Why Texans are freezing their asses off

  • oeb11
  • 02-23-2021, 07:11 PM
That and a nickel won't get One increased distributions from the DPST/ccp money mill in DC.
Please pat oneself on the back - repeatedly and 'low down'.
Little Monster's Avatar
Ignorant people use that introduction frequently ..... and most frequently when they can hide behind an imaginary handle. You've confirmed that characteristic. Originally Posted by LexusLover
Dumb people tend to ignore facts. Ignore is the root word for Ignorant. You seem to prove that assessment often. I don't have to hide behind a handle. I will be more than happy to prove that to you anytime as well.
Little Monster's Avatar
That and a nickel won't get One increased distributions from the DPST/ccp money mill in DC.
Please pat oneself on the back - repeatedly and 'low down'. Originally Posted by oeb11
Your next informative post will be your first. Now run along and go join the rest of the right wing Simps.
Little Monster's Avatar
Little Monster, You probably missed my Post #22, https://eccie.net/showpost.php?p=106...2&postcount=22

The media is throwing out a lot of inaccurate and misleading info, and the 62% figure I quoted falls into that category.

What I did was go back to ERCOT tables showing power generation by source in 2020. You can download the Excel table here,

http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/lis...yFuel2020.xlsx

From that table, you can calculate that in 2020, 22.9% of the power generated during 2020 by the ERCOT system was from wind, and 25.3% was from renewables.

You can also calculate wind as a % of the total for January, February, and December, 2020, and those figures are 25.8%, 25.8%, and 27.8% respectively. In other words, normally wind during winter is a high % of the mix, higher than what the press is saying in one of the articles you linked to.

Btw, Before long, ERCOT will publish an Excel table showing the same info for February, 2021, and that will help unravel what happened further.

I specifically did not blame renewables for the problem we're having. I said wind and solar are price competitive, but don't work when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, and you have to have sufficient capacity from non-intermittent sources to make up for that.

In your first post in this thread, you appeared to be blaming the crisis we're having on NOT ENOUGH renewable energy. That's not correct. Texas is close to the top of the charts. You can download BP's statistical review of world energy here,

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corpora...ld-energy.html

Take a look on page 61 and you'll see electricity generation by fuel for various countries. The USA generates 10.1% from renewables. Europe generates 18.6%. Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom are tops in the world, with 32%, 25%, and 31% of electricity from renewables. From the ERCOT table, that I linked to above, Texas is 25%. We're one of the world leaders in use of renewables, and most of that is from wind. Originally Posted by Tiny
Actually what I am and have been blaming this debacle on is the lack of preparation pure and simple. It was the conservative politicians who started falsely blaming and pointing fingers at a policy that is non existent in Texas. That sir is a fact. And yet those same politicians have yet to come up with any logical solution. Now I will give credit where credit is due and acknowledge fact that Gregg Abbott did come out and admit that Texas was completely unprepared for this. Might have taken home a few days, but at least he admitted it.

That is the thing about actually living here in Texas and not somewhere way far away like Pittsburgh. We have been getting informed first hand daily. And at least Abbott stated right here in Texas and not bolt off to Cancun like some other worthless pussy conservative politician did.
Little Monster's Avatar
Gentlemen, You're being far too harsh on LustyLad. All he did was provide an informative WSJ article, that highlights what I think we all believe: we need to have reliable energy in very cold weather. And wind energy is an intermittent source. You can't rely on it all the time, so you have to have a backup. Originally Posted by Tiny
You stated that the media is throwing out false information and Crusty's article is no different. Right??
  • Tiny
  • 02-23-2021, 09:40 PM
You stated that the media is throwing out false information and Crusty's article is no different. Right?? Originally Posted by Little Monster
I re-read the WSJ article, and can't say it's false. As explained in my post you quoted above, typically this time of year wind accounts for 25% to 28% of power generated on ERCOT's system, on average over a monthly period. On a windy day in West Central Texas, that will be higher and on a windless day lower. So even without the weather related problems, the drop from 42% of electric power generated by wind to 8% described by the WSJ is plausible. The WSJ article correctly attributes a large part of the disaster to issues with natural gas supply, and correctly states that natural gas is more reliable than wind and solar, and nuclear and coal are more reliable than natural gas, for power generation. Yes, as the WSJ says, if the Texas system used primarily coal and nuclear for power generation, it wouldn't be as fragile.

Where I might disagree, even though wind and natural gas are not as reliable as coal and nuclear, I like our system here in Texas the way it is. Natural gas and wind are cheaper than nuclear and coal, and produce less carbon emissions than coal. I don't think this will happen again, we'll be better prepared next time.
  • Tiny
  • 02-23-2021, 09:52 PM
Actually what I am and have been blaming this debacle on is the lack of preparation pure and simple. It was the conservative politicians who started falsely blaming and pointing fingers at a policy that is non existent in Texas. That sir is a fact. And yet those same politicians have yet to come up with any logical solution. Now I will give credit where credit is due and acknowledge fact that Gregg Abbott did come out and admit that Texas was completely unprepared for this. Might have taken home a few days, but at least he admitted it.

