ERCOT, PUC, and deregulation got us here

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

1 hour ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that everyone knew this massive storm was coming.  I know there were warnings over the weekend about stress to power grids, etc...

How were people completely unprepared?  

Looking Up

Remedios Cue and her husband lost power for about 50 hours in their home in Euless, between Dallas and Fort Worth. The temperature dropped to a low of 40 degrees Fahrenheit. They retreated to the bed.

“When we couldn’t stand it anymore, we’d go out to the cars, warm up and charge our phones,” said Cue, 60, a preschool teacher.

Her husband heated water on the outdoor grill and warmed up a sandwich in a skillet thrust into the fireplace.

“There was no warning,” she said. “No one said, “Prepare for this.’

There was plenty of warning.  

[The Ace of Aces 5106]

28 minutes ago, SizzleChest said:

I lived outside Philly then and never lost power or water.  Only time I lost power the whole time I lived there was 3-4 days due to Sandy (downed lines).

Same, but got lucky abd only a day in Sandy. The 2011 floods we were out 3 days but that’s cause the transfer station was underwater. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by The Ace of Aces

[Hagbard Celine 10764]

don't know if this has been posted

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/in-texas-s-black-swan-blackout-everything-went-wrong-at-once

Adam Sinn, owner of Aspire Commodities LLC, a power and gas trader, was one of those wondering why so little was being done. He said that a week ago, when the seven-day outlook hit, Ercot’s own projections showed too little supply to meet soaring demand.

“We were looking at this week thinking, they are going to have to cut 10,000 megawatts of consumers,” he said. “I really think Ercot is to blame on this one.” He said there were spare megawatts that weren’t brought online. For example, Vistra Corp., a large generator, had 4,000 megawatts off line for maintenance in four plants that could have been turned on quickly, he said, citing data from Genscape Inc.

Sinn said either Ercot failed to order the megawatts back on or was told no, which should have generated publicity so residents could prepare.

Ercot and Genscape didn’t respond to requests for comment. Vistra declined to comment.

[Updawg 2261]

This is what's so frustrating about Abbott. He's not stupid or ignorant.... he chooses to pander to assholes and Trump base of the GOP. 

I guess but he also sucks on leadership skills. Fuck him

[JimmyJames 12271]

This isn’t all that difficult to figure out. The energy providers didn’t want to provide energy to Texas at a loss and ERCOT had no ability to force them to do so thanks to our republican government. As a result, Texans will die, Texans will lose money, and the reputation of the state is shot, deservedly so. Since our state government is more concerned about trans like Daniel Patrick molesting people in bathrooms than securing the Texas infrastructure energy grid.

All thanks to republicans and their bathroom bills.

[Js1 85136]

 

[Clintonaldo 2571]

Can someone summarize to an outsider what exactly has happened with your power shit? Pretend I am a dumbass when you explain it ( I know this will be hard to pretend but try) 

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

3 minutes ago, Clintonaldo said:

Can someone summarize to an outsider what exactly has happened with your power shit? Pretend I am a dumbass when you explain it ( I know this will be hard to pretend but try) 

1) natural gas power production took a dive due to freezing lines

2) wind and solar dipped as well

3) peak season coal plants were down for the winter and not brought online for as of yet unknown reasons but blame game will happen here

4) because the Texas grid isn’t interconnected with the rest of the country, it couldn’t get power shipped in. This is already being talked about (no interstate commerce so no fed regs, but that leaves you exposed in certain emergencies like this one)

and I think 5) providers were capped at the amount they could pay for power at 1500, so when spot prices went above that they couldn’t buy that power- until the gov issued something saying they could. 
 

probably 6) at a certain price, power providers didn’t want to take the loss of buying power at such high prices and made the financial decision to not buy and deliver. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Pato del Muerto

[Clintonaldo 2571]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

1) natural gas power production took a dive due to freezing lines

2) wind and solar dipped as well

3) peak season coal plants were down for the winter and not brought online for as of yet unknown reasons but blame game will happen here

4) because the Texas grid isn’t interconnected with the rest of the country, it couldn’t get power shipped in. This is already being talked about (no interstate commerce so no fed regs, but that leaves you exposed in certain emergencies like this one)

 

Do they not like forecast or some shit for demand? I mean if a goddamn T Mobile call center can forecast call volume to staff properly you would think an energy company would. Cell phones really are serious business. 

