What is Happening in Texas?
Pockets of Texas entered their Third Straight Day of Widespread Power Outages amid an extended winter storm.
An unusual Arctic blast spread across Texas on Monday and Tuesday from the tip of the Panhandle all the way to the Rio Grande Valley. Residents of large swaths of the state experienced two straight days of single-digit temperatures.
The widespread cold weather led to record-breaking demand for electricity. On Sunday night into Monday morning, frigid conditions hobbled dozens of power plants. This led the state’s grid operator to declare its most serious state of emergency at about 1:30 a.m. Monday.
The grid operator has faced twin problems: frozen power plants and not enough natural gas to run all needed power plants.
Texas operates its own power grid, making it the only one that isn’t under federal jurisdiction. Texas likes it that way and has taken sometimes dramatic steps to ensure its grid is overseen in Austin, not Washington.
Natural-gas-fired power plants generated 40% of Texas’s electricity in 2020, according to Ercot, the largest single source. Wind turbines were second at 23%, followed by coal at 18% and nuclear at 11%.
Deep Freeze Persists
Unfortunately, Texas Power Outages to Drag Into Third Day as Deep Freeze Persists.
The power crisis came as a far-reaching winter storm brought snow, ice and record low temperatures to swaths of the U.S., with dangerously cold wind chills from Arctic air expected to linger over the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley through midweek, the National Weather Service said.
Anger at the state’s power-grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, flashed throughout the state on Tuesday, with many local officials criticizing the lack of information on when the power might come back.
The crisis began in the early hours of Monday when a series of power plants shut down in rapid succession, prompting Ercot to initially call for rolling blackouts and then institute longer, widespread outages.
A number of wind turbines in West Texas shut down because of excessive icing, but the loss of sizable amounts of generation from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants pushed the grid into an emergency. Unlike similar power generators in other parts of the U.S., many Texas wind farms and power plants aren’t insulated and designed to perform in extremely cold temperatures, which rarely occur in much of the state.
Troy Fraser, a retired Texas state senator who chaired a committee that had oversight of the Texas grid for 16 years until 2017, said it was possible to create a more resilient electricity system, but it would be costly.
“What are people willing to pay for? Do they want their electric bills to double to build in adequate reserves?” he asked. “I’m sitting here without power in my house and it’s an inconvenience, and it’s an inconvenience I will live with rather than have my power prices double.”
Has Happened Before
Texas power outages have happened twice before but on a much smaller scale in both intensity and duration.
- In 2011, a February cold spell led to a spike in demand for natural gas and problems with the gas gathering-and-pipeline systems. The issues lasted about six hours and the grid had to cut off four gigawatts of electricity to customers.
- In 2014, another cold snap in January forced nearly 10 gigawatts of power generation offline because of freezing conditions.
“A decade ago, almost to the day, we had a similar event, so we had 10 years to implement solutions to prevent this from happening and it looks like we didn’t do it,” said Michael Webber, a mechanical-engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin and chief science officer for French power company Engie SA . “The question is, will we learn the lesson this time?”
What are People Willing to Pay For?
That’s the key question, not alleged lessons. The Texas grid is optimized for summer heat capacity.
Ask people today what they are willing to pay for and you will get a different answer than you would have two weeks ago.
And you would get a still different answer in July.
Ultimate Irony
The ultimate irony in this Texas escapade is everyone expecting Texas to prepare for a massive cold wave in the midst of escalating panic over global warming.
Wait a second. I forgot that CO2 causes record cold, record heat, floods, drought, fleas, ticks, baldness, and rodent attacks.
Apologies offered for anything I missed.
Mish
“Tom Seng, director of the School of Energy Economics, Policy and Commerce at the University of Tulsa, summed up the utilities’ perspective in that context: “Up until now, it’s been an issue of, ‘Well, we don’t think that’s worth it to ratepayers for what might be a very infrequent weather event.’”
Im having difficulty accepting why every storm, etc is blamed on climate change. The weather in Texas over the last 100 years is guaranteed to have caused as much damage with all things being equal with Texas power system. It is a no brainer that over the next hundred years this will happen again.
https://www.weather.gov/maf/The_Coldest_Night_in_Texas#:~:text=The%20Coldest%20Night%20in%20Texas%20History&text=Some%20of%20the%20coldest%20weather,to%2023%20degrees%20below%20zero.
