By Mike Smith, Meteorological Musings
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity tripped [“tripped” means failed]Tuesday night, leaving the state without enough juice. That’s enough capacity to power about 1.4 million homes. By rotating outages, ERCOT said it prevented total blackouts.
“We have the double whammy of extremely high demand, given the lowest temperatures in 15 years, combined with generation that’s been compromised and is producing less than expected or needed,” said Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar. Oncor operates power lines in North Texas and facilitated the blackouts for ERCOT.
— above from the “Dallas Morning News”
The article didn’t give a clue as to what generating capability failed, but I can make a pretty good guess: Wind energy.
When the wind is light, the turbine blades do not turn. And, the coldest nights usually occur with snow cover and light winds. The 9pm weather map for the region is below. The red number at upper right is the current temperature and they are well below zero deep into New Mexico and parts of Kansas and Colorado, so regional power use is high. Springfield, CO was already -15°F. Temperatures are in the single digits and teens over most Texas with very light winds in the areas where the turbines are located.
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| Map courtesy National Center for Atmospheric Research |
For a time, Texas was bragging about being the #1 state for “wind power” (it still is) and we were bombarded with TV commercials and newspaper editorial touting the “Pickens Plan” for massive spending on wind energy. Pickens himself was building a huge wind farm in northwest Texas. He has now ceased construction.
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| Wind power capacity in 2008. Texas has more than twice as
much as any other state. |
Now, because of relying so much on wind power, the state is suffering blackouts. My book’s publisher, Greenleaf Book Group in Austin, was without power all day and Austin wasn’t even affected by the recent winter storm. Mexico is trying to help by shipping power to Texas, but it is not enough.
Of course, Great Britain has experienced wind power failures (and rolling blackouts) during cold weather due to light winds. So has Minnesota, just last winter. I think we should learn from them.
If Texas had made the same dollar investment in new coal and/or nuclear power plants they would probably be snug and warm tonight. Do we we really want to sacrifice our families’ safety and security along with business productivity during extreme cold for the sake of political correctness?
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Also FYI – Texas wind power induced blackouts happened in 2008, see this story.
See Mike Smith’s book on “how science tamed the weather”.
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UPDATE: 2/3
THE PLOT THICKENS. Please read the addition to this story (at the bottom): http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/equal-time-american-wind-energy.html
Best place to check the reliability of wind power is the Ireland wind output graphs.
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/
Click back to Jan 29th/30th and you can see the 1200 MW of installed wind created almost NO ENERGY!
David-
You are absolutley right, when wind and solar and other intermittent sources get too high a penetration rate it can be a huge problem. Unfortunatly for your argument our penetration rates for intermittent sources is much lower than Europe and the wind we have now and what is planned is not problematic:
http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/display/wire-news-display/1343368527.html
Brad says:
February 2, 2011 at 8:43 pm
More details on exactl;y which power PLANTS failed:
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_Blackouts_0203.117a7ba23.html
Haven’t scrolled through the comments, so this may have been addressed. Those two plants did indeed fail, but they only account for ~2600 of the ~7000 MW failing. It was the wind. It dropped off around 3 pm the day before, and they didn’t spin up the reserves. If the reserves were running, or the wind hadn’t stopped, the system could have dealt with the two plants that went down. As for the unexpected demand, this storm was predicted last week. The politicians only mentioned the two plants that went down, but not the wind failing at the root of it all. Hmmmm….wonder why?
Look at that, great wind at Roscoe, TX to keep those Mitsu tubines rolling! (Roscoe is the site of the largest wind farm)
http://www.accuweather.com/us/tx/roscoe/79545/forecast-hourly.asp
R. de Haan,
we in Czech republic don’t like much the North German windfarms. Whenever they start generate, there’s a small problem – Germany does not have enough power lines from North, where the energy generation occurs, to South, where it’s needed.
Y’a know, these lines are sooo unsightly when on the surface and sooo expensive when buried. So what they do is, to load it out of sudden on Czech and/or Polish transfer grid, which has a higher capacity due to the good ole commie times. It happened several times that both countries experienced overload blackout due to this noble and clean wind power peak.
We tried to stop this by installing some sort of “fuses” on the grid interface to prevent such unloading, but Germans overrode this using EU institutions. So we have to let them do this to our energy balance and what’s really a cherry on the top of all that cream – apparently the Germans don’t have to pay to the other countries’ grid owners or energy producers for losses caused by their sudden wind energy overloads. And it seems that they don’t plan to increase their north-south transfer lines either. Why should they, when the Czechs will do it themselves just for protection of their own grid? 😉
So much for the really modern and up-to-date grids in Europe as well as for the spirit of friendly cooperation on renewables…
Here is a translation of Czech articles about this problem:
http://tinyurl.com/6l7gtru
http://tinyurl.com/4mvcrzm
Speaking of energy and the Gulf, we are doing so much wrong. Texans are paying higher costs for power, and the nation is being badly hurt by the ban on drilling and natural gas production, while at the same time we are loaning Brazil and Mexico billions to develop their fossil fuel resources, AWGM= a world gone mad.
