Ice Age in Texas

[avromie7]

Not sure if this point has been made, but isn't it a lot more economical to winterize wind generation in Alaska compared to a state that rarely has freezing weather? Winterizing 20% of your energy to prevent a 100 year event seems like an enormous waste of money to maintain a fragile system. It may be a better investment to add NG capacity with a far lower percentage of failure instead of investing in winterization.

Regardless you're investing in something that you only expect to need once in 100 years.

[yuneeq]

Regardless you're investing in something that you only expect to need once in 100 years.

That is true, but if you start from scratch - before there was any renewable energy - if instead of adding 20% wind and winterizing forever, they simply added 20% NG, it would operate fine while being a lot more economical.

[avromie7]

That is true, but if you start from scratch - before there was any renewable energy - if instead of adding 20% wind and winterizing forever, they simply added 20% NG, it would operate fine while being a lot more economical.

This is exactly the problem with having an unreliable source of energy, you need to invest in a more reliable source to cover for when you unreliable source is down, it makes no sense economically.

[PlatinumGuy]

That is true, but if you start from scratch - before there was any renewable energy - if instead of adding 20% wind and winterizing forever, they simply added 20% NG, it would operate fine while being a lot more economical.

Your numbers are off. The NG was down enough that even if there was no wind and there was 20% more NG, there would be widespread blackouts (although somewhat less than there were). NG underperformed by 41% of expectations, so even if there was 20% more NG capacity, that would be only 12% more overall power (even before you deduct the wind output), which wouldn't have come close to solving the shortage.

Texas didn't necessarily do the wrong thing in saving $$$ by mandating winterization for an event that was extremely unlikely to happen, but Abott going on Fox and blaming a non existent Green New Deal for a problem that was created by the diametric opposite of big government is pathetic.

Of course, the narrative that the Texas attitude saved consumers money is a fiction, per the WSJ

This is exactly the problem with having an unreliable source of energy, you need to invest in a more reliable source to cover for when you unreliable source is down, it makes no sense economically.

Renewable energy makes no sense economically until you acknowledge carbon footprint carries a price too. That's why the government has to subsidize it.

[aygart]

Your numbers are off. The NG was down enough that even if there was no wind and there was 20% more NG, there would be widespread blackouts (although somewhat less than there were). NG underperformed by 41% of expectations, so even if there was 20% more NG capacity, that would be only 12% more overall power (even before you deduct the wind output), which wouldn't have come close to solving the shortage.

Texas didn't necessarily do the wrong thing in saving $$$ by mandating winterization for an event that was extremely unlikely to happen, but Abott going on Fox and blaming a non existent Green New Deal for a problem that was created by the diametric opposite of big government is pathetic.

Of course, the narrative that the Texas attitude saved consumers money is a fiction, per the WSJ
Renewable energy makes no sense economically until you acknowledge carbon footprint carries a price too. That's why the government has to subsidize it.

The WSJ article has some good points but missed the boat assuming the link is to the article I think it is . I hope to write more about this later.

[skyguy918]

Great explanation of some of the more technical aspects of the outage.

[avromie7]

Great explanation of some of the more technical aspects of the outage.

I didn't watch the video yet, but this is what he is great at.

[skyguy918]

I didn't watch the video yet, but this what he is great at.

Grady is awesome. All of his stuff on public works - what the infrastucture we see around us all the time does and how it works - is phenomenal.