For an rough extrapolation of that Coldest Night in Texas link, Texas has had very cold winters in 1899, 1906, 1930, 1933, 1940, 1947, 1949, 1985, 1989. Roughly 9 very cold stretches some of which were much colder than experienced the last week.
Its hard not to believe that Texas will experience 9 or so cold stretches over the next 100 or so years but now when one happens it is blamed on climate change. Just wait until an extremely cold stretch like the one in 1899 happens and it will. Not sure what caused the 1899 cold spell, did the homesteaders blame the horses pulling the carts? Too bad there are no weather records kept during the 1800-1900 for comparison.
Its hard not to believe that Texas will experience 9 or so cold stretches over the next 100 years…..
Correction: Should say, Its hard not to believe that Texas wont experience 9 or so cold stretches over the next 100 years.
The following link provides significant weather events in Texas history since the 1800’s. No doubt significant weather events will continue as they have always in Texas. Still having trouble understanding why every single weather event that occurs nowadays is “climate change”? Those horses pulling the carts certainly did a lot of damage creating all those weather events. Isnt this an expected pattern of nature occuring in Texas?
Ooops, wrong link:
Climate change extremism is a religion and most of us are not converting.
If the Feds spent less money on military adventurism then maybe all three grids would operating the way they should. No plan for an EMP attack. When Trump came into office, he raised military expenditures. I said “Oh boy, here we go again!” The idiot you have now in office is expanding military in Eastern Syria and no military cutbacks whatsoever. Biden will do nothing for infrastructure just like Trump. The moronic Democrats are still trying hard to disgrace Trump instead of focusing on our problems while continually dividing us and not enforcing laws against BLM and Antifa fearing being called racists. Senator Cruz (R, Texas) is going on vacation to Mexico while his representatives freeze. One day, all this garbage will be flying out of America as it burns. These two parties suck. You all reap what you sow. Now, go buy a warm jacket at Walmart and shut up!
The Federal government is bailing out Texas now, as they should but this shoul not be a blank check. Texas should be required to enact the reforms to ensure this doesn’t happey again. It’s crap that Texas can underinvest in its energy infrastructure and just wait fo the Feds to come to the rescue
Agree 100%. It’s effectively all the other states, their people, whom Texas/Texans would regularly lambaste for their “socialism”, who are ultimately coming to the rescue of Texas/Texans.
Texas was/is still acting just like the “privatize the profits, socialize the losses” banks and corporations in this country.
Except it was more like “Texas/Texans will be libertarian, small-government, fend for yourself, to hell with everyone else … until it goes to hell for Texas/Texans then we’ll line up for assistance from big government (i.e. everyone else) just like everyone else we always complain about”.
Human nature and the realities of the modern world render libertarianism and all its concomitant “isms” idealistic/unrealistic pipe-dream relics of a world that no longer exists, if it ever did. Anyone who thinks of self as a “self-made person” is deceiving self.
Tim “only the strong will survive” Boyd has resigned.
Texas symbolizes the way voters are guilted into depraved counterintuitive decisions that result in pain, Boyd’s thoughtless statement is par for the course, but even TX apparently has limits.
The answer to any question of government comes down to “rugged individualism”.
Tell that to an 80 yr old living alone in TX this week.
R.I.P. Limbaugh.
This is true and ironic. I say let them secede the next time they try.
The federal disaster declaration…
….Today, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. declared that an emergency exists in the State of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from a severe winter storm beginning on February 11, 2021, and continuing.
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 254 Texas counties.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and direct federal assistance will be provided at 75 percent federal funding.
I call BS on the idea that no-one in authority in Texas knew it was going to be this bad.
On 2/11/21, the Feds declared a “disaster” based on an impending storm. This was the Feds, which generally do not declare premptive disasters.
There had to be some Texas government demands that preceeded that declaration, based on predictions of the direness of something that had not yet happened.
