Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output

[OldLady]

Maine buys a quarter of its electricity from Canada, but of that generated by Maine, about 25% is wind power. I hunted to see if they had trouble with their wind turbines in the winter and didn't find anything. I did find one article mentioning that their efficiency can increase from an average of about 42% to 60% in the winter due to strong north westerlies.

In 2019, about four-fifths of Maine's electricity net generation came from renewable sources. About three-tenths of the state’s total net generation came from hydroelectric dams, one-fourth was fueled by biomass, and nearly one-fourth was provided by wind turbines. Natural gas-fired power plants fueled less than one-sixth of state generation in 2019, its smallest share in at least two decades. A small amount of Maine’s net generation, a total of about 2%, came from solar power, petroleum-fueled, and coal-fired power plants. Another 3% of Maine’s net generation is from facilities that primarily burn black liquor waste from pulp mills or municipal and other solid waste materials....
Maine's power supply has undergone a substantial shift since the early 1990s, when more than three-tenths of the state’s net generation typically came from the Maine Yankee nuclear power station and another one-fifth, on average, from petroleum-fired facilities. The Maine Yankee nuclear plant was decommissioned in 1997, and petroleum-fueled generation has decreased from as much as 37% of net generation in the late 1990s to less than 1% in 2019.

I hate to break it to you, FCT, but we're doing just fine without petroleum fueled power. As a consumer, I can tell you we don't have problems with not enough power, although most of it is from renewable sources. Not every state has as many rivers or trees as we do, but if we can do it, anyone can, using their own resources. It doesn't mean disaster to use renewable energy.

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

 

[OldLady]

The irony of this event is oh so delicious

Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

They should have thought of the worst case scenario and yet they never do because then how else can they have an excuse to let people have no power during a cold snap the might rival 1899 cold snap...

Every winter, in one part of the country, or another, the windmills freeze up and stop producing electricity. This is a regular occurance.

A couple years ago, 18% of Minnesota's grid went down. Windmills and and solar panels produce 18% of Minnesota's electrical output.

It's winter, right? Get your flashlights and thermal underwear out. The difference is, Tucker bitched about it on the teevee. Now all the anti-greenies are in an uproar.

I hate to break it to you, but failure of wind turbines was only 13% of the failures causing the blackouts in Texas, the bulk of it is due to frozen instruments at the natural gas installations. The head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the causes of the blackout:

First, some power plants may not have been operational due to routine maintenance, Cohan said. Peak demand typically occurs in the summer, so it's not unexpected for a coal or natural gas plant to be offline in an effort to tune up for the warmer months.

Second, some power plants may have failed to operate in the cold, Cohan said. "Plants are optimized to run under our typical and our extreme summer conditions but they aren't as well prepared and engineered for extreme cold," he said.

According to Rai, if plants operate for too long in too extreme of conditions, it could be too costly to operate as well as cause damage to the equipment, which could further exacerbate the outages for longer periods of time.

Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan said. Unlike a coal plant that has an ready stockpile, natural gas plants don't store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.

Texas planning for Texans or the failure to do so, it the problem.

'Massive failure': Why are millions of people in Texas still without power?

This is reminding me a little of the analysis after Katrina--they knew it could happen, but they kept crossing their fingers it wouldn't happen on their watch, and they didn't do the necessary work ahead of time.

I can understand the argument that this is record breaking, once in a century weather, and it's a valid question if we want to pay for something we may never use. Now that it's happened, maybe they'll be a little more careful about taking gas facilities off line at the same time, but since this probably won't happen again until our grandchildren are grandparents...

Like my post said, the anti-greens are jumping on this to make renewables look awful, when there are clearly a lot of factors at work.

I'm not anti-green. I'm pro science and engineering. Solar plants can be damaged or destroyed by hail or tornadoes. Even chronic windy conditions can shorten their 20 to 30 year life span due to etching by wind driven particles. They can be put out of commission by mere clouds or ice or snow.

Wind farms can be frozen up or face wind conditions too high where the blades need to be locked down. And they freeze up in ice storms. Or USUALLY they usually take 2 to 3 days and many nights a week OFF because -- DUH -- the wind isn't blowing

THESE ARE INHERENT VULNERABILITIES THAT PUBLIC NEVER HAS BEEN EDUCATED ABOUT...

There's NONE of this discussion goin on as the Left attempts to SUBSTITUTE these grid generators after they demolish, decommission, and kill off all of our STABLE AND RELIABLE grid generation methods. People WILL DIE if they succeed here.

As for the icing of the nat gas turbines in Texas, this is what happens when you are shutting down these stable and reliable sources by EDICT to take renewable first onto the grid. The maintenance issues INCREASE and the latent heat of operation is not available to PREVENT "freezing up".. So a storm blows in and the grid operators order the nat gas turbines to be shut down because the wind is going gang busters for a change.. But the temperature drops maybe 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of hours. Instead of idling these turbines at some low output -- they freeze also.. The private operators are not gonna pay for fuel when they can NOT sell their power. DUH!! White 6

Seems like you're expecting politicians with a CRITICAL EARTH SAVING mission to be aware of all this. Largely they are not.. They will screw this up as they've screwed up my washing machine, light bulbs, heat pumps/AC and toilets.

Well seeing I have dealt with hurricanes that only happen every so many years and now one of the coldest streaks in Southeast Texas recent history it make me ask where the hell is the infrastructure?

I was lucky until about two hours ago when the power finally went out and it is 12:40 AM here in Austin County, Texas and I ask myself how is it one of the richest states with natural resources is without power?

