Guest “fact checking the fact checkers” by David Middleton
Note to fact checking trolls: The featured image is a meme. Look up the word meme before you prattle on about the frozen wind turbine not being in Texas. Also, I have been referring to the freakishly cold weather, snow and ice of the past couple of weeks as Winter Storm Younger Dryas. It is my unofficial pet name for the the Texas weather from February 9-18, 2021. Fact checkers who say this storm name doesn’t exist will very likely be ridiculed.
Ever hear someone say, “Everything’s bigger in Texas“?
Well… The lamestream media lies about the recent Texas energy disaster have been Texas-sized.
This is just a small sample…
Fact check: Renewable energy is not to blame for the Texas energy crisis
Natural gas, the state’s dominant energy source, has provided drastically less energy than expected, according to experts and industry data.[…]
“Wind was operating almost as well as expected,” said Sam Newell, head of the electricity group at the Brattle Group, an energy consulting company that has advised Texas on its power grid.
“It’s an order of magnitude smaller” than problems with natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, he said.
[…]
NBC News
WINTER STORM 2021
No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages
Lost wind power was expected to be a fraction of winter generation. All sources — from natural gas, to nuclear, to coal, to solar — have struggled to generate power during the storm that has left millions of Texans in the dark.[,,,]
Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the wind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.
[…]
Texas Tribune
No, Wind Farms Aren’t the Main Cause of the Texas Blackouts
The state’s widespread electricity failure was largely caused by freezing natural gas pipelines. That didn’t stop advocates for fossil fuels from trying to shift blame.[…]
However, wind power was not chiefly to blame for the Texas blackouts. The main problem was frigid temperatures that stalled natural gas production, which is responsible for the majority of Texas’ power supply. Wind makes up just a fraction — 7 percent or so, by some estimates — of the state’s overall mix of power generation this time of year.
[…]
New York Times
- “Wind was operating almost as well as expected”
- [W]ind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.
- Wind makes up just a fraction — 7 percent or so, by some estimates — of the state’s overall mix of power generation this time of year.
The “fraction” link in the New York Times article leads to the Texas Tribune article I quoted. The “fraction” link in that article leads to another Texas Tribune article that says this:
Only 7% of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.
Texas Tribune
That’s just a bald-face lie… Or a very confused journalist.
ERCOT’s (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) wind output is actually fairly reliable in winter, particularly in February.
In February 2020, wind accounted for 26% of ERCOT electricity generation…
Wind has accounted for at least 20% of ERCOT’s February generation from 2016 to 2020.
| ERCOT % Feb Generation From Wind | |
| 2011 | 10% |
| 2012 | 11% |
| 2013 | 13% |
| 2014 | 10% |
| 2015 | 12% |
| 2016 | 20% |
| 2017 | 23% |
| 2018 | 25% |
| 2019 | 24% |
| 2020 | 26% |
| 2021 (Feb 1-8) | 30% |
| 2021 (Feb 9-18) | 8% |
In February 2021, prior to Winter Storm Younger Dryas, wind accounted for 30% of ERCOT’s electricity generation…
During Winter Storm Younger Dryas, wind dropped off to 8% of ERCOT electricity generation, while natural gas more than doubled as a percentage of ERCOT electricity generation…
While there were severe problems with thermal generating sources from February 15-18, wind was basically a no-show from February 9-18.
And this puts the lie to these fact checker claims:
- Fact check: Renewable energy is not to blame for the Texas energy crisis
- No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages
- No, Wind Farms Aren’t the Main Cause of the Texas Blackouts
The truth…
- Renewable energy is why Texas has less natural gas and coal capacity than it would have had otherwise.
- Frozen wind turbines are why coal-fired power plants were operating at >90% of capacity from February 9-14 and natural gas power plants were operating at 70% to more than 80% of capacity from February 11-14.
- Wind farms aren’t the main cause of the Texas blackouts because most of them had already been knocked offline by freezing temperatures and ice… Nearly a week before the blackouts! Where’s my Sam Kinison video?
The desperation on the part of the lamestream media to proactively defend wind power during this fiasco would be funny, if not for the fact that this lie quickly gained so much traction, that I have even repeated it. Wind power did not perform better than expected in any rational sense of the phrase.
That said, wind power has generally been very successful in Texas… The problem is that ERCOT’s plan for a total failure of wind power seems to have been hoping that natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants could successfully operate at about 90% of capacity until the wind power came back online.
“Hope ain’t a tactic.”
Mark Wahlberg as Mike Williams in Deepwater Horizon
Even with all of the system-wide failures, natural gas is the only reason that this energy disaster didn’t claim hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. Winter Storm Younger Dryas will probably surpass Hurricane Harvey as the most expensive natural disaster in Texas history and ERCOT was possibly within five minutes of it being possibly the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history when they began load-shedding.
Former Texas Public Utilities Commissioner Rebecca Klein laid out some questions that need to be asked and answered in this very thoughtful article:
1. Are we prepared to pay more for electricity and water to ensure higher levels of reliability? And if so, how much more? Greater reliability may mean a number of things, such as required weatherization of infrastructure assets; higher mandated margins of reserve generation than we have today; real incentives for customer conservation and/or smart appliances; better coordination among gas, electric and water utilities; making sure our gas supply is safe, adequate and accessible; or tweaking our wholesale power price caps, among many other things. Some of these activities come at a higher price than others. We need to evaluate the tradeoffs in a systematic way.
2. How can we be better prepared for “outlier” events, regardless of their probability? Would it make sense to require state-wide scenario planning that includes coordinated drills that test both our operational and communication capabilities across multiple entities?