And it wasn’t predicted snow or ice–the feds have no plows to plow the snow or stockpiles of salt to melt the ice. It wasn’t based on the possibility of people having the inconvenience of snow days. It had to do with fundamental human concerns where basic failures of services were predicted.
And given the speed at which things in government happen, that awareness would have been at least 3 or 4 days prior to that declaration.
So, the Texas authorities has a good idear it would be this bad 2 weeks ago.
It is called “climate change”, not global warming and it has been for a long time. Yes the overall trend is to get warmer but it changes the weather patterns so it can get colder than normal at times, hotter than normal, drier than normal, wetter than normal, etc.
It really doesn’t cost much to allow pipelines and power plants to function in the cold weather. It will cost more to retrofit than to initially build it that way but the overall cost is minimal. Usually it just involves heat tracing of pipelines to prevent freezing and this only has to be done in particular locations above ground (below ground it usually won’t freeze in Texas). I have designed oilfields in North Dakota and winterization is standard practice (and the ground freezes down several feet there).
Much more balanced post than the one days earlier entitled “Hello Clean Energy Advocates, What Do We Do When the Wind Turbines are All Frozen?” where you seemingly blamed this all on wind turbines with the quote “The wholesale price of electricity spikes 10,000% in a Texas power outage. Among other problems, the wind turbines are all frozen” which wasn’t just any sentence but the lead intro to the piece.
Now we know that that the failures of the wind turbines could have easily been planned for by utilizing heated carbon blades. worse the failues were disproportionatley the result of thermal power.
Doesn’t the US have a national electricity grid?
The US has an eastern and western grid, but Texas wanted their own grid.
Alaska and Hawaii have their own grids too
“Too much focus on low taxes and low regulations”. Equals more Freedom and Independence, hence you must be prepared. On a Planet with 8 billion plus people, the weak dying off is a blessing – and every Person ever born will die of something at sometime. Extending life via the miracles of modern medicine and ’round the clock care is simply wrong.
The 2.7M is a lie based on the map of where power was out. The largest metro areas were impacted. There is no way just less than 10% of population doesn’t have power today.
So looks like the whole grid was minutes from going dark even according to power company CEO until they decided to implement rolling blackouts. There seems to be very little impetus on the part of anyone to do more to prevent future events like this. Don’t mess with Texas !
Here is Mish in a nutshell:
There is no fundamental difference between Republcans and libertarians. Both are basically for no solutions in the end and let the individual bear all the burdens of whatever happens even if it no fault of their own.
I think you’re oversimplifying Mish, but the last thing he needs is for me to white knight for him.
As for the difference between a Republican and a libertarian:
A Republican will denounce all forms of socialism or gov’t interference until he/she is in power and socialism suits his/her purposes, all while pretending to be oblivious to the hypocrisy.
A libertarian will denounce all forms of socialism or gov’t interference, but since their only route to power is through the Republican Party, they will denounce Democrats’ anti-claseical liberalism and occasionally Republicans’ hypocrisy, hold their noses and slink around in disgust in our socialist system, and write quixotic prose poems about vanished individual liberty and non-existent free markets that dozens of people at most will read.
Mish if Texas taxpayers/consumers do not want to pay to ‘winterize’ their energy systems then they should be required to pay back every penny of federal emergency assistance they are taking. Why should anyone outside of Texas have to pay for their self created problems?
Most voters probably do not understand deregulation and utility infrastructure. This is something that should never been up to the public to decide. This is fault of the direction of state government for letting greedy corporations not paying their part in order to do business with the local utility companies. This should cost Governor Abbott his job along with others on the Public Utility Commission.
Texans should pay for Texas Problems. The same applies to every other state including California wildfires and Florida hurricanes
El Paso, Tx is on the Western power grid, the rest of the state is on Texas power grid. El Paso, Tx has power. Deregulation nightmare!
If only you paid more in taxes, this wouldn’t be happening.
CA life expectancy is 81.2 ; TX is 79.1 so the healthcare is buying…heatlh. also, the covid 19 death rate per 100000 is higher in TX than CA. Also, Houston has the highest mortality rate of mothers giving birth in North America. higher than, LA, SF, Sand Diego or any other big city in CA. thus, the access to health insurance is helping in people getting…healthcare.
