…Media Launches Texas Counter Attack…
Texas has suffered terrible consequences as the result of blackouts.
The real reason for the blackouts is that wind and solar are unreliable and shouldn’t be included in reserve margins, but the advocates of wind and solar, with the media’s support, have tried to muddy the waters by pointing to other reasons for the blackouts.
Ocasio Cortez said Texas would be fine if they implemented the green new deal.
Or this quote from the media referencing climate change:
“Republican leaders have found a way to shift blame onto renewable energy and use the statewide crisis to spread lies about proposed climate legislation.”
The media has reported, for example:
- Nuclear plants shut down due to frozen water lines.
- There was insufficient gas for natural gas turbines.
- There should be a connection between MISO and ERCOT to provide electricity from MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)
The fundamental reason for the disaster, however, is that there were insufficient reserves of baseload power, i.e., coal, natural gas and nuclear.
With adequate reserve margins, the problems with the nuclear plants and with inadequate gas for natural gas power plants, would not have resulted in the extensive blackouts that occurred in Texas. If reserves, using baseload power only, i.e., coal, natural gas and nuclear, had been at the 13.7% level, nearly 10,000 MW of baseload power could have been lost without seriously disrupting the grid,
This graph makes it clear that Texas historically had reserve margins of 13.7%, but in 2019 the margins from baseload power were 6% and forecast to fall to nearly zero in 2020.
The claim that MISO could have provided power to ERCOT, if there had been a link between the systems, was false, because MISO didn’t have enough power to share.
The area covered by MISO was also suffering from freezing weather. They were spared the blackouts because they had not yet relied on wind and solar to the extent that Texas had.
Here is the alert issued by MISO: Saying, “MISO is extending the Max-Gen Alert for the South Region …”
And here is a graph of MISO’s power usage on February 19, showing tiny amounts of power from wind and solar.
Coal saved the day in the MISO geographic area.
Advocates for wind and solar will, undoubtedly, continue to try to muddy the waters and deflect attention from the failure of wind and solar.
The fact remains, it is virtually impossible for all our electricity to come from renewables, as required by the Green New Deal. The Book, The Looming Energy Crisis, Are Blackouts Inevitable?, proves this to be a fact.
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Related Article: Proof that Wind and Solar are Unreliable
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Texas has received $8 billion in wind and solar subsides over ten years paid for by US taxpayers. Plus Texas rate payers paid another $1.5 billion in wind and solar subsides. A high price to pay for electric generation that is not available when needed. Time to let the free market prevail and return to the historic sacred “obligation to serve” and restore generation reserve margins.
I agree whole heartedly.
https://www.oilandgas360.com/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-a-chinese-wind-farm-raises-eyebrows/
Using Chinese built wind turbines, or allowing a Chinese firm to build wind farms is ludicrous. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The US government should step in, but I’m not hopeful.
Absolutely and the Chinese company bought the land in Texas too. Funny, you need to read the Oil and Gas publications to find out the negative sides of renewables.
Isn’t that the truth. The main stream media won’t publish negative information about wind and solar.
Data on TX power sources from the US EIA over the time period Feb 4-16 reveal the true story nicely. Here is a summary.
Over Feb 4-9, wind produced an average of ~30% of TX power, gas a comparable amount, and coal+nuclear gave ~40% — total ~40 gigawatts. Because wind power has priority, yet is variable, gas power varied considerably to keep the net output steady. On Feb 4 & 8, wind produced ~57% of the ~40 giga-watt demand.
About Feb 9, cold and ice moved into west TX (moving east); TX power demand begin rising, and continued to rise to ~60 gigawatts until the partial power failure occurred Feb 15-16. Over this time, wind power output dropped, typically below 10% of net and sometimes <5% of net. Gas power greatly increased to compensate the reduced output from wind and the rising power demand. Gas power rose from ~12-15 gigawatts over Feb 4-9 to ~40 gigawatts on Feb 12-15.
At the time of the crash, gas, coal, & nuclear were producing near 100% capacity. If the capacity factor had been greater the ERCOT partial failure might have been avoided. However, the initial stress placed on the system was when wind quit producing its normal share of power — on Feb. 9.
Having decreasing power available just when power demand increases can be the perfect storm.
Wind is much more likely to give decreasing power when needed most.
Gas power is the hero here.
I wish you had an email link to enable sharing……using only the censorious platforms is not good
I appreciate your frustration, but I am not in a position to respond to a great many emails. I hope you understand.
i WISH TO FORWARD YOU MUSINGS, NOT CONTACT YOU WITH AN EMIL APP.
dddusmma@gmail.com
As far as I can make out a major problem was that gas pipeline booster pumps had been converted from gas turbine drive to electric drive to limit emissions. When the power went off, the gas supplies to downstream power stations and other users got constrained and everything got worse and worse.
Thanks for this important information. It is an important part of both problems: Blackouts in Texas, and the unreasoned attempts to cut CO2 emissions.
Great to hear from you.
Top executives of Texas electric grid resign after storm failure
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-texas-grid/top-executives-of-texas-electric-grid-resign-after-storm-failure-idUSKBN2AN2F3
At least something is happening.
“Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed the resignations, noting ERCOT has assured it had adequate power ahead of the storm. The state’s investigation will “uncover the full picture of what went wrong” and ensure it is not repeated, he said in a statement.”
Thanks. I saw the news, but I hope the investigation gets to the fundamental problem, which is wind and solar.
But don’t forget the electric gas compressors. You can argue that a competent system operator would have assumed that wind and solar would be dead.
I agree. Some of ERCOT board have resigned. Should have been fired.
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