I blame decades of not doing shit about infrastructure and I am going to say Democrats will not fix it either if given a damn chance because they never do!

It is time for infrastructure to be the most important thing in this country and as a nation we need to revamp everything and work with a balance and not with ideals only.

We must be realistic and have clean Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Natural Gas and even clean coal energy...

We must invest in a infrastructure where we conserve rain water from buildings, houses and so on along with finding a way to make windows that can harness the solar energy from our businesses and skyscrapers...

I mean we build building so far up and we never truly harness their potential for energy sources from wind and solar with using fans and windows to help create energy.

I mean let take a simple lamp post and why are we not building solar panel within them and if we are then we need to build more because it will create energy over time and if the process is expensive then learn to make it cheaper...

We went from the 1950’s and 1960’s blazing into the technology world and building space ships and the future of the internet and now we have rolling blackouts in a state that should be able to keep everyone on during this crisis?

I understand shit does happen but this is not something that should happen.

Hell I grew up in Illinois and never saw this nonsense as a kid!

Sure the line would snap and power would be lost for a few hours or so while crews fixed the line or whatever but this is totally different and is because we as a nation do not care about our infrastructure at all!

Truth be told I am so sick of the finger pointing and just will say shit need to change but alas it will never change because the government is loving the chaos and if everything ran smoothly then those in power would be voted as usual...

Will try to sleep but reading Center Point website the electric will be out at least one whole day and it make me ask should I invest in a gerbil and wheel to start powering my own home...

Good thing is the automobile will charge my phone and some devices but getting gas will be hard...

STAY WARM, friend!

 

[Devils_Advocate]

Maine buys a quarter of its electricity from Canada, but of that generated by Maine, about 25% is wind power. I hunted to see if they had trouble with their wind turbines in the winter and didn't find anything. I did find one article mentioning that their efficiency can increase from an average of about 42% to 60% in the winter due to strong north westerlies.

In 2019, about four-fifths of Maine's electricity net generation came from renewable sources. About three-tenths of the state’s total net generation came from hydroelectric dams, one-fourth was fueled by biomass, and nearly one-fourth was provided by wind turbines. Natural gas-fired power plants fueled less than one-sixth of state generation in 2019, its smallest share in at least two decades. A small amount of Maine’s net generation, a total of about 2%, came from solar power, petroleum-fueled, and coal-fired power plants. Another 3% of Maine’s net generation is from facilities that primarily burn black liquor waste from pulp mills or municipal and other solid waste materials....
Maine's power supply has undergone a substantial shift since the early 1990s, when more than three-tenths of the state’s net generation typically came from the Maine Yankee nuclear power station and another one-fifth, on average, from petroleum-fired facilities. The Maine Yankee nuclear plant was decommissioned in 1997, and petroleum-fueled generation has decreased from as much as 37% of net generation in the late 1990s to less than 1% in 2019.

I hate to break it to you, FCT, but we're doing just fine without petroleum fueled power. As a consumer, I can tell you we don't have problems with not enough power, although most of it is from renewable sources. Not every state has as many rivers or trees as we do, but if we can do it, anyone can, using their own resources. It doesn't mean disaster to use renewable energy.

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

Take a moment and look at the wind turbines that are used to generate wind generated electricity and ask yourself why are they also not outfitted with solar panels?

Size of of those Windmills could easily allow solar panels to be placed around the base of the windmills allowing a dual usage of the same area.

Also realize Texas has vast amount of open land in West Texas where Solar Farms could be built to help create renewable energy energy but we as a nation are slow to build this and why?

How is it that when I was a kid in Joliet, Illinois we rarely had long periods of outages but in today time with all the damn technology we have we can not keep our lights on?

Is it because deregulation?

Some will argue it is but the issue with the government running our utilities versus corporations is over a period of time the service will also get bad...

So the question for me is how do we balance such issues so our society move forward and become less like Mexico and more like Norway?

 

[candycorn]

Well, they need it once every forty years or so, right? I guess we can forgive that.

What alternatives do you THINK are actual alternatives? Wind and solar are SUPPLEMENTS, never alternatives. Because they cannot be RELIED ON for grid power. Solar is only good for 6 to 8 hours a day depending on lattitude, clouds, precip, and ICE and snow ALSO !!!...

And wind is so entirely flaky, it cannot be scheduled for contracts at all.. Often functionally GONE for 2 or 4 a week or in the dead of night.

THESE are your "Green alternatives".. To quote James Hansen, the godfather of Global Warming, --

"If you think you're gonna fix GWarming with just wind and solar -- you probably believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny",.

YOUR PARTY is apparently a bunch of Tooth Fairy believers. Who SEEM to want to kill off more of the population by BANNING OUR STABLE GRID GENERATION -- before they find a better replacement for than the Tooth Fairy...

I don't think we should do that and I doubt if anyone is advocating it. You don't have to be insulting about it, either. I'm not a Democrat. I don't have a party. What is wrong with you lately?

Correct in all regards

 

[OldLady]

Maine buys a quarter of its electricity from Canada, but of that generated by Maine, about 25% is wind power. I hunted to see if they had trouble with their wind turbines in the winter and didn't find anything. I did find one article mentioning that their efficiency can increase from an average of about 42% to 60% in the winter due to strong north westerlies.