If what I read is true it was a conscious decision by Texas authorities to not pay the extra cost of making their utility grid “freeze proof” in order to lower monthly utility bills. Hate to say it but you gets what you pay for.
“Wait a second. I forgot that CO2 causes record cold, record heat, floods, drought,” Yes! You’re starting to get it! Scientists have been saying for years that we will see more extreme events as the climate changes, with warming in the aggregate. Record cold and record heat is in keeping with projections. Both drought and floods are in keeping with projections. Glad to see you’re beginning to catch on, Wish.
While I agree, starting to feel bad for Mish, he’s taking a beating over that line as well as yesterdays “What to do when wind turbines are frozen” thread.
Speaking of which, 18% after hours surge for VWDRY tonight.
When a libertarian’s overly idealistic and ultimately foolish view of human nature and the modern world is revealed for what it is, wouldn’t you agree that “taking a beating” might indeed be the proper “free market” outcome? ;>)
Laugh if you must, I most closely align with Libertarianism….namely the “personal freedom” mantra.
And yes, I agree, on average, Libertarians do underestimate the complexity of most issues they confront.
Best example, while touting “free market” as the universal solution, Libertarians tend to ignore the influence concentrated wealth has over the theoretically “free market”.
Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Banks, the Big Three, just a few examples of historical proof the market isn’t “free” as long as “money is free speech” pretends there is no bribery in politics.
I couldn’t agree with you more on the futility of even pretending there can be such a thing as truly “free market”.
You might have heard the saying “Freedom is not the right to do as we please, but rather the opportunity to please to do what is right.”
That still requires an answer to the question “How do we determine what is right?” And that almost certainly extends the search for the answer beyond ourselves … because very few if any of us would have the temerity to claim that everything we please to do IS right.
So if the flip side of the “personal freedom” mantra of Libertarianism is not ALWAYS “personal responsibility” then the mantra is empty posturing.
So funny that the first time you wrote about this your headline was about green energy and now that it has been shown that it is the gas a other type of power generation not a word on the headline. So let me write it for you:
“Power outage mostly due to failures at gas and nuclear plants. Wind farms while affected (due to poor planning from Texas) were not the main cause. Long live green energy!”
There fix it for you.
BTW another reason is that Texas (being Texas) decided to have their own grid to avoid federal government regulation. Too funny
The three grids are out of phase with each other. They can only cross by converting to DC and putting it in a battery, then converting to AC to go out to the other grid.
HVDC interconnects grids that are out of phase. AC-DC-AC I don’t think that batteries are used. Also, HVDC is also use in transmission over long distances. Texas grid is isolated from the rest of the US (pretty much) to avoid federal regulation.
Some outrageous utility bills….wth is “Griddy?”
….“I paid $450 for one day. I was in shock,” Scott-Amos told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “It made no sense because we have a gas heater, a gas fireplace, and we have been keeping the temperature around the house at 65 degrees. With that amount of money, and the labeled amount of usage Griddy said was used—we would have to be lighting up the whole neighborhood.”…
….Royce Pierce, a 38-year-old contractor, is one of those Griddy customers who received a notice from the power company to abandon his service—a message he admitted to The Daily Beast he thought was “overly precautionary” as the winter storm loomed.
Now, his bill has skyrocketed over $7,000 in the last two days, he said. As of Wednesday, Pierce owes Griddy $8,162.73 for the month of February—a shocking price considering the bill for his two-story house was $387.70 just last month. Last February, Pierce said he only paid $330….
Those Enron chickens coming home to roost BIGLY.
And holy shit “only paid $330 last February”??? My ENTIRE yearly electric bill in Orange CA was $750! That was with half solar — now I am full solar, so my annual bill will be $0 (although now I will be paying off the solar at $70/mo.)
Between the weather, energy costs and property taxes, Texas ain’t a bargain AT ALl.
You mean total cost of ownership matters ?
Haha yes! Everyone talks up the benefits, no one talks about the drawbacks. Move to Texas they said. It’s awesome they said.
At least California’s drawbacks are well-known. An occasional earthquake, yearly fires where no city-dwellers live, high income tax, high cost-of-living, bad traffic that you eventually get used to.
