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ERCOT, PUC, and deregulation got us here

cactusflinthead

By cactusflinthead
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High Plains Drifter
High Plains Drifter

I was driving around just now, listening to NPR, and they called out Abbot for his bullshit. I believe the direct quote was something like "Governor Abbot falsely claimed renewable energy was the caus

Hugo Stiglitz
Hugo Stiglitz
Bullneck
Bullneck

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Captainant

Captainant 28024

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It's absurd on its face that abbot's BIG ACTION(!!!) was to direct a commission to direct an agency to start to investigate an issue. Absolutely nothing for actually solving the issue, but just enough for know-nothing right wingers to say he's doing something.

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27615

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3 hours ago, GTX Horn said:

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t wind and solar actually outperform anticipated production during the freeze, or at least relative to natural gas, coal, and nuclear? He’s just pandering to the anti-renewable energy crowd who thinks the grid failure was somehow due to GND policies.

Correcto.

As reported here by the Texas Tribune on Feb. 16, ERCOT said that thermal sources, such as coal, gas and nuclear, lost nearly twice as much power due to the cold than renewable energy sources, which contributed to just 13% of the power outages (here).

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-texas-wind-turbines-explain-idUSKBN2AJ2EI

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Woland

Woland 753

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It's absurd on its face that abbot's BIG ACTION(!!!) was to direct a commission to direct an agency to start to investigate an issue. Absolutely nothing for actually solving the issue, but just enough for know-nothing right wingers to say he's doing something.

It’s not important to accomplish anything, it’s only important to LOOK like you’re accomplishing something. Someone made it through four years of presidency following the same principle.
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Bullneck

Bullneck 19332

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4 hours ago, Captainant said:

Good fucking lord. The hate for renewables continues. From the article:

In a letter sent to the commission on Tuesday, Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas to take several immediate actions, including:

  • Streamline incentives within ERCOT to encourage development and maintenance of adequate and “reliable” sources of power like natural gas, coal and nuclear
  • Hold “unreliable” generators financially responsible for outages (wind and solar power are listed as “unreliable”)
  • PUC should instruct ERCOT to establish a maintenance schedule for natural gas, coal, nuclear and other non-renewable electricity generators to ensure adequate, constant supply
  • PUC should order ERCOT to accelerate the development of projects that help increase connectivity

I got an idea.  Let's pick energy sources that will only make things WORSE in the future.  Who's with me?

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 90149

Posted
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7 hours ago, GTX Horn said:

This ought to do the trick:

5 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Didn't he announce several weeks ago that they had fixed all the problems?

5 hours ago, Captainant said:

It's absurd on its face that abbot's BIG ACTION(!!!) was to direct a commission to direct an agency to start to investigate an issue. Absolutely nothing for actually solving the issue, but just enough for know-nothing right wingers to say he's doing something.

He's probably sweating bullets over the thought of ERCOT cutting power this summer, people losing their shit, and Huffines and West campaigning 24/7 with ads of Abbott discussing how he fixed everything.

 

 

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Updawg

Updawg 2334

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He's probably sweating bullets over the thought of ERCOT cutting power this summer, people losing their shit, and Huffines and West campaigning 24/7 with ads of Abbott discussing how he fixed everything.
 
 

One of west’s platforms is Texas will never be part of green new deal. Everything he is doing is to counter those two. Pretty soon we will abolish property tax. It’s a race to the bottom.
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drt

drt 642

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I thought about posting this video in the DT thread that had some coal/powerplant discussion but figured it would never have a honest discourse based on who actually comments in that forum now.  Anyways, I found this interesting seeing as it talks about cost of electricity from different sources, and the tremendous amount of money that is invested in different types of infrastructure.  I think we're going to waste a tremendous economic opportunity because of our political leadership here in Texas.

The other cool thing I saw recently was using floating solar arrays in Singapore, which sounds like a pretty interesting idea for retention ponds here in the states.

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drt

drt 642

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I went down the rabbit hole after seeing the floating solar arrays and found this, apparently there is now one in Texas out by Altman: 

Altman-Plants-solar-array.png?ext=.png

Heres an article: https://www.bluebonnet.coop/Community/News/articles/2021/Other-posts/Floating-solar

Here's a podcast about the project: https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/380

 

@Scheiss Meister is this something we could do at water treatment plants here in municipalities?  Healdsburg or some other town in California is doing this currently at one of their plants.

