No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages

[Godfather]

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.

Winter Storm 2021

As Texas faced record-low temperatures this February and snow and ice made roads impassable, the state’s electric grid operator lost control of the power supply, leaving millions without access to electricity. As the blackouts extended from hours to days, top state lawmakers called for investigations into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and Texans demanded accountability for the disaster. We have compiled a list of resources for Texans who are seeking help, or places to get warm. More in this series

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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.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas projected that 80% of the grid's winter capacity, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power.

An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, were offline. Nearly double that, 30 gigawatts, had been lost from thermal sources, which includes gas, coal and nuclear energy.

By Wednesday, those numbers had changed as more operators struggled to operate in the cold: 45 gigawatts total were offline, with 28 gigawats from thermal sources and 18 gigawatts from renewable sources, ERCOT officials said.

“Texas is a gas state,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

While Webber said all of Texas’ energy sources share blame for the power crisis, the natural gas industry is most notably producing significantly less power than normal.

https://i.imgur.com/XLKslFD.png

“Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now,” Webber said.

Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, echoed that sentiment Tuesday.

“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” he said during a Tuesday call with reporters.

Still, some have focused their blame on wind power.

“This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.”

He went on to note the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Bay City because of the cold and finally got to what energy experts say is the biggest culprit, writing, “Low Supply of Natural Gas: ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we ran out of the ability to get natural gas. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation —so things were freezing.”

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, known for his right-wing Facebook posts that have, in the past, spread misinformation and amplified conspiracy theories, also posted an unvarnished view of wind energy on Facebook: “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas."

In another post, Miller was even more forthright, but also misleading. “Insult added to injury: Those ugly wind turbines out there are among the main reasons we are experiencing electricity blackouts,” he wrote. “Isn’t that ironic? ... So much for the unsightly and unproductive, energy-robbing Obama Monuments. At least they show us where idiots live.”

While wind power skeptics claimed the week’s freeze means wind power can’t be relied upon, wind turbines — like natural gas plants — can be “winterized,” or modified to operate during very low temperatures. Experts say that many of Texas’ power generators have not made those investments necessary to prevent disruptions to equipment since the state does not regularly experience extreme winter storms.

It’s estimated that of the grid’s total winter capacity, about 80% of it, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power. Only 7% of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.

Production of natural gas in the state has plunged due to the freezing conditions, making it difficult for power plants to get the fuel necessary to run the plants. Natural gas power plants usually don’t have very much fuel storage on site, experts said. Instead, the plants rely on the constant flow of natural gas from pipelines that run across the state from areas like the oil and natural gas-producing Permian Basin in West Texas to major demand centers like Houston and Dallas.

Gov. Greg Abbott specified that fossil fuel sources were contributing to the problems with the grid when describing the situation Monday afternoon.

“The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas & coal generators,” he wrote in a tweet.

Heather Zichal, CEO of the industry group the American Clean Power Association, said opponents of renewable energy were trying to distract from the failures elsewhere in the system and slow the “transition to a clean energy future.”

“It is disgraceful to see the longtime antagonists of clean power — who attack it whether it is raining, snowing or the sun is shining — engaging in a politically opportunistic charade, misleading Americans to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with restoring power to Texas communities,” she said.

[KevinD]

What a bunch of crap.

[DemonGeminiX]

I don't know, GF. I've got a few friends in Texas that are saying it is because of the wind turbines.

[lost in melb.]

A couple more bullcrap articles full of liberal lies...

Texas seceded from the nation’s power grid. Now it’s paying the price.

The state’s unique electrical system worked well for decades — but it wasn’t ready for unexpected cold
Image without a caption
Millions of people are without electricity after winter storms in Texas. (Cooper Neill/Bloomberg)
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By
Julie A. Cohn
Julie A. Cohn is a historian of energy, technology and the environment, affiliated with both the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and the University of Houston’s Center for Public History.
Feb. 18, 2021 at 1:41 a.m. GMT+10:30
Writing from in front of my gas fireplace, wearing multiple layers of clothing and sipping a hot beverage, I await the end of this week’s apocalyptic winter storm and the return of reliable electric power. I am contemplating the grid — the term we use to describe a collection of generating plants, transmission lines, substations, and sometimes even the smaller distribution lines and electric meters that transform gas, coal, falling water, uranium, wind and sunlight into usable electricity and bring it to our homes and workplaces. When asking how the Texas grid operator happened to fail so miserably at keeping people here warm and well-lit for the past couple of days, though, we get so much wrong. There’s a big picture, and a Texas picture, and both illuminate some of what is happening.