But I literally NEVER think about the weather except to marvel at how incredible 350 days per year of sun is.
California is a great place…..to visit.
We got a dusting of new snow this morning. Now day four of not going to work..At some point I’m just going to lose interest in going back if this keeps up.
The thing about this storm is that it has been exceptionally LONG compared to any such previous Norther I remember. A bad one here usually means two days oof work…..one that made sense, and a second one “just in case”…even though the ice is melting by 9 am on day two.
We have had some ice now since very late last Friday night….it looks to be going away by tomorrow…but a week of this kind of cold has not happened here in my memory.
Looks like 10 hours of sun tomorrow and 8 hours above freezing. That should melt off the ice and gets back to BAU, pretty much.
Hope you have enough earthquake insurance.
I do. It’s called FEMA.
It isn’t uncommon for me to pay in the low $600’s for July and August for the primary residence. It’s usually down around $400 this time of year..but I expect to get nailed for this month. I have no idea. My house is a real energy hog.
On the plus side,I have a hell of a view of the canyon……. it will soon be worth 4X what I paid for it. Should help with the pain when I finally do downsize.
I do know some people who have pools and like to keep the house at 60 degrees in summer who have $1000 monthly summer bills, but the most I ever paid was about $250. Your bills would kill me.
The lack of winter preparedness has long been an issue for ERCOT’s power system. About 10 years ago, a bitter cold snap caused over 3.2 million ERCOT customers to lose power during Super Bowl week. A 350-page federal report on the outages (PDF) found that the power generators’ winterization procedures were “either inadequate or were not adequately followed.”
When asked on Wednesday why ERCOT hasn’t mandated more winterization to prevent outages, ERCOT’s senior director of system operations Dan Woodfin said it was not required.
“I guess the role of ERCOT is not necessarily to mandate those kind of things,” he said.
Woodfin said the company’s annual spot checks to ensure generators are following best practice winterization plans were done virtually this year due to the pandemic.
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.
Can one of you climate change naysayers please tell me whether you don’t believe the evidence that the average global high temperature has been on the rise for the past 100 years or so or whether you just don’t buy the fact that the cause is man made? Or is it that you do believe the evidence that average global high temperature is rising but don’t believe that we can do anything to slow or stop it from increasing? This is somewhat unrelated but I do remember a college Control Theory lecture from the early 1970s discussing the greenhouse effect and whether it might lead to global warming or a global cool down.
“Can one of you climate change naysayers please tell me whether you don’t believe the evidence that the average global high temperature has been on the rise for the past 100 years or so or whether you just don’t buy the fact that the cause is man made?”
Actually, the temperature has gone up and down over the last 100 years. Back in the 1970’s, talk was of the possibility of another ice age. The 1930’s in the U.S. were hotter than the 1970’s. I presume CO2 was rising all during that time, yet temperature was not in step.
“Existential threat.” Political propaganda. People live in frigid Alaska and scorching Saudi Arabia. Pick your climate.
The people screaming climate crisis are also screaming socialism. Climate crisis is a political invention. The climate crisis political elites are not going to give up their lifestyle, while they crush the lifestyle of the common people.
The overall trend is definitely upward.
where is the TX miracle? where are the new Billionaires in TX that were supposed to be its salvation? Where is Elon Musk? where are the new Texans? are they helping? TX is a sham of a state. yes, few are doing well, but the rest are doing badly. 17 % uninsured rate vs. 7 % in CA ; Houston has the highest mortality rate among woman given birth.
i have sherafunde for this episode.
“17 % uninsured rate vs. 7 % in CA”
But can you afford to use the insurance? Coverage is not health care, as someone warned back when the ACA was being legislated.
People not subsidized have a large monthly payment, along with a large deductible, before insurance pays out a single dime.
A lot of people are living pay check to pay check and don’t have money to pay deductibles, even if subsidized.
CA life expectancy is 81.2 ; TX is 79.1 so the healthcare is buying…heatlh. also, the covid 19 death rate per 100000 is higher in TX than CA. Also, Houston has the highest mortality rate of mothers giving birth in North America. higher than, LA, SF, Sand Diego or any other big city in CA. thus, the access to health insurance is helping in people getting…healthcare.
