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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The last thing Texas would need right now is a visit from Al Gore.
The irony of course is that once politicians grab control of energy production to ‘save the planet’ you know exactly who to blame when they kill the people, instead.
God Save America
Not to worry it’s because climate change-
Texas blackouts explained: Arctic weather shut down power plants as demand for heat surged, and the state’s grid is on its own (msn.com)
Those pesky Texans wanted to keep warm and so there was a gap between supply and demand. Texans just need to change the climate. Simples really.
Well, when you visit a third world country like Austin, you have to expect some problems!
The true believers in the media are running hard to shore up the dam-
Fact Check: Is Green Energy to Blame for Texas’ Power Outages? (msn.com)
“Wind energy provides only about 25 percent of Texas’ total power throughout the year, according to ERCOT data—natural gas sources account for 35 percent—although the turbines tend to generate less power in the winter.
The Texas Tribune reported that only 7 percent of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity was expected to come from wind power sources in the state.”
Forget the marginals and concentrate on the expected selected averages here folks.
Glacial inception anyone?
The projected extent of stratospheric intrusion in North America today. Snowstorms on the east side of the jet stream.
Looking at the data, it is true that wind power has dropped by half in Texas, but it was always quite a small contributor to begin with.
The drop by coal and gas fired power stations seems to be much more important in causing this disruption.
It would be very useful for WUWT to research the reasons for the fossil fuel fail. I strongly suspect that it was because Texas was never expected to see snow and ice ever again…
True things need to be quantified, yet here are the indications…
Natural gas, coal and nuclear are currently supplying most of the power, like always! Wind generation, a significant percentage of total name plate, has generation failures many many times a year. There have been periods during this cold snap when the wind was very low, so a major failure even even if the windmills had not broken, but they did!
The Natural gas generation was limited because A. Due to winds failure much of the natural gas flow had to be diverted to keeping people warm, vs electrical generation. B. Some of the natural gas generators could not move the natural gas because the electric to their compressors was tied to wind generation. ( Oops)
Over 50 percent of the windmills failed. That’s major. Yet during parts of this freeze they would have generated a very small portion of their nameplate capacity regardless.
The natural gas generators using natural gas compressors are doing fine. It was foolish, and likely government demanded, to make natural gas dependent on wind. Very very little of natural gas generation loss was due to freezing.
Also wind and solar has made ALL fossil fuel production considerably more expensive.
Surrounding grids were also wind failures, had zero to spare even if they had been connected to the Texas grid. See here…
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1362059930904059909?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1362059936105070593%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcliscep.com%2F2021%2F02%2F18%2Fsorting-out-what-happened-in-texas%2F
Wind failed everywhere, natural gas and coal picked up the slack. Griff below is clueless.
So checking on this, it seems the problem lies with failing fossil fuel power plants…
‘ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, did not conduct any on-site inspections of the state’s power plants to see if they were ready for this winter season.’
‘it’s becoming very clear that many power plants, including the natural gas system that supplies those plants with fuel, were simply not insulated well enough to protect against the cold and that ERCOT was way off in its assumptions about the state’s ability to weather a major winter storm.
Instead of sufficient capacity dozens of power plants crumbled when the cold hit, plunging the state into massive power outages and putting lives in danger.’
‘Ercot turned off power for millions of customers after several power plants shut down due to the below-freezing temperatures the state is experiencing. Officials at Ercot said the equipment at the plants could not handle the extreme, low temperatures. The choice was either shutting down power for customers or risking a collapse of the grid altogether.’
‘While Republicans have been blaming frozen wind turbines for the state’s blackouts, officials and experts say that malfunctions in natural gas operations played the largest role in the power crisis.
Ercot said all of its sources of power, including those from renewable sources, were affected by the freezing temperatures. The state largely relies on natural gas for its power supply, though some comes from wind turbines and less from coal and nuclear sources.
Natural gas can handle the state’s high temperatures in the summer, but extreme cold weather makes it difficult for the gas to flow to power plants and heat homes. Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas Austin, told the Texas Tribune that “gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now”.’
Griff is repeating bethan’s argument that has infrastructure stops working in freezing weather. From Bethan this is understandable but we’d expect better from Griff. Please explain why – as multiple posters have pointed out (and you claim to have read) gas infrastructure in Alberta Canada works without problems at -30 degree or even colder?
Can someone give the true engineering assessment as to which technology, wind, has, coal or nuclear, is intrinsically most vulnerable to cold weather?
Griff:
The only way you can conclude that nat gas failed is to assume that nat gas didn’t ramp up far enough to cover for the loss of wind and solar. That is an IDIOTIC assumption. It is a cover story meant only to hold wind and solar guiltless.
The Greenies are scurrying for cover like cockroaches exposed to the light. Any lie will do to hide under. Unfreakingbelievable!
Griff,
There is a very simple way to determine whether a grid system is more or less reliable when run with fossil fuels or with renewables.
Simply consider the end member cases.