3. How can all stakeholders, particularly ERCOT, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Office of Public Utility Council (but also utilities, etc.) provide more timely, transparent, and relevant information to consumers about how to prepare; what is happening and why; what to expect; and whom to call?
C3
Or we could go with AOC’s solution.
The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 17, 2021
The breakdown for 16 February 2021:
| MWh | % | |
| Wind Generation | 73,395 | 6% |
| Solar Generation | 20,134 | 2% |
| Hydro Generation | 3,833 | 0% |
| Other Generation | 682 | 0% |
| Natural gas Generation | 759,708 | 65% |
| Coal Generation | 204,655 | 18% |
| Nuclear Generation | 98,394 | 8% |
| Total | 1,160,801 | 100% |
Fossil fuels accounted for 83% of our electricity generation on February 16. Fossil fuels + nuclear accounted for 92%. But AOC says more wind & solar would have saved the day…
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David, your captions in the first table for Feb 2021 are backwards, at least according to your pie-charts.
The table was backwards… Fixed.
David,
Please keep hitting the alarmists over the head with that 2X4; it is often the only way to get their attention! I was going to send AOC my idea for a campaign to lower oxygen levels to about 5,000ppm to help prevent fires (think of the lives that would save,) but I was afraid she might take it seriously and her followers would probably follow her right off the cliff!
We climate realists must keep beating the drum of Truth and explain to the children why Unreliable Energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels and nuclear in the foreseeable future!
That’s why the ChiComs are building up their capacity so rapidly!
Abolition Man, thanks, the 2X4 opening to your comment made me smile.
You may also want to get AOC to abolish dihydrogen peroxide because, according to WHO data, it is responsible for 320,000 deaths globally per year.
Regards,
Bob
As she doesn’t just have blonde moments, but permanent problems, perhaps she doesn’t need it?
Did you mean “dihydrogen peroxide” or “dihydrogen monoxide”?
(Or maybe just carbon whateveride?) 😎
It’s even worse…
Hydroxic Acid. Literally in our RAIN!
Bob, excellent post, just one quibble:
wouldn’t dihydrogen peroxide be H2O2? I think you mean dihydrogen monoxide ie H2O aka dihydrogen oxide aka hydronium hydroxide aka hydrogen hydroxide aka just plain water.
My Dad refers to it as being hit by a clueX4.
Datapoint (maybe): I’m told that
Comments welcome.
I’m in NZ so can only look on from a distance and read the wide range of overlapping perspectives offered.
Russell McMahon
Texas wind turbines are not equipped with deicing systems… They are designed for a climate in which extremely hot weather is the main problem. Texas hasn’t experienced a prolonged period of sub-freezing weather like this since 1983. The entire system is designed for peak demand in mid-summer.
Wind turbines with deicing systems generally have heating elements that require:
States to the north of Texas, with winterized wind turbines also had problems. The Southwest Power Pool (SWPP), north of Texas also saw a collapse of wind generation.
So, whether electric compressors, electric deicers, or electric heaters, a cascade failure was in progress.
As I understand it, corrections welcome, some of those NG electric compressors were contractually obligated to use use wind energy?
AFAIK that is incorrect. They just happened to be part of the grid, vs running off their own generation directly.
It wouldn’t matter. Once the energy is input into the grid there is no way to determine where it came from.
Cue that famous picture of Marilyn Monroe, with AOC’s face, blowing wind up our butt,
That provokes in me to another question, David, one I have started to get interested in as I dig deeper into the issue: ERCOT primarily interconnects with SWPP for grid interchanges; that appears to be the only interchange point with the grid for the whole state of Texas. What if this situation had gone on longer (for both ERCOT and SWPP), to the point where the grid interchanges would have been compromised or disabled because of SWPP’s problems with the collapse of wind (or even other forms of) generation?
There are five DC ties.
DC_E (East)
DC_L (Laredo VFT)
DC_N (North)
DC_R (Railroad)
DC_S (Eagle Pass)
I saw imports from 3 during the event but haven’t pulled the data. Nor traced the source of the purchased energy.
There was 1.2GW of intertie import when the big trip occurred. That dipped as low as 123MW in the following couple of days as there wasn’t the power to spare.
I am amazed at how erratic wind power is. Coal plants are really not meant to chase that moving target. Natural gas turbines are about the only source of power that can react that quickly and provide enough power to make up the difference. Obviously cheaper to just have the reliables and retire all the bird-choppers.
Yep… And the natural gas that can ramp up and down fastest is also the least efficient most expensive type: combustion turbines. Improvements in combined cycle natural gas technology is improving their ramping speed.
Texas should invest in 1 or 2 additional nuclear power plants and increasing coal generation capacity with CCUS. These are the most resilient, reliable generation sources and the economics of CCS/CCUS is improving to the point that coal may become viable again in this Paris Accord manic world.
We have a boiler plate design in nuclear power that would match the needs of what happens when wind or solar fails. Yet no one wants to use them they also have a 100% safety record. The exist in every air craft carrier the US has(when said carrier is idling and need to get to up to speed in seconds said nuclear reactor can do that job.) Yet no one propose to use the knowledge the military has with these power plants and apply that knowledge to civilian use! With some modifications and redesign we should have a fast reaction power source with zero emissions. Why not, if they greens are serious about reducing CO2 they would be on the nuclear band wagon. They are not so the reduction of CO2 must not be their goal!
It’s foolish to use nuclear for load following. Nuclear fuel costs are a small part of producing nuclear power. Once you’ve built and staffed a nuclear plant, the only way to get low cost power is to run it 24/7 until you need to refuel. Nuclear can do that. If you have enough nuclear in the energy mix you can avoid the additional cost of unreliables.
