There’s a saying in the lone star state “Don’t Mess with Texas” which actually started out as an anti-littering campaign but has become sort of a slogan for the rugged, no-nonsense way of life that people have there. Now with dead wind turbines littering the state, the focus on deploying unreliable renewable energy in the name of “saving the planet” has literally “messed with Texas” in a huge way.
Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a massive deep freeze across the state locked up wind turbine generators, creating an electricity generation crisis.
Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year, behind natural gas, which represented 45%, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) figures.
ERCOT reports today the spot price for electricity in Texas is currently a stunning $9000 per MegaWatt-hour. Even in the high demand summer months, $100 per MW-hr would be high.
At the same time the freezing temperatures were driving electricity demand to record levels, ERCOT reported while calling on consumers and businesses to reduce their electricity use as much as possible Sunday, Feb. 14 through Tuesday, Feb. 16.
“We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas,” said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness. “At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units. We are asking Texans to take some simple, safe steps to lower their energy use during this time.”
Source: http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225151
A graphic provided by ERCOT shows the huge gap between electricity supply and demand today:
Capacity is expected to fall short of demand by as much as 20,000 megawatts today, while the National Weather Service in Dallas predicts record low temperatures between -6° F to 3° F for Monday night.
A map from poweroutage.us is showing the scope of power outages in Texas shows that about 75% of the state is experiencing power outages in varying percentages with a significant portion having no power at all:
At the moment, ERCOT is placing rolling power outages in effect to prevent a complete collapse of the power grid saying:
“ERCOT has issued an EEA level 3 because electric demand is very high right now, and supplies can’t keep up. Reserves have dropped below 1,000 MW and are not expected to recover within 30 minutes; as a result, ERCOT has ordered transmission companies to reduce demand on the system.
This is typically done through rotating outages, which are controlled, temporary interruptions of electric service. This type of demand reduction is only used as a last resort to preserve the reliability of the electric system as a whole.”
Source: http://www.ercot.com/eea_info/show/26464
It is sad and ironic that in a state known for its huge petroleum and natural gas resources, the lack of reliability of wind power has brought the state to its knees in a time of crisis, not unlike that which California experienced in 2020 during record heat where wind and solar power could not keep up with demand and was near collapse.
The folly of chasing renewable energy as a means of mitigating “climate change” is making itself abundantly clear today in Texas. When will politicians wake up and realize that renewable energy almost always equates to unreliable energy?
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The Washington Post this morning has an article on the Texas storm without saying it’s the failure of wind and solar- as a major cause of the outages.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/millions-of-texans-left-without-heat-overnight-in-frigid-weather-a-nightmare-situation/ar-BB1dIOt6
I noticed the same failure to mention frozen wind turbines in both NPR and Associated Press reports.
Answering my own question
“The U.S. is connected by one power grid consisting of three interconnected grids: the Eastern Grid, the Western Grid, and the Texas (ERCOT) Grid”
http://factmyth.com/factoids/the-us-is-connected-by-one-power-grid/
That’s pretty simplistic. Ever heard of MISO or SPP?
About Us – Southwest Power Pool (spp.org)
About MISO (misoenergy.org)
Em I posted the link to the news story about SPP 11 minutes after I wrote the post you replied to
Your reply comes 8 hours later
The Texas TV stations confirmed the Texas grid is importing
@JasonWhitely MORE: @ERCOT_ISO the power grid operator in Texas, said:
“We are currently importing power from Mexico and the southwest power pool
.” *BUT* that is happening bc of market prices & incentives right now
– not bc of weather demand.
In the UK big freeze is over, yesterday we had spring like day 13C (55F), bad weather moved further to SE Europe
Athens (Greece) is snowbound
Found on Twitter:
Need help?
Contact Lord Deben C/O Houses of Parliament, London SW1 1AA
Inflammable cladding a speciality.
…. not to mention the ‘mad cow’ burgers.
The best quote I have seen on Texas is from Katie Pavlich’s column: “Running out of energy in Texas is like starving to death at the grocery store: You can only do it on purpose, and Texas did.”
I think it’s now fair to charge NPR, PBS, CNN, ABC, Pravda, the WaPo, MSNBC and the rest of the promoters and propagandists of the “Catastrophic/dangerous, CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming/climate change” CONJECTURE with having actually killed some people with their climate pseudoscience.
I never call it green energy. Only “so-called” green energy, or more accurately, intermittent energy.
“ERCOT reports today the spot price for electricity in Texas is currently a stunning $9000 per MegaWatt-hour”.
