dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

The t***h about the Texas Electricity Crisis



My regular newsletter comes out tomorrow, but I wanted to share with you a Twitter thread I wrote that explains, in my opinion better than anything else, what has actually happened in Texas and why.



This is my most-read Twitter thread ever, and has led to The New York Times among others reaching out to me for interviews.



Please share it far and wide! This is likely the most teachable energy moment of 2021.



https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1361691271199264770



Here's the text.



There is a lot of conflicting "information" about the TX blackouts. Here's the bottom line: the root cause of the TX blackouts is a national and state policy that has prioritized the adoption of unreliable wind/solar energy over reliable energy.



For the last decade+ policy in TX and in the US has been focused on mandating or subsidizing as much wind and solar as possible. TX has bragged about being the biggest wind generator in the US.
The TX focus on wind has come above all at the expense of coal, which has the resiliency advantage (along with nuclear) of being able to store large quantities of fuel onsite; gas mostly requires "just in time" delivery from pipelines.
“In 2009, coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed...In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent.”
Because intermittent wind and solar can always go near zero--as we saw recently in TX--they don't replace the cost of reliable power plants, they add to the cost of reliable power plants. This is why the more wind and solar grids use, the higher their electricity prices.
To lessen the price increases from "unreliables" governments try to get away with as few reliable power plants online as they can. TX is no exception. The Public Utilities Commission of TX has called their grid's margin for error ("reserve margin") “very scary.”
Additionally, the expense and distraction of accommodating "unreliables" takes away money and focus from resiliency. In CA this meant not maintaining power lines. In TX it may have meant not focusing enough on making the reliable power plants resilient enough to winter weather.
While we don't know yet what exactly caused certain gas and coal plants to go down--lack of resilience for those plants, grid mismanagement, or fuel infrastructure--we know with 100% certainty that gas and coal plants can easily run in far more adverse conditions than TX has now.
We know with 100% certainty that gas, coal, and nuclear plants can easily run in far more adverse conditions than TX has now. And we know with 100% certainty that even if no wind turbines had frozen they would have been nearly useless during large portions of recent weather.
If you are looking at the facts in TX, the obvious lesson here is: stop subsidizing and mandating unreliables--which are often useless when you need them most--and do a better job at managing reliables.
Instead of acknowledging the reality that unreliables can't keep us warm or powered in the winter--and that the "100% renewable" direction is disastrous--advocates of unreliables are instead implying that no source of electricity can be relied upon, so no need to single out wind.
Dr. Emily Grubert of GA Tech writes: "Let us be absolutely clear: if there are grid failures today, it shows the existing (largely fossil-based) system cannot handle these conditions either." Really? Ever heard of the Midwest or Canada?
We know how to produce enough low-cost, reliable electricity for every situation. You just build a whole bunch of reliable power plants, including those with on-site fuel storage--such as coal and nuclear. You place a premium on reliability and resilience. That's it.
TX is having an electricity crisis during bad winter weather because it did not focus enough on building reliable power plants and infrastructure--because it was obsessed with getting as much unreliable wind/solar electricity as possible. Let's all learn from this mistake.
Right now TX's plans include
* 0 new nuclear plants
* 0 new coal plants
* 9.4 GW wind (the existing 32 GW went to 1 GW during crucial times this week)
* 11.9 GW solar (solar was useless much of the week)
* 5.0 GW gas (to handle the unreliables)
These plans should change.
As bad as TX's plans to "rely on unreliables" are, they are nothing compared to the Biden Plan, which calls for nearly 100% solar and wind electricity by 2035! Everyone should be asking him how the hell his plan would have fared in TX this week.
TX and America need to totally change direction in energy policy toward one of energy freedom, including freedom for the wonderful but demonized and criminalized ultra-reliable, non-carbon electricity source known as nuclear.



https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-texas-green-new-deal-climate-catastrophe

Tucker Carlson: The great Texas climate catastrophe is heading your way
G***n e****y means a less reliable power grid. Why do our leaders deny that?
By Tucker Carlson

Tucker: Elites pushing 'g***n e****y' are out of touch with America
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host slams the Green New Deal after a winter storm freezes Texas wind turbines

The Green New Deal has come, believe it or not, to the state of Texas. How's it working out so far?

Well, the good news is all that alternative energy seems to have had a remarkable effect on the climate. Sunday night, parts of Texas got the temperatures that we typically see in Alaska. In fact, they were the same as they were in Alaska. So g****l w*****g is no longer a pressing concern in Houston.

The bad news is, they don't have electricity. The windmills froze, so the power grid failed. Millions of Texans woke up Monday morning having to boil their water because with no electricity, it couldn't be purified.