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/wm2945.pdf
Highlights from from the link…
The President has raised questions about the long-term necessity for drilling.[2] Others would take this argument much further and ban all drilling offshore.[3]
What we could do…“The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that daily petroleum production will rise 18 percent between 2010 and 2035 and that daily production from offshore wells (in the lower 48 states) will rise by over 40 percent.4 EIA also predicts that offshore drilling will supply significant increases in natural gas production. While total natural gas production will rise 16 percent over the same period, offshore production of natural gas will rise 63 percent, at which time it will be nearly a fifth of total domestic production.5
Peak oil in the gulf, peak and you will find it. …“The reserves of petroleum are projected to rise by 5 billion barrels—even after extracting 57 billion barrels over the period 2010–2035. This happens because improvements in technology and price increases make previously uneconomic deposits economically viable.
In short, petroleum can be a major energy source for many decades. Consequently an offshore drilling
ban’s impact on the U.S. would be felt for decades. For example, between now and 2035 an offshore
drilling ban would:
• Reduce GDP by $5.5 trillion,
• Reduce the average consumption expenditures
for a family of four by $2,381 per year (and
exceeding $4,000 in 2035),
• Reduce job growth by more than 1 million jobs
by 2015 and more than 1.5 million jobs by 2030,
and
• Increase the total expenditures for imported oil
by nearly $737 billion.6
Excellent article, and our strategy of filling the Internet with as much BS as possible seems to be working.. I just hope those stupid “warmers” with all their “critical thinking” and “science” don’t figure us out….
Dave Springer says:
February 3, 2011 at 1:33 am
“If nuclear power plants could profitably compete with other suppliers then they would get built and if they can’t compete they won’t get built – it’s just that simple. The market is open, generating plants are privately owned and operated, and if there is profit potential there will be investment capital to build them.”
That’s the most incredibly naive thing I’ve read all day. The market is not open. Not remotely.
Is that really 7,000 megawatts of continuous reliable generated power or is it the maximum power the system can ever tolerate or maybe the average but not continuous output? Some of you seem to know quite a lot on this subject. (of course if there is no wind, it’s zero)
Lat time I checked we were discussing Texas, not Ireland, and the wind at the largest windfarm in Texas is going strong right now:
http://www.accuweather.com/us/tx/roscoe/79545/forecast-hourly.asp
Part of the Texas problem is a result of the fundamental Texas psyche. They have a mental undercurrent of ‘specialness’ and independence and think that they might at any moment break away and be their own little nation, yet again, if things don’t go their way.
As a result, the Texas power grid was designed to operate almost independently from the rest of the world and only lately have they begun to have any meaningful grid- ties to neighboring states/nations. This wouldn’t have been a problem (and wasn’t) in neighboring Oklahoma, which had far worse weather conditions than Texas, since OK is tied into the rest of the nation’s grid.
My thanks to everyone for their comments, it has been a valuable education. I can only add one missing element.– no one has mentioned the multiple law suits filed when any plant powered by nuclear energy is proposed.
Bikermailman-
Read the rest of the posts and reports, it seems the draw on natural gas caused low pressure in the lines to the plants that are supposed to come online to handle peak loads, and because of the low pressure they could not. We could have built 100 more nat gas which it seems the folks on this string wanted, and they would have failed as the delivery infrastructure failed to get the gas to them. We have multiple failure of backups here, but wind is not one of them.
We can all agree that drilling safely is a good idea. but lets both drill AND be safe about it.
As for Obama he is a big proponent of both clean coal and nuclear (he comes from a top nuke state in Illinois). He also opened alot of new continental shelf to drilling before BP ruined the party through incredibly unsafe practices.
Wind power can cause climate change? Here is the MIT paper from last year on said subject. It seems we continue to march in directions without an appropriate vetting process in place. I wonder of the impact on weather and climate when we have millions of solar panels covering vast areas of land ? Solardesertification?
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2053/2010/acp-10-2053-2010.pdf
Summary article below
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/climate-wind-0312.html
Rossi and Focardi claim to be building a 1 MW power plant in Miami using just 125 of their E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) modules (each module contains just 1 gram of powdered nickel and run continuously for 6 months). To supply all of the 7,000 MW power requirements of Texas would require just 875,000 modules yet the cumulative weight of nickel used would be just under 2,000 lbs! Each power plant could be ideally sized and located to meet local demand. There wouldn’t be any combustion products or nuclear waste and consumers would see electricity rates drop to just a fraction (probably one-third) of what they currently pay. And Texas could start ordering these power plants today.