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Scheiss Meister

Scheiss Meister 8420

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@drt, I can see benefits in storage ponds serving drinking water or irrigation systems with limited access by the public.  I would think that putting a floating array on a lake or pond with public access would invite vandalism and be subjected to unintended damage at such a rate that it would lose its economic advantages.

It would definitely not work on wastewater treatment ponds.  Wastewater ponds need sunlight and air exchange on the surface to function properly, and the off gases from the wastewater would cause excessive corrosion.  

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dingleberryswitzer

dingleberryswitzer 2724

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On 7/6/2021 at 2:46 PM, Captainant said:

Good fucking lord. The hate for renewables continues. From the article:

In a letter sent to the commission on Tuesday, Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas to take several immediate actions, including:

  • Streamline incentives within ERCOT to encourage development and maintenance of adequate and “reliable” sources of power like natural gas, coal and nuclear
  • Hold “unreliable” generators financially responsible for outages (wind and solar power are listed as “unreliable”)
  • PUC should instruct ERCOT to establish a maintenance schedule for natural gas, coal, nuclear and other non-renewable electricity generators to ensure adequate, constant supply
  • PUC should order ERCOT to accelerate the development of projects that help increase connectivity

Do these fuckers not understand that we will probably need ALL the energy we can get our hands on?  We can continue with the coal or NG and still build out solar and wind.  Then.. you know, sell it to other states that we are connected too… oh wait. 

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Captainant

Captainant 28024

Posted
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10 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Just got my June bill from Reliant and it's the highest I can recall in nearly five years in this house. It was the highest for June, that's for sure. And June was relatively mild.

Can't have those private entities take on financial damages for getting bit by their own chosen risk! Gotta socialize those losses, otherwise the wealth may not trickle down

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drt

drt 642

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53 minutes ago, Scheiss Meister said:

@drt, I can see benefits in storage ponds serving drinking water or irrigation systems with limited access by the public.  I would think that putting a floating array on a lake or pond with public access would invite vandalism and be subjected to unintended damage at such a rate that it would lose its economic advantages.

It would definitely not work on wastewater treatment ponds.  Wastewater ponds need sunlight and air exchange on the surface to function properly, and the off gases from the wastewater would cause excessive corrosion.  

Interesting.  Any rough guesses how many of those storage ponds there are for the average city in Texas?  It seems like the one in Healdsburg is for treated sewage that is earmarked for agricultural use, not drinking water.  Similar to the one in Altman.

https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/news/healdsburg-debuts-biggest-floating-solar-farm-in-nation/

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Scheiss Meister

Scheiss Meister 8420

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4 minutes ago, drt said:

Interesting.  Any rough guesses how many of those storage ponds there are for the average city in Texas?  It seems like the one in Healdsburg is for treated sewage that is earmarked for agricultural use, not drinking water.  Similar to the one in Altman.

https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/news/healdsburg-debuts-biggest-floating-solar-farm-in-nation/

I personally don't know of any that have such ponds for reclaimed wastewater, but I am sure that there are some.  Most wastewater treatment facilities discharge treated wastewater directly to a stream or river, but a growing number are directing their discharges to reuse, usually for agricultural or park irrigation.  There are many ways that this is done, from selling rights to the water put into the stream to storage in tanks and ponds. 

Come to think of it, I have been told that Las Colinas stores reclaimed wastewater in the ponds on their golf course and use it from there for irrigation.  I'm sure that putting such an array on ponds in a golf course would not be well received.  No way anyone would use one to try to skip the ball over the hazard and damage the array in the process.

But, directly to your question, I don't imagine that very many Texas cities have such storage ponds.  I might be surprised, though.

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pyrohornIII

pyrohornIII 4842

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On 7/8/2021 at 10:36 AM, drt said:

I thought about posting this video in the DT thread that had some coal/powerplant discussion but figured it would never have a honest discourse based on who actually comments in that forum now.  Anyways, I found this interesting seeing as it talks about cost of electricity from different sources, and the tremendous amount of money that is invested in different types of infrastructure.  I think we're going to waste a tremendous economic opportunity because of our political leadership here in Texas.

The other cool thing I saw recently was using floating solar arrays in Singapore, which sounds like a pretty interesting idea for retention ponds here in the states.

He talks about investment in terms of production and infrastructure, but doesn't address the investment and wealth held in mineral rights, both by the landowners and leasing companies.  The reduction of demand of fossil fuels would drop their value and likewise overall wealth of a lot of landowners, right?   So they would be lobbying Austin to push O&G like Abbott is doing as much as big oil, if not more?     