The ironically named Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the grid, had no solution to any of this. They simply told people to stop using so much power to keep warm. So in Houston, hundreds of shivering Texans headed to the convention center like refugees to keep from freezing to death. Some Texans almost certainly did freeze to death. Later this week, we'll likely learn just how many more were k**led as they tried to keep warm with jury-r****d heaters and barbecues and car exhaust.

That happens every time when the power goes out; even advanced societies become primitive and dangerous, and people die. We've seen it happen repeatedly in California for years now, rolling blackouts in a purportedly First World state that is slipping steadily into chaos.

But who saw that coming in Texas? If there's one thing you would think Texas would be able to do, it's keep the lights on. Most electricity comes from natural gas and Texas produces more of that than any place on the continent. There are huge natural gas deposits all over the state. Running out of energy in Texas is like starving to death at the grocery store: You can only do it on purpose, and Texas did.

Rather than celebrate and benefit from their state's vast natural resources, politicians took the fashionable route and became recklessly reliant on so-called alternative energy, meaning windmills. Fifteen years ago, there were virtually no wind farms in Texas. Last year, roughly a quarter of all electricity generated in the state came from wind. Local politicians were pleased by this. They bragged about it like there was something virtuous about destroying the landscape and degrading the power grid. Just last week, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott proudly accepted something called the Wind Leadership Award, given with gratitude by Tri Global Energy, a company getting rich from g***n e****y.

So it was all working great until the day it got cold outside. The windmills failed like the silly fashion accessories they are, and people in Texas died. This is not to beat up on the state of Texas -- it's a great state, actually -- but to give you some sense of what's about to happen to you.

Here's President Biden last month:

BIDEN, JAN. 27: In my view, we’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis ... That’s why I’m signing today an executive order to supercharge our administration['s] ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of c*****e c****e. And it is an existential threat.

"Climate crisis", "existential threat", "ambitious plan". You hear those phrases a lot and you'll notice that they are all suspiciously non-precise. So what do they mean for you? Will they mean higher energy prices? For starters, gas prices are already up, in case you haven't noticed. Electricity will follow. Higher costs hurt the weakest, inflation always does, but it's worse than that. G***n e****y inevitably means blackouts. Someday that may change as technology progresses, but as of right now and given the current state of technology, g***n e****y means a less reliable power grid. It means failures like the ones we're seeing now in Texas. That's not a talking point, that is true. It's science. So of course, they're denying it.

Here's our new climate czar taking a quick break from spewing carbon in his private jet to lecture the rest of us about a topic he personally knows nothing about: Private sector jobs and how more windmills are going to generate tons of them:

JOHN KERRY, JAN. 27: The president of the United States has expressed in every comment he has made about climate the need to grow the new jobs that pay better, that are cleaner than -- I mean, you know, you look at the consequences of black lung for a miner, for instance, and measure that against the fastest growing job in the United States before C***D [which] was solar power technician ... And similarly, you have the second fastest-growing job pre-C***D was wind turbine technician. This is happening.

The old plan, you'll remember, was coding. All the guys in pickup trucks were going to learn to code and run the Internet after we sent their jobs to China. In the end, of course, we just imported people from China to code, so that didn't actually happen. But John Kerry has another idea: High school-educated rural people are going to be wind turbine technicians. So what they used to do with t***smissions, wh**ever that was, they're going to do with windmills; put bearings in them or lube them or something.

Now, it's possible that John Kerry actually believes that. Maybe he's never been within 20 feet of a wind turbine. He definitely doesn't live near one. They don't have wind farms in Aspen or Martha's Vineyard and they're not getting them. John Kerry himself once fought to keep wind farms out of sight of his summer house on Nantucket. That's hypocritical, but it's not surprising.

People who support wind farms, as a rule, live very far from wind farms. People who live near wind farms have a totally different view, and why wouldn't they? How would you like a massive power plant in your backyard humming and buzzing and chopping up birds? That's what a wind turbine is. If you're ever in rural America, go see one for yourself. You'll be shocked by how awful it is once you get up close. Your first thought may be, "This is supposed to be good for the environment."

How Biden climate policies could impact 2022 races Video
Wind farms are one of those ideas you can only support if you don't know too much about them, and maybe that's why there's never been mass popular support for them. No large group of citizens has ever demanded that some Goldman Sachs company destroy the natural environment with Chinese-made windmills that don't work when it's cold out. Wait, more expensive and much less reliable? Ugly, inefficient and made by people who h**e us? And we can k**l endangered species? I'd like some of that. In fact, make it a double.

