Texas Republicans on blackouts: Liberal politicians, Obama, and free market are to blame!

[CitizenVectron]

Oh wait, that was what they said about California's power grid issues.

 

 

 

 

 

[CayceG]

Here's another good twitter thread about the impacts and why they're so significant. 

 

 

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

State is now allowing ERCOT to use "surge pricing": 

 

State allows ERCOT to ‘modify pricing’ as electricity demands increase

WWW.NBC4I.COM

---

Harlingen, Texas (KVEO)—During an emergency meeting Monday night, the Texas Public Utility Commission allowed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to modify pricing models after the de…

 

Not that these situations are ever 100% preventable (there was always be freak weather, etc), but this is a great argument against private companies being involved in any power generation or delivery (especially fractured grids). Electricity should be a 100% public, government-run pillar of society (along with water, natural gas, etc), preferably at a state or national level.

[CitizenVectron]

Looks like they found the root cause and have found a solution:

 

 

 

Not, you know, investing large amounts of public money to create a stable system.

[CitizenVectron]

Also, there are people blaming this on wind turbines freezing up (trying to blame green power), but in reality some natural gas plants froze up because their pipes weren't winterized, causing them to fail and shut down.

 

EDIT - 

 

Conservatives Are Seriously Accusing Wind Turbines of Killing People in the Texas Blackouts

NEWREPUBLIC.COM

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Tucker Carlson and others are using the deadly storm to attack wind power, but the state’s independent, outdated grid and unreliable natural gas generation are to blame.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

7 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Also, there are people blaming this on wind turbines freezing up (trying to blame green power), but in reality some natural gas plants froze up because their pipes weren't winterized, causing them to fail and shut down.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Utilities should ALWAYS be the sole province of the state.

[PaladinSolo]

The damage this is going to do when it thaws isn't going to be pretty, millions of homes with the potential for just about every pipe in the house to burst.

[Guest]

There will be lots of blame-gaming going on, but this is a once in a generation* event for the region. Yes, 20% of our generation comes from wind, but we also shut down a lot of coal/gas generation this time of year for demand and maintenance reasons and you can’t get that stuff back up overnight. And then you have coal/gas plants that were online going dark because they weren’t built to operate in these conditions.
 

Just to give a sense of how outside the norm these temps are, something like half the state had high temps that were lower than the previous record lows. Many places his lows 15 degrees below their previous record lows.

Private vs government is a discussion worth having about utilities, but it really has nothing to do with what is happening right now.

 

*climate change could certainly make this more frequent

14 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

The damage this is going to do when it thaws isn't going to be pretty, millions of homes with the potential for just about every pipe in the house to burst.

South of where this is in Houston has started to thaw and it’s really bad already. Many billions in damages across the state.

[Air_Delivery]

Also doesn't help that much of your state is disconnected from the national grid to skirt regulations.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

6 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

but this is a once in a generation* event

Gonna go hoarse repeating this phrase over the rest of my life

[CitizenVectron]

5 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

There will be lots of blame-gaming going on, but this is a once in a generation* event for the region. Yes, 20% of our generation comes from wind, but we also shut down a lot of coal/gas generation this time of year for demand and maintenance reasons and you can’t get that stuff back up overnight. And then you have coal/gas plants that were online going dark because they weren’t built to operate in these conditions.
 

Just to give a sense of how outside the norm these temps are, something like half the state had high temps that were lower than the previous record lows. Many places his lows 15 degrees below their previous record lows.

Private vs government is a discussion worth having about utilities, but it really has nothing to do with what is happening right now.

 

*climate change could certainly make this more frequent

South of where this is in Houston has started to thaw and it’s really bad already. Many billions in damages across the state.

 

My wife works in insurance (and I used to), and these types of catastrophic events are causing claims to skyrocket. Foods, heat waves, cold waves, and storms are occurring far more frequently than in the past, and in places where they never occur. This is causing (and will continue to cause) premiums to continue to rise well beyond the rate of inflation. In some areas of the continent larger residential policies (think condo buildings) are seeing 20-100% increases annually to keep up with claims costs. That's why the insurance industry is one of the most well-aware of climate change, and in favour of taking aggressive action to combat it.

 

Honestly, it's getting to the point where national governments may soon have to step in to insure large events (they already do when insurers can't respond out of political necessity, but I'm talking about governments setting up insurance ahead of time).

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

My wife works in insurance (and I used to), and these types of catastrophic events are causing claims to skyrocket. Foods, heat waves, cold waves, and storms are occurring far more frequently than in the past, and in places where they never occur. This is causing (and will continue to cause) premiums to continue to rise well beyond the rate of inflation. In some areas of the continent larger residential policies (think condo buildings) are seeing 20-100% increases annually to keep up with claims costs. That's why the insurance industry is one of the most well-aware of climate change, and in favour of taking aggressive action to combat it.

 

Honestly, it's getting to the point where national governments may soon have to step in to insure large events (they already do when insurers can't respond out of political necessity, but I'm talking about governments setting up insurance ahead of time).

Bruh we can't even price the flood insurance program properly due to political reasons we are def not gonna get this right. 

[Guest]

On a slightly related note, I had recently been getting solar quotes and was blown away by how quickly you can recoup the investment if you install yourself. Probably 7-8 years before it is a money maker.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Air_Delivery said:

HateAlso doesn't help that much of your state is disconnected from the national grid to skirt regulations.

There is not enough generation surplus in either of the national grids to make up for what’s short in Texas. That’s how bad the situation is. Same reason Cali has rolling blackouts during crazy heatwaves.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

[Air_Delivery]

11 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

On a slightly related note, I had recently been getting solar quotes and was blown away by how quickly you can recoup the investment if you install yourself. Probably 7-8 years before it is a money maker.

