2015 Warmest Year on Record

[Deleted member 2897]

Holy crap. Apparently there is a new cool service called Griddy, which takes you away from your current energy provider and they play the market. You agree to pay the current market rate, which they estimate the vast majority of the time will save you money or being stuck with just the 1 utility. You can also pay to lock in rates for a certain period of time, but apparently most people don't do that and roll the dice.

So Griddy noticed energy (gas) prices on the open market skyrocketing right now, because nobody has any extras. They notified all their non-locked in customers to change immediately, because they have to pass through the costs, and that's how it works. Well you can't just immediately change over and many people probably just deleted the emails, cuz whatever...Griddy saves money. Well check out these several thousand dollar bills people are getting:

$5,152 Power Bill? Texas’ Winter Storm Hell Only Gets Worse

 

[awbuzz]

If you read the articles, you would see that ALL sources were failing to provide. That was the point of my post - to counter the increasing false narrative that the crisis is due to "Green Energy" that folks like Tucker Carlson, et al., are trying to push.

If you want to bash wind turbines, you need to criticize Texas' implementation of them not the actual concept itself. They are currently in use in places that get and stay much colder than it is in Texas.

Agree that it isn't all wind turbines fault, but losing 10% or so of production doesn't help.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Agree that it isn't all wind turbines fault, but losing 10% or so of production doesn't help.

There’s not a singular reason why Texans lost power but if we don’t start attacking the root causes we’ll continue to see failures like we’ve had in California, Texas, New York, Illinois, etc. The culprits are the same old, same old:

a. Inadequate investment- we squander tax dollars on BS & short critical infrastructure
b. Stifling regulations- there’s no limit to the government insanity. We self-impose obstacles at a mindboggling rate.
c. Inability to leverage technological gains- we fail to encourage R&D, etc.
d. Strangled competition- our policies deter new entrants into the market, we become dependent on monopolies & government picks the winners & losers

It’s really pretty fundamental. We’re eroding what made this country great & becoming like the EURO banana republics, etc that want us to be more like them. Events like this should make Americans take pause & evaluate the path we’re on.

 

[awbuzz]

Apparently the biggest reason ERCOT failed Texans is because they FAILED to WINTERIZE various area in the power grid including natural gas pipe lines and wind turbines. Apparently the wind turbines in Minnesota (a lot colder than Texas) winterized units there (think strip heaters and the like) so that the equipment will work year round. Granted it is still hard to have solar panels work with snow or ice covering them or at night .

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Apparently the biggest reason ERCOT failed Texans is because they FAILED to WINTERIZE various area in the power grid including natural gas pipe lines and wind turbines. Apparently the wind turbines in Minnesota (a lot colder than Texas) winterized units there (think strip heaters and the like) so that the equipment will work year round. Granted it is still hard to have solar panels work with snow or ice covering them or at night .

I speed all through the neighborhood right now because its rained 16 of the 18 days so far and the solar paneled speed limit alert signs don't work.

Usually about every year or every other year, we'll get temperatures for a couple nights down into the low 20s where I am. Nobody has insulated pipes around here. If we got hit with 0-20 degree temperatures for a week, we'd have a massive disaster on our hands too.

 

[orientalnc]

I speed all through the neighborhood right now because its rained 16 of the 18 days so far and the solar paneled speed limit alert signs don't work.

Usually about every year or every other year, we'll get temperatures for a couple nights down into the low 20s where I am. Nobody has insulated pipes around here. If we got hit with 0-20 degree temperatures for a week, we'd have a massive disaster on our hands too.

I have to make one small correction to your tic post. The radar speed alert signs are battery powered. The solar panel charges the battery, but does not provide power directly to the device. The signs could theoretically operate for a couple of weeks without a solar charge (assuming a a fully charged group 27 battery).

All my pipes (five hours N of you) are insulated if they are exposed to outdoor temps. Low 20s overnight can freeze the pressurized water in a pipe, especially if not moving.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I have to make one small correction to your tic post. The radar speed alert signs are not battery powered. The solar panel charges the battery, but does not provide power directly to the device. The signs could theoretically operate for a couple of weeks without a solar charge (assuming a a fully charged group 27 battery).

All my pipes (five hours N of you) are insulated if they are exposed to outdoor temps. Low 20s overnight can freeze the pressurized water in a pipe, especially if not moving.

That’s why the signs don’t work. We haven’t had enough sun over the last 3 weeks to keep the solar powered batteries from draining out. But yes my post was TIC for sure.

 

[MWBATL]

Agree that it isn't all wind turbines fault, but losing 10% or so of production doesn't help.

There's a fairly long explanation in detail in the WSJ about this topic. What @LibertyTurns stated above is indeed the root cause, but the wind turbines were supplying as much as over 40% of the power in Texas as recently as last week before they froze and failed. The pipelines then also had trouble, but the point remains that solar and wind energy MUST have backups because they CANNOT be relied upon at all times, especially during extreme periods of demand. Coal and oil are much more reliable in this regard and if we aren't careful we will leave our populations exposed without adequate backups. All in the name of fake culture war climate change rhetoric.

