As we previously reported on the ice-storm Texas frozen wind power – outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour I have friends in Texas that are reporting dire conditions thanks to the “green energy” grid failing to produce enough power. One friend and her husband are trapped in Austin, TX and have received this letter from the hotel they are staying at – it’s mind-blowing. She says in a Facebook post:
“Our hotel is out of food, electricity, water and is giving us glow sticks for light. We’re here until the weekend in below freezing weather.”
In the most energy-rich state in the nation, they can’t keep the lights on, the heat on, or deliver food. The hotel is as the mercy of the elements, without even a full backup generator that can keep guests warm.
I have other friends who have been without power for days. My friend Sterling writes about his buffalo hide coming to the rescue:
Green energy induced rolling blackouts Texas style. Inside temperature 45 degrees. Power: 5 to 7 hours off, no more than 1 1/2 hour on. Living under blankets. Thank God, I hunted a buffalo and had a blanket made of its hide. Had it for 14 years, never needed to use it until now.
Thanks wind power and renewable energy!
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If a state like Texas, that is certainly not poor, cannot “manage climate” then why would one believe any deluded “green energy” advocate that their ideas can be successfully translated for the rest of the world. It is time to stop putting people who have no knowledge of engineering in the real world in charge or anywhere near energy supply.
Further proof that coal, gas, hydro and nuclear are the only real power sources.
The Guardian: “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-conservatives-falsely-blame-renewables-for-texas-storm-outages/ar-BB1dL3Hr?ocid=Peregrine
Fact that some 4GW of coal fired power has been taken off-line in the last 3 year, has nothing to do with it, of course 😉
When I want to know what is going on in the world, I read the Guardian! Whatever they say is happening, I can rest assured the opposite is true.
The Texas situation is complicated. Investing in and depending on wind energy is a big part of the problem in complicated ways. The article says: “While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables…” If we take that at face value, that means that renewables are responsible for a third of the outages, while routinely only suppling about 1/5 of Texas electricity needs. This makes renewables disproportionally responsible for the problem
Then we need to ask what the energy grid would look like if not a single wind farm was built over the last 20 years and all that money was invested in reliable nonrenewable energy sources instead? Such a question is beyond my knowledge and skill to answer, but it is safe to say that the situation in Texas today would be a lot better than it is, and electric bills would be lower.
The Guardian is an anti-conservative rag dedicated to defending leftist nonsense in any way possible, which requires a great deal of misrepresentation. This article was not written to inform, but to attack political enemies and defend the indefensible.
In Jan, 2019 nat gas was abut 50% of power generation in TX, wind/solar was 25%, coal was about 15%, and nuclear/etc made up the rest. Even if *all* the nat gas had kept operating, it simply couldn’t cover the loss of 25% of generating capacity from wind and solar. When those went down TX was already in a dire situation. The percentage of wind/solar has only gone up since 2019 while nat gas has gone down.
ERCOT *should* have been planning for 30% reserve capability from nat gas and coal but didn’t. They had similar situations in 1989 and 2011 but ignored them thinking it could never happen again. It’s the ERCOT Board of Directors that set policy for ERCOT, not the operations team. The ERCOT BOD should be asked to resign so they can be replaced with people that are not 100% wind/solar advocates!
I listened to the head of ERCOT on tv today and he never mentioned “windmills” one time. He was asked what the problem was and he said “generation” was not up to the job, but never explained why and never mentioned windmills.
I think he was trying to avoid the question, even though he said his responsiblity is with keeping the grid up and running and is not responsible for how the grid is running. He just plays with the hand he is delt.
I agree that renewables were not the cause of the mess in Texas—and so we should have been careful not to claim it. The cause was the gas and nuclear plants that tripped off, due to being unprepared for such cold weather in various ways. BUT the fact that half the wind turbines and all the solar panels went down should caution other states not to rely too heavily on them, that is, without peaker-plant backup. (Grid-scale batteries can provide only a few hours of protection.)
Nope. Wind/solar were the problem. In Jan, 2019 nat gas was 50% of generation, wind/solar was 25%, and coal was 15%. Theat ration has changed with wind/solar being higher today than in Jan, 2019.