In 2019, about four-fifths of Maine's electricity net generation came from renewable sources. About three-tenths of the state’s total net generation came from hydroelectric dams, one-fourth was fueled by biomass, and nearly one-fourth was provided by wind turbines. Natural gas-fired power plants fueled less than one-sixth of state generation in 2019, its smallest share in at least two decades. A small amount of Maine’s net generation, a total of about 2%, came from solar power, petroleum-fueled, and coal-fired power plants. Another 3% of Maine’s net generation is from facilities that primarily burn black liquor waste from pulp mills or municipal and other solid waste materials....
Maine's power supply has undergone a substantial shift since the early 1990s, when more than three-tenths of the state’s net generation typically came from the Maine Yankee nuclear power station and another one-fifth, on average, from petroleum-fired facilities. The Maine Yankee nuclear plant was decommissioned in 1997, and petroleum-fueled generation has decreased from as much as 37% of net generation in the late 1990s to less than 1% in 2019.

I hate to break it to you, FCT, but we're doing just fine without petroleum fueled power. As a consumer, I can tell you we don't have problems with not enough power, although most of it is from renewable sources. Not every state has as many rivers or trees as we do, but if we can do it, anyone can, using their own resources. It doesn't mean disaster to use renewable energy.

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

Take a moment and look at the wind turbines that are used to generate wind generated electricity and ask yourself why are they also not outfitted with solar panels?

Size of of those Windmills could easily allow solar panels to be placed around the base of the windmills allowing a dual usage of the same area.

Also realize Texas has vast amount of open land in West Texas where Solar Farms could be built to help create renewable energy energy but we as a nation are slow to build this and why?

How is it that when I was a kid in Joliet, Illinois we rarely had long periods of outages but in today time with all the damn technology we have we can not keep our lights on?

Is it because deregulation?

Some will argue it is but the issue with the government running our utilities versus corporations is over a period of time the service will also get bad...

So the question for me is how do we balance such issues so our society move forward and become less like Mexico and more like Norway?

If you read the link I put up in post 219, you're on the right track.

 

[OldLady]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

 

[candycorn]

The irony of this event is oh so delicious

Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

They should have thought of the worst case scenario and yet they never do because then how else can they have an excuse to let people have no power during a cold snap the might rival 1899 cold snap...

Every winter, in one part of the country, or another, the windmills freeze up and stop producing electricity. This is a regular occurance.

A couple years ago, 18% of Minnesota's grid went down. Windmills and and solar panels produce 18% of Minnesota's electrical output.

It's winter, right? Get your flashlights and thermal underwear out. The difference is, Tucker bitched about it on the teevee. Now all the anti-greenies are in an uproar.

I hate to break it to you, but failure of wind turbines was only 13% of the failures causing the blackouts in Texas, the bulk of it is due to frozen instruments at the natural gas installations. The head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the causes of the blackout:

First, some power plants may not have been operational due to routine maintenance, Cohan said. Peak demand typically occurs in the summer, so it's not unexpected for a coal or natural gas plant to be offline in an effort to tune up for the warmer months.

Second, some power plants may have failed to operate in the cold, Cohan said. "Plants are optimized to run under our typical and our extreme summer conditions but they aren't as well prepared and engineered for extreme cold," he said.

According to Rai, if plants operate for too long in too extreme of conditions, it could be too costly to operate as well as cause damage to the equipment, which could further exacerbate the outages for longer periods of time.

Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan said. Unlike a coal plant that has an ready stockpile, natural gas plants don't store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.

Texas planning for Texans or the failure to do so, it the problem.

'Massive failure': Why are millions of people in Texas still without power?

This is reminding me a little of the analysis after Katrina--they knew it could happen, but they kept crossing their fingers it wouldn't happen on their watch, and they didn't do the necessary work ahead of time.

I can understand the argument that this is record breaking, once in a century weather, and it's a valid question if we want to pay for something we may never use. Now that it's happened, maybe they'll be a little more careful about taking gas facilities off line at the same time, but since this probably won't happen again until our grandchildren are grandparents...

Like my post said, the anti-greens are jumping on this to make renewables look awful, when there are clearly a lot of factors at work.

I'm not anti-green. I'm pro science and engineering. Solar plants can be damaged or destroyed by hail or tornadoes. Even chronic windy conditions can shorten their 20 to 30 year life span due to etching by wind driven particles. They can be put out of commission by mere clouds or ice or snow.

Wind farms can be frozen up or face wind conditions too high where the blades need to be locked down. And they freeze up in ice storms. Or USUALLY they usually take 2 to 3 days and many nights a week OFF because -- DUH -- the wind isn't blowing

THESE ARE INHERENT VULNERABILITIES THAT PUBLIC NEVER HAS BEEN EDUCATED ABOUT...

There's NONE of this discussion goin on as the Left attempts to SUBSTITUTE these grid generators after they demolish, decommission, and kill off all of our STABLE AND RELIABLE grid generation methods. People WILL DIE if they succeed here.

As for the icing of the nat gas turbines in Texas, this is what happens when you are shutting down these stable and reliable sources by EDICT to take renewable first onto the grid. The maintenance issues INCREASE and the latent heat of operation is not available to PREVENT "freezing up".. So a storm blows in and the grid operators order the nat gas turbines to be shut down because the wind is going gang busters for a change.. But the temperature drops maybe 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of hours. Instead of idling these turbines at some low output -- they freeze also.. The private operators are not gonna pay for fuel when they can NOT sell their power. DUH!! White 6

Seems like you're expecting politicians with a CRITICAL EARTH SAVING mission to be aware of all this. Largely they are not.. They will screw this up as they've screwed up my washing machine, light bulbs, heat pumps/AC and toilets.

Well seeing I have dealt with hurricanes that only happen every so many years and now one of the coldest streaks in Southeast Texas recent history it make me ask where the hell is the infrastructure?