First, the big picture: The grid is shorthand for a collection of technologies owned and operated by thousands of entities — from government agencies to homeowners with rooftop solar panels. There are, in the contiguous United States, three major interconnected systems — one covering everything east of the Rocky Mountains, one for everything west of the Rocky Mountains, one for Texas. The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection are made up of multiple grid operators and dozens of smaller networks that serve power needs through continuous coordination, across state lines when necessary. In Texas, we have one grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), one control area, hundreds of infrastructure owners and lots of coordination to make it work. So the casual use of the term “the grid” results in the common misconception that everything is under the control of, say, an electricity czar. But in the United States, even the federal government does not have that role. When something goes wrong, as happened here this week, it is a mistake to look in one direction for one culpable party.

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Then there’s the Texas picture. There are three things to remember: The power system that serves 95 percent of the state is intentionally isolated from the rest of the country; our competitive wholesale power market offers scant incentives for investment in backup power, and Texas generally does not have winter storms like this one.

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Let’s start 80 years ago. During World War II, America needed lots of power to build planes, tanks, bombs and other war materiel. Power companies and the federal government alike focused on expanding interconnections among power systems as the fastest and cheapest way to meet defense needs. In 1941, Texas investor-owned utilities did their part by connecting into two networks serving the northern and southern parts of the state. Congress had already given the Federal Power Commission (now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) authority to regulate interstate power sales. Texas didn’t have any state level regulation of power companies, and the utilities liked it that way. They also didn’t want federal regulation. So they were pretty careful to avoid selling or buying power across state lines. With two time zones, every type of generating resource and lots of different kinds of customers, Texas utilities were able to achieve economies of scale and power-sharing efficiencies — all within the state’s borders.

We already knew how to reduce damage from floods. We just didn’t do it.

In 1970, the Texas utilities formed ERCOT to comply with reliability guidelines established in the wake of the nation’s first devastating power failure — the 1965 Northeast Blackout. In 1981, ERCOT took over as the grid operator. Between 1996 and 2005, the state legislature passed laws to create a competitive wholesale power market, increase renewables with hard targets and invest in new transmission infrastructure. These decisions created a very friendly environment for renewables, and as a result, Texas leads the nation in wind power and in renewables of all kinds. But the success of these initiatives hinged somewhat on the autonomy of the Texas grid: The state could set goals, foster investment and expand transmission without input from other state or federal agencies. In a sense, this is the beauty of ERCOT’s isolation.

Other factors also contribute to the unique characteristics of Texas’s power system. First, the state’s fleet of generators has been shifting gradually but steadily from coal-fired to natural gas-fired and wind-powered plants. This winter, Texans are depending far more on wind turbines and gas-fired power plants than on coal. Second, the way the state’s wholesale power market works, utilities have very few incentives for investment in backup power. The state does not say to a generator, “Please build us some extra backup power plants, and we will charge that cost to our customers.” Instead, the market allows a generator to charge excessively high prices when available supply falls short — which, for an investor, could be a long shot. As a result, ERCOT’s backup power, called the spinning reserve, is lower than most other areas in the United States.

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So this week, when temperatures dropped to all-time lows across the state, wind turbines that have not been winterized froze. Gas-fired plants that hadn’t been winterized, either, tripped offline, too, taking out far more of the state’s generation capacity than the wind accounted for. And while ERCOT had anticipated rolling blackouts and warned customers to reduce power use and expect brief outages, the demand for power far exceeded the available supply, leaving millions of us stuck in the dark and the cold.

How Texas's independent power grid failed under pressure
Texas's independent power grid was crippled under high demand and damaging weather after a historic cold snap hit the U.S. over Presidents' Day weekend. (John Farrell/The Washington Post)
Now where shall we point our frigid fingers?