When the wind/solar failed it took at least 25% capacity out. The remaining gas and coal plants couldn’t have covered that loss even if *all* of them had stayed on line. When the wind/solar went out it also took out much of the nat gas pumping stations on the pipelines which impacted the nat gas plants fuel capacity.
If all the money spent since the last winter extreme in TX of 2011 had been spent on reliable energy plus winterizing of nat gas wells and pipes, TX wouldn’t be having this problem today. It really is just that simple.
No nat gas plants in KS have been shut down for the freezing temps that I can find and it is colder here than in TX!
The problem is money being diverted to totally useless sources of power during extreme weather events instead preparing reliable power sources for those events.
A small percentage of coal and gas plants tripping off line wouldn’t have been a big problem without the huge loss in power from the non-functional wind stations.
UNRELIABLE sources of electricity have been built, while RELIABLE sources have been closed.
What is that is so complicated you have to DENY THE REALITY of the situation.
GAS actually SAVED THE DAY, despite s few issues.
Wind and solar almost totally MIA
COAL was at full output the whole period, there just is FAR LESS NOW INSTALLED than is needed
Facts and data speech way louder than baseless rhetoric and MSM lies and misinformation.
This is what happens when ideology is allowed to trump rational decision making. It is a fact that the climate is always changing. The single most important question remains to be asked, let alone answered: what is the optimum climate for the biosphere that sustains all life? Where is our present climate in relation to that? Are we trending towards that optimum or away from it?
Because advocates of climate change don’t seem to be interested in this, I can only conclude they suspect it harms their ideologically driven agenda to impose the Secular Utopia upon us. Change my mind, please.
Dear Reader:
I am reminded of the sage advice that, ” Revenge is a meal best served cold.”
Well no sooner did president Biden cancel Keystone, declare electric cars to replace gasoline and diesel and no electricity generated by fossil fuels by 2035, than Canada, the country, not the bumbling administration of one JT, served up its Pfizer-like ultra-cold revenge, exporting historically low winter weather to the US and Mexico.
“Don’t mess with Texas?” I’d say, “Don’t mess with Canada!” More cold meals on the way.
Texas gas wells froze tight, ice covered wind turbines froze and failed, solar panels rimed with snow and frost could not find the sun and the oil refineries shut as power failed. Canadian natural gas is pouring south at record rates.
And president Biden got to sign another order, to declare a federally recognized disaster in the state, and the Texas governor, who just recently received an award from the renewables industry, praising the governor’s foresight in promoting wind and solar, and shuttering coal plants, called out the National Guard to fire up portable generators fed by fossil fuels.
Good ol’ Canadian winters, that gift that just keeps on giving.
Keith Harrison
Warm and toasty in Cumberland ON
“and the Texas governor, who just recently received an award from the renewables industry, praising the governor’s foresight in promoting wind and solar,”
Yes, I think this is the problem: The Republican elites buy into the Human-caused Climate Change scam and then put their State in jeopardy by doing stupid things like depending on unreliable generation for your base electricity supply.
Let’s have some investigations.
Wait a minute – you mean to say the National Guard isn’t bringing in portable windmills and solar panels to ward off this emergency?
This ongoing cold weather is getting to be a nuisance, it seems to be happening every year though last winter was a recent exception, here in the UK.
I am looking forward to that global warming later in the year. The weather will not be mentioned for fear of confusing the listeners.
The BBC are being unusually quiet about the desperate situation the “weather” is creating in North America.
On that note. does anyone know if Canada is having some weather? Or is it still Global Warming and Climate Change all the time up there?
I think there is nothing interesting in difference -20 vs -30 in Canada.
Aka. still Global Warming.
A piece in WSJ says part of the electricity shortage is due to ‘gas generators shutting down because their cooling water supply is frozen’. I don’t know if this is accurate?
I can’t find where any nat gas plants in KS have been shut down for any reason. And it’s been colder here than in TX.
Texas temperatures have briefly moderated, but we have traded an ice storm for the snow storm. Even when generation begins to recover, there will be ice damage to trees, power lines, etc., so many people are days away from power restoration.
ERCOT points out the loss of generating assets from all categories, not just wind and solar, but this hides the fact that wind power and its governmentally induced economic edge have so skewed the market that conventional plant operators have to defer scheduled maintenance and upgrades just to stay in business.