I was lucky until about two hours ago when the power finally went out and it is 12:40 AM here in Austin County, Texas and I ask myself how is it one of the richest states with natural resources is without power?

I blame decades of not doing shit about infrastructure and I am going to say Democrats will not fix it either if given a damn chance because they never do!

It is time for infrastructure to be the most important thing in this country and as a nation we need to revamp everything and work with a balance and not with ideals only.

We must be realistic and have clean Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Natural Gas and even clean coal energy...

We must invest in a infrastructure where we conserve rain water from buildings, houses and so on along with finding a way to make windows that can harness the solar energy from our businesses and skyscrapers...

I mean we build building so far up and we never truly harness their potential for energy sources from wind and solar with using fans and windows to help create energy.

I mean let take a simple lamp post and why are we not building solar panel within them and if we are then we need to build more because it will create energy over time and if the process is expensive then learn to make it cheaper...

We went from the 1950’s and 1960’s blazing into the technology world and building space ships and the future of the internet and now we have rolling blackouts in a state that should be able to keep everyone on during this crisis?

I understand shit does happen but this is not something that should happen.

Hell I grew up in Illinois and never saw this nonsense as a kid!

Sure the line would snap and power would be lost for a few hours or so while crews fixed the line or whatever but this is totally different and is because we as a nation do not care about our infrastructure at all!

Truth be told I am so sick of the finger pointing and just will say shit need to change but alas it will never change because the government is loving the chaos and if everything ran smoothly then those in power would be voted as usual...

Will try to sleep but reading Center Point website the electric will be out at least one whole day and it make me ask should I invest in a gerbil and wheel to start powering my own home...

Good thing is the automobile will charge my phone and some devices but getting gas will be hard...

I lived in Texas for decades. Houston Flooded constantly while while I was there....and since I've been gone, it's been in the news for flooding several times.

The reason why the infrastructure in Texas is the way it is because nobody wants to pay for the improvements that might not directly benefit them immediately.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

 

[candycorn]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Does it surprise you that no matter what the topic is...the board is full of (often times surly) experts on the topic? Constitution...experts. Power.....experts. Military...experts. Societal ills from poverty to discrimination....experts.

It got colder this year than it did in recent years. The population has grown in Texas. More people using more power.... It's not a mystery why there are shortages. If it rains a lot more than it normally does...there are floods.

And as hard as it is to believe...there are no politics involved in this.

 

[candycorn]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

The irony of this event is oh so delicious

Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

They should have thought of the worst case scenario and yet they never do because then how else can they have an excuse to let people have no power during a cold snap the might rival 1899 cold snap...

Every winter, in one part of the country, or another, the windmills freeze up and stop producing electricity. This is a regular occurance.

A couple years ago, 18% of Minnesota's grid went down. Windmills and and solar panels produce 18% of Minnesota's electrical output.

It's winter, right? Get your flashlights and thermal underwear out. The difference is, Tucker bitched about it on the teevee. Now all the anti-greenies are in an uproar.

I hate to break it to you, but failure of wind turbines was only 13% of the failures causing the blackouts in Texas, the bulk of it is due to frozen instruments at the natural gas installations. The head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the causes of the blackout:

First, some power plants may not have been operational due to routine maintenance, Cohan said. Peak demand typically occurs in the summer, so it's not unexpected for a coal or natural gas plant to be offline in an effort to tune up for the warmer months.

Second, some power plants may have failed to operate in the cold, Cohan said. "Plants are optimized to run under our typical and our extreme summer conditions but they aren't as well prepared and engineered for extreme cold," he said.

According to Rai, if plants operate for too long in too extreme of conditions, it could be too costly to operate as well as cause damage to the equipment, which could further exacerbate the outages for longer periods of time.

Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan said. Unlike a coal plant that has an ready stockpile, natural gas plants don't store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.

Texas planning for Texans or the failure to do so, it the problem.

'Massive failure': Why are millions of people in Texas still without power?

This is reminding me a little of the analysis after Katrina--they knew it could happen, but they kept crossing their fingers it wouldn't happen on their watch, and they didn't do the necessary work ahead of time.

I can understand the argument that this is record breaking, once in a century weather, and it's a valid question if we want to pay for something we may never use. Now that it's happened, maybe they'll be a little more careful about taking gas facilities off line at the same time, but since this probably won't happen again until our grandchildren are grandparents...

Like my post said, the anti-greens are jumping on this to make renewables look awful, when there are clearly a lot of factors at work.

I'm not anti-green. I'm pro science and engineering. Solar plants can be damaged or destroyed by hail or tornadoes. Even chronic windy conditions can shorten their 20 to 30 year life span due to etching by wind driven particles. They can be put out of commission by mere clouds or ice or snow.

Wind farms can be frozen up or face wind conditions too high where the blades need to be locked down. And they freeze up in ice storms. Or USUALLY they usually take 2 to 3 days and many nights a week OFF because -- DUH -- the wind isn't blowing

THESE ARE INHERENT VULNERABILITIES THAT PUBLIC NEVER HAS BEEN EDUCATED ABOUT...

There's NONE of this discussion goin on as the Left attempts to SUBSTITUTE these grid generators after they demolish, decommission, and kill off all of our STABLE AND RELIABLE grid generation methods. People WILL DIE if they succeed here.