 

 

There is not enough generation surplus in either of the national grids to make up for what’s short in Texas. That’s how bad the situation is. Same reason Cali has rolling blackouts during crazy heatwaves.

There is a significant difference between rolling blackouts and most of your state being without power.

[PaladinSolo]

5 minutes ago, Air_Delivery said:

There is a significant difference between rolling blackouts and most of your state being without power.

And not have enough natural gas to even turn peoples gas furnaces on even if they had power, like this is a complete disaster.

 

 

Guess which parts have access to national grids.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I have zero doubt we will see more of this:

 

Woman, child dead from carbon monoxide poisoning after trying to stay warm in Texas

WWW.NBCNEWS.COM

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Houston police said the victims were a woman and a girl. Two others, including a boy, were taken to a local hospital for treatment.

 

[ThreePi]

55 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

And not have enough natural gas to even turn peoples gas furnaces on even if they had power, like this is a complete disaster.

 

 

Guess which parts have access to national grids.

 

Push forward with Texas Secession and cut the rest of those moochers off.

[Jason]

They're also trying to blame the Green New Deal, which besides not having been passed yet, would be irrelevant anyhow since apparently the feds don't regulate the Texas power grid since it's not connected to the national network.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

They're also trying to blame the Green New Deal, which besides not having been passed yet, would be irrelevant anyhow since apparently the feds don't regulate the Texas power grid since it's not connected to the national network.

They're going to do everything in their power to push blame elsewhere

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Air_Delivery said:

There is a significant difference between rolling blackouts and most of your state being without power.

Rolling blackouts are done to prevent large swaths of the service area being without power persistently. What happened here is that 20% of our power generation capacity is wind, but the actual generation during the winter from wind accounts for an even higher percentage as oil and gas plants go offline during the winter for demand and maintenance needs. This drop in wind generation due to frozen turbines happened at the same time that normally operating gas/coal plants went offline due to current weather being outside of their operating parameters. There are no widespread transmission issues, just generation, and generation shortfalls are why rolling blackouts occur.

 

Extreme weather incidents lead to shortfalls in supply. The only difference here is that the weather didn’t just affect the demand side, it knocked out supply.

 

The generation shortfalls were so large that many grid operators couldn’t do rolling blackouts because they didn’t have enough capacity past non-essential customers to roll them. With temps rising, more generation has come back online and they are able to go back to rolling blackouts.

 

If Texas was connected to the national grids, guess what would have happened? More rolling blackouts in other parts of the grid. 
 

And my power is finally back on after 40 hours. Expecting rolling blackouts through Thursday as we have one more wave of low temps overnight but not as bad as the last two nights.

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

I mean, regardless of anything else (planned maintenance, etc), Texas has a shitshow grid that should not be allowed to exist.

[MarSolo]

Texas in January: “We’re going to secede! Biden is NOT our President.”

 

Texas in February: “Can we plz hav sum socializm Mister President Biden sir?”

[osxmatt]

 

[PaladinSolo]

Just now, osxmatt said:

 

Wind notoriously stops blowing at night.

[Air_Delivery]

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

Rolling blackouts are done to prevent large swaths of the service area being without power persistently. What happened here is that 20% of our power generation capacity is wind, but the actual generation during the winter from wind accounts for an even higher percentage as oil and gas plants go offline during the winter for demand and maintenance needs. This drop in wind generation due to frozen turbines happened at the same time that normally operating gas/coal plants went offline due to current weather being outside of their operating parameters. There are no widespread transmission issues, just generation, and generation shortfalls are why rolling blackouts occur.

 

Extreme weather incidents lead to shortfalls in supply. The only difference here is that the weather didn’t just affect the demand side, it knocked out supply.

 

The generation shortfalls were so large that many grid operators couldn’t do rolling blackouts because they didn’t have enough capacity past non-essential customers to roll them. With temps rising, more generation has come back online and they are able to go back to rolling blackouts.

 

If Texas was connected to the national grids, guess what would have happened? More rolling blackouts in other parts of the grid. 
 

And my power is finally back on after 40 hours. Expecting rolling blackouts through Thursday as we have one more wave of low temps overnight but not as bad as the last two nights.

 

 

Yes and some of that supply issue could have been mitigated with outside power. It wouldn't have solved the issue but it certainly would have  lessened the blow.

Furthermore the supply issue from other types of power other than wind isn't just due to scheduled  maintenance. The cold has taken them offline when they would have been running. To peg this as a wind only issue is disingenuous at best.

[PaladinSolo]

Meanwhile TX governor comes out and says the gas is frozen!

[SimpleG]

I mean how is they are suppose to know this kinda shit could happen , its not as if something like has happened back in 1989 or 2011.

 

 

[PaladinSolo]

 

[marioandsonic]

IS IT TIME FOR INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK?!

[thewhyteboar]

 

[PaladinSolo]

Whoopsie.

[PaladinSolo]

Frost Punk happening in TX instead of the UK is quite the twist.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Air_Delivery said:

Yes and some of that supply issue could have been mitigated with outside power. It wouldn't have solved the issue but it certainly would have  lessened the blow.

Furthermore the supply issue from other types of power other than wind isn't just due to scheduled  maintenance. The cold has taken them offline when they would have been running. To peg this as a wind only issue is disingenuous at best.

 

2 hours ago, sblfilms said:

This drop in wind generation due to frozen turbines happened at the same time that normally operating gas/coal plants went offline due to current weather being outside of their operating parameters. There are no widespread transmission issues, just generation, and generation shortfalls are why rolling blackouts occur.