MAL,
Nuclear reactors are not made for load following and that includes reactors onboard our carriers. Reactors work best for base loading where demands doesn’t vary or varies very little. It takes getting into nuclear physics to explain why this is so and not something I feel like getting into right now.
Because the greens don’t have any idea about what risk really means. They hear nuclear and see mushroom clouds.
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective while recognizing the clear and present danger Washington is upon Texas to invest in building coal fired plants on the border with Mexico and build up interconnects that cross the Rio Grande, delivering, when necessary, the multiple giga-watts of reliable power that Texas needs but will never build for themselves?
“Obviously cheaper to just have the reliables and retire all the bird-choppers.”
Yes, that’s the conclusion everyone should reach.
That sheds a little more light. It looks like all the windmills from the Gulf to the Canadian border were having trouble producing.
Oklahoma has about 250 windmills and only 22 of them were working. And Oklahoma and other States in the Southwest Power Pool were having rolling blackouts, although not nearly like what was going on in Texas.
I did see an article today speculating that Oklahoma electric bills next month will be higher than normal. I don’t know yet, I just paid last month’s bill and it was a normal bill. My electricity never went out during the storm and aftermath. Now I’m wondering what my next electric bill is going to look like. At least I don’t pay the bill by automatic withdrawal. 🙂
Our electricity, natural gas and water bills will probably be astronomical next month… And our Reliant plan has a fixed rate per kWh. Had our power gone out, those bills would have been much lower, but our property would probably have been totaled.
Consumers who bought into flat fee + wholesale price plans are getting hit with 5-figure electricity bills.
David,
I was looking at the February percentages for the output of windmills. A steady increase since 2011.
It has been claimed that ‘renewables’ will lower the cost of electricity. I was wondering what the residential cost per kWH was in each of those years. Headed up, down or sideways? Or too many ‘plans’ to come up with a meaningful figure?
I’ve received several emails from the gas company, telling how they are exploring various schemes to keep our upcoming gas bills within reason, so they are subtly telling us that they had to purchase a lot of gas at incredible prices.
Electric utilities in the state would have been under similar price gouging pressure.
Gas was trading quite widely at $300/MMBtu. 100 times normal Henry Hub.
Russell
if they had been then operation would have been very much less affected.
Exactly the same can be said of gas, nuclear and even coal. How do you think the Russians keep power stations going in regions where -50 C is not uncommon?
The whole “point” of the Texas winter fiasco was not “wind turbines froze”. Or anything else freezing. The point is that the electricity market had been distorted into an energy only market instead of a capacity market. This was risky as events proved but favoured renewables so that’s why it was done. Making renewables look good was more important than safety and reliability.
https://judithcurry.com/2021/02/18/assigning-blame-for-the-blackouts-in-texas/
Yep… The “energy only market” was a serious design flaw. The only incentive to maintain excess capacity was the opportunity to take advantage of spot market price spikes during bellwether events. No one anticipated a 10-day continuous maximum bellwether event. Generator revenues YTD are larger than the full years of 2018-2020 combined.
Yet clearly and daily NG does exactly what excess capacity would do, it follows wind like a whipped puppy.
Adding to David’s reply, an electric heater on or in the blades is the only practical solution to so many wind turbines and these heaters are electric. According to the sites I research it would consume 20% or more of the electricity produced by a wind turbine to de-ice it, and as Davids mentions they shut down the wind turbine so it isn’t throwing slabs of dangerous ice about (they just fall to the ground so don’t stand beneath one).
So not only are wind turbines being shutdown during de-icing, but they are drawing electricity from the very grid they are supposed to be generating for. Assuming 90% of the wind turbines *could* have been in operation (instead of 50% of them) and had they had heaters on the blades then their total output would have been reduced by 20% (power output minis heater input, leaving the heaters going) giving you a gain of 22% total wind generation for the entire state of Texas. All this expense for use every 10 years or so…maybe. This does not take into account the maintenance of the heaters, nor any added weight to the blades.
A better solution by far is to build more coal, nuclear, and/or gas operated power stations and just harden their ability to keep cooling during a great freeze event (as weird as this sounds).
An even better question is HOW DO YOU RETROFIT heating solutions to existing windmills? I’ll bet *that* isn’t cheap!
As the ice builds up on the blades, the efficiency of the blades starts going down. So less energy is being created, even when the blades are spinning.
I am missing the gain, as when they don’t turn and consume power, they are making a bad situation far worse.
You’ll hear a lot of claims such as “wind performed as expected” and natural gas “significantly underperformed”.
The reality is that on Feb 7, the energy demand was about 40gw. Natural gas, wind and coal each provided about 10gw, with nuclear at 5gw. As you can see in the article below, as the demand grew over the days, natural gas significantly overperformed, while wind faltered dramatically, and essentially died a few times, and not because of a lack of expected wind speed.Natural gas, even between Feb 15-18 performed much more than expected for that month.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836
Wind:
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/houston/historic?month=2&year=2021
Politics and economics are heavily involved in any explanation of the failure, but Texas did not, as you will often read, fail to “buy into” renewables.
Don’t get the impression that Texas is all full of Republican ‘deniers”, or Republicans in general, for that matter. Most of the city mayors are Dems, as are many other officials in the State, and likely most or all of the ERCOT board.
What failed in my opinion, is that Texas *did* buy into and was sold the idea of global warming, and what the planners used to determine what was “expected”. Global warming science. Texas is supposed to get progressively warmer, with less cold days and shorter winters, so historical records that should have been taken into account were ignored.