Then all those vista-destroying, bird-killing, noise-generating, neighbor-hated wind turbines could be removed, and in the process lop off the highest-rated electricity component in their grid. With cheap and reliable base load capacity from E-Cats, Texas would become the energy model of the world and they’d see a resurgent economy as a result of unprecedented low electricity rates. You may think this scenario is far-fetched, but we’ve seen a real far-fetched energy implementation—the one they currently have—and it’s the one that doesn’t work.
(We had record cold temps here yesterday morning (-21 F), and all the wind turbines just to the east of us were absolutely still—something I’ve noticed when really cold weather sets in.)
Oh yes, anybody bet that the Federal Government would allow Texas to implement E-Cat units considering the recent drilling shutdown in the Gulf? The US Patent Office won’t even consider an invention based on “cold fusion”. Makes one ask the question: Is government the solution or the problem?
I was somewhat shocked when first reading it — energy-rich Texas having brownouts? Not a good thing especially for hospitals, industries, airports, etc). As a former power-plant engineer, I know a fair amount about this. I understand the weather is very cold & Texas is a “warm-season max demand” location, but is this cold-event really unprecedented & not accounted for in long-term demand scenarios? I don’t see evidence of that yet. So was it:
1. Too much base-load capacity (gas, coal, nuke, etc) out for various reasons?
2. Too much faith and/or inaccurate assessments of system wind-power capability?
Offhand, it seems like #2, but hopefully some studies/analyses should come out of this to determine causes. If it is #2, this should be a real red-flag to utilities and customers concerning wind power.
Placing blame on some other entity for our discomfort seems to be a place where common sense needs to be discussed at the individual level. Community service provider systems (public and private) have, at their very core, a huge risk factor. They are vulnerable to multiple large and small disruptions in the delivery of community service, be it groceries, hospital services, garbage pickup, electricity, gas, water, etc. If you do not have individual backup systems installed, you have given tacit approval that you are willing to shoulder the risks of being dependent on these service providers without complaint.
The more important issue here is an individual one. This is less about what happened to power in Texas than it is about who would survive just fine living under their own power.
I agree that we are overbuilding expensive windpower. But reading the article, I didn’t see anything about wind power causing the blackout. I did see that 7,000 megawatts, including three big coal plants were out; the spokesperson said it was because of prolonged cold.
Spokespeople are not known for telling the exact truth, they put spin on things if appropriate from the viewpoint of their employer.
Yet I would like to see some confirmation that wind power was in some way at fault here. Wind power certainly was at fault a couple of years ago, when the state suddenly lost a few thousand megawatts when the wind pretty much stopped.
But was wind power actually at fault? This blog is only as credible as the science it cites and the accusations it makes!
curmudgy says:
February 3, 2011 at 12:56 am
That’s incredibly smart to reinvest in coal and nuclear. The world has an infinite supply of coal and we always can call upon the efficiency of Chernobyl as a prime example of nuclear power at it’s best.
_________________________________
More lefty garbage from people who don’t want to understand the truth.
Chernobyl was a military design (graphite reactor) with no significant containment. It was built to produce plutonium for weapons and had a secondary purpose of generating power. There are no commercial power plants using that design.
And please tell us, o sage thou art, where the terrible disaster with commercial nuclear power occurred?
Here are two detailed and interesting reports on consequences from ‘renewable energy’ and ‘green jobs:
http://juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
(from Spain)
http://brunoleonimedia.servingfreedom.net/WP/WP-Green_Jobs-May2010.pdf
(from Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark)
Brgds
//TJ
Brad says:
February 3, 2011 at 5:35 am
We can all agree that drilling safely is a good idea. but lets both drill AND be safe about it. As for Obama he is a big proponent of both clean coal and nuclear (he comes from a top nuke state in Illinois).
Brad.you comments about Obama are incorrect. Obama has promised that under his plan electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket, and they will, and each and every time he talks about nuclear, it is in some far distance future when it is safe, as if the ghosts of chernobyl are remotely related to todays technology, or even first generation US technology. As to your comment, “Lat time I checked we were discussing Texas, not Ireland” No we are discussing that the wind power problems,
even in an ideal place like Denmark, our generic to all wind production. You however have failed to respond to any of these criticism and are fixated on the articles mistake of assuming wind power was the problem in this case. By the way your statement that 100 natural gas power generation stations would have all had the same problem is an absurd assertion with no evidence. Please step your game up.
Here on the Solway in Scotland we have winds in the 60mph+ range right now. None of the excrescences that are visible in every quadrant from my window, both on and off shore, are turning.
Wind it seems, is like Goldilocks porridge.
A sage once said: “Nothing is more shameful than assertion without knowledge.”
This post was begun in almost complete ignorance of the facts, and should be struck from the archives of WUWT. Atypical and disappointing. Hopefully, mark the mistake with, “Lesson learned.”