Topping up “empty” batteries in a Tesla reportedly requires around 77 KWh of electricity.
77 KWh = 0.077 MWh
0.077 MWh * $9000 per MWh = $693 to fill your Tesla’s tank right now in Texas. #SustainableEnergy
Reliance on boutique, low density and fragile energy generation by an industrial society. What could happen?
Yea! And Epstein did commit suicide.
No excuses are going to fly no matter what the source, The blackouts and hardships say it all!
so, I just heard a reporter in Dallas on the news say that the wind turbines on the coast are working just fine and that the frozen ones don’t deliver much power this time of year. I guess there’s more than one view on this…
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html
Texas wind now at 12%, was 5.5% last night when i looked before bed.
Clearly texas failed to plan.
They replaced coal with wind with 100% gas back up, but did not plan for cold weather where some gas lines can freeze and then houses would need gas for heat.
If they had planned for 100% gas back up of wind, with margin of supply, plus home heating gas, there would be no problem.
But clearly they did not allow for the possibility there would be little to no wind at this time, because they assumed they would have wind power.
Fail, and fail again.
Cold and renewables kills people.
Going to be lots of reports generated Griff, nowhere to hide as dead bodies require answers
While my other comment awaits approval, i want to find out how gas lines freeze as they don’t freeze here in canada at -40.
Its likely, thinking logically, the gas plants backing up wind were idling or off, so little or no gas flow, then when they went to run only then discovered frozen lines.
Definitely will be interesting to see the spin.
Of course reporters always know everything about everything.
Who needs facts, figures, charts. Just find a reporter who’s saying what you want to hear and declare that to be the truth.
I don’t think many understand the issue. It’s not that turbines CAUSE the problems, it’s that they are USELESS in these situations. Spend the money on solutions that work.
If gas turbines are off because they have to defer to wind, when they are called to startup and can’t because the lines froze under low or no flow conditions, that was caused by wind turbines. If they didn’t exist that gas plants would just run close to full load
WRONG AGAIN, poor fantasy griff
GAS is doing the heavy lifting , despite green agenda enforced problems (electric pipe blowers rather than the normal gas, to reduce CO2 emissions, y’know)
COAL is at maximum capacity throughout, there just ISN’T ENOUGH OF IT.
So what to do with damaged turbine blades?
Recycle, of course. Sorry, Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
Still haven’t seen any comment on gas lines freezing. Is it simply that in western canada our gas plants have an extra process step and we dehydrate the gas more before shipping into the lines than is done in the usa?.
I’m curious
Claimsjournal…
“Temperatures are low enough to trigger so-called freeze-offs, when wells shut down because of liquids freezing inside pipelines. Texas facilities operated by pipeline companies DCP Midstream LP and Targa Resources Corp. were reported shut on Thursday due to the cold. Enbridge Inc. said it was limiting requests to transport gas on a pipeline stretching from Texas to New Jersey.”
https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2021/02/12/302028.htm
Pat
Once upon a time I worked on nat. gas networks in Alberta, Sask, and BC. The gas contract specified the hydrocarbon and the water dew points of the gas at the custody transfer point onto the midstream system. A typical value for water dew point after the gas processing phase would have been 4 lbs. per MMSCF (at a delivery pressure of 800 psig). Along with all the other infrastructure in Canada for prevention of gas hydrates and lines freezing off (adequate burial depth of gas flowlines, insulated flowlines in raw gas service, eliminating unnecessary pressure drops in the system, adding heat to the system where necessary, wellsite gas dehydration, etc) this spec ensured minimal operational issues. In Northern Alberta and BC during my period of tenure, ambient temperatures below -50°F would occur at least once during the winter.
I did some on line searching to see what the water spec for systems in the US, and came across a number of 7 lbs. per MMCSF. While this has the potential to be problematic, having a system not initially designed for a cold weather environment would be a recipe for disaster.
All makes sense if the USA allows almost double the water in the gas.
All gas lines come out of the ground eventually at the house, through the meter and then through the wall
Never heard of anyone having freezing issues here
Time for specification change in USA
Seems Texas don’t have the correct blend of power generation. Relying on natural gas for the majority of electrical generation is like having all your eggs in the same basket. Coal is the answer. The ability to have a mountain of coal next to the boilers will abate any supply issues. Need to build more nuclear plants too. Never will have to worry if another ice storm freezes the wind mills or extreme cold or heat disrupts the supply of natural gas.