Senator Schumer recently claimed Texas was at fault and paying the price for ignoring climate change. Perhaps he meant that Texas didn’t heed the predictions of increased polar storms reaching into Texas. But then there aren’t any.
Glenn don’t fall for that “increased BS”….
The record low for Texas was minus 23F…in 1899….122 years ago
….this storm wasn’t even close to that
And your point is…?
Why are grid operators hiring an unreliable source of energy like solar and wind?
Would you put a type of gas in your car that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t? I willing to bet if you had to then you would pay whatever to keep it reliable.
De-icing is probably not quite as popular as you are assuming.
https://www.windpowerengineering.com/cracking-icing-problem-turbine-blades/
It can only pay for itself if there is enough wind when it is operational. Often not the case in cold weather, and certainly winds were slight much of the time during the Texan freeze.
The San Angelo Live article you linked in your last article pretty much pins the cause on wind. When wind power cratered on Monday Morning Feb 14, combined with increased demand, and poor management, … the fuel generated sources were tripped, and dropped off the grid to protect the grid. (the whole out of sync story). Fossil Fuels didn’t fail, they were shut down to protect the infrastructure.
I’ve said all along, Texas screwed up big time by buying into the global warming lie, and closing down 11 coal fired plants since 2018. Each of those plants kicks out about 500 MW, so we are talking over 10,000 MW worth of power capacity taken off line, and sacrificed to the global warming gods.
If Texas was smart they would add back Coal and Gas capacity, maybe build a few more nuclear plants to boot, and come up with an emergency plan …. it goes like this:
When the temps drop to freezing and humidity is high, take the stinking windmills off line, and let the fuel generated sources handle the job until conditions improve. Problem solved.
Many of the closed coal plants were lignite, which barely coal and more like peat. It has marginal heating capacity. Lignite plants were only profitable if they could use on-site lignite so most were co-located with the lignite mine. Very cheap natural gas, mainly due to fracking, displaced most of these.
Or subsidies going to unreliable sources of energy like solar and wind 🤓
The regulatory climate (pardon the pun) in the US for coal-fired power plants is such that it is very difficult to permit any new coal plant.
“When the temps drop to freezing and humidity is high, take the stinking windmills off line, and let the fuel generated sources handle the job until conditions improve. Problem solved.”
I’ll step out on a limb and assume winterizing the recent infrastructure built for natural gas to replace coal would cost far less than winterizing those wind turbines, or replacing them. But then the Dems would complain about that. I suggest that federal “incentives” and grants to wind turbines be dropped like a rock, and let the economics decide how Texas should heat their homes and businesses. They’ll face those choices eventually anyway, when the wind turbine’s life cycles end.
“federal “incentives” and grants to wind turbines be dropped ”
That alone would not effect the problem that wind and solar have priority to sell their product to the determent of other electrical generators, the problem of Texas’ unique electricity market scheme, nor the fact that installing cold weather system that are not needed for 10 years at a time would be extremely expensive relative to just going along ignoring the possibility — especially if everything your being told says it won’t happen again because of warming trends.
Wind gradually goes offline, but no turbines fail outright. It’s night so solar isn’t working. Some gas generation is offline and demand goes way into the red. The stagecoach is being chased by the bandits, the cavalry escort is missing and having a coffee, and the driver is whipping the horses to go faster. A horse goes lame and a wheel comes off the coach’The bandits catch the stage and the gold is gone,
The horse is shot for going lame and causing the wheel to come off.
Any gas generation that went lame will be blamed.
Maybe they should install a bunch of batteries. A few billion dollars worth should be enough to bankrupt even more gas plants, then carry the system for the first four hours of the first day the next time this happens.
At least you can stack batteries, which would reduce the environmental impact. Don’t be green, go green, not Green.
We’d all be glowing green. But then don’t batteries “freeze”? They’d have to winterize themselves.
Batteries probably can’t be stacked very high without building big heavy duty shelving systems for hundreds of million of $ more.
Battery stacking has the advantage of reducing the blast radius (it is not linear) when the Lion roars.
Tell a bigger lie and keep going. The left is not just clueless, they are corrupt (Chicago is most corrupt city in USA) and dishonest. OK, AOC is intellectually challenged. The next two years are likely to be traumatic.
Texas was operating as it always has, it didn’t learn it’s lesson from 2011.
.
“Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation —so things were freezing.”
.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/weather/2021/02/17/no-frozen-wind-turbines-arent-the-main-culprit-for-texas-power-outages/
.
Will the third time be the “charm” and get Texan’s to listen to the experts?
Fracked natural gas wells have a lot of moisture coming up at the well head right Mr. Middleton?
Texas need backup for it’s unreliable natural gas supply.
That’s just moronic. Only coal and nuclear power could back up natural gas under these conditions and those power plants were also inhibited by the record cold weather. Natural gas worked better than any other component in the system. Texas does need to ensure that enough of the natural gas production, transmission and generation is sufficiently prepared to deal with this sort of weather if it ever happens again.
Well, it will happen again. Only question is when.
Yes, you can’t fix stupid in Texas.
From reading several of your posts, brainless Brian, it’s clear that you are the stupid that can’t be fixed. But do continue on, I’m enjoying the popcorn while watching you get slapped silly in all the replies to your nonsense.
Wind turbines with de-icing systems could backup the unreliable uninsulated natural gas pipeline systems.
No. They couldn’t. Wind turbines with deicing systems can’t even back up wind turbines without deicing systems because wind is not a dispatchable energy source.
The wind turbines on the Gulf coast didn’t freeze up, and ran fine during this event. Furthermore the term “dispatchable” doesn’t apply to “deicing.” I suggest you separate your apples from your oranges.