A grid run entirely on (say) natural gas is reliable and predictable. Winterisation is possible by simply spending the money on it and the cost is affordable. Fossil fuel plants (and nuclear) have a very important and valuable characteristic – deliverability. That means they can deliver their rated output without fuss or problem, day in day out, 24/7 with only downtime for necessary maintenance.
A grid run entirely on wind is unreliable and unpredictable. No amount of money spent on winterising it will improve its ability to generate power when there is no wind. It lacks deliverability and (notwithstanding the cost per MW when actually running flat out) is inherently less efficient because of the natural variability of the wind itself. For example, suppose the worst case scenario is for wind to drop such that the entire wind fleet could only produce 2% of the required power for the grid. To make this even remotely viable would require the wind fleet to be over-specified in its nameplate capacity by a factor of 50x. And even that incurs a risk. But when the wind is running such that nameplate capacity is reached, there would be 50x as much energy as required. In other words 98% of the wind fleet would need to be feathered. That is inherently and grossly inefficient.
As for batteries – well I have posted a response to you on multiple threads pointing out how many multiples of the South Oz Tesla battery would be required to give even a weeks backup in the UK and the cost. You never reply, because the cost is simply astronomical (7 day backup for the UK would cost as much as the pre-covid UK National Debt – £1.7 trillion) and unaffordable – even if the necessary raw materials could be obtained.
You live in a fantasy world, like the Guardian and the BBC, where you are appear completely blind to terminal shortcomings of renewable technology. You expend huge effort on spinning reasons as to why fossil fuels are the culprit for Texas outages. All the while ignoring the simple fact. Fossil fuels and nuclear still managed to keep a lot of the lights on in Texas but renewables kept virtually no lights on. If there had been only renewables and batteries available it would have been much, much worse and many people would die.
You also ignore the other fundamental. Even if renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels all cost the same per MW, there is an opportunity cost of selecting one type over another. Spending money on fossil fuel generation instead of renewables inherently makes supply more reliable. Conversely, even an infinite amount of expenditure on wind turbines will produce zero power if the wind isn’t blowing.
It is the case that Texas had winter blackouts in 1989 and 2011 and In a report following the 2011 blackouts, the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation recommended steps including increasing winterisation measures, but as The Hill notes, “Because the Texas grid does business only within the state, it’s not subject to oversight from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), a government body that regulates interstate transmission.”
So its now clear those 2011 recommendations were never implemented and here one does come up against the peculiar ideology of the Texas GOP when former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who served as Energy secretary during the Trump administration, suggested this week that it’s a worthwhile trade-off to be outside federal regulation, even with the current power outages in subfreezing temperatures.
He said Texans “would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business”.
It was ERCOT that was charged with implementing those recommendations, *NOT* the governor and not the legislature. It was ERCOT that decided to invest more in wind/solar instead of winterizing the grid!
ERCOT is led by a Board of Directors that are as liberal and Green as anyone in the country!
It is a damning indictment that the BOD decided to delete their names and profiles from the ERCOT web site yesterday. Do they *really* think they can run and hide by doing this?
Here is what was on the web site yesterday at 8AM:
—————————————
Sally Talberg is a former state utility regulator and has 25 years of experience in energy and environmental regulatory policy. She served as a gubernatorial appointee on the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) from 2013 through 2020, including over four years as chair under two administrations. Ms. Talberg also served as President of the Organization of MISO States in 2016. As a commissioner, Ms. Talberg served on various state, regional, and national boards and committees, representing the MPSC on electricity, natural gas, oil, infrastructure, and telecommunications issues.
Prior to the MPSC, Ms. Talberg was a senior consultant at Public Sector Consultants. There, she co-led the development of Michigan Saves, a nonprofit green bank that has financed over $200 million in energy efficiency projects, while also helping staff the state’s wind zone board and offshore wind council. She has also served in an advisory capacity to commissioners at the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Michigan Public Service Commission, addressing retail and wholesale market issues, facility siting, ratemaking, and other regulatory issues. Ms. Talberg also has experience with environmental and safety compliance and enforcement for drinking water and wastewater facilities.
Ms. Talberg holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Studies from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. Ms. Talberg lives in Michigan with her husband and two daughters.
——————————————–
As of 4PM yesterday this had been deleted from the web site. Sally Talberg is the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD for ERCOT and is the main driver for grid policy in Texas => a resident of *MICHIGAN*!
Why do you suppose she had her profile deleted from the ERCOT web site?
She is a Greenie through and through and is *not* an engineer of any kind!
Yes, micro brain.
We KNOW they wasted far to much money and time of UNRELIABLE sources.
That money SHOULD have been spent boosting the RELIABILITY of the ERCOT grid using more COAL and GAS and preparing for the COLD PERIOD that is heading the planet’s way.
For the sheeple in the “land of the free,” AKA, the US, expect a per head carbon tax with the proceeds to be handed over to the UN. The carbon tax will be a penalty for just being alive, because you are causing global warming for just breathing you selfish bastards.
So you must pay a tax based on your “carbon footprint” and the good folks at the UN will spend it on their favorite “green energy” bullshit projects, after taking a hefty cut for themselves, of course.
Texas stratospheric intrusion forecast for February 19, 2021.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/