Then, wait for it, here it comes, some University of Texas energy economist throws in the expected “climate change” blame. This weather is neither unprecedented nor influenced by human activity. It is rare, but the last time it occurred, Texas population was much lower and there was not a bird chopper in sight.
In the UK we are supposed to get smart meters plus an IOT, which will mean not only will they be able to switch off the supply to your house but they will be able to adjust your thermostat. Orwell just got the date wrong. We have been told that we can only have electricity when it is available. This is producer control, not consumer control. The latter has been taken from us in multiple ways. It reminds me of the Canadian Environment minister who said that “It doesn’t matter if the science is all phony there are a lot of collateral benefits”. I couldn’t understand what she meant until I looked at my Stalinist playbook.
Please do not make this all about the wind turbines. I think wind turbines are useless, but this crisis comes more from the failure to winterize the gas generating plants. Yes, during this period we get all of about 3,000MW from our 32,000MW of installed wind turbines, but we have seen that poor performance during summer demand records as well.
What we should have done is used the billions paid for wind turbines and the associated power lines (the power lines were something like $6 billion alone) and built a big nuke plant.
Also, hopefully we will see a lot more attention paid to who gets appointed to ERCOT and demand professional technical grid expertise of all members. Expertise in designing, building and operating grids – not green energy expertise or gas well development expertise.
The gas pipelines and generating plants didn’t get winterized because the money got spent on wind/solar instead! A direct result of the Greeie policy decisions made by the Greenie ERCOT Board of Directors.
Why don’t we just wait until there is an investigation before ruling anything out. Trying to make heads or tails out of the situation using leftwing media reports is a waste of time.
Feeling a bit snarky, I offer this:
Maybe they should put a bank of D Cell batteries in each turbine blade with a defroster coil. They could hire a lot of people at $15 to change them. GE, Druacell and Democrats would love it.
Opinion from the locals:
https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/editorials/article249285685.html
The opinion of one editorial writer counts as “from the locals”?
Really? Are you that desperate?
FACTS from REAL DATA versus baseless ignorant-leftist journalists opinion.
Wind and solar basically AWOL,
GAS carrying a massive chunk of the load despite issues
COAL flat chat for the whole period, just
….. NOT ENOUGH STILL INSTALLED to make up for the loss of wind and solar.
The blame game is already falling into predictable narratives. On the right, the problem is too much reliance on renewable energy. On the left, it’s privatization, Republican leadership and a failure to anticipate the effects of climate change.
”effects of climate change.”
who da thunk it. They have to come up with some narrative to cover up their misjudgment. When the AMO flips and we’ve had decades of cooling or flat temperatures they will fall in love with natural variability as an excuse.
How long will the rest of the Texas infrastructure operate with no power? Specifically Water, Sewer, Cell Phones, POTS (real telephone service), Internet, and Gas service (for those with gas heat). My son in downtown Austin (Austin Energy) has had power the past few days (unlike much of Austin) but now the water is out. The water supply eventually depends upon pumps which need electricity to operate. Ditto for the Sewer system. Cell towers likely have UPS with batteries (my assumption), but I doubt they have back-up generators. Someone knowledgeable about the rest of the infrastructure in Texas?
What’s a glow stick?
A candle?
Or one of those plastic tubes containing a chemical that you bend to make it glow?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_stick
Krishna
Thanks 🙏
I remember them from years ago. They’re pretty crap as a light source, better get used to them I guess.
“the “green energy” grid failing to produce enough power. “ While this is certainly true, I think we must frame the argument differently. Greens are already blaming this on the failure of ng power plants.
I think the argument should be, renewables are USELESS in these conditions. Every dollar spent on them means one less dollar spent on reliable power production and a robust grid.
If the money spent on solar and wind farms had been spent increasing ng supplies, pipelines, methods to prevent frozen lines, etc., there would be no widespread power outage. A couple of well-placed, standby coal power plants, with ninety days of coal on site, would have prevented the outages at a fraction of the cost of the wind farms.
Renewables cannot operate in these conditions. That is not where we should be diverting resources. And now people are dying for that diversion. And their deaths are on the hands of those pushing renewables.
“Greens are already blaming this on the failure of ng power plants.”
Of course, they are. They have to protect their Green New Deal narrative, so they will never admit windmills or solar are at fault.