[pacman 7331]

7? they also refused to eat into profits to winterize the infrastructure despite recommendations stemming from 2011.

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

2 minutes ago, Clintonaldo said:

 

Do they not like forecast or some shit for demand? I mean if a goddamn T Mobile call center can forecast call volume to staff properly you would think an energy company would. Cell phones really are serious business. 

The demand spike was forecast. The supply dip was forecast. Seemingly nothing was done in response. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

The demand spike was forecast. The supply dip was forecast. Seemingly nothing was done in response. 

Yep. The why is the question.

[JimmyJames 12271]

Prison time. Nothing less will suffice. 

[Brisketexan 104670]

1) natural gas power production took a dive due to freezing lines
2) wind and solar dipped as well
3) peak season coal plants were down for the winter and not brought online for as of yet unknown reasons but blame game will happen here
4) because the Texas grid isn’t interconnected with the rest of the country, it couldn’t get power shipped in. This is already being talked about (no interstate commerce so no fed regs, but that leaves you exposed in certain emergencies like this one)
and I think 5) providers were capped at the amount they could pay for power at 1500, so when spot prices went above that they couldn’t buy that power- until the gov issued something saying they could. 
 
probably 6) at a certain price, power providers didn’t want to take the loss of buying power at such high prices and made the financial decision to not buy and deliver. 

Nuclear also went down.

And even if everything was firing on all cylinders, we don’t have extra generation to handle peak capacity. Because the ERCOT market doesn’t have a capacity element. Thus, by design, we have no “backup insurance generation.” Most other grids do.

Oh, and the reason that gas generation went down is because we don’t have any winterizing requirements for plants or supply lines. Because we don’t require it, like many other places do.

[Clintonaldo 2571]

1 minute ago, JimmyJames said:

Yep. The why is the question.

The answer to that should go to fucking jail. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

1 minute ago, JimmyJames said:

Yep. The why is the question.

I hope a real investigation happens and not a half ass one run by Abbott and cronies.

[Brisketexan 104670]

Prison time. Nothing less will suffice. 

Silly rabbit. Consequences are for minorities caught with a joint.

[Clintonaldo 2571]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Nuclear also went down.

And even if everything was firing on all cylinders, we don’t have extra generation to handle peak capacity. Because the ERCOT market doesn’t have a capacity element. Thus, by design, we have no “backup insurance generation.” Most other grids do.

Oh, and the reason that gas generation went down is because we don’t have any winterizing requirements for plants or supply lines. Because we don’t require it, like many other places do.

Can you explain what you mean by not having a capacity element?

Also, the no winterizing requirement is fucking stupid and I don’t understand why a company wouldn’t do that. It’s a small chance but major problem. Just a complete lack of ethics and sense to me. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

Per Dan Crenshaw on Facebook:

With blackouts across Texas, many are wondering: what happened?

Leftists are cheering a “red state” having energy problems.

Here’s the truth about what happened.

Summary:

A mix of over-subsidized wind energy and under-investment in gas power means we didn’t have enough base load energy for a massive spike in demand.

Also, Texas infrastructure isn’t designed for once-in-a-century freezes.

#1 - Frozen Wind Turbines:

West Texas had wind turbines that had to be de-iced. The little energy that power regulators planned on being supplied from wind was now gone.

We have almost 31GW of wind installed on the grid, but on Monday we couldn’t even depend on 6 GW working.

To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold.

Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will.

This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it. https://www.forbes.com/.../texas-outages-put-reliability.../

#2 - Nuclear also got too cold: We only have 4 nuclear units in TX, near Houston and Dallas. One of the reactors near Houston turned off due to a safety sensor freezing. No problem with the reactor. But the lack of the sensor forced the plant to shutdown, as a precaution.

(On another note, this shows how safe nuclear is. Lots of safety precautions.)

#3 - We don’t have enough Natural Gas online:

ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we lost the ability to get it transported. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation – so they froze.

Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance.

Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.

Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most?

Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.

Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us. They are *base load* energy.

If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse.

This raises the obvious question: can we ever rely on renewables to power the grid during extreme weather?

No, you need gas or nuclear.

And subsidizing investment in wind has pushed gas and nuclear out.

Now we live with the consequences.

The push to decommission baseload power sources like natural gas would be disastrous when trying to keep the lights on in Texas.

I’ll be joining my Texas colleagues in getting to the bottom of what happened. We can do better, even for once in a century events.

In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe, and stay strong.

