Electrical grid crisis

[Cornflake]

I read this in a news report.

"Compounding the issue is that Texas's electric system of ERCOT is isolated from the rest of the country, partly as a way to avoid federal regulation. So it cannot simply import power from elsewhere to make up for the shortage."

I hadn't realized that. One daughter works for one of the big utilities here. Being able too buy power from elsewhere during peak demand is part of what they count on.

[TKennedy]

Boy it didn't take long for this one to get politicized ands the lies and half truths to flow. To bad you can't heat your house with bullshit - wait you can!

Ted Cruz figured it was time to get out of Dodge.

[TKennedy]

My power company buddy sent me this link. He agrees.

www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698?st=v4l10cin3xs17xp&reflink=article_imessage_share

[brucemacneill]

www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/some-texans-use-2021-ford-f-150-hybrids-to-power-homes-amid-winter-storm.html

[dradtke]

Feb 18, 2021 11:22:49 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

Ted Cruz figured it was time to get out of Dodge.

He's on his way back, and tried to tell everyone that it was his plan all along to fly down to help get his family settled on their vacation and then fly back the next day. Problem is, his return flight is standby.

[billhammond]

Feb 18, 2021 16:57:13 GMT -5 brucemacneill said:

www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/some-texans-use-2021-ford-f-150-hybrids-to-power-homes-amid-winter-storm.html

I assume this requires the truck to be running 24/7?

[brucemacneill]

Feb 18, 2021 17:04:54 GMT -5 billhammond said:

Feb 18, 2021 16:57:13 GMT -5 brucemacneill said:

www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/some-texans-use-2021-ford-f-150-hybrids-to-power-homes-amid-winter-storm.html

I assume this requires the truck to be running 24/7?

Needs to be running if you are using the power I assume. Don't know how long the batteries would work. I think if you get a Green one though it still qualifies as part of The Green New Deal.

[epaul]

Feb 18, 2021 16:43:34 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

My power company buddy sent me this link. He agrees.

www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698?st=v4l10cin3xs17xp&reflink=article_imessage_share

I got this much of the article. I don't know if there is more as I hit a link that led me to a subscription block...

While millions of Texans remain without power for a third day, the wind industry and its advocates are spinning a fable that gas, coal and nuclear plants—not their frozen turbines—are to blame. PolitiFact proclaims “Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage.” Climate-change conformity is hard for the media to resist, but we don’t mind. So here are the facts to cut through the spin.

Texas energy regulators were already warning of rolling blackouts late last week as temperatures in western Texas plunged into the 20s, causing wind turbines to freeze. Natural gas and coal-fired plants ramped up to cover the wind power shortfall as demand for electricity increased with falling temperatures.

Some readers have questioned our reporting Wednesday (“The Political Making of a Texas Power Outage”) that wind’s share of electricity generation in Texas plunged to 8% from 42%. How can that be, they wonder, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) has reported that it counts on wind to meet only 10% of its winter capacity.

Ercot’s disclosure is slippery. Start with the term “capacity,” which means potential maximum output. This is different than actual power generation. Texas has a total winter capacity of about 83,000 megawatts (MW) including all power sources. Total power demand and generation, however, at their peak are usually only around 57,000 MW. Regulators build slack into the system.

Texas has about 30,000 MW of wind capacity, but winds aren’t constant or predictable. Winds this past month have generated between about 600 and 22,500 MW. Regulators don’t count on wind to provide much more than 10% or so of the grid’s total capacity since they can’t command turbines to increase power like they can coal and gas plants...

[epaul]

I do know that on average a wind turbine in this country is expected to produce 30% of its stated capacity (whatever the stated capacity of a wind farm is, it will over the course of the year actually produce 30% of that figure... the North Dakota wind industry brags that it leads the nation in wind efficiency, with ND wind farms on average producing close to 40% of rated capacity).

Independent Wind Farms will generally contract to deliver 30% of their rated capacity to the utilities they do business with. If more power is generated, it hits the open market. If less is produced, they make up the difference by purchasing enough energy on the spot market to fill the contract. A very similar deal to what a regular agricultural farm engages in when forward contracting their product.

[Jawbone]

Good thing we didn't go green this year, 'cause I think it would really be cold without all the carbon we added to the atmosphere last Summer.

Wind turbines kill birds and look terrible. Hey, they stopped logging old growth redwood 'cause the White Owl made its residence in the trees. Perhaps I should start a BLM (Bird Life matters) peaceful march.

[brucemacneill]

Feb 18, 2021 17:53:21 GMT -5 Jawbone said:

Good thing we didn't go green this year, 'cause I think it would really be cold without all the carbon we added to the atmosphere last Summer.

Wind turbines kill birds and look terrible. Hey, they stopped logging old growth redwood 'cause the White Owl made its residence in the trees. Perhaps I should start a BLM (Bird Life matters) peaceful march.

Be careful. This site is monitored by the DNC and various Communist coountries you know.

[TKennedy]

I was able to get the text, but not the graphs. This link might work better if you are a subscriber.

www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698?mod=trending_now_opn_pos1

While millions of Texans remain without power for a third day, the wind industry and its advocates are spinning a fable that gas, coal and nuclear plants—not their frozen turbines—are to blame. PolitiFact proclaims “Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage.” Climate-change conformity is hard for the media to resist, but we don’t mind. So here are the facts to cut through the spin.