No one anywhere has ever said that, but it doesn't matter because g***n e****y is the ultimate inside game. A tiny number of people profit from it due to government subsidies and regulated prices. Everyone else gets a moral lecture about c*****e c****e and anyone who complains about any of it gets called a N**i by Cory Booker.

The problem is that demagogues like Cory Booker have no earthly idea what a wind farm is. They don't know how to run a power grid, or anything else, for that matter. They talk, they brag, but they don't build anything, much less fix or maintain it. They can't, they have no sk**ls. If you don't believe that, take a look at what they have done to our cities.

Not a single major American city is prettier or more functional than it was in 1950. The parks that previous generations so lovingly built are filled with vagrants and junkies. The monuments they constructed are covered with spray paint. Public t***sportation is a disgrace. It's filthy, the streets are dangerous. Are you really surprised that Cory Booker was once the mayor of Newark, N.J.? You shouldn't be.

Cory Booker couldn't fix your ice maker, much less understand your wind farm. None of these people can. It's bad enough that they control the sociology department over at your local community college. But the power grid? No way. They can't get within a hundred yards of it.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the Feb. 15, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight".

JW

Good luck, you are dealing with a movement that has become a religion. Logic, experience and facts are meaningless when placed against the GREEN dogma.

PeterS

What a crock. The generating plants themselves began to trip off because they hadn't been winterized. This didn't happen to one form of electrical power but to ALL forms of electrical power.

"Beginning around 11:00 p.m. [Sunday night], multiple generating units began tripping off-line in rapid progression due to the severe cold weather," said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at ERCOT, the organization that manages the state’s electric grid.

What does that mean? Equipment literally froze in the single-digit temperatures and stopped working.

"There are things that can be done, but it will cost some money," he added. "About every decade we have these long-sustained periods. And then, you know weatherization is supposed to happen, and then, it doesn't because it costs money."

Did you catch that or did highlighting it in red not draw your attention to it! This is the same ole bulls**t as usual--it's going to cost money so the producers aren't going to do it--and of course, Texans being largely conservatives are going to blame the liberal boogeyman and All Texans will get screwed over all while Conservative politicians twiddle their thumbs and nothing is done to prevent it from happening again in the future.

So once again, conservatives are going to insist that nothing works all so they can make progress the fall guy.

Smedley_buzkill

Not progress. Progressives. They do a pretty good job of tripping themselves up; they hardly ever require an assist.

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

Texas is not connected in with the electric grid with the rest of the USA. They are their own grid entirely because they wanted it that way. Most of their power come from natural gas and coal. Wind is a small percentage of the electrical output for the state. The gauges and switches on their electrical plants froze up and they could not operate. That is what happened.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

I live on Colorado and in the last week alone we have had 42” of snow and single digit temps with Minus temps at night ranging from 0 to -15* true temps not wind driven temps... We did not lose electricity once and only Loveland Pass had a Sunday electric roll over for 6 hrs at one hour intervals .... Coal and natural gas are the primary fuels used to generate electricity in Colorado... Coal fired power plants provides about half of the state's net generation and natural gas provides one-third.... No nuclear plants here... Big push on solar panels right now but not selling up like they want to see..We were asked to help conserve electric, only use what you needed.. My three fire places helped too.. Then again, I don’t have to be asked to conserve... My sister in Chicago sent me this picture of their 5 days of snow.. Illinois is nuclear power based source 11 power plants, yup, 11, I lived there before coming here.. They did not Experience any power failures either or roll overs that she spike of anyway.. Did say no, they did not when I asked.. Was worried she may have been without. if Chi~Town didn’t go down, no place else would have...etc.. Guess both states securing their power sources properly speaks volumes to what Texas did not do or consider..Along with our more reliable and cheaper source of powering up and knowing solar just is not as reliable and creates its own waste and pollution when it comes time to change them out....

She tried digging out from her garage but alas could not..


All this snow and freeze but we stayed “ lit up”

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Thats very true and is independent more for political reasons from what I understand..

Seems Abbott is a bit ticked off; Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather. This is unacceptable," Abbott said. "Reviewing the pr********ns and decisions by ERCOT is an emergency item so we can get a full picture of what caused this problem and find long-term solutions."

Still, sounds like “its passing the buck time” being sure he and their legislatures aren’t hung out to dry or freeze from the nearest pole!!!

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

You mean they don’t know about winterizing equipment???? That's all it is?? Wonder why they Didnt think about that??? Pretty lame, eh??

Do you think other states that got shut down had the same issue??

When the hell did weather become a political issue? Not c*****e c****e I mean actual weather.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

https://poweroutage.us/
PowerOutage.us is an ongoing project created to track, record, and aggregate power outages across the united states. Find out more on our About page.
Click on a state to see more information.
Data is updated site wide approximately every ten minutes.

