Why Texans are freezing their asses off

Perhaps you should do some research. 90% of Texas's energy comes from fossil fuel, coal, and nuclear. THAT is what is failing. There are cold weather locations that do rely heavily on renewable energy and guess what their shit works. Why? Because their infrastructure is weathered unlike ours. Texas is the only state that is completely self reliant and we are seeing just how well that works when you have a bunch of incompetent conservatives running the state. "Green" policies have not even been implemented yet and you are already trying to blame them. Nice try, not gonna work. Originally Posted by Little Monster

It's actually about 62% of Texas' electricity that comes from fossil fuels and nuclear. The rest comes from renewables. As to incompetent conservatives, you might contrast Austin and Lubbock. Austin is deep blue and Lubbock is deep red. Both cities own and control the power grids. Lubbock had the foresight to convert at least one of its power plants to run off of both fuel oil and natural gas, so it can keep going if gas supplies are limited. On Tuesday, 29,000 individuals, about 10% of the population of the county, was without power for an average of 30 minutes: https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/...rm/6773482002/
Can you say that about Austin?

Blue states on average pay a lot more for electricity:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/

Tiny - thank You, good Sir!


DPST/ccpers are blind to any contradictions to their marxist religiosity!

Here in Texas, wind supplies something like 25% of our annual energy. Renewables in total supply 38%, with solar making up most of the rest. Originally Posted by Tiny

So for example, if someone ( little monster ) said

90% of Texas's energy comes from fossil fuel, coal, and nuclear.

That wouldn't be true? Might even be considered a lie if one continued to repeat it after being informed of the real numbers?

It's actually about 62% of Texas' electricity that comes from fossil fuels and nuclear. The rest comes from renewables. As to incompetent conservatives, you might contrast Austin and Lubbock. Austin is deep blue and Lubbock is deep red. Both cities own and control the power grids. Lubbock had the foresight to convert at least one of its power plants to run off of both fuel oil and natural gas, so it can keep going if gas supplies are limited. On Tuesday, 29,000 individuals, about 10% of the population of the county, was without power for an average of 30 minutes: https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/...rm/6773482002/
Can you say that about Austin?

Blue states on average pay a lot more for electricity:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ Originally Posted by Tiny

You left out the part where Lubbock is not part of the Texas power grid....


https://www.kcbd.com/2021/02/16/no-m...nserve-energy/

The state of Texas is facing rolling outages, or otherwise referred to as a controlled blackout, to preserve the electric grid.

So far, Lubbock has only experienced one controlled outage because our electric grid is not connected to the state’s ERCOT system.

Instead, Lubbock is on a separate grid called the Southwest Power Pool grid, which serves the central United states region.

So for example, if someone ( little monster ) said





That wouldn't be true? Might even be considered a lie if one continued to repeat it after being informed of the real numbers? Originally Posted by HedonistForever

So, how much of Texas power comes from wind turbines? What about natural gas?
Wind power has been the fastest-growing source of energy in Texas' power grid. In 2015, wind power generation supplied 11% of Texas' energy grid. Last year it supplied 23% of the system's power, surpassing coal as the second-largest source of energy.

But natural gas still leads the way in the state. An ERCOT report on generating capacity listed the top sources of power in the state:

Natural gas (51%)

Wind (24.8%)

Coal (13.4%)

Nuclear (4.9%)

Solar (3.8%)

Hydro, biomass-fired units (1.9%

It's actually about 62% of Texas' electricity that comes from fossil fuels and nuclear. The rest comes from renewables. As to incompetent conservatives, you might contrast Austin and Lubbock. Austin is deep blue and Lubbock is deep red. Both cities own and control the power grids. Lubbock had the foresight to convert at least one of its power plants to run off of both fuel oil and natural gas, so it can keep going if gas supplies are limited. On Tuesday, 29,000 individuals, about 10% of the population of the county, was without power for an average of 30 minutes: https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/...rm/6773482002/
Can you say that about Austin?

Blue states on average pay a lot more for electricity:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ Originally Posted by Tiny

Which was one of the points I was trying to make. It wasn't just the fault of Windmills but it is the thinking behind much of the green energy push as I see it. The radicals don't want any backup if that means keeping fossil fuel fired plants on line ready for use. They imagine a day, and they want that day to be tomorrow ( a slight exaggeration ) when nothing but renewables will be available, a worthy goal that we will not achieve in the 12 years AOC gave the world before we would all die.


What happens if we all switch, forced or not, to all electric cars but the infrastructure isn't in place to refuel with the same efficiency we have today?


Too bad?

So for example, if someone ( little monster ) said





That wouldn't be true? Might even be considered a lie if one continued to repeat it after being informed of the real numbers? Originally Posted by HedonistForever

I looked at that closer, and actually see a lot of estimates. They differ I believe based on whether you call nuclear renewable or non-renewable, and also based on whether you use a particular month or the entire year.

Anyway, if you download ERCOT's numbers for 2020, here, you can calculate totals for 2020. Renewables were 25.5% if you exclude nuclear and 36.3% if you call nuclear a renewable.

http://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/generation

California in state generation is 32% renewable, and they're not considering nuclear to be a renewable:

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-repor...eneration/2018

Which was one of the points I was trying to make. It wasn't just the fault of Windmills but it is the thinking behind much of the green energy ? Originally Posted by HedonistForever

How about the fault of not winterizing your electric grid suppliers? Or mandating they be so?

Many of you are missing the point.

We do not need fossil vs green. We need common sense approaches to both.

We need to honestly debate wtf happened , factually.

Why would industry put the extra costs of winterzation if Government did not mandate it?