If they acknowledge the failure of windmills and solar to provide baseload power, then the jig is up. They will have to change their project to the Green New Nuclear Deal, as nuclear is their only viable option when you live in Realville.
This is my take. Texas is growing like crazy. New houses are being built where I live east of Dallas at an amazing rate. Meanwhile I understand Texas has two nuclear plants, both scheduled for permanent shutdown, two remaining major coal fired plants, windmills going up faster than new houses, solar plants just about as fast, and gas remaining the primary method of home heating and electricity generation. The power line grid appears to be in the process of being upgraded, mostly to connect all those new windmills that are spread out everywhere. It is not hard to see that priorities have not been balanced. Gas fired turbines are great but they need either an independent hardened gas supply system or another backup system. The idea of shutting down the nucs right now is foolish, especially since they can have many more productive years left in them. All that capital expenditure wasted. Same goes for the coal plants. Renewables are not cheaper, the subsidies are throwing the market of balance and now we pay the piper. Meanwhile electric rates just keep jumping up by leaps and bounds.
Welcome, Texas, to the amazing, renewal (and unreliable) 3rd-world green power! California has enjoyed this by itself for many years and is pleased it now has a new friend to cozy-up during these long, global warming-caused record low temp nights…without a green electron to keep the lights on.
Let them eat bugs and carbon credits.
Danish wind turbine maker Vestas lays of 450 employees in U.S. state of Colorado
https://www.google.com/amp/s/financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/danish-wind-turbine-maker-vestas-lays-of-450-employees-in-u-s-state-of-colorado/wcm/b8c3c5b5-7a2b-4dfd-bf44-bd0f07bba4bb/amp/
I hear they are serving tea up in the Paul Ehrlich Room.
You’re on a roll ; keep it coming. 🙂
It’s a mistake not to have your own generator in the US so long as you can afford it. Each region has enough natural events to make it a good choice. In the northeast where I live winter storms and the occasional hurricane are the big ones, but even moderate storms can knock limbs off of trees. Also having a bit of emergency food is always a good idea. When Sandy hit, my area, near NYC had gasoline and food shortages for a while. I know hurricanes in general trigger such things for a few days to weeks from time to time everywhere they are known to go.
That being said, there is no excuse for breaking the electric grid, even if I think we all should have some basic protections. Personally, CO2 aside, I am big fan of nuclear in all the modern versions, and would prefer if more, perhaps most, of our electricity came from that. I think the rather onerous regulations on building them could be relaxed a bit, and I think we would have a much better grid. I would also like more utilities to be forced to bury existing wires, as that would also have a positive effect on reliability, at least in the NorthEast. 1-2% a year, by mileage, would have a huge positive effect at a reasonable cost.
I bought one 20 years ago. I have used it exactly ONE time after a low-grade hurricane swept thru central GA and knocked out my power for approx. 6 hours. It hasn’t been cranked since and I doubt it will even start now.(Yes, I know-that’s on me.) I then moved to extreme northeast GA 7 years ago and have eagerly awaited an ice and/or snow storm but have been sorely disappointed as it has yet to happen. My sympathies to all Texans and the rest-we really dodged that bullet. But who knows how long our luck will last? Back in the 80’s my parents were living here and literally got nailed! They were without power for 2 weeks!
I think Uncle Joe should waive all hotel bills to go along with waiving mortgages and rent. Don’t forget to waive utility bills. You’re going to have to kiss the ring though.
Hello Dummies. Wheels Abbott never enacted any new green deal, nor the republican run govt. they deregulated your power so individual operators and investment funds run them. They don’t upgrade infrastructure. They use 90% natural gas, coal and, lol, wood. I know because I have shares in one of em, lol. My heat never turned off…sorry, capitalism isn’t working for you. You’re poor.
How stupid do you have to be to think that freezing weather is caused by global warming?
And if everything that happens is “told-ya, it’s climate change” then how much work do you need to do constantly to protect yourself from the realisation that you are a total liar and con-artist?
🤣 John Kerry Gets Fact Checked!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/politifact/amp/Fact-checking-John-Kerry-s-eye-popping-claim-15950358.php
🤣Hey Al Gore! How hot is it again at 1 km down?🍻