 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

Just now, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Per Dan Crenshaw on Facebook:

With blackouts across Texas, many are wondering: what happened?

Leftists are cheering a “red state” having energy problems.

Here’s the truth about what happened.

Summary:

A mix of over-subsidized wind energy and under-investment in gas power means we didn’t have enough base load energy for a massive spike in demand.

Also, Texas infrastructure isn’t designed for once-in-a-century freezes.

#1 - Frozen Wind Turbines:

West Texas had wind turbines that had to be de-iced. The little energy that power regulators planned on being supplied from wind was now gone.

We have almost 31GW of wind installed on the grid, but on Monday we couldn’t even depend on 6 GW working.

To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold.

Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will.

This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it. https://www.forbes.com/.../texas-outages-put-reliability.../

#2 - Nuclear also got too cold: We only have 4 nuclear units in TX, near Houston and Dallas. One of the reactors near Houston turned off due to a safety sensor freezing. No problem with the reactor. But the lack of the sensor forced the plant to shutdown, as a precaution.

(On another note, this shows how safe nuclear is. Lots of safety precautions.)

#3 - We don’t have enough Natural Gas online:

ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we lost the ability to get it transported. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation – so they froze.

Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance.

Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.

Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most?

Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.

Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us. They are *base load* energy.

If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse.

This raises the obvious question: can we ever rely on renewables to power the grid during extreme weather?

No, you need gas or nuclear.

And subsidizing investment in wind has pushed gas and nuclear out.

Now we live with the consequences.

The push to decommission baseload power sources like natural gas would be disastrous when trying to keep the lights on in Texas.

I’ll be joining my Texas colleagues in getting to the bottom of what happened. We can do better, even for once in a century events.

In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe, and stay strong.

 

What a fucking liar.  My response to him:

Putting the wind farms at #1 is disingenuous. First the Texas market is set up as an energy market only. There is no capacity market (which there should be) which would incentivize investment. Second, Texas' market is completely separate from the rest of the grid. If it were attached to the US Grid, other areas could have provided power to Texas to make up the difference. Third is the natural gas issue, fourth are other plants such as coal and nuclear having issues, which is actually because these facilities were not weatherized properly or at all, and that goes back to that whole capacity market issue. The final and smallest reason is because of the icing of wind farms. STOP LYING TO THE PEOPLE.

[Brisketexan 104670]

I hope a real investigation happens and not a half ass one run by Abbott and cronies.

Oh, Penelope....on top of being brilliant, you’re also ADORABLE.

You know as well as I do that it will be an “investigation” with a predetermined outcome of finding that it’s the libtard greenies’ fault, and the solution is to force people to send more of their money to the O&G interests that own him, but not for them to actually invest in things that will make any real improvements.

TLDR; it will contain zero solutions, just a money transfer to campaign donors.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

1 minute ago, Clintonaldo said:

Can you explain what you mean by not having a capacity element?

Also, the no winterizing requirement is fucking stupid and I don’t understand why a company wouldn’t do that. It’s a small chance but major problem. Just a complete lack of ethics and sense to me. 

The energy market in Texas has no capacity market.  As a result, suppliers are not paid "Capacity Payments" for keeping units reliable and ready to run.  

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Oh, Penelope....on top of being brilliant, you’re also ADORABLE.

You know as well as I do that it will be an “investigation” with a predetermined outcome of finding that it’s the libtard greenies’ fault, and the solution is to force people to send more of their money to the O&G interests that own him, but not for them to actually invest in things that will make any real improvements.

TLDR; it will contain zero solutions, just a money transfer to campaign donors.

The funny thing about this, there are a LOT of people who work in this industry that know better.  They all need to call them out loudly and often for lying.  

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

4 minutes ago, Clintonaldo said:

Can you explain what you mean by not having a capacity element?

Also, the no winterizing requirement is fucking stupid and I don’t understand why a company wouldn’t do that. It’s a small chance but major problem. Just a complete lack of ethics and sense to me. 

Now you’ve got it. 
 

and since I forgot nuclear, yeah one reactor had to be powered down for a couple of days I believe because some pumps froze that control the cooling water. 

[Brisketexan 104670]

Can you explain what you mean by not having a capacity element?
Also, the no winterizing requirement is fucking stupid and I don’t understand why a company wouldn’t do that. It’s a small chance but major problem. Just a complete lack of ethics and sense to me. 

Ethics? You’re adorable. The only ethic is profit. Winterizing costs money. Cuts into profits.

