[The Barbarian]

Failure of wind power on Sunday night / Monday morning forced rolling black outs to begin... and those blackouts were allowed to depower Natural Gas supplying pumping equipment

That shouldn't have happened, either. Iowa gets about 30 percent of its electrical power from wind, and it never does that. But electrical utilities are regulated in Iowa.

And they aren't regulated in Texas. So now you have one important difference.

Worth considering.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Failure of wind power on Sunday night / Monday morning forced rolling black outs to begin... and those blackouts were allowed to depower Natural Gas supplying pumping equipment

A Giant Flaw in Texas Blackouts: It Cut Power to Gas Supplies

Your article doesn't say anything about wind.

 

[The Barbarian]

It was a failure due to lack of regulatory oversight. A disaster waiting to happen. And when it did, we were completely unprepared. It's the Achilles' Heel of the otherwise solid Texas business climate.

Ideologically, the present leadership in Texas is unprepared to lead at this time. You could ding Rick Perry for a lot of things, but his vision was to make Texas a great place for business. Some called him an amoral opportunist, but given his vision, he was willing to do whatever it took to get there.

Cost him the presidency, maybe. The far right went ballistic when he advocated in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. All Perry could see was "good for bidness."

In my opinion, Gov. Abbott could use a little more of Perry's focus on results and a lot less ideological theater. One fatal flaw in unregulated utilities became obvious; it killed a lot of people. Time to step up and lead. But I doubt if Abbott is capable of it.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Want to think the "Great State of TX" does not need "expert regulators" to tell them... don't let rolling blackouts depower power plants -- give them priority, same as (say) hospitals

"Common" sense is a pre-requisite for "great" ness ?

("Better safe than sorry" -- winterize everything "just in case" ?)

 

[The Barbarian]

Want to think the "Great State of TX" does not need "expert regulators" to tell them...

This event tested that idea. Parts of Texas were on regulated systems while most of it was on unregulated. Regulated did fine. Unregulated fell apart. There's a lesson there, for anyone with some common sense.

"Common" sense is a pre-requisite for "great" ness ?

Yep.

don't let rolling blackouts depower power plants

-- give them priority, same as (say) hospitals

That's not a bad regulation. An even better regulation, "weatherize power generators." Worked for Texas, where it was in force. Failed where it wasn't present.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Economist Richard Wolff, in a couple of recent videos about the Texas freeze, blames the profit motive for TX energy companies avoiding extra costs of weatherizing power generators -- but the short term savings were (plausibly) far far less than the ultimate recent costs (although said costs may well be pushed onto Texans themselves).

Expensive preparations for a seemingly unlikely rare freak event were not pursued, due to the profit motive's favoring of obvious short term gains (which go to private owners) over extra costs of any kind. He seems to imply that now (collectively) TX has an exciting new fleet of expensive foreign sports cars, private jets & yachts... but no electrical power.

The "invisible hand" of "me and my Maserati MC20 got your back, no no seriously" actually "messed with TX" (?)