I like the idea of small government but if big business will not do the right thing by either telling the public that you need to pay higher fuel cost to prevent things like this from happening, then regulations may rule the day!

So for example, if someone ( little monster ) said





That wouldn't be true? Might even be considered a lie if one continued to repeat it after being informed of the real numbers? Originally Posted by HedonistForever

One other thing Hedonist, from the table I linked too above, 9.4% of California's in state power generation was from nuclear in 2018. They're going to do away with nuclear by 2025. This sounds like a mistake to me, as nuclear is a reliable energy source that works all the time, not just when weather permits.

How about the fault of not winterizing your electric grid suppliers? Or mandating they be so?

Many of you are missing the point.

We do not need fossil vs green. We need common sense approaches to both.

We need to honestly debate wtf happened , factually.

Why would industry put the extra costs of winterzation if Government did not mandate it?

I like the idea of small government but if big business will not do the right thing by either telling the public that you need to pay higher fuel cost to prevent things like this from happening, then regulations may rule the day! Originally Posted by WTF

While I mostly agree with your post, please note that no amount of regulation is going to prevent dumb asses from doing things like cutting off electricity to gas producers, gas pipelines and gas plants. The costs to do what you describe aren't large by the way.

Based on my buddy's inside view ....

Texans pay around $.086 per kilowatt hour for electricity. Californians pay almost twice that much.
Originally Posted by Tiny

As for CaliAssers ... you use the word "pay" loosely. When the Texas Utility Commission began it was stuffed with "industry" regulations by the box full and when Reliant made it's first rate hike the primary factor driving an increase was the debt generated by the California users who fled the state leaving their bills behind unpaid ... commercial and private.

It's happening again.

The bottom line is: an effective energy base for citizens and commercial enterprises is one based on a variety of resources and not trendy, political, and social preferences.

The greatest rejection of the CommunistSocialistLunatic notion of "home" utilities transitioning is an untimely, effective CLIMATE CHANGE EPISODE that demonstrates just how dumb "wind" and "sun" are for sustaining our existence.

I'll put my money that the pukes who dreamed up all this "alternative" fuel bullshit as a political ploy weren't without heat, communications, home services, and entertainment for one second while the "consumers" had NOTHING dependable for days.

We sell a lot of fuel OVERSEAS for the past several years.

While I mostly agree with your post, please note that no amount of regulation is going to prevent dumb asses from doing things like cutting off electricity to gas producers, gas pipelines and gas plants. The costs to do what you describe aren't large by the way. Originally Posted by Tiny

Large enough that it hasn't been done!

3.4million people across Texas remain without power because ERCOT - the agency in charge of the grid - has turned it off on Monday as demand grew and the reserves shrank
It began with Winter Storm Uri which drove energy demand up and drained the state's inadequate supply
Power plants now can't produce more at a fast enough rate because pipes have frozen and wells have closed over with snow
It is because not enough of them were upgraded to withstand winter weather after a 2011 storm caused similar problems
Experts say the upgrades - which are known as 'winterizing' energy systems - are expensive
Temperatures overnight reached the lowest since 1903 and at least six people have died trying to stay warm
There is no answer on when power will be restored and Gov. Greg Abbott is laying all the blame with ERCOT
ERCOT CEO Bill Magness admitted on Tuesday night that the agency knew about the storm and had tried to prepare for it but didn't expect generators to freeze and go offline
Furious Texans however want to know why more wasn't done to anticipate the energy crisis
A state of emergency has been declared and the National Guard has been called into help get people out of their frozen homes and into warming shelters
People are also being told to

Large enough that it hasn't been done!

3.4million people across Texas remain without power because ERCOT - the agency in charge of the grid - has turned it off on Monday as demand grew and the reserves shrank
It began with Winter Storm Uri which drove energy demand up and drained the state's inadequate supply
Power plants now can't produce more at a fast enough rate because pipes have frozen and wells have closed over with snow
It is because not enough of them were upgraded to withstand winter weather after a 2011 storm caused similar problems
Experts say the upgrades - which are known as 'winterizing' energy systems - are expensive
Temperatures overnight reached the lowest since 1903 and at least six people have died trying to stay warm
There is no answer on when power will be restored and Gov. Greg Abbott is laying all the blame with ERCOT
ERCOT CEO Bill Magness admitted on Tuesday night that the agency knew about the storm and had tried to prepare for it but didn't expect generators to freeze and go offline
Furious Texans however want to know why more wasn't done to anticipate the energy crisis
A state of emergency has been declared and the National Guard has been called into help get people out of their frozen homes and into warming shelters
People are also being told to Originally Posted by WTF

I don't think I'm buying that, that it costs a huge amount of money to winterize a power plant. My friend mentioned in the OP believes ERCOT is trying to throw the blame on the power plants preparedness to deflect attention from its royal fuck up in shutting off electricity to the natural gas producers, processors and transporters. And believes that if the gas fired plants had not suffered from a lack of fuel, a lot of them wouldn't have gone off line. I've only read about one nuclear plant going off line, which later came back on, and no coal plants that went off line, although I imagine there must have been some.

I've got no argument against reasonable regulations, for measures like winterization, for the power plants though.

As to the wells, I don't know. When it's cold some compressors will go down, even if ERCOT and Oncor aren't shutting off electricity to the oilfield.

To wtf - thank you for a reasonable post
Tiny - Gov Abbott has called for an 'Investigation" - we may eventually get some answers and constructive solutions to the mess we have made of the winter storm conditions.

I hope natural gas holds out until warmer weather arrives this weekend.

and thank you for your contributions in this discussion!

I don't think I'm buying that, that it costs a huge amount of money to winterize a power plant. Originally Posted by Tiny

I tend to agree with you but I could not find anything to support our suspicion.