The highly centralized, isolated power grid has served Texas really well for many decades. It allowed us to accelerate renewables development and, notably, to avoid cascading blackouts — of the sort that plagued the Northeast in 1965, 1977 and 2003. But this week, it means we are unable to import large amounts of power from the gigantic eastern and western interconnections when we need it.

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We don’t have a large enough backup system for when power demand shoots way up, or when our regular generators go offline, as they did this week. It is a problem that plagues ERCOT every year as the hottest part of the summer approaches. This is the fault of our wholesale market structure. Of course, additional reserve power may not have been sufficient to offset our losses over the past two days, but surely it would have helped. The cost of these extra power plants that will sit idle for most of the time wouldn’t be so bad if shared by everyone connected to ERCOT. Instead, based on how the Texas wholesale market works, backup plants charged an eye-popping $9,000/mwh rate this week (the price was $30/mwh just six days ago, a more typical rate).

Who suffers when disasters strike? The poorest and most vulnerable.

Ultimately, this outage, like many of the biggest blackouts before it, reflects the challenge of unanticipated events and consequences. In 1965, power system experts felt sure they had built in enough redundancy to prevent any cascading power failure from ever happening. But they did not envision the way dozens of different operators would respond when one relay setting caused unexpected power movement across the networks. In Texas, we know that our summers will be exceedingly hot, pushing our power system to the limit, but the last time it was this cold was in 1989, and this year’s winter storms will last longer. Our wind turbines do not have the cold protection that turbines do in the cold north. Our overall system is not winterized. The conditions of this cold front and its effects on the power system were simply beyond what power experts generally planned for.

From my chilly living room, I can reflect on our state’s unique approach to power systems, both the benefits and the shortfalls, and simply hope that we will learn quickly from this weather event. No doubt there will be accusations, investigations, pontifications and extrapolations in the weeks and months to come. Surely, we can plan for our weather extremes more effectively, winterize our system more thoroughly, back up our renewables more completely, and (dare I say it?) ask customers to pay more for resiliency. I imagine there are a few million Texans ready to chip in right now. And maybe we can even reconsider links east and west to facilitate sharing more power when it gets really, really hot or really, really cold. Texans shouldn’t have to start shopping for generators to prepare for the next hot summer or winter storm.

[lost in melb.]

Why Wind Turbines In Cold Climates Don’t Freeze: De-Icing And Carbon Fiber


https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/711x474/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/602c918c272af9840c92b388/960x0.jpg?fit=scale
Scott CarpenterSenior ContributorEnergy
I write about energy and commodities, from renewable energy to coal.


The failure of roughly half of the wind turbines in Texas earlier this week isn’t the biggest cause of a power shortage crisis that has left one-third of Texans without power in historic freezing conditions.


Frozen infrastructure at gas and coal power stations, such as pipelines, are the main culprit. Of the total amount of power that suffered outages, wind accounted for only some 13%, a far smaller share than accounted for by coal, gas and nuclear plants.

Still, wind power is a major resource in Texas: it supplied 23% of the state’s electricity in 2020, second only to the 40% share by natural gas, and had been producing a larger share than normal before the widespread outages. Wind has also attracted an outsize share of blame for the Texas fiasco, including a Wall Street Journal editorial that attacked its susceptibility to the freezing weather as another sign of its unreliability.

So it’s fair to ask: why don’t wind turbines fail all the time in colder climates, such as Canada, Sweden or the American Midwest?

The answer, in short, is that turbines in colder places are typically equipped with de-icing and other tools, such as built-in heating. In Texas, where the weather is almost never this cold, they usually are not.

“Cold weather kits can keep [wind turbines] operating when temperatures plunge. This is the norm in colder states and in Europe,” said Samuel Brock, a spokesman for the American Clean Power Association. “Historically in Texas, given the warm climate, it hasn’t been necessary.”

In Canada, where wind turbines can experience icing up to 20% of the time in winter months, special “cold weather packages” are installed to provide heating to turbine components such as the gearbox, yaw and pitch motors and battery, according to the Canadian government. This can allow them to operate in temperatures down to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius).