Dispatchable and non-dispatchable refer to the energy sources. All wind is non-dispatchable.
The wind turbines on the Gulf Coast are generally less productive than those on the Llano Estacado.
Wind turbines produced just 649MW during peak demand hour on the 15th. I suggest you learn about real intermittency.
Brian, I’m guessing that you must be the “stupid” you are always whining about.
Even a second grader would be able to figure out that “dispatchable” in the above sentence attaches to “wind turbine”, not “de-icing”.
Secondly, it didn’t get as cold along the coast. You really should check your facts.
Could windmills backup the grid if the wind isn’t blowing?
There are times when the wind doesn’t blow. What’s the plan then?
No they cannot. The turbines are taken offline during the de-icing. This protects the turbines from damage due to unbalanced ice buildup while the deicing systems attempt to do their job. It also prevents the sloughing of the ice from being thrown away from the turbine.
Yes, Brian is advocating a RETURN TO COAL !
But someone has to pay for that and the political figures in charge seem to be extremely resistant for paying for anything that takes funds away from wind and solar expansion– or for letting the utilities charge customers directly for the upgrades.
Brian
And for your third trick:
https://youtu.be/_gubkwb5518
From the chart natural gas doubled its output during the cold stretch. Does that sound “unreliable” to you?
Sounds like something that both WInd and Solar are incapable of doing
And you don’t like fracking, right Mr. Jackson?
Unreliable?
“Under the current regulatory environment, only pipelines and local distribution companies (LDCs) are directly regulated with respect to the services they provide. Natural gas producers and marketers are not directly regulated. This is not to say that there are no rules governing their conduct, but instead there is no government agency charged with the direct oversight of their day to day business. Production and marketing companies must still operate within the confines of the law; for instance, producers are required to obtain the proper authorization and permitting before beginning to drill, particularly on federally-owned land.”
http://naturalgas.org/regulation/market/
The output of a fracked well has a higher moisture content than a regular natural gas well. This extra moisture froze in the gathering pipelines during the cold snap.
Utter nonsense.
All raw natural gas has moisture in it right Mr. Fossil Fuel Expert?
Isn’t that why NGL, water, hydrogen sulfide, etc. has to be removed from raw gas before it can be inserted into distribution systems?
It has to be removed because natural gas power plants and furnaces burn dry natural gas.
The NGL are separated and sold. The H2S is separated and sold… hydrogen and sulfur have value.
Were you incapable of reading my previous answer to this same question?
And Mr. Non-sequitur strikes again.
David was responding to you absurd claim that frakked wells have more water in the gas than do non-frakked wells.
Let me know when you find a ‘regular” gas well. And when you find evidence that moisture froze in pipelines.
Most natural gas production, whether from frac’ed rocks or not, has brine and other liquids associated with it. Operators who were paying attention, shut in production prior to the deep freeze set in. They were able to quickly start production back up. Many operators who didn’t shut in, experienced damage to wellheads and separators. Right now most of the information is anecdotal, solid data won’t be available for a while.
What does this have to do with “Wind was operating almost as well as expected”?
Wind operated as I expected.
A big bust when reality struck.
Natural gas failed as expected (see 2011) in cold weather. Natural gas needs a backup, just like wind needs a backup.
You really need to support your claims, especially when you put attitude behind them.
As I recall, in 2011 one of the problems was a result of new federal emission control requirements that the plants had to comply with.
That affected some coal-fired plants.
You’re right. I just found this, concerning gas:
“Natural gas plants were hastily turned on to make up for the coal-plant failures. But, Fraser said, some power cuts affected some stations for compressing natural gas — so without power they couldn’t pump gas”…
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/03/the-rolling-chain-of-events-behind-texas-blackouts/
Nothing about the cold freezing gas infrastructure.
It wasn’t nearly as cold or cold for as long in 2011.
The last time we had weather conditions comparable to Feb 2021 was Dec 1983. Most of our electricity came from coal-fired power plants back then. My recollection is that the biggest problem in 1983 was ruptured water mains.
I was working out of Midland at the time, and remember the snow.
I do recall power outage reports, maybe from the news about somewhere in Texas, but don’t recall any in town, or any pipeline damage. There was a hurricane that year that did cause damage, though.
RUBBISH, you are behaving like the 5 year old child you are.
Natural gas needs to be properly engineered.
Then it doesn’t need back-up.
Wind will ALWAYS need a back-up supply.
Sorry you are TOO DUMB and mentally infected with ACDS to see the difference.
If gas really does need back-up, then the ONLY logical choices are NUCLEAR and COAL.
But if you have sufficient COAL and NUCLEAR, you don’t need gas except as peaking supply.
And you certainly don’t need wind or solar.
Wind and solar can NEVER be a back-up for an inadequately designed gas network.
Just design the gas network properly in the first place and STOP WASTING MONEY on UNRELIABLE SUPPLY SYSTEM
You really do insist on your own facts.
“Operators who were paying attention, shut in production”…. yup, that’s why Texas needs a backup for it’s natural gas supply.
Cluelessness is not a virtue. Oil & gas production is routinely shut-in due to severe weather, whether it’s ice storms in the Mid-Continent or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf Coast. The “back ups” are natural gas and crude oil storage facilities.
You may be too stupid to have noticed, but severe weather disrupts almost everything.
The moisture in raw gas froze in the gathering/collection pipe lines. Severe weather doesn’t disrupt my biomass heat supply.
That’s called hydrate plugging. It happens in a multitude of conditions. Deepwater natural gas pipelines often feature methanol injection.
While there are still few details about what went wrong, most of the anecdotal information points to wellhead issues and low line pressure due to compressors going offline and record high demand.
