Data shows wind-power was chief culprit of Texas grid collapse

submitted by MarcoPolo from newstarget.com

all 8 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]whereswhat 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

No. It was the decision to separate the Texas energy grid from the rest of the nation. They would have had the redundancy to avoid much of this catastrophe had they stayed connected.

[–]bobbobbybob 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

hello low paid worker, with approved talking points

the failures were manifold. if 4 had not occurred at once, there would be no issue. to blame lack of wider grid connection as sole reason is... ideological

[–]whereswhat 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I am a licensed civil engineer with a phd and I probably make more than you ever will. Any power grid without enough redundancy to withstand 20 faults, let alone 4, is inadequate.

[–]bobbobbybob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

shall we have a fight, my phd vs yours? I can't claim civil engineering qualifications, but I'm a published scientist, so we walk in the same lofty circles of "i'm smart"

Any power grid without enough redundancy to withstand 20 faults, let alone 4, is inadequate.

minor faults, perhaps. But when those faults are the loss of primary power generation? But, let us use your expertise here. Why did Texas say 'no' to joining a larger distribution grid? What was their rationale? What were the costs, what were the risks.

Those are rhetorical questions, so I will be assessing your claim to fame by your answers

[–]whereswhat 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

shall we have a fight, my phd vs yours?

Arguments from authority are obviously pointless but be honest, you threw the first jab in the first line of your response. I responded in kind.

Metaphorical fisticuffs aside, the politicical history that led to the modern ERCOT is complicated and nuanced. I am not going to claim to know all of the details but I am aware of a longstanding drive to circumvent federal regulations to save $$. This has been pushed in both private and public sectors in TX for decades. There are definitely some very sound financial reasons for this push but regardless of the logic behind the decision making, the reality of the situation is that most of TX faces higher annualized risk of financial losses from power grid failure than most of the rest of the country (CA is much worse actually but for different reasons). This could be addressed by either improving the reliability of the existing decentralized grid or by tapping into the main western or eastern grids. Most ASCE committees I have participated in advocate for a combination of both approaches. Generally, the US assumes way too much risk of this sort too.

[–]bobbobbybob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Did you see my posts on the local grid connection options?

ALL were hit by the same storm. so even if Texas had given away rights to manage its own grid and joined the 'national' grid, they would still have suffered in the storm.

Looks to me that the mistake they made was not accounting for the increasingly severe cold weather that all of us who study the sun have been going on about for decades. In other words, they believed the climate change narrative and put too much faith in their renewables, and not enough attention to cold weather hardening their supplies.

IF they'd done that then there would have been zero power loss, as their conventional supplies would have not shut down. Which one would have been cheaper, overall, and which one would insulate Texas from the increasingly 'woke' federal interference? One only has to look at aussie to see that federal 'green' initiatives are disastrous. SA blew up their coal powered stations, and now suffer rolling blackouts in bad weather.

tl,dr; it is easy to say that joining the grid would have saved them, but in this case, it would not have helped. Bad advice on global warming meant cold weather hardening was not done. The latter would have protected texas, the former, would not have.

[–]Questionable 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe they were also denied permission to increase output from existing power plants due to federal restrictions, thus causing more environmental harm, and harm to the residents, then the increased pollution would have resulted in. This is a problem succeeding could solve.

[–]brydenellington 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Texas power crisis has prompted blame and finger-pointing, with Cascend Strategy highlighting the failure of various energy sources. Wind power was significantly impacted by ice storms, natural gas compensated briefly before facing supply issues. Coal, nuclear, and solar underperformed due to equipment limitations. The solution proposed involves winterizing equipment, requiring power reserves, grid improvements, adding solar with storage, and increasing natural gas capacity. The crisis underscores the reliability challenges of renewable energy sources during extreme weather events.