As for the icing of the nat gas turbines in Texas, this is what happens when you are shutting down these stable and reliable sources by EDICT to take renewable first onto the grid. The maintenance issues INCREASE and the latent heat of operation is not available to PREVENT "freezing up".. So a storm blows in and the grid operators order the nat gas turbines to be shut down because the wind is going gang busters for a change.. But the temperature drops maybe 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of hours. Instead of idling these turbines at some low output -- they freeze also.. The private operators are not gonna pay for fuel when they can NOT sell their power. DUH!! White 6

Seems like you're expecting politicians with a CRITICAL EARTH SAVING mission to be aware of all this. Largely they are not.. They will screw this up as they've screwed up my washing machine, light bulbs, heat pumps/AC and toilets.

Well seeing I have dealt with hurricanes that only happen every so many years and now one of the coldest streaks in Southeast Texas recent history it make me ask where the hell is the infrastructure?

I was lucky until about two hours ago when the power finally went out and it is 12:40 AM here in Austin County, Texas and I ask myself how is it one of the richest states with natural resources is without power?

I blame decades of not doing shit about infrastructure and I am going to say Democrats will not fix it either if given a damn chance because they never do!

It is time for infrastructure to be the most important thing in this country and as a nation we need to revamp everything and work with a balance and not with ideals only.

We must be realistic and have clean Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Natural Gas and even clean coal energy...

We must invest in a infrastructure where we conserve rain water from buildings, houses and so on along with finding a way to make windows that can harness the solar energy from our businesses and skyscrapers...

I mean we build building so far up and we never truly harness their potential for energy sources from wind and solar with using fans and windows to help create energy.

I mean let take a simple lamp post and why are we not building solar panel within them and if we are then we need to build more because it will create energy over time and if the process is expensive then learn to make it cheaper...

We went from the 1950’s and 1960’s blazing into the technology world and building space ships and the future of the internet and now we have rolling blackouts in a state that should be able to keep everyone on during this crisis?

I understand shit does happen but this is not something that should happen.

Hell I grew up in Illinois and never saw this nonsense as a kid!

Sure the line would snap and power would be lost for a few hours or so while crews fixed the line or whatever but this is totally different and is because we as a nation do not care about our infrastructure at all!

Truth be told I am so sick of the finger pointing and just will say shit need to change but alas it will never change because the government is loving the chaos and if everything ran smoothly then those in power would be voted as usual...

Will try to sleep but reading Center Point website the electric will be out at least one whole day and it make me ask should I invest in a gerbil and wheel to start powering my own home...

Good thing is the automobile will charge my phone and some devices but getting gas will be hard...

I lived in Texas for decades. Houston Flooded constantly while while I was there....and since I've been gone, it's been in the news for flooding several times.

The reason why the infrastructure in Texas is the way it is because nobody wants to pay for the improvements that might not directly benefit them immediately.

That I agree with you on and also individuals building their cities ( Houston ) on land that normally flooded but because of a long drought many believed that their homes would never flood but hurricanes and tropical storms have started to kick up more often as the weather patterns have changed again, so those places will flood more often and those land owners did not build for possible risks in the future and now want everyone else to bail them out when they should have thought about every possible scenario.

As for the power outage it is telling when I say I grew up in Joliet, Illinois and we never dealt with this at all and we had sub-zero temps for days at a time and I lived on a damn farm!

So as a nation we need to do better and find better solutions because these storm will happen more often along with plagues and pandemics and right now I am saying we are no better than Mexico and before some smartass mentions what Biden is doing let be clear this issue is decades old and was warned many times!

Shit, the coldest day in Texas history was in February in 1899, so let me say this and History repeats itself and we were long overdue for a major cold snap but this does not excuse the poor planning or kicking the issue down the road...

 

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

I am fine with the military running the power and even fine with our government taking over all natural resources and have been when I wrote under Bruce T. Laney...

I have no issues with regulations on nuclear energy and would not want it ran by private citizens at all because the risk is much higher to something to go wrong.

Again, infrastructure is needed and it should be a thirty year plan with the goal of getting this nation fixed...

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Does it surprise you that no matter what the topic is...the board is full of (often times surly) experts on the topic? Constitution...experts. Power.....experts. Military...experts. Societal ills from poverty to discrimination....experts.

It got colder this year than it did in recent years. The population has grown in Texas. More people using more power.... It's not a mystery why there are shortages. If it rains a lot more than it normally does...there are floods.

And as hard as it is to believe...there are no politics involved in this.

It is a discussion that shouldn’t have politics involved because the reality is this issue is decades old and has been ignored and need to be fixed...

I mean Apartments should have generators to kick on when power fails and stay on until power is restored and the excess energy stored by solar panels should be bought by the government...

I mean things can be done but we as a nation refuse...

 

[candycorn]

The irony of this event is oh so delicious

Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

They should have thought of the worst case scenario and yet they never do because then how else can they have an excuse to let people have no power during a cold snap the might rival 1899 cold snap...

Every winter, in one part of the country, or another, the windmills freeze up and stop producing electricity. This is a regular occurance.

A couple years ago, 18% of Minnesota's grid went down. Windmills and and solar panels produce 18% of Minnesota's electrical output.

It's winter, right? Get your flashlights and thermal underwear out. The difference is, Tucker bitched about it on the teevee. Now all the anti-greenies are in an uproar.

I hate to break it to you, but failure of wind turbines was only 13% of the failures causing the blackouts in Texas, the bulk of it is due to frozen instruments at the natural gas installations. The head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the causes of the blackout:

First, some power plants may not have been operational due to routine maintenance, Cohan said. Peak demand typically occurs in the summer, so it's not unexpected for a coal or natural gas plant to be offline in an effort to tune up for the warmer months.