Low line pressure makes sense. Why is the question, but freezing pipes at the wellhead doesn’t seem an answer.
Brain here doesn’t appear too knowledeable on the subject, and tries to make up for it by trolling.
I think the main issues were:
1. Record demand for natural gas for both heating and electricity.
2. Disruptions in field level production, particularly in the Permian Basin.
3. Compressors going offline due to power outages.
But we won’t know the actual statistics for weeks, if not months.
…and I heard diversion of NG from generation to heat only.
Residential delivery was prioritized over electric utilities.
Correct: Here’s the original order:
NO EVIDENCE, just squawking like a demented parrot.
You live in Texas, and what happened there proves you can’t fix the stupid (of Texas)
You really do seem to be actively trying to out-moron yourself.
What is it about progressives and their desperate need to hate anyone who isn’t like them?
Cluelessness? Crude oil storage facilities had no part in the failure of the Texas grid.
Just trying to explain to an idiot how variations in production rates are smoothed out by the use of storage facilities. Most Permian Basin natural gas production (where most of he problems appear to have been) is “associated gas.” When oil wells are shut in, so is the associated gas.
“Cluelessness? Crude oil storage facilities had no part in the failure of the Texas grid.”
No one said it did. You’re clueless. No power plants run on crude oil.
Once again Mr. Non-sequitur finds it necessary to change the subject.
You are acting like a demented parrot now, Brainless.
Or a child having a tantrum episode.
He’s a progressive determined to push his agenda, regardless of facts or logic.
In other words “a child having a tantrum episode”.
It has one. It’s called storage. They used 156bcf of it in the week of 12th-19th. But even storage of dry, processed gas needs working compressors to get it to power stations and homes. They don’t work if you cut them off in a power cut through poor grid management.
I have not heard reports of wellhead damage. Isn’t the temperature fairly warm?
It was the exact opposite of warm from Feb 8-18.
I have only seen anecdotal reports of wellheads and separators being damaged by freezing water. There are no actual statistics yet.
I was referring to wellhead temps. This is the temperature of the product coming out of the well. If there is no flow, nothing would be coming out.
I can’t visualize enough water in gas pipelines to put them in danger of breaking, busting or cracking at those ground temperatures. Especially near production wells.
The gas cools and expands rapidly as it approaches the surface. Water and other liquids condense out. By the time it gets to the separator, it’s often at room temperature. When the air temperature is 20-30 F, it’s usually not a problem. When the air temperature is 0-20 F for 10 straight days in Texas, it can be a big problem.
Yes, of course. Again, I reacted to the wellhead freezing thing.
Do you just pull your remarks, unadulterated, from your fundamental orifice? At the minimum, all you need to do was read the article and look at the charts to debunk your “observation”.
Yeah, listen to the experts:
https://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analysis/details?id=2594
Why are they subsidizing unreliable forms of energy like solar and wind instead of investing in reliable forms like nuclear and fossil fuels?
So the entire country can share the nightmare of “California Dreamin'”?
Natural gas failed Texas. Why doesn’t Texas invest in something more reliable than natural gas?
Natural gas doesn’t fail across the north.
Wind and solar is a waste of money.
That would be coal and nuclear power.
Yes, Texas needs to build more nuclear powerplants.
Texas has very large quantities of coal.
There is no scientific reason NOT to use it.
Pretty sure that is what Brainless is yabbering on about
He wants a reinstatement of COAL is a major solid regular reliable supply.
WIND failed in Texas,
Cow-towing to the mindless ACDS of the deep-leftism caused the rest of the system to be unable to compensate for the UTTER FAILURE of wind and solar.
So glad you agree that Texas SHOULD NEVER HAVE CLOSED SO MUCH OF ITS COAL FIRED POWER . !
There was 156bcf of withdrawal from gas storage in the South Central US during the week from the 12th to the 19th. That’s over 22bcf/day of dry gas. In addition, LNG liquefaction plants shut down and resold gas to the inland market, adding about 4bcf/day in Texas.
https://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html
You keep making that claim, yet the data refutes your belief.
I would theorize that far too many of them have the same mental affliction as bird-brained Brian! It is difficult to determine if it imbecility or delusions; either way we have to honor David for his patience and forebearance trying to explain reality to a simpleton!
“Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation —so things were freezing.”
Nah, it was the new stuff recently built because of the pressure to go green that ‘froze’, in more than one sense, only one of which was the cold. Texas isn’t all a warm paradise, and never has been. There weren’t a lot of problems with freezing pipelines before all the environmental pressure was added, and the State has had plenty experience with pipelines.
I like Rep. Dan Crenshaw… But he’s not an “expert” (except maybe as a marksman).
The pipelines weren’t freezing.
Cold weather-related pipeline failures are generally due to frost heave causing structural damage to the pipeline, ice build up on control valves rendering them inoperable, hydrate plugging, etc. They are more common in cold weather states…
http://pgjonline.com/magazine/2015/january-2015-vol-242-no-1/features/cold-weather-can-play-havoc-on-natural-gas-systems
Guess Texas needs to backup their natural gas system. Too bad fossil fuels aren’t reliable.
Doesn’t matter how cold it gets in northern NY State/Canada, the Niagara hydroelectric plant is immune to cold weather.
PS, the wind farms in NY State didn’t freeze because they have de-icing systems.
The wind farms in New York State are insignificant year-round.
“PS, the wind farms in NY State didn’t freeze because they have de-icing systems.”
So? You’re arguing with yourself against a strawman of your own making. Global warming bobbleheads do not claim NY will never freeze.