There are real issues in climate change, and there are complex issues which should be discussed, debated intelligently and worked through. It is my great hope that we can avoid what happened with covid and stop politicizing these discussions. Wind turbines failed, and it is highly questionable that there is a decent cost-benefit for winterizing the Texas grid the way the Minnesota grid needs to be winterized. Fossil fuels will be needed for the indefinite future. We should stop making this into another covid debate where one side automatically opposes the other....just because.

 

[JacketRacket]

There's a fairly long explanation in detail in the WSJ about this topic. What @LibertyTurns stated above is indeed the root cause, but the wind turbines were supplying as much as over 40% of the power in Texas as recently as last week before they froze and failed. The pipelines then also had trouble, but the point remains that solar and wind energy MUST have backups because they CANNOT be relied upon at all times, especially during extreme periods of demand. Coal and oil are much more reliable in this regard and if we aren't careful we will leave our populations exposed without adequate backups. All in the name of fake culture war climate change rhetoric.

There are real issues in climate change, and there are complex issues which should be discussed, debated intelligently and worked through. It is my great hope that we can avoid what happened with covid and stop politicizing these discussions. Wind turbines failed, and it is highly questionable that there is a decent cost-benefit for winterizing the Texas grid the way the Minnesota grid needs to be winterized. Fossil fuels will be needed for the indefinite future. We should stop making this into another covid debate where one side automatically opposes the other....just because.

Nuclear power needs to come back in vogue in a big way. Nearly emissions free, reliable, and can fill in the gaps where other energy sources are unreliable.

 

[MWBATL]

Nuclear power needs to come back in vogue in a big way. Nearly emissions free, reliable, and can fill in the gaps where other energy sources are unreliable.

That certainly sounds sensible to me. I have never really understood the ardent opposition to nuclear energy.

 

[Lotta Booze]

There's a fairly long explanation in detail in the WSJ about this topic. What @LibertyTurns stated above is indeed the root cause (no it's not), but the wind turbines were supplying as much as over 40% of the power in Texas as recently as last week before they froze and failed. The pipelines then also had trouble, but the point remains that solar and wind energy MUST have backups because they CANNOT be relied upon at all times, especially during extreme periods of demand. Coal and oil are much more reliable in this regard and if we aren't careful we will leave our populations exposed without adequate backups. All in the name of fake culture war climate change rhetoric.

There are real issues in climate change, and there are complex issues which should be discussed, debated intelligently and worked through. It is my great hope that we can avoid what happened with covid and stop politicizing these discussions. Wind turbines failed, and it is highly questionable that there is a decent cost-benefit for winterizing the Texas grid the way the Minnesota grid needs to be winterized. Fossil fuels will be needed for the indefinite future. We should stop making this into another covid debate where one side automatically opposes the other....just because.

There certainly are honest conversations to be had and part of that starts with recognizing that it's a system-wide weakness of the power grid in Texas not just limited to wind energy.
Coal and gas plants shut down - WSJ
Natural gas and coal generators shut down due to cold - Gov. Abbott
Nuclear reactor shut down in cold snap - Washington Examiner
Natural gas lines frozen - Gov. Abbott via Newsweek

All of that in addition to Texas generally having less capacity in the winter and now being caught off guard. "The state has a generating capacity of about 67,000 megawatts in the winter compared with a peak capacity of about 86,000 megawatts in the summer. The gap between the winter and summer supply reflects power plants going offline for maintenance during months when demand typically is less intense and there’s not as much energy coming from wind and solar sources." Link from AP

Amid all of these system failures due to unprecedented cold that the state was not prepared for, to focus mainly on wind (and not gas which is the largest source) THAT seems to be making it political.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Amid all of these system failures due to unprecedented cold that the state was not prepared for, to focus mainly on wind (and not gas which is the largest source) THAT seems to be making it political.

Yep, to change subjects to give another illustration, I'll use my state (South Carolina), and in particular the coastline where I live. We got 6 inches of snow (and a lot of ice) a couple years ago. The kids were out of school for a week, the airport was shut down for many days, and it brought our local economy to a screeching halt. But there is no way we should buy tens of millions of dollars of snow plows, de-icing equipment, and so on that would only be used once in twenty years. It doesn't make good financial sense. So we will just deal with that for a bit once every 20 years and its as simple as that.

 

[LibertyTurns]

@Lotta Juice Blaming the outages on wind power is like blaming poor attendance in Bobby Dodd on the Upper North seats being half empty. There’s a systemic problem with our infrastructure nationwide and every day we fail to act we’re imperiling our nation. We’re vulnerable to solar flares, fires, not enough rain, terrorist attacks, fuel shortages and a litany of other things.

We need to pump our economy, well there’s an area of stimulus I think left, right and center could agree on. Draft a bill and pass it please.