To prevent icing on rotor blades — which cause the blades to catch air less efficiently and to generate less power — heating and water-resistant coatings are used.

One Swedish company, Skellefteå Kraft, which has experimented with operating wind turbines in the Arctic, coats turbine blades with thin layers of carbon fiber which are then heated to prevent ice from forming. Another method used by the company is to circulate hot air inside the blades.

Major wind turbine manufacturers, such as General Electric GE or Denmark’s Vestas, regularly equip their turbines with such cold weather gear.

[lost in melb.]

Texas leaders failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable to winter extremes, experts say


Texas officials knew winter storms could leave the state’s power grid vulnerable, but they left the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies — many of which opted against the costly upgrades. That, plus a deregulated energy market largely isolated from the rest of the country’s power grid, left the state alone to deal with the crisis, experts said.

Millions of Texans have gone days without power or heat in subfreezing temperatures brought on by snow and ice storms. Limited regulations on companies that generate power and a history of isolating Texas from federal oversight help explain the crisis, energy and policy experts told The Texas Tribune.

While Texas Republicans were quick to pounce on renewable energy and to blame frozen wind turbines, the natural gas, nuclear and coal plants that provide most of the state’s energy also struggled to operate during the storm. Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the energy grid operator for most of the state, said that the state’s power system was simply no match for the deep freeze.

“Nuclear units, gas units, wind turbines, even solar, in different ways — the very cold weather and snow has impacted every type of generator,” said Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT.

Energy and policy experts said Texas’ decision not to require equipment upgrades to better withstand extreme winter temperatures, and choice to operate mostly isolated from other grids in the U.S. left power system unprepared for the winter crisis.

Policy observers blamed the power system failure on the legislators and state agencies who they say did not properly heed the warnings of previous storms or account for more extreme weather events warned of by climate scientists. Instead, Texas prioritized the free market.

“Clearly we need to change our regulatory focus to protect the people, not profits,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, a now-retired former director of Public Citizen, an Austin-based consumer advocacy group who advocated for changes after in 2011 when Texas faced a similar energy crisis.

“Instead of taking any regulatory action, we ended up getting guidelines that were unenforceable and largely ignored in [power companies’] rush for profits,” he said.

It is possible to “winterize” natural gas power plants, natural gas production, wind turbines and other energy infrastructure, experts said, through practices like insulating pipelines. These upgrades help prevent major interruptions in other states with regularly cold weather.

Lessons from 2011

In 2011, Texas faced a very similar storm that froze natural gas wells and affected coal plants and wind turbines, leading to power outages across the state. A decade later, Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent plants from tripping offline during extreme cold, experts said.

Woodfin, of ERCOT, acknowledged that there’s no requirement to prepare power infrastructure for such extremely low temperatures. “Those are not mandatory, it’s a voluntary guideline to decide to do those things,” he said. “There are financial incentives to stay online, but there is no regulation at this point.”

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which has some authority to regulate power generators in the U.S., is currently developing mandatory standards for “winterizing” energy infrastructure, a spokesperson said.

Texas politicians and regulators were warned after the 2011 storm that more “winterizing” of power infrastructure was necessary, a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation shows. The large number of units that tripped offline or couldn’t start during that storm “demonstrates that the generators did not adequately anticipate the full impact of the extended cold weather and high winds,” regulators wrote at the time. More thorough preparation for cold weather could have prevented the outages, the report said.

“This should have been addressed in 2011 by the Legislature after that market meltdown, but there was no substantial follow up,” by state politicians or regulators, said Ed Hirs, an energy fellow and economics professor at the University of Houston. “They skipped on down the road with business as usual.”

ERCOT officials said that some generators implemented new winter practices after the freeze a decade ago, and new voluntary “best practices” were adopted. Woodfin said that during subsequent storms, such as in 2018, it appeared that those efforts worked. But he said this storm was even more extreme than regulators anticipated based on models developed after the 2011 storm. He acknowledged that any changes made were “not sufficient to keep these generators online,” during this storm.