NY wind produces a few percent of energy needs. They could be gold plated for all that matters.
Most energy comes from nuclear and natural gas.
Hydro is a small percentage as well, and not everyone is lucky enough to have conditions necessary for hydro to be practical.
Care to present some data to support that?
Hydroelectric works very well in New York State… What does that have to do with wind?
Brian, like Nick, has a tendency to change the subject whenever he feels he is falling behind.
You clearly need to be moderated. No hydro plant is immune to cold weather, except the ones that are never exposed to freezing temps.
Besides the fact that most everyone has seen pictures of Niagra falls,
Gates that are exposed to the atmosphere will typically freeze to the gate guides. Often the force to free a frozen gate exceeds the capacity of the gate hoisting equipment (Gebre at al., 2013). To allow for winter operation, the gates will need to be equipped with gate/guide heaters or be steamed free prior to operation. …
… Ice formation and related processes in rivers and lakes/reservoirs influence the operation of hydropower plants in cold regions. Frazil ice, anchor ice, ice runs, and ice jams can cause operational constraints that lead to reductions in power production (Gebre at al., 2013). Meeting ice-related challenges is an important and costly aspect of hydropower generation in cold regions. …
… • Extensive frazil ice formation and jamming in open water reaches downstream of power plant; and • Operational restrictions on hydro-electric operators to avoid ice problems such as ice jamming and flooding (Gebre et al., 2014;Gebre et al., 2013).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260362982_Ice_Effects_on_Hydropower_Systems_-_A_Review
And there’s the fact that Texas has very little in the way of hydroelectric resources. You kind of need hydrostatic head for hydroelectricity. Hydrostatic head is one of the very few things not bigger in Texas… 😉
That’s because it’s all downhill from Texas. Don’t start with that.
Not immune to nature The Schoellkopf Power Station, before the collapse | History | buffalonews.com
So if the water froze, the hydro-electric plant would keep operating?
Are you really as stupid as your posts make you sound?
Brainless need back-up for his demented parrot act.
Increasing output by 450% is “unreliable”?
Really strange world that you inhabit.
They are listening to the experts……
This came from a review of the recent ERCOT board meeting, skating on thin ice. Not direct quote.
A board member noted that forecasting is more than important than ever now that we increasingly rely on renewables, which usually are more variable than the old workhorses, gas, coal, and nuclear (though last week all sources of power were badly affected). I got the impression that they had a climate change ain’t going to freeze that bad no more mindset. Lack of homework? Whooping cranes benefit, they have trouble foraging in invasive mangroves, now on their way to fossilhood.
David
I think you have a typo’. Shouldn’t that be the “Prattle Group?” 🙂
Or not subsidizing unreliable energy and allowing it to pass its backup costs onto reliable power. And not using regulations to squeeze out reliable thermal coal.
We already know how this story goes:
https://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analysis/details?id=2594
The re-runs are getting stale.
Doesn’t matter if windmills are turning, if switching and transmission networks are offline. Linked in series, single-points-of-failure almost have to break. AOC is completely wrong, as usual: it is pursuit of windpower and the current redirection of infrastructure maintenance and upgrade funding that has contributed immensely. Texas’ (also Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas) weather related disaster is enitrely due to pursuit of fake renewable goals using public utility subsidies.
It should be that any company that wants to supply power to the grid should be contracted to have the capacity to provide it at a constant load in all conditions and have a mixture of base load and intermittent sources that they regulate according to the need at the most economical cost to themselves. If they are unable to maintain their contracted supply at anytime then it is they that should purchase the equivalent shortfall from other generators at their cost at whatever price it is at the time. It appears that what is happening is the equivalent of the expansion of Uber taxis gradually undermining those operators that provide the scheduled transportation that communities rely upon to be available at all times according to the schedule.
David:
Your charts are persuasive. Can you provide a link to the actual data? The live links on your post only go to the most recent data.
Thanks
If you click on the gear symbol top right of a chart at the link you will be able to edit the time range covered, and also you can download the data for spreadsheets using the down pointing arrow when you are done.
Thanks.
“Wind was operating almost as well as expected”… That is 100% correct, Wind was operating randomly, unreliably and at times, near Zero….
“As expected” is what the wind advocates keep spouting, not “as required”.
It seems OK that wind was somehow “expected” to decrease by 75% when NEEDED THE MOST, and actually provided even less.
It also seems OK to bash natural gas that was “expected” to provide 400% of normal and did for awhile, but as demand increased beyond what was “expected”, and fuel supply issues arose, all the thrashing is about natural gas that “only” delivered 300% of normal while wind sank to near nothing.
Have I got that right?
David, another good article. It’s clear that since wind energy is variable, there needs to be a come to Jesus moment with respect to hardening gas supplies against cold weather, as well as some hard thinking about how this resource will be allocated (residential space heating vs. generation) before the next incident. Having said that, I would hope someone that is knowledgeable with ERCOT’s energy market could provide some basic information as to what the rules are for how wind energy is dispatched into the grid. For example;
I think answers to the above questions (and others) might tell a more complete story than focusing on how much energy wind and gas did or didn’t contribute to the grid during the freeze.
I don’t know how much favoritism wind currently receives. At one time, wind generators were not required to pay for replacement electricity if they failed to deliver their day-ahead commitment, while conventional generators had to pay if they couldn’t deliver.