The bottom line is windmills and solar cannot power human society. We are seeing big problems even when the powergrid is only partially powered by windmills and solar, and when it is 100 percent windmills and solar, on a day like today, everyone is going to freeze.
No more subsidies for windmills and solar. Let them survive or not on their own merits, not on government handouts. They are not the future.
It’s a pipedream to think society can be powered by windmills and solar. The alarmists should shift their focus to nuclear-generated electricity if their aim is to reduce CO2 while maintaining the future viability of society.
The American way is to advocate and spend our way out of a problem we forced on ourselves from the previous round of advocacy and market distortion.
Observers from other countries have a hard time understanding that, but how else are we going to waste the resources of the world’s largest free market system in the process of looking average and indebted?
Texas power outages shows how badly America needs an infrastructure bill: expert (yahoo.com)
Use the military to send in Generac generators to every household starting with the poor and people of color. Never mind the fact that the energy inputs are absent. It’s the thought that counts in DC.
I wonder if this is anything to do with Texas not being joined up to a larger electricity grid but insisting on being independent?
They’re on SPP. That grid runs all the way to N. Dakota. Obama’s Wind Wildcatters screwed it up as did FERC and ERCOT.
That you downvoting me, Pat Wood? Give my regards to Deval Patrick and Obama. /s
https://mobile.twitter.com/patwood3/status/1303402528953032706
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kfbk.iheart.com/alternate/amp/2021-02-16-caiso-pge-asks-californians-to-conserve-energy/
Insanity…
https://www.tdworld.com/overhead-transmission/article/21155097/california-commission-provides-transmission-planning-guidance-to-caiso
Unreliable power touches many sectors.
Freeze Halts Fracking; Amazon Closes Facilities: Energy Update (yahoo.com)
Out of an abundance of caution, they need to curtail transmission of fuels and energy of all types to California, the Northeast, and Chicago. -for the children
”THE RUSSIANS DID IT!”
Nice picture of Mike Mann 😀
Here behind the lines in enemy territory in Massachusetts, The liberal plow contractors seem to be taking out the mailboxes of folks who had Trump signs up in november. My mailbox as well as hundreds in the area. Were also taken out. A neighbor put his up ad a snowman. I’m gonna sink a railroad rail in front of mine. The impetus was from a kid who would drive his pickup and knock over garbage cans on trash day. One day, they got the little bastid back! They filled the can with boulders and sat on the porch watching as he he hit it again right on schedule! 🤣🤣🤣 He wasn’t hurt but his Nissan truck needed a few bandaids! Never had a problem after that👍
Ha! Had a friend on a country road that had a problem with the plows taking out his mail box. One Saturday I went into the shop and fabricated a mail box made of 1/4″ plate and welded enough 8″ double extra strong pipe on it that after priming and painting we could put it in the 4′ with saccreate.
They hit it once and that was it. No more problem!
Rachel Madcow!
If you control for the UHI and Water Vapor, you will discover that the stations show no warming. Here are 265 Stations that show no warming uptrend. Some go back to 1880.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/12/urban-heat-island-effects-on-u-s-temperature-trends-1973-2020-ushcn-vs-hourly-weather-stations/#comment-3181833
Here is my Favorite:
Alice Springs (23.8S, 133.88E) ID:501943260000
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v3.cgi?id=501943260000&dt=1&ds=5
This entire Green Economy is based on a fraud
“This entire Green Economy is based on a fraud”
Absolutely.
Fox News (Juan Williams) just blamed the whole thing on coal and LNG fired plants freezing up and no one challenged that assertion. Can someone please tell me what world we are living in? I’m starting to question my own sanity in this insane version of the world.
I’m guessing everyone else at Fox News does what I do whenever Juan opens his lying mouth: tune out
There seem to be a lot of skeptics of the Green New Deal on Fox News, but less skepticism about whether Human-caused Climate Change is real or not.
I think that is mainly because they are not experts in the very nuanced science of Human-caused Climate Change.
They scoff at the Green New Deal, but not at the concept of Human-caused Climate Change.
They need to spend some time at WUWT.
Juan Williams is a piece of excrement. Have no idea why he’s allowed on Fox — he’s just another apparatchik like on any lame-stream media.
The cooling water pipes are freezing up and breaking This is also affecting coal and nuclear plants in Texas. Homes get priority frogs supplies due to the need to keep home heaters running. Right now Texs has lost about 50% of there thermal power production capacity Normally thetas has enough thermal power plants to keep the power on without wind on the hottest days of the year