After temperatures plummeted and snow covered large parts of the state Sunday night, ERCOT warned increased demand might lead to short-term, rolling blackouts. Instead, huge portions of the largest cities in Texas went dark and have remained without heat or power for days. On Tuesday, nearly 60% of Houston households and businesses were without power. Of the total installed capacity to the electric grid, about 40% went offline during the storm, Woodfin said.

Climate wake-up call

Climate scientists in Texas agree with ERCOT leaders that this week’s storm was unprecedented in some ways. They also say it’s evidence that Texas is not prepared to handle an increasing number of more volatile and more extreme weather events.

“We cannot rely on our past to guide our future,” said Dev Niyogi, a geosciences professor at the University of Texas at Austin who previously served as the state climatologist for Indiana. He noted that previous barometers are becoming less useful as states see more intense weather covering larger areas for prolonged periods of time. He said climate scientists want infrastructure design to consider a “much larger spectrum of possibilities” rather than treating these storms as a rarity, or a so-called “100-year event.”

Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist at Texas Tech University, highlighted a 2018 study that showed how a warming Arctic is creating more severe polar vortex events. “It’s a wake up call to say, ‘What if these are getting more frequent?’” Hayhoe said. “Moving forward, that gives us even more reason to be more prepared in the future.”

Hayhoe and Niyogi acknowledged there's uncertainty about the connection between climate change and cold air outbreaks from the Arctic. However, they emphasize there is higher certainty that other extreme weather events such as drought, flooding and heat waves are due to a warming climate.

Other Texas officials looked beyond ERCOT. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins argued that the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry — a remit that includes natural gas wells and pipelines — prioritized commercial customers over residents by not requiring equipment to be better equipped for cold weather. The RRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Other states require you to have cold weather packages on your generation equipment and require you to use, either through depth or through materials, gas piping that is less likely to freeze," Jenkins said.

Texas’ electricity market is also deregulated, meaning that no one company owns all the power plants, transmission lines and distribution networks. Instead, several different companies generate and transmit power, which they sell on the wholesale market to yet more players. Those power companies in turn are the ones that sell to homes and businesses. Policy experts disagree on whether a different structure would have helped Texas navigate these outages. “I don’t think deregulation itself is necessarily the thing to blame here,” said Josh Rhodes, a research associate at University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute.

History of isolation

Texas’ grid is also mostly isolated from other areas of the country, a set up designed to avoid federal regulation. It has some connectivity to Mexico and to the Eastern U.S. grid, but those ties have limits on what they can transmit. The Eastern U.S. is also facing the same winter storm that is creating a surge in power demand. That means that Texas has been unable to get much help from other areas.

“If you’re going to say you can handle it by yourself, step up and do it,” said Hirs, the UH energy fellow, of the state’s pursuit of an independent grid with a deregulated market. “That’s the incredible failure.”

Rhodes, of UT Austin, said Texas policy makers should consider more connections to the rest of the country. That, he acknowledged, could come at a higher financial cost — and so will any improvements to the grid to prevent future disasters. There’s an open question as to whether Texas leadership will be willing to fund, or politically support, any of these options.

“We need to have a conversation about if we believe that we’re going to have more weather events like this,” Rhodes said. “On some level, it comes down to if you want a more resilient grid, we can build it, it will just cost more money. What are you willing to pay? We’re going to have to confront that.”

Texas Tech University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

[lost in melb.]

From my (diverse) reading it was a failure to "winterize" energy production across every modality plus grid isolation that caused the cascade of power failures in Texas. With the expectation for more frequent extreme weather I'm guessing the voluntary recommendation to for power producers to winterize will become mandatory.

[lost in melb.]

What a bunch of crap.


I don't know, GF. I've got a few friends in Texas that are saying it is because of the wind turbines.

If that's true, then fine. But if it isn't, when the next major storm hits it will all happen again. Truth matters, whatever it is...

[KevinD]

Amazing. Thank Lost for your input. While some of what you've posted is true, the main culprits are the state legislators, Ercot, etc. These fine folks made the decisions to "lead the nation" in renewable energy, and, here the important part, they mandated that existing coal, hydro and gas plant be shut down and decommissioned. I can first hand guarantee that the wind mills are not winterized. I see them frozen (there are hundreds if not thousands of them in West Texas where I work) its very common, 2-3 times a year for them to freeze. Usually when that happens, there's not a major storm system that freezes all of Texas, thus the other existing plants can keep up.
Gonna sound a little bit conspiracy theorists now, but if you take the time to see what, when, and who made these changes over the last 3 decades, you'd see that it's designed to fail. Possibly to push to join other national grids.