And as a side note to this, a lot of rural taxes are based on O&G reserve, so when the price drops, so does tax revenue for ESDs, roads, schools and those few remaining hospitals.  I see no one addressing this either and it's becoming a significant problem, made more obvious by Covid issues on ISDs.

I know they tax renewables as property taxes, but they have done the same for other generators and the little counties have been bent over by Luminant and other big generators over the past decade.  And I know that the wind generators pay a royalty to the landowners their windmills sit on.   Not sure about solar.  

So if anyone has seen any talk or planning on how that part of the economy will change due to moving from carbon based to renewables, I'd love to see/hear it.  Seems like a new area for legal expertise, like water rights was 40 years ago.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46534

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4 hours ago, drt said:

I went down the rabbit hole after seeing the floating solar arrays and found this, apparently there is now one in Texas out by Altman: 

Interesting.  I can't quite tell from the photo -- are those panels angled?  Straight up (panels laying flat) would be far from ideal.  What would be really cool would be the ability to rotate the array's orientation to shore as the seasons (and the sun's track) change, and also vary the pitch of the individual panels throughout the day for maximum sunlight.

Of course, $.

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drt

drt 642

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https://www.ciel-et-terre.net/hydrelio-floating-solar-technology/hydrelio-products/

They're angled, but no actuators or rotation of the anchoring system for seasonal/temporal adjustability.  It's a pretty KISS system actually.  Only real maintenance concerns are occasionally cleaning the panels of bird poop/dirt, which you usually would do with a traditional mounting system anyway.  Some company has invented a robot that drives over the panels and cleans them.

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
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22 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Nothing to see here.

 

The grid is just as vulnerable as ever. Hot wheels is just running out the clock in the hopes it don’t happen again before he launches his doomed to fail ridiculous presidential candidacy. It will be fun to watch.

Just sit back and root for the trees to finally win this one.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46534

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2 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

The grid is just as vulnerable as ever. Hot wheels is just running rolling out the clock in the hopes it don’t happen again before he launches his doomed to fail ridiculous presidential candidacy. It will be fun to watch.

fixed

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elfenix

elfenix 34400

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" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 78027

Posted
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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

 

huge trumper 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 90149

Posted
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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

Frustrated Parks And Recreation GIF

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PenelopeWitherspoon

PenelopeWitherspoon 19246

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Posted
" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

giphy.gif
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fattyflattie

fattyflattie 4639

Posted
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10 hours ago, elfenix said:

" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

Whoop!

I got an idea, let’s flood the board with aggys. Surely that will fix our grid. 

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19299

Posted
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11 hours ago, elfenix said:

" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

https://gizmodo.com/the-texas-power-grid-is-hanging-on-by-its-fingernails-1847466510

Our very own Kushner. 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 90149

Posted
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6 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Whoop!

I got an idea, let’s flood the board with aggys. Surely that will fix our grid. 

There was some confusion - he asked for an expert who understood load shedding, and the staffer thought he was politely asking about somebody who was an expert in taking a shit.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46534

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, elfenix said:

" In a move that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, Abbott’s latest appointment to the ERCOT board selection committee is Arch “Beaver” Aplin, the CEO of convenience store chain Buc-ee’s who doesn’t seem to have any experience in utilities—but who just so happens to be a big donor to Abbott’s reelection bid. (Abbott also gave Aplin a gig as the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, so, it seems, the guy can do anything.)"

OK, that's weird.  I was told that Hunter Biden was totally unqualified to serve on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma because he didn't have direct experience in the energy field.  

There must be some explanation.

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Captainant

Captainant 28024

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

OK, that's weird.  I was told that Hunter Biden was totally unqualified to serve on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma because he didn't have direct experience in the energy field.  

There must be some explanation.

maybe @Hate can help us to distinguish the difference? I know he's our local expert on all things Hunter Biden. Or is it just his laptop? Who could say

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted

Significant portions of our ERCOT electrical grid are going to crash during the Special Session, which does NOT include reinforcing our current power infrastructure.  

I can't define irony, but i know it when I see it.  

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C-Man

C-Man 27417

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

welp, fuck Buccee's then. Love's Travel Stop it is.

I've long avoided Buccee's unless I've absolutely had to make a stop there. Glad to know there's a legit reason to not ever go there again.

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