Second, some power plants may have failed to operate in the cold, Cohan said. "Plants are optimized to run under our typical and our extreme summer conditions but they aren't as well prepared and engineered for extreme cold," he said.

According to Rai, if plants operate for too long in too extreme of conditions, it could be too costly to operate as well as cause damage to the equipment, which could further exacerbate the outages for longer periods of time.

Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan said. Unlike a coal plant that has an ready stockpile, natural gas plants don't store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.

Texas planning for Texans or the failure to do so, it the problem.

'Massive failure': Why are millions of people in Texas still without power?

This is reminding me a little of the analysis after Katrina--they knew it could happen, but they kept crossing their fingers it wouldn't happen on their watch, and they didn't do the necessary work ahead of time.

I can understand the argument that this is record breaking, once in a century weather, and it's a valid question if we want to pay for something we may never use. Now that it's happened, maybe they'll be a little more careful about taking gas facilities off line at the same time, but since this probably won't happen again until our grandchildren are grandparents...

Like my post said, the anti-greens are jumping on this to make renewables look awful, when there are clearly a lot of factors at work.

I'm not anti-green. I'm pro science and engineering. Solar plants can be damaged or destroyed by hail or tornadoes. Even chronic windy conditions can shorten their 20 to 30 year life span due to etching by wind driven particles. They can be put out of commission by mere clouds or ice or snow.

Wind farms can be frozen up or face wind conditions too high where the blades need to be locked down. And they freeze up in ice storms. Or USUALLY they usually take 2 to 3 days and many nights a week OFF because -- DUH -- the wind isn't blowing

THESE ARE INHERENT VULNERABILITIES THAT PUBLIC NEVER HAS BEEN EDUCATED ABOUT...

There's NONE of this discussion goin on as the Left attempts to SUBSTITUTE these grid generators after they demolish, decommission, and kill off all of our STABLE AND RELIABLE grid generation methods. People WILL DIE if they succeed here.

As for the icing of the nat gas turbines in Texas, this is what happens when you are shutting down these stable and reliable sources by EDICT to take renewable first onto the grid. The maintenance issues INCREASE and the latent heat of operation is not available to PREVENT "freezing up".. So a storm blows in and the grid operators order the nat gas turbines to be shut down because the wind is going gang busters for a change.. But the temperature drops maybe 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of hours. Instead of idling these turbines at some low output -- they freeze also.. The private operators are not gonna pay for fuel when they can NOT sell their power. DUH!! White 6

Seems like you're expecting politicians with a CRITICAL EARTH SAVING mission to be aware of all this. Largely they are not.. They will screw this up as they've screwed up my washing machine, light bulbs, heat pumps/AC and toilets.

Well seeing I have dealt with hurricanes that only happen every so many years and now one of the coldest streaks in Southeast Texas recent history it make me ask where the hell is the infrastructure?

I was lucky until about two hours ago when the power finally went out and it is 12:40 AM here in Austin County, Texas and I ask myself how is it one of the richest states with natural resources is without power?

I blame decades of not doing shit about infrastructure and I am going to say Democrats will not fix it either if given a damn chance because they never do!

It is time for infrastructure to be the most important thing in this country and as a nation we need to revamp everything and work with a balance and not with ideals only.

We must be realistic and have clean Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Natural Gas and even clean coal energy...

We must invest in a infrastructure where we conserve rain water from buildings, houses and so on along with finding a way to make windows that can harness the solar energy from our businesses and skyscrapers...

I mean we build building so far up and we never truly harness their potential for energy sources from wind and solar with using fans and windows to help create energy.

I mean let take a simple lamp post and why are we not building solar panel within them and if we are then we need to build more because it will create energy over time and if the process is expensive then learn to make it cheaper...

We went from the 1950’s and 1960’s blazing into the technology world and building space ships and the future of the internet and now we have rolling blackouts in a state that should be able to keep everyone on during this crisis?

I understand shit does happen but this is not something that should happen.

Hell I grew up in Illinois and never saw this nonsense as a kid!

Sure the line would snap and power would be lost for a few hours or so while crews fixed the line or whatever but this is totally different and is because we as a nation do not care about our infrastructure at all!

Truth be told I am so sick of the finger pointing and just will say shit need to change but alas it will never change because the government is loving the chaos and if everything ran smoothly then those in power would be voted as usual...

Will try to sleep but reading Center Point website the electric will be out at least one whole day and it make me ask should I invest in a gerbil and wheel to start powering my own home...

Good thing is the automobile will charge my phone and some devices but getting gas will be hard...

I lived in Texas for decades. Houston Flooded constantly while while I was there....and since I've been gone, it's been in the news for flooding several times.

The reason why the infrastructure in Texas is the way it is because nobody wants to pay for the improvements that might not directly benefit them immediately.

That I agree with you on and also individuals building their cities ( Houston ) on land that normally flooded but because of a long drought many believed that their homes would never flood but hurricanes and tropical storms have started to kick up more often as the weather patterns have changed again, so those places will flood more often and those land owners did not build for possible risks in the future and now want everyone else to bail them out when they should have thought about every possible scenario.

As for the power outage it is telling when I say I grew up in Joliet, Illinois and we never dealt with this at all and we had sub-zero temps for days at a time and I lived on a damn farm!

So as a nation we need to do better and find better solutions because these storm will happen more often along with plagues and pandemics and right now I am saying we are no better than Mexico and before some smartass mentions what Biden is doing let be clear this issue is decades old and was warned many times!

Shit, the coldest day in Texas history was in February in 1899, so let me say this and History repeats itself and we were long overdue for a major cold snap but this does not excuse the poor planning or kicking the issue down the road...