 

[orientalnc]

In a normal winter, ERCOT allows producers to shutdown for maintenance, so the fact that Texas did not have sufficient power is not surprising. Nor, is that unique to Texas. Minnesota probably does maintenance in the summer months. What is different is that Texas has starved the grid and refused to join either of the other interconnect grids where power could have been shared for short periods. This was a decision made a long time ago and has been reaffirmed numerous times since. The sources of electricity can be winterized and Texas could have done some things differently. But, the absence of an emergency plan seems to be an unforgivable error. But, critics need to understand something important. This weather event was way off the charts. This photo is from Galveston Harbor.

 

[MWBATL]

There certainly are honest conversations to be had and part of that starts with recognizing that it's a system-wide weakness of the power grid in Texas not just limited to wind energy.
Coal and gas plants shut down - WSJ
Natural gas and coal generators shut down due to cold - Gov. Abbott
Nuclear reactor shut down in cold snap - Washington Examiner
Natural gas lines frozen - Gov. Abbott via Newsweek

All of that in addition to Texas generally having less capacity in the winter and now being caught off guard. "The state has a generating capacity of about 67,000 megawatts in the winter compared with a peak capacity of about 86,000 megawatts in the summer. The gap between the winter and summer supply reflects power plants going offline for maintenance during months when demand typically is less intense and there’s not as much energy coming from wind and solar sources." Link from AP

Amid all of these system failures due to unprecedented cold that the state was not prepared for, to focus mainly on wind (and not gas which is the largest source) THAT seems to be making it political.

I don't disagree that focusing EXCLUSIVELY on the wind turbine failures is making it political. Media and politicians on both sides of the aisle are quite guilty of that tactic. But to notice that the wind turbines supplied over 40% of the power before the storm hit, and then that went to zero (actually 8%, iiuc), is a real issue about green energy that needs to be discussed and focused on. The point being made about wind energy is that it can be unreliable and backup sources are necessary. And to date, those backup sources are either nuclear or fossil fuels.

If we agree on that then we are at a good starting point.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I don't disagree that focusing EXCLUSIVELY on the wind turbine failures is making it political. Media and politicians on both sides of the aisle are quite guilty of that tactic. But to notice that the wind turbines supplied over 40% of the power before the storm hit, and then that went to zero (actually 8%, iiuc), is a real issue about green energy that needs to be discussed and focused on. The point being made about wind energy is that it can be unreliable and backup sources are necessary. And to date, those backup sources are either nuclear or fossil fuels.

If we agree on that then we are at a good starting point.

Who was it, Rick Perry who said Texans would deal with a few days of no power once every decade if it means evading federal regulations and managing their own power grid? That's the type of provocative nonsense people hate. Its a funny punchline, but the reality is nobody wants to spend 10 minutes in a freezing house worried about carbon monoxide poisoning just to make a sarcastic point. It ultimately doesn't matter what your energy plan is, but you have to have some sort of reasonable backup plan for emergencies.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Facebook is now flagging climate change posts too:

Facebook to Label Climate Change Posts Like Covid, Vote Content

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. will begin labeling some user posts that mention climate change in the same way it has annotated posts discussing elections and Covid-19, a sign the social network is taking climate-related misinformation more seriously.The labels will direct users to Facebook’s...

finance.yahoo.com

These guys have an enormous corporate moat throwing off gobs of cash, but they keep tempting fate for customers to get sick of their nonsense and leave.

 

[orientalnc]

We have shared a lot of very good information in this thread and it's an important topic. But. Yes, there is a but. I will move it to the Political Topics forum if this current trend continues. Thanks.

 

[Lotta Booze]

I don't disagree that focusing EXCLUSIVELY on the wind turbine failures is making it political. Media and politicians on both sides of the aisle are quite guilty of that tactic. But to notice that the wind turbines supplied over 40% of the power before the storm hit, and then that went to zero (actually 8%, iiuc), is a real issue about green energy that needs to be discussed and focused on. The point being made about wind energy is that it can be unreliable and backup sources are necessary. And to date, those backup sources are either nuclear or fossil fuels.

If we agree on that then we are at a good starting point.

I agree there should be diversified sources of power to mitigate risk. The issue here is that even those more reliable sources had failures of their own. Coal, Gas, Nuclear...all were unprepared for this cold so no other source could pick up the slack.

Another way to mitigate that risk is to spend more on winterizing these facilities, or at least a portion of them. I understand that "it's Texas, do you really need to prepare for single digit weather?" but it's all about risk mitigation and preparedness.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I agree there should be diversified sources of power to mitigate risk. The issue here is that even those more reliable sources had failures of their own. Coal, Gas, Nuclear...all were unprepared for this cold so no other source could pick up the slack.

Another way to mitigate that risk is to spend more on winterizing these facilities, or at least a portion of them. I understand that "it's Texas, do you really need to prepare for single digit weather?" but it's all about risk mitigation and preparedness.

It’s also important to note that 99% of Texans have power.