Top Areas by Outages
Texas 2,975,429
Oregon 164,669
Kentucky 100,408
West Virginia 71,571
Louisiana 45,670
Last Updated
2/17/2021, 05:09:25 AM

bylm1-Bernie

Sorry to inform you, Pete, but this mess is here BECAUSE of the liberal policies of subsidizing unreliable power. No matter how much BS you putt out about winterizing them is going to change the fact that they are unreliable and aren't going to change. Do you think that putting anti-freeze in the generators is going to stop the blades from icing? This really isn't a liberal/conservative issue other than the fact that liberals seem to find common sense in short supply when it comes to the Green New Deal. If AOC is the type of person you want to have making these decisions, then have at it.

DaWg44

Pety, he is a liberal/l*****t. I worked in generating plants for years, coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear. There is clean coal, mining no longer causes black lung, natural gas is clean, nuclear package plants make the most sense economically.

Winterizing machinery from temps they had in Texas requires massive amounts of heat which can come only from electricity, catch 22, where is it coming from?

In the 60’s-70’s our grid was in danger. With new technology it got more reliable until all the greenies started demanding plant closures instead of retrofit. Now the whole nation is in jeopardy if we have simultaneous failures at 3 places at the same time.

Do greenies think the Chinese equipment we buy is better than the same junk Europe is buying? Do they think just because they want it, g***n e****y is going to work better here than in Europe where they are building power plants to support the damn wind farms & solar but we don’t need them because these fools think we don’t need them?

We have 3 generations of loud mouth stupid citizens & the shysters who get rich off any subsidies, encouraging their insane rants. The darker side to this is more taxes, higher costs, for people who cannot afford it.

John Kerry is a lot of things, none of them good in any way, from his track record in life, has a stepson milking the Government just like Biden’s boy, but there is one thing he definitely is not. He is not qualified to even step in a power plant of any kind, should have to spend a week living next to a wind farm, spend a week polishing solar cells.

The problem with man made c*****e c****e nutcases, greenies, all environmental zealots is a lack of common sense. Anyone with common sense investigates a topic before committing an entire countries’ GPD to it. These 3
generations have no concept of the most basic facts of nature, much less basic mechanics, physics, chemistry. Most of them are used to getting what they want, when they want it from mommy or daddy. They are whiz's on cell phones, computers but can’t understand why they can’t work, not really work but perform from home, if they have a maintenance technician job. Work ethic is non-existent anything with a specific deadline is anathema & unfair to them.

We are all going to have electric vehicles, forget that an electric vehicle creates a carbon footprint by its manufacture equal to five years of a conventional vehicle. & much more, worse, environmental & social damage in poor countries from mining. We are border line on electricity obviously, but we are going to magically produce enough more for cars trucks, trains, planes, all heat,
hot water.

Back when they had the blackouts in NY, there was a engineer that explained in detail the vulnerabilities of our grid. I was cringing the whole time he was talking, the information he was sharing w/ the world. He gave a step by step guide to how to destroy America’s grid, everything except the specific timing required. Since then we have completely eliminated 10 % of the capability we had back then to handle routine shortages & virtually all ability to deal with massive events.

I think I have figured out which “we the people” you think you represent, the ones who want to destroy this country out of greed, yes, greenies are extremely greedy, as greedy as bankers & Wall Street, & stupid about reality.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Exceptionally well said and obviously you do speak from experience along with knowledge.

Thank you for your objective overview and what is really going on I couldn’t agree more....

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

I have relatives in Salem Oregon. They tell me the city was hit hard and looks like a battle zone. They have been without power 4 days now and have a day or two more to go. My aunt has a gas fireplace and she is alright. My cousins are holed up with an uncle who has wood heat and a generator. I am here on the coast feeling blessed but I remember the first week of February 1989 when it snowed and was 5 below for a week. I volunteered to drive people who worked at the hospital to and from work. Most people here don't know how to drive in snow.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Two more days to go is WTH time... I hope all have some way to keep warm, layered clothes, fire places, a grill to cook on outside if needed etc..Terrible,Tom.. I think I would have some wood-burning stove’s around too.. I have one of those, an antique, but I don’t use it, just love looking at it...

Curious, what is Oregons main source of electricity??

Weewillynobeerspilly Loc: North central Texas

day 3 with no power provided, maybe tomorrow..... who cares..... poor me with only 8500 watts backup power and 130, 000 BTUs of heat ... ... i like it. Emergency power and heat is like ammo. ..... can't never have enough when ya need it