[lost in melb.]

Amazing. Thank Lost for your input. While some of what you've posted is true, the main culprits are the state legislators, Ercot, etc. These fine folks made the decisions to "lead the nation" in renewable energy, and, here the important part, they mandated that existing coal, hydro and gas plant be shut down and decommissioned. I can first hand guarantee that the wind mills are not winterized. I see them frozen (there are hundreds if not thousands of them in West Texas where I work) its very common, 2-3 times a year for them to freeze. Usually when that happens, there's not a major storm system that freezes all of Texas, thus the other existing plants can keep up.
Gonna sound a little bit conspiracy theorists now, but if you take the time to see what, when, and who made these changes over the last 3 decades, you'd see that it's designed to fail. Possibly to push to join other national grids.

Thanks Kev. What out-of-state and young journalists miss of course is the whole saga and the history behind it.

I do feel like there's a bigger story here, as you've said. Very hard to get non-partisan news. Objective news sources in the middle seem to get punished by both sides.

I feel like this would be a good read, but it's behind a paywall

https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

[lost in melb.]

Gonna sound a little bit conspiracy theorists now, but if you take the time to see what, when, and who made these changes over the last 3 decades, you'd see that it's designed to fail. Possibly to push to join other national grids.

Interesting! It wouldn't surprise me, as it's an easy 'out'. Are there any major cons to joining the other networks?

[DemonGeminiX]

Interesting! It wouldn't surprise me, as it's an easy 'out'. Are there any major cons to joining the other networks?

As conspiracy theorist as this sounds, if Texas gives up grid control to a national system, then those that are in control of the national system could conceivably use that control to bend Texas to their will.

[lost in melb.]

In any other country I would dismiss this. But in the US you might be right

A reasonable take on the politics of blame:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/18/politics/what-matters-february-18/index.html

[DemonGeminiX]

In any other country I would dismiss this. But in the US you might be right

A reasonable take on the politics of blame:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/18/politics/what-matters-february-18/index.html

Believe it or not, it's actually a thing in the US for the federal government to withhold funds from states to get them to change policy. That's how the legal age of drinking became 21 nationwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act

[KevinD]

Its how "national" speed limits were forced to 55mph, its how the feds forced seatbelt laws, department of education laws, abortion laws

on and on.
Lost, it might be hard for you to see as an outsider, but this type of strong-arm stuff by the feds is what has pissed me of for years. I'd assume its similar for others here. Past history is a great indicator of future trends, yes? Its part and parcel why we assume the worst. We've seen it all too often.

"Don't worry, we're from the government and here to help.".

[KevinD]

Oh, and I'm seeing a bunch of reports from the liberal media that they are blaming to entire problem on the deregulation of Texas energy (started Jan 1, 2002) and Republicans. Here's a good primer on deregulation:
https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/guide-texas-electricity-deregulation/
Pay attention to those timeliness, then have a look at which parties were in charge of governorship, state senate and house. Might be some good reading.

[FBD]

surely just a (((coincidence)))


From 2009 -2019, China has manufactured 200 of our transformers, supplying 60% of our power grid.


May 1, 2020 order, President Trump stated that

“the United States should no longer purchase transformers and other electric grid equipment manufactured in China. He signaled that it is important to end relationships that U.S. utilities have directly with Chinese businesses and multi-national companies manufacturing transformers in China, which are later plugged into the electric grid in the United States.

Chinese power equipment can be embedded with software and hardware that can be remotely accessed, enhancing China’s ability to commit cyberattacks. Because power transformers are huge and weigh between 100 and 400 tons, it is not easy to identify embedded software or hardware. There is also a potential hardware risk since counterfeit items can be easily put into large power transformers.”


Here below is the snippet buried in Biden’s Keystone pipeline EO.