Where’s fema?
so you like socialism now. FEMA will help . The President has declared the state a disaster area. help is on the way.
BTW FEMA is no the way unlike the fascist Trump Biden does believe in helping the union even if they have been jerks all alone….
No FEMA amigo…Texas will pull up using their own bootstraps.
The advent of Artic vortices is caused by the Artic polar jet stream weakening due to lower temp differentials between upper/lower air layers, which then releases these vortices to move south.
The lowest air layers are now warmer due to less snow, darker ground & sea absorbs sun warming that air.
So yes, this is global warming – causing climate change.
Polar vortexes are old news. I remember them when i was a kid back in the 60’s, when it was colder. Washington probably experienced them at Valley Forge.
“Polar vortexes are old news. I remember them when i was a kid back in the 60’s…”
Oh, yes, I too grew up watching winter blizzards in Texas, ahh, the good ole days.
I hope Texans are in a rage over this mismanagement of their electric grid. The blame rests with the cripple in Austin.
It is such a rage that Texas will keep sending money to the Trump fund.
ERCOT has done a decent job on my watch. This was a perfect storm, and such things cannot be completely avoided unless consumers are willing to pay a lot more for electricity.
In over 25 years in this house, I can count the power outages on the fingers of one hand…..usually it’s hot weather that taxes the Texas grid, which is very well-maintained btw, compared to many parts of the country.
Heck of a job, Brownie. Heck of a job.
Maybe three real outages in 25 years.
This one is bad enough sure..but bad enough to change infrastructure in a major way? The loss of work is worse than anything, and we would have lost work even if the power stayed on…..
Interestingly, the power has stayed on at the office the whole time….but the roads are dangerous. I haven’t been out there, but the computers have stayed up. We might have frozen pipes….too soon to check. I’ll know all the damage by the weekend.
If I cracked the engine block on my boat I will be a little upset.
In a week we’ll be back up into the 70’s. This too shall pass.
Stay safe…
Oh we’re back to cold weather disproves climate change again?
Where did I say that? Stop the bullshit.
Hi, could you look at my comment above? The science says that when the atmosphere is being disrupted extreme cold can be expected for a short period of time in various places. It is like punching a balloon.
Not with those words but you did implied it:
“Wait a second. I forgot that CO2 causes record cold, record heat, floods, drought, fleas, ticks, baldness, and rodent attacks.”
Rick Perry said Texans are fine with rolling blackouts so long as it avoids Federal involvement. I don’t believe that. This has been an unmitigated disaster. Texas never integrated with the national electric grid, winterized the power grid , built up spare capacity. So there was no spare natural gas. Nuclear controls froze, windmill blades froze. And the idiots in charge decided to blame the green new deal. This isn’t a failure of renewable fuels, it was a planning failure period!
“Rick Perry said Texans are fine with rolling blackouts so long as it avoids Federal involvement.”
I’m equally interested in Fred Flintstone’s thoughts on Quantum physics.
The three grids are out of phase with each other. They can only cross by converting to DC and putting it in a battery, then converting to AC to go out to the other grid.
I have nuclear powered electricity and never had the power cut. Not a good time to have a Tesla in Texas.
It’s actually a very good time to own a Tesla, if you have it hooked up correctly. Who needs a generator when you have a battery in your car that stores more than enough power for you? Electric cars help stabilize the grid, in fact, it’s precisely because there aren’t enough electric cars that stuff like this happens. Were there to be MORE tesla’s, the electric grid would not have failed at all.
Electric cars are energy storage. Germany went through what Texas is going through and they found electric cars saved the day, but only because they have more per capita.
Mind you, this only works if there’s a LOT of electric cars hooked into the grid.
Never underestimate the wonder of capitalism to fix a problem.
What if you want to use your car to go somewhere and if you don’t know how long power will be out would you risk hooking up your only means of transport to the grid using up the power in your battery?
It’s true that now no one would do that, because they know it wouldn’t help them.
But if everyone had an electric car and power outages no longer happened as a result, then confidence in the grid would give people the willingness to plug them in, since there’d be no reason to do so.
The problem is that right now there isn’t enough power….but there would be if there was a battery backup in everyones home…..like a car.