Texas energy regulators were already warning of rolling blackouts late last week as temperatures in western Texas plunged into the 20s, causing wind turbines to freeze. Natural gas and coal-fired plants ramped up to cover the wind power shortfall as demand for electricity increased with falling temperatures.

Some readers have questioned our reporting Wednesday ("The Political Making of a Texas Power Outage") that wind’s share of electricity generation in Texas plunged to 8% from 42%. How can that be, they wonder, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) has reported that it counts on wind to meet only 10% of its winter capacity.

Ercot’s disclosure is slippery. Start with the term “capacity,” which means potential maximum output. This is different than actual power generation. Texas has a total winter capacity of about 83,000 megawatts (MW) including all power sources. Total power demand and generation, however, at their peak are usually only around 57,000 MW. Regulators build slack into the system.

Texas has about 30,000 MW of wind capacity, but winds aren’t constant or predictable. Winds this past month have generated between about 600 and 22,500 MW. Regulators don’t count on wind to provide much more than 10% or so of the grid’s total capacity since they can’t command turbines to increase power like they can coal and gas plants.


Wind turbines at times this month have generated more than half of the Texas power generation, though this is only about a quarter of the system’s power capacity. Last week wind generation plunged as demand surged. Fossil-fuel generation increased and covered the supply gap. Thus between the mornings of Feb. 7 and Feb. 11, wind as a share of the state’s electricity fell to 8% from 42%, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Gas-fired plants produced 43,800 MW of power Sunday night and coal plants chipped in 10,800 MW—about two to three times what they usually generate at their peak on any given winter day—after wind power had largely vanished. In other words, gas and coal plants held up in the frosty conditions far better than wind turbines did.

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.

“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” Electric Reliability Council of Texas senior director Dan Woodfin said Tuesday. The wind industry and its friends are citing this statement as exoneration. But note he used the word “today.” Most wind power had already dropped offline last week.

Gas generation fell by about one-third between late Sunday night and Tuesday, but even then was running two to three times higher than usual before the Arctic blast. Gas power nearly made up for the shortfall in wind, though it wasn’t enough to cover surging demand.


Between 12 a.m. on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16, wind power plunged 93% while coal increased 47% and gas 450%, according to the EIA. Yet the renewable industry and its media mouthpieces are tarring gas, coal and nuclear because they didn’t operate at 100% of their expected potential during the Arctic blast even though wind turbines failed nearly 100%.

The policy point here is that an electricity grid that depends increasingly on subsidized but unreliable wind and solar needs baseload power to weather surges in demand. Natural gas is crucial but it also isn’t as reliable as nuclear and coal power.


Politicians and regulators don’t want to admit this because they have been taking nuclear and coal plants offline to please the lords of climate change. But the public pays the price when blackouts occur because climate obeisance has made the grid too fragile. We’ve warned about this for years, and here we are.

Correction: An earlier edition misstated the total winter power capacity and typical demand and generation in Texas.

[epaul]

Minnesotans may remember two years ago when there was another polar vortex event, most of the state, including Mpls, suffered disruptions in natural gas delivery due to the cold weather jacking up demand faster than infrastructure could deliver (gas used to just be heat and cooking, now it is producing up to 40% of our electricity, plus it has to make up for wind when wind dumps). It was three day crisis event. I modestly remind that our coal-fired plants didn't miss a beat due to the weather and performed admirably.

[epaul]

But, then ice storms and wind raise hell with power lines, so ... it's always something.

Maintain Diversity!

[Cosmic Wonder]

Here is what I know.

Texas is a red state, and it’s a mess.

Oregon is a blue state, and while we got clobbered by the recent ice storm, we are clawing our way back. So...

Mike

[epaul]

North Dakota is a red state and it leads the nation in vaccination efficiency and good-looking retired farmers.

South Dakota, on the other hand... ugly!

[jdd2]

The solution is obvious: turn corn and beans, and maybe winter wheat (and snow) into natural gas.

[Cosmic Wonder]

It’s easy for me to turn beans into gas.

Mike

[dradtke]

Feb 18, 2021 21:11:43 GMT -5 epaul said:

Minnesotans may remember two years ago when there was another polar vortex event, most of the state, including Mpls, suffered disruptions in natural gas delivery due to the cold weather jacking up demand faster than infrastructure could deliver (gas used to just be heat and cooking, now it is producing up to 40% of our electricity, plus it has to make up for wind when wind dumps). It was three day crisis event. I modestly remind that our coal-fired plants didn't miss a beat due to the weather and performed admirably.

Although I will also point out that the utility companies aren't switching from coal to natural gas for any wacko environmentalist reasons. They're doing it because natural gas is cheaper and more efficient.

I will also point out that the coal burned in Texas power plants has a high moisture content, and all the outdoor piles of coal are frozen solid. That's why power plants have deicers on their conveyor belts.
midwestind.com/anti-icing-and-deicing/conveyor-belt-deicer/

For Bill: They're deicing their conveyor belts there.

[jdd2]

Don't put your tongue on a frozen lump of coal.