This (so far) isn't a major cold snap. Temps are supposed to be like in the 70's next week. Houston temps....

 

[OldLady]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

Why the military? We have done fine except for that one near meltdown in ... was it Pennsylvania? And the technology has improved a lot since then. As long as they do their damndest to control the radioactive waste.

 

[candycorn]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

Why the military? We have done fine except for that one near meltdown in ... was it Pennsylvania? And the technology has improved a lot since then. As long as they do their damndest to control the radioactive waste.

Erring on the side of caution. They've proven they can do it for decades in every type of condition imaginable. The personnel are trained, dedicated, and disciplined. We have 58 plants in 29 states. We likely need to at least double that.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

Why the military? We have done fine except for that one near meltdown in ... was it Pennsylvania? And the technology has improved a lot since then. As long as they do their damndest to control the radioactive waste.

Three Mile Island which was bad...

Navy is trained in nuclear engineering when it come to subs, so having those people trained by the Navy and ran by the Navy might be wise...

We need the Military to start doing what it did back in the 1940’s - 1960’s and rely less on private citizens unless contracted through the military...

It took a General to give us our Highway system because he saw how hard it was to move from one end of this country to the other during World War II...

 

[Devils_Advocate]

The irony of this event is oh so delicious

Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

They should have thought of the worst case scenario and yet they never do because then how else can they have an excuse to let people have no power during a cold snap the might rival 1899 cold snap...

Every winter, in one part of the country, or another, the windmills freeze up and stop producing electricity. This is a regular occurance.

A couple years ago, 18% of Minnesota's grid went down. Windmills and and solar panels produce 18% of Minnesota's electrical output.

It's winter, right? Get your flashlights and thermal underwear out. The difference is, Tucker bitched about it on the teevee. Now all the anti-greenies are in an uproar.

I hate to break it to you, but failure of wind turbines was only 13% of the failures causing the blackouts in Texas, the bulk of it is due to frozen instruments at the natural gas installations. The head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said the causes of the blackout:

First, some power plants may not have been operational due to routine maintenance, Cohan said. Peak demand typically occurs in the summer, so it's not unexpected for a coal or natural gas plant to be offline in an effort to tune up for the warmer months.

Second, some power plants may have failed to operate in the cold, Cohan said. "Plants are optimized to run under our typical and our extreme summer conditions but they aren't as well prepared and engineered for extreme cold," he said.

According to Rai, if plants operate for too long in too extreme of conditions, it could be too costly to operate as well as cause damage to the equipment, which could further exacerbate the outages for longer periods of time.

Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan said. Unlike a coal plant that has an ready stockpile, natural gas plants don't store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.

Texas planning for Texans or the failure to do so, it the problem.

'Massive failure': Why are millions of people in Texas still without power?

This is reminding me a little of the analysis after Katrina--they knew it could happen, but they kept crossing their fingers it wouldn't happen on their watch, and they didn't do the necessary work ahead of time.

I can understand the argument that this is record breaking, once in a century weather, and it's a valid question if we want to pay for something we may never use. Now that it's happened, maybe they'll be a little more careful about taking gas facilities off line at the same time, but since this probably won't happen again until our grandchildren are grandparents...

Like my post said, the anti-greens are jumping on this to make renewables look awful, when there are clearly a lot of factors at work.

I'm not anti-green. I'm pro science and engineering. Solar plants can be damaged or destroyed by hail or tornadoes. Even chronic windy conditions can shorten their 20 to 30 year life span due to etching by wind driven particles. They can be put out of commission by mere clouds or ice or snow.

Wind farms can be frozen up or face wind conditions too high where the blades need to be locked down. And they freeze up in ice storms. Or USUALLY they usually take 2 to 3 days and many nights a week OFF because -- DUH -- the wind isn't blowing

THESE ARE INHERENT VULNERABILITIES THAT PUBLIC NEVER HAS BEEN EDUCATED ABOUT...

There's NONE of this discussion goin on as the Left attempts to SUBSTITUTE these grid generators after they demolish, decommission, and kill off all of our STABLE AND RELIABLE grid generation methods. People WILL DIE if they succeed here.

As for the icing of the nat gas turbines in Texas, this is what happens when you are shutting down these stable and reliable sources by EDICT to take renewable first onto the grid. The maintenance issues INCREASE and the latent heat of operation is not available to PREVENT "freezing up".. So a storm blows in and the grid operators order the nat gas turbines to be shut down because the wind is going gang busters for a change.. But the temperature drops maybe 30 or 40 degrees in a matter of hours. Instead of idling these turbines at some low output -- they freeze also.. The private operators are not gonna pay for fuel when they can NOT sell their power. DUH!! White 6

Seems like you're expecting politicians with a CRITICAL EARTH SAVING mission to be aware of all this. Largely they are not.. They will screw this up as they've screwed up my washing machine, light bulbs, heat pumps/AC and toilets.

Well seeing I have dealt with hurricanes that only happen every so many years and now one of the coldest streaks in Southeast Texas recent history it make me ask where the hell is the infrastructure?

I was lucky until about two hours ago when the power finally went out and it is 12:40 AM here in Austin County, Texas and I ask myself how is it one of the richest states with natural resources is without power?

I blame decades of not doing shit about infrastructure and I am going to say Democrats will not fix it either if given a damn chance because they never do!

It is time for infrastructure to be the most important thing in this country and as a nation we need to revamp everything and work with a balance and not with ideals only.

We must be realistic and have clean Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Natural Gas and even clean coal energy...