They aren’t really all that behind in TExas on power generation. But they are behind.
You do know a nuclear power plant went offline in Texas adding to the problem. Well maybe not because you aren’t from around here.
We have over fifty-six of them. We sell a lot of electricity to Germany when it gets cold over there. Since they went green business has been good for French nuclear electricity exports to Germany.
Beg the question.
For the very brief period that charging a Tesla is much more expensive, it isn’t like you would be out gunning it on the ice-slicked roadways. But it sure is fun for some unnamed online trolls to spew about “$900 fillups for life.”
I’m disappointed in your previous piece about wind farms not working in the winter while ignoring Texas farms decided against carbon or heated blades. Wind farms are used successfully in much colder climates than Texas and yet you glossed over that and declared the solution unworkable. Did I miss something? Just as I read your piece similar discussions were all over conservative media
We had a worse storm in December of 1929…this part of Texas got more than a foot of snow….and just to north of us in Hillsboro, they got 26 inches, the official all-time record for snowfall in the state.
We got roughly a foot of snow in 1984 when we lived in the Hill Country just north of San Antonio…..and most of south Texas was blanketed in that one.
Blue Northers are part of life in Texas…..I’ve experienced many of them…but this one was made much worse by the power outages, which were way worse than any in my adult life. I try to be prepared for unforeseen emergencies, but this one caught me off-guard.
I remember the 84 storm. I was in Longview TX at that time and we mainly got ice and a little snow. All kinds of problems at work (giant Kodak chemical plant) as things froze up (since nothing other than steam lines were insulated). After that, I did a lot of research on protecting the plant from future freezes, but company decided the freezes didn’t happen frequently enough to justify being prepared. They would just continue to have to feed everything to a giant flare when the plant went down.
Check the stinky trail of Sen Phil Gramm’s wife who as head of (FTC I think it was) stopped electric regulation in TX. You get Enron and things like this from that.
Just like how TS IS LAST IN THE NATION IN NURSING HOME CARE (AND Mental Health) the elderly and poor “The Weak will Die” as this GOP TX Mayor says!
The Home of Enron where Sen Phil Gramm’s wife kept the futures market from regulating there. Check her stinky trail.
Also, just LIKE how TX is LAST in the nation for Nursing Home Care (and Mental Health) the elderly and disadvantages can NOT COUNT ON ANYTHING. “THE WEAK WILL DIE” THE MAYOR SAYS. Texas mayor tells residents to fend for themselves during power outage: ‘Only the strong will survive’
Can’t read it because I stopped my subscription to WP many years ago.
It is to be expected that Texas would experience a few hiccups on the road to independence. Rugged individualism will carry the day. Adapt or die.
Climate change is responsible for polar storms like this one. That should be acknowledged. Expect more, but not necessarily often.
My family has been exceedingly lucky. We’ve now lost power twice (once today) and we’ve lost water service once for several hours (also today).
I lost three days of work, and my employees have been without power and water both, for much longer periods, days, some of them.
Grocery stores have been closed and have had lines when they were open. I have been able to drive around in my 4WD truck, although I haven’t been out today.
Neither solar nor wind would have replaced grid power for us in this one. I have a couple of generators at the ranch, but I’ll admit to being blindsided by this one….I did not expect it. I suppose I will buy a new and better gennie after this one…and stockpile some fuel for it. that would make the best sense. And keep a bit more wood on hand…the fireplace has been a great asset this week.
I have a 6kw solar setup with a couple of 10kwh LI batteries, runs the well and stuff as needed. For serious heat backup the is the wood stove in the great room. Wood from fallen trees is everywhere, the question is am I to lazy to cut it.
Sounds like a very nice solar system. Do you run a deep well pump off the Li batteries?
I have most of the parts to build a system of that size, although I don’t have the batteries….I haven’t built it, primarily because I worry about vandalism at the rural place….or theft. I reckon I will get around to it one day.
I hear you on the wood thing. I have enough deadfalls to keep me supplied too….and laziness is an issue.