That is the thing about actually living here in Texas and not somewhere way far away like Pittsburgh. We have been getting informed first hand daily. And at least Abbott stated right here in Texas and not bolt off to Cancun like some other worthless pussy conservative politician did. Originally Posted by Little Monster
Well, it's kind of like the Republicans who blame ten or twenty thousand nursing home deaths on Cuomo, or the Democrats who blame five hundred thousand Covid deaths on Trump. Could they have done things better? Yeah. Is it their fault it happened? No. Shit happens. People and institutions aren't perfect.

ERCOT, the utilities, the people promoting renewable energy, the natural gas producers and pipelines, the regulators, the politicians, there are a lot of people we can try to pin the blame on. And yes, things could have been done better. But you pick up the pieces, learn from the experience, and hopefully do things better the next time.
Little Monster's Avatar
I re-read the WSJ article, and can't say it's false. As explained in my post you quoted above, typically this time of year wind accounts for 25% to 27% of power generated on ERCOT's system. On a windy day in West Central Texas, that will be higher and on a windless day lower. So even without the weather related problems, the drop from 42% of electric power generated by wind to 8% described by the WSJ is plausible. The WSJ article correctly attributes a large part of the disaster to issues with natural gas supply, and correctly states that natural gas is more reliable than wind and solar, and nuclear and coal are more reliable than natural gas, for power generation. Yes, as the WSJ says, if the Texas system used primarily coal and nuclear for power generation, it wouldn't be as fragile.

Where I might disagree, even though wind and natural gas are not as reliable as coal and nuclear, I like our system here in Texas the way it is. Natural gas and wind are cheaper than nuclear and coal, and produce less carbon emissions than coal. I don't think this will happen again, we'll be better prepared next time. Originally Posted by Tiny
The windmills need to be winterized. There are other states and countries that are far colder and their windmills are prepared for it. It does work.I personally believe that this winter weather will be more prevalent here in Texas, but only time will tell. Bottom line is right now this second Texas gets the over whelming bulk of its power from gas, coal, nuclear. That is what causes the problem we had last week. Renewable energy is the way to go. I hope you are right though. No matter what direction we move in we need to be much better prepared if and when it happens again.
  • Tiny
  • 02-23-2021, 10:20 PM
Bottom line is right now this second Texas gets the over whelming bulk of its power from gas, coal, nuclear. That is what causes the problem we had last week. Renewable energy is the way to go. Originally Posted by Little Monster
We don't have large scale battery storage of electricity anywhere in the world at present. As such, we MUST get the majority of our power from gas, coal, and nuclear, or we will have problems that are worse than what we had last week. Otherwise when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing, we won't have power. Right now, I don't believe it's economically feasible to store electricity from solar and wind on a large scale. Someday it may be though -- battery costs have been coming down.
  • Tiny
  • 02-23-2021, 10:30 PM
One other item Little Monster, Texas gets a larger percentage of its electric power from renewables than most places. Again, please see what I pulled from the ERCOT tables and the BP Energy review, in my post you quoted above. We're even with Spain and within striking distance of Germany and the UK.
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-24-2021, 07:03 AM
From the WSJ article:
It wasn’t until temperatures plunged into the single digits early Monday morning that some conventional power plants including nuclear started to have problems, which was the same time that demand surged for heating. Gas plants also ran low on fuel as pipelines froze and more was diverted for heating.


I re-read the WSJ article, and can't say it's false. Originally Posted by Tiny
I said it was a distortion.

If you read the above you'll see why I thought so.

Basically it says that when temperatures dipped into the teens ALL sources started shutting down. Which should be the total jest of everything written about this failure.

Look...I realize the piece was written to counter the "green energy wasn't the problem" narrativesome were touting...but that narrative was gaining traction to counter Abbott's blame of the failure ON GREEN ENERGY while on Fox News.

I have tried to point out that while what each party be it pro green or pro fossil are touting may be factual, it is a distortion and thus not the whole picture.

The fact of the matter is that not wind, gas, nuke were prepared for these temps for this amount of time.

I took exception with not what was said but what was emphasized.
LexusLover's Avatar
The windmills need to be winterized. Originally Posted by Little Monster
You mean with natural gas heaters?
rexdutchman's Avatar
^^ and the solar cells ""
Little Monster's Avatar
You mean with natural gas heaters? Originally Posted by LexusLover
^^ and the solar cells "" Originally Posted by rexdutchman
Surprise surprise, you both show your ignorance and lack of ability to do simple research. Try carbon fiber smart one's
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-24-2021, 10:56 AM
You mean with natural gas heaters? Originally Posted by LexusLover
Natural gas froze up too.

Evidently you haven't gotten the word. Tell that assisted living facility to open up your search engines!