We must invest in a infrastructure where we conserve rain water from buildings, houses and so on along with finding a way to make windows that can harness the solar energy from our businesses and skyscrapers...

I mean we build building so far up and we never truly harness their potential for energy sources from wind and solar with using fans and windows to help create energy.

I mean let take a simple lamp post and why are we not building solar panel within them and if we are then we need to build more because it will create energy over time and if the process is expensive then learn to make it cheaper...

We went from the 1950’s and 1960’s blazing into the technology world and building space ships and the future of the internet and now we have rolling blackouts in a state that should be able to keep everyone on during this crisis?

I understand shit does happen but this is not something that should happen.

Hell I grew up in Illinois and never saw this nonsense as a kid!

Sure the line would snap and power would be lost for a few hours or so while crews fixed the line or whatever but this is totally different and is because we as a nation do not care about our infrastructure at all!

Truth be told I am so sick of the finger pointing and just will say shit need to change but alas it will never change because the government is loving the chaos and if everything ran smoothly then those in power would be voted as usual...

Will try to sleep but reading Center Point website the electric will be out at least one whole day and it make me ask should I invest in a gerbil and wheel to start powering my own home...

Good thing is the automobile will charge my phone and some devices but getting gas will be hard...

I lived in Texas for decades. Houston Flooded constantly while while I was there....and since I've been gone, it's been in the news for flooding several times.

The reason why the infrastructure in Texas is the way it is because nobody wants to pay for the improvements that might not directly benefit them immediately.

That I agree with you on and also individuals building their cities ( Houston ) on land that normally flooded but because of a long drought many believed that their homes would never flood but hurricanes and tropical storms have started to kick up more often as the weather patterns have changed again, so those places will flood more often and those land owners did not build for possible risks in the future and now want everyone else to bail them out when they should have thought about every possible scenario.

As for the power outage it is telling when I say I grew up in Joliet, Illinois and we never dealt with this at all and we had sub-zero temps for days at a time and I lived on a damn farm!

So as a nation we need to do better and find better solutions because these storm will happen more often along with plagues and pandemics and right now I am saying we are no better than Mexico and before some smartass mentions what Biden is doing let be clear this issue is decades old and was warned many times!

Shit, the coldest day in Texas history was in February in 1899, so let me say this and History repeats itself and we were long overdue for a major cold snap but this does not excuse the poor planning or kicking the issue down the road...

This (so far) isn't a major cold snap. Temps are supposed to be like in the 70's next week. Houston temps....

View attachment 458144

For here it is a major cold snap compare to it normal winter weather...

Also the weather changes here in this region fast which you know and even though they say it will be warm by next week it could be hot or cold...

 

[candycorn]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

Why the military? We have done fine except for that one near meltdown in ... was it Pennsylvania? And the technology has improved a lot since then. As long as they do their damndest to control the radioactive waste.

Three Mile Island which was bad...

Navy is trained in nuclear engineering when it come to subs, so having those people trained by the Navy and ran by the Navy might be wise...

We need the Military to start doing what it did back in the 1940’s - 1960’s and rely less on private citizens unless contracted through the military...

It took a General to give us our Highway system because he saw how hard it was to move from one end of this country to the other during World War II...

There's that...but it's also the guys turning the switches as well as those doing the actual labor. Dedicated, fully staffed, and disciplined. Not a bunch of "call ins" because deer season starts or because of spring break.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm learning lots of cool stuff in this thread.

Nuclear is the best route but when a disaster happens the results of the disaster could last hundreds to thousands of years while affecting the entire World...

So we need a mix of solar, wind and nuclear energy along with clean coal and natural gas energy...

We as a nation need a better solution and we need someone like Ike to lead the way because what we have now is no better than Mexico and this decades of kicking the can down the road need to stop!

As long as you have ultra strict command and control....nuke is fine. I'm talking the US Navy running the plants. PG&E pays the Navy a maintenance fee. No patronage, nepotism, or hiring someone's brother in law.

Why the military? We have done fine except for that one near meltdown in ... was it Pennsylvania? And the technology has improved a lot since then. As long as they do their damndest to control the radioactive waste.

Three Mile Island which was bad...

Navy is trained in nuclear engineering when it come to subs, so having those people trained by the Navy and ran by the Navy might be wise...

We need the Military to start doing what it did back in the 1940’s - 1960’s and rely less on private citizens unless contracted through the military...

It took a General to give us our Highway system because he saw how hard it was to move from one end of this country to the other during World War II...

There's that...but it's also the guys turning the switches as well as those doing the actual labor. Dedicated, fully staffed, and disciplined. Not a bunch of "call ins" because deer season starts or because of spring break.

Lights back on here in Austin County but for how long who knows... Been advised that rolling blackouts will keep on happening for the next 24 hours and it could be longer...

In the end State of Texas need to do something and anyone that believe this is a fluke of nature need to learn Texas is the land of flukes and Nature slap us yearly!

 

[DudleySmith]

Natural gas production dropped enough to offline most of the generating plants. Wind farms shutting down was only about a third of the lost power.

No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages

Lost wind power was expected to be a fraction of winter generation. All sources — from natural gas, to nuclear, to coal, to solar — have struggled to generate power during the storm that has left millions of Texans in the dark.

www.texastribune.org

In any case, blame the corporate leadership for not spending the necessary capital on emergency systems and backups. They focus more on dividends than actually running an electric power network. It's another failure of 'privatization' driving up prices over 300% while providing 70% less services.

If those wind generators are failing, it's because they're crappily constructed. They should be producing more than normal, not freezing up.