I’m unsure about Texas but here in Alberta if a propeller is turning the grid accepts it and a gas turbine somewhere gets it in the neck
You can watch this real time on a website, the wind power contingency reserve is always zero
Which is itself just another subsidy to wind
Gas turbine efficiency craters off full load, so asking it to throttle is not one to one, a 30% drop in output power is a much smaller drop in input gas
Which means there is vanishingly small CO2 savings in the propeller as you can’t just turn the gas plant right off, they have to be ready to ramp back in on a moments notice
Recipe for failure
http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet
Thanks Pat. Looking at David’s charts, it’s pretty clear what happened. But since history never really repeats, the important thing to understand is why. Everyone knows that wind power is intermittent, so the value of energy from such sources can not be accorded the same value as energy from more reliable sources. Good economists understand that all value is subjective, i.e., that it is dependent on time and circumstance. (Water and diamonds paradox). I’ve seen posts here that ERCOT failed because it is an energy-only market, which doesn’t reward capacity in the same way as does, say, PJM. I don’t believe that as much as I believe that having a separate capacity market is a back-door way of maintaining reliability so that politically-favored renewables can be introduced without overly risking grid stability. In other words, an energy-only market probably would work effectively, provided uniform rules and penalties were applied to all energy suppliers.
Yep. While I still firmly believe Texas did the right thing in taking advantage of our abundant wind resource, we made the mistake of considering it to effectively be part of our baseload… And we assumed that natural gas was like a superhero, a Deus ex Machina, that could do whatever we needed whenever we needed it to… We need more nuclear and coal power.
If using wind actually caused a reduction in the amount of fossil fuels being used, I would agree with you.
The problem is that there is no evidence that it does.
Having to build and run two sources of power where only one is needed just results in waste and higher prices.
David,
Thank you for another insightful article.
I read elsewhere that the DOE, enforcing EPA policy of restricting non-renewable generation to 60% of capacity, was a factor in providing electricity during the Younger-Dryas TX cold spell. And they did that through requiring pricing energy over the 60% at hourly spot market prices, so they didn’t say not over 60%, but just made anything more than that too expensive to be useful. Is that accurate and was it a significant factor?
FWIW, the EIA beta charts here https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/regional/REG-TEX were fun to view.
I don’t think reports of DOE restricting anything are accurate.
I think they are based on an erroneous reading of an ERCOT request to cap wholesale prices at $1,500/MWh rather than the statutory $9,000/MWh.
If anyone is interested, Steven Chu (former U.S. Secretary of Energy) will be giving a Zoom presentation next week.
https://www.getches-wilkinsoncenter.cu.law/events/the-13th-annual-schultz-lecture-in-energy-with-dr-steven-chu/
Before people start blaming other energy sources they need to stop and think about Wind.
It’s intermittent. This entire disaster could have been MUCH worse if the wind had just slowed down. You cannot build a reliable energy system on an unreliable energy source without spending vast amounts of money on energy storage. So if you decide to build using Wind, you need to take the price tag and multiply by 4 or more.
Nature has already solved the energy storage problem – it’s called fossil and nuclear fuels. We do not need to cover our landscapes in ugly giant wind turbines and battery storage – assuming we could afford it.
Wind did just die down. It got as low as 649 MW on the 15th, but by then extensive blackouts were already in effect, so although it coincided with what would have been peak demand few noticed.
Fact check true! Wind and solar aren’t expected to work well.
Welcome to socialism, the system that carefully avoids truth. Truth is dangerous, it only serves the enemies of socialism. Been there.
Not economically, and never will. But they’ve put a lot of money in a few hands. Guess the ideology of those few.
It’s pretty clear from the EIA grid monitor graph, that when demand called, natural gas generation quintipled its output. Now that’s supplying power,..
All media minus a few websites are 100% lies these days. The poor souls who still believe those lies are making themselves a dangerous liability.
Windmills are absolutely the cause of the Texas debacle. Trying to integrate them into the grid squandered the resources necessary for a properly functioning grid.
Meanwhile in North Dakota where no one listens to NPR…
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/965775584/north-dakota-officials-block-wind-power-in-effort-to-save-coal
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/north-dakota-results%3famp=1
John, natural gas is what is killing coal across US. Bird Choppers are a bit player.
I’d move there if it weren’t so damn cold.
There are plenty of stupid windmills in ND…very sad landscape in many places. Overall it is a nice place.
I enjoyed the couple of times I visited Grand Forks.
David, a lot of the wind and solar plants are monitored and operated by Longroad Energy. They need to be asked pointed questions as ERCOT isn’t answering certain questions.
john
Amen.
By the way, I agree the “meme” about the helicopter de-icing the wind mill is intended for humor not a representation of Texas events. BUT, using that meme weakens the objection to photos showing water vapor coming from evaporative cooling towers when discussing “carbon pollution”. When pictures — humorous or otherwise — aren’t congruent to the actual news the efforts to ask reasonable questions and get reasonable answers is overtaken — replaced– by efforts to develop more memorable memes.
From Wood Mackenzie “Breaking down the Texas winter blackouts: what went wrong?”Texas Freeze Wind power generation
< 28 GW ~1/3 Texas power capability
7 GW normal winter generation
1.7 GW ERCOT winter low plan
0.6 GW actual 2/15 Monday evening and 2/17 Wednesday morning
https://www.woodmac.com/news/editorial/breaking-down-the-texas-winter-blackouts/full-report
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836
This is simply not accurate.
This implies a winter capacity factor of 25%. DJF wind capacity factors have been around 35-40%, with wind accounting for at least 20% of February generation since 2016. At a 35-40% capacity factor, expected generation would be 10-11 GW. From 1/26 to 2/8 wind averaged 12 GW, from 2/9-2/19 it averaged 5 GW, since 1/20, it’s averaged 11 GW.
Wind performed as, or better than expected before and after Winter Storm Dryas.
Trouble is, “as expected” for wind, is a very LOW bar !!