“c) Executive Order 13920 of May 1, 2020 (Securing the United States Bulk-Power System), is hereby suspended for 90 days. The Secretary of Energy and the Director of OMB shall jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued.”

>Biden allows China into power grid
>Texas power grid goes down

[deebakes]

did china send the ice storm? :?

[FBD]

no, but it appears that a letter was sent from ercot to DoE asking for an exemption for fuggin greenhouse gas emissions that they'd pass if they ran more....do you think it was approved :lol:

http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/lists/225167/DOE_202c__final_.pdf

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%20202%28c%29%20Emergency%20Order%20-%20ERCOT%2002.14.2021.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/


The order shows Acting Energy Secretary David Huizenga did not waive environmental restrictions to allow for maximum energy output, instead ordering ERCOT to utilize all resources in order to stay within acceptable emissions standards – including purchasing energy from outside the state

Grid usage>grid power = grid goes down - thanks to god damned emissions mandates.

This is how "Climate Change" actually causes deaths - the bureaucrats make sure it happens. Blood on Biden Admin's hands already.

This is why a big deal was being made about the outsiders in ercot - they could have said fuck it we'll just deal with the penalties, crank up the power - but they didnt and are complicit too.

[lost in melb.]

I'm reading that power companies are charging people $5,000 for a few days electricity in Texas. They either pay up or they get disconnected. Just, wow. I'm sorry but O.I.A

[FBD]

I'm reading that power companies are charging people $5,000 for a few days electricity in Texas. They either pay up or they get disconnected. Just, wow. I'm sorry but O.I.A

One outstanding feature of Globalist Clown World is that the plebes are financially stomped at every available opportunity

[Pony]

I'm reading that power companies are charging people $5,000 for a few days electricity in Texas. They either pay up or they get disconnected. Just, wow. I'm sorry but O.I.A

Smells like BS to me.

[lost in melb.]

Smells like BS to me.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2021/02/20/griddy-customers-face-5000-bills-for-5-freezing-days-in-texas/

Update Saturday morning: The state public utilities commission and Gov. Greg Abbott both said Saturday that they are taking steps to assist residents getting high electric bills.

Some Texans are facing yet another crisis: how to pay enormous electric bills.

The Texas power supplier Griddy, which sells unusual plans with prices tied to the spot price of power on the Texas grid, warned its customers over the weekend that their bills would rise significantly during the storm and that they should switch providers.

Some quickly looked into doing that but found the actual changeover of service wouldn’t happen for days.

Now customers say they never dreamed they’d be billed in the four figures for five days of service.

Karen Cosby said her cost is $5,000 for usage since Saturday at her 2,700-square-foot house in Rockwall.

DeAndre Upshaw of Dallas said the electric bill for his 900-square-foot, two-story townhouse was also $5,000.

Other customers on social media expressed frustration with similar bills from Griddy, the power supplier that told its 29,000 customers on Saturday, after spot electricity prices soared, to quickly shift out of its network and find a new supplier.

Those spot prices hit $9,000 per megawatt-hour. That means $9 for a kilowatt-hour that usually costs Cosby around 7 cents, and sometimes as little as 2 cents.

etc...

[FBD]

see Page 3 Department of Energy Order No. 202-21-1 that I posted above,

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%20202%28c%29%20Emergency%20Order%20-%20ERCOT%2002.14.2021.pdf


In furtherance of the foregoing and, in each case, subject to the exhaustion of all available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions available to support grid reliability: (i)with respect to any Specified Resource that is an ERCOT Generation Resource or Settlement Only Generator whose operator notifies ERCOT that the unit is unable, or expected to be unable, to produce at its maximum output due to an emission or effluent limit in any federal environmental permit, ERCOT shall ensure that such Specified Resourceis only allowed to exceed any such limit during a period for which ERCOT has declared an Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) Level 2 or Level 3. This incremental amount of restricted capacity would be offered at a price no lower than $1,500/MWh. Once ERCOT declares that such an EEA Level 2 or Level 3 event has ended, the unit is required to immediately return to operation within its permitted limits; and

Raise your hand when you realize this is also because of Biden enviro nazis

=if you were subject to a market rate, this was what rate you got charged .....because muh climate emissions