You have employees and a 4 wheel drive truck?! Are you manly enough to have a generator and a back up plan. Do any of you know how to turn a water main off? (Where I live frozen pipes do not leak when frozen only when they thaw and the splits in copper are revealed. Time to switch to PEX or…
That wood will green still…duh
Oh yeah, piece of cake. The inverters make 7.5kw of power plenty to run a pump. The wells about 500ft. The LG Chem’s have worked like a charm and they are pretty affordable.
Define “pretty affordable”.
EBay says about $8500 apiece….does that sound about right?
It sounds affordable at a time like this…when the grid is sucky…..but it almost never is in Texas…..all this rot about ERCOT….most of the time they do a good job. My experience as a consumer is mostly about as positive as it could be. I am lucky to be on some local switchyard with a high priority client I guess…..maybe a hospital, not sure. Most of Austin got turned off for multiple days.
The rural power co-ops I’m in elsewhere (two different ones in different places) don’t love grid-ties….but a stand-alone system to run the well and the lights would sure be nice. But not unless I move onsite full-time to provide better security.
Still nice to have the alternative power….no doubt about that. We haven’t had enough sun today to keep a lead-acid system going, but we’d have probably done fine with lithium batteries.
I paid close to 5G. So yeah a lot less than that.
Get a propane generator–no old gasoline issues.
Already on my wish list…..to be purchased asap. Either that or get a PTO gennie for the tractor….or maybe both.
I own two generators…but they are both DC 24V units I bought to back up solar I never have quite gotten built. A mil-spec diesel…and a cool Zena that doubles as a welder….powered by a big Harbor Freight gas engine. But neither was useful in this little emergency.
I think propane or dual fuel is the way to go for small generators that generate AC current. It was an oversight not to have one ready.
Mish – you are fooled by the term global warming. The correct term is climate change. We will see extremes like this all the time and these will become normalized events. I thought you were smarter than this.
But isn’t ‘climate change’ brought about by co2 trapping heat and creating a greenhouse? Is co2 doing something other than trapping heat to cause the climate to change? It certainly doesn’t feel like a greenhouse outside.
You mean that climate can get warmer or cooler? Either it’s climate Warming, Climate Cooling or Climate Staying The Same. Changing it to Climate Change just looks like hedging. If you are sure then say Climate Warming unless you are not sure of course.
Reserve capacity was not built probably because Climate Change is supposed to make these episodes no longer a concern. It was probably unpopular even to suggest that cold snaps could be a problem. The predictions were wrong. Now what will they do?
Climate change was debunked years ago. You or your great great great grandchildren will never see any effect from earths climate cycles you all been played by human error.
Climate change was debunked years ago. You and your great great great grandchildren will never see any effect from earths climate cycles you all been played by humans over critical behavior.
“The ultimate irony in this Texas escapade is everyone expecting Texas to prepare for a massive cold wave in the midst of escalating panic over global warming.”
Not sure, AGW will cause extreme weather, that includes cold waves as the polar vortex is perturbated by enhanced weather systems.
AS was posted earlier, Texas cut themsleves off from the national grid. They refused to buy carbon heated blades for their wind farms and have lost far more energy due to thermal sources tha renewable ones. Texas has chosen cheap energy over reliable energy. And Texas utilities are not required to reserve power unlike other states. This is why Texas didn’t link to the national power grid as the Federal government pushes states to do just that.
The three grids are out of phase with each other. They can only cross by converting to DC and putting it in a battery, then converting to AC to go out to the other grid.
Remember the Alamo? Back when Texans weren’t Texans? Yet now they are transplants from Sissy Town USA. Santana is coming for them with his deadly guitar lick.
A little research into wind and solar will have you finding it is hot air up your skirt and enough solar panels to light up New York City will cover the entire Lone Star State. Ted Cruz is a senator not a lineman nor a babysitter.
Texas grid is not optimized for growth they are getting. We will find that out this summer. What happens if a cat 5 hurricane shuts down the refineries offshore in late summer ?The bottom line is Texas does not have the infrastructure for the growth they invited. They are unprepared because they don’t know what good governance is. Too much focus on low taxes and low regulations. Multiple refineries have blown up over the last few years due to lax regulations. More of that will happen in coming years. Expect what you see now to be the norm come winter and hurricane season.