As for capacity, see smart Penelope below:

What a fucking liar.  My response to him:
Putting the wind farms at #1 is disingenuous. First the Texas market is set up as an energy market only. There is no capacity market (which there should be) which would incentivize investment. Second, Texas' market is completely separate from the rest of the grid. If it were attached to the US Grid, other areas could have provided power to Texas to make up the difference. Third is the natural gas issue, fourth are other plants such as coal and nuclear having issues, which is actually because these facilities were not weatherized properly or at all, and that goes back to that whole capacity market issue. The final and smallest reason is because of the icing of wind farms. STOP LYING TO THE PEOPLE.

A capacity market is, in super simple terms, a market that has people pay not just for the energy they use, but for some extra generation facilities that they MIGHT need at times of high demand. It’s kind of like insurance - you only need it if shit goes sideways, but when shit goes sideways, you’re damned glad to have it. Most places have a market that provided for extra, backup generation. Texas doesn’t. And just like living your life without paying an insurance premium, it can result in some money savings....until it doesn’t. Then it costs you a fortune. Economically, and in human lives.

[Clintonaldo 2571]

6 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

The energy market in Texas has no capacity market.  As a result, suppliers are not paid "Capacity Payments" for keeping units reliable and ready to run.  

Capacity payments as in they aren’t paid to hold shit for emergencies so they sell everything they can when they can?

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

7 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

What a fucking liar.  My response to him:

Putting the wind farms at #1 is disingenuous. First the Texas market is set up as an energy market only. There is no capacity market (which there should be) which would incentivize investment. Second, Texas' market is completely separate from the rest of the grid. If it were attached to the US Grid, other areas could have provided power to Texas to make up the difference. Third is the natural gas issue, fourth are other plants such as coal and nuclear having issues, which is actually because these facilities were not weatherized properly or at all, and that goes back to that whole capacity market issue. The final and smallest reason is because of the icing of wind farms. STOP LYING TO THE PEOPLE.

There’s nothing I’ve seen that shows anywhere near 31 GW of wind on the grid.  More like it went from 6 to 4.  Right?  His number is just fucking made up?

[JimmyJames 12271]

Y’all cynical fucks are not taking into account that there are currently rich fucks in westlake and highland park and west Houston whose houses are not only ruined but are going to lose millions based on the undeniable incompetence of our state government. 
 

Not to mention the anger of everyone else and the disaster yet to come.

This is a Katrina in Texas that was not only preventable but foreseeable. This is a gamechanging event and transcends politics.

[Brisketexan 104670]

The funny thing about this, there are a LOT of people who work in this industry that know better.  They all need to call them out loudly and often for lying.  

What they know, and what is most profitable, are very different things.

What is most profitable will win. Profits for the profiteers is literally the only value we have. That’s what they mean when they use the term “Texas Values.” Anything that serves the common good is evil, and must be defeated....because it doesn’t maximize profits for the few.

You presume that any of our leadership has a conscience. You should stop that.

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

 

Ethics? You’re adorable. The only ethic is profit. Winterizing costs money. Cuts into profits.

As for capacity, see smart Penelope below:



A capacity market is, in super simple terms, a market that has people pay not just for the energy they use, but for some extra generation facilities that they MIGHT need at times of high demand. It’s kind of like insurance - you only need it if shit goes sideways, but when shit goes sideways, you’re damned glad to have it. Most places have a market that provided for extra, backup generation. Texas doesn’t. And just like living your life without paying an insurance premium, it can result in some money savings....until it doesn’t. Then it costs you a fortune. Economically, and in human lives.

 

 

Except in this case, it’s not ercot or the regional delivery companies OR the power generators that pay the cost, it’s the end users. 

[Dahobbs 17451]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

There’s nothing I’ve seen that shows anywhere near 31 GW of wind on the grid.  More like it went from 6 to 4.  Right?  His number is just fucking made up?

Technically if every wind turbine in the state were running 100%, you'd hit that number. Which is to say it isn't a real number and nobody would rely on it for anything. 

[Brisketexan 104670]

Y’all cynical fucks are not taking into account that there are currently rich fucks in westlake and highland park and west Houston whose houses are not only ruined but are going to lose millions based on the undeniable incompetence of our state government. 
 
Not to mention the anger of everyone else and the disaster yet to come.
This is a Katrina in Texas that was not only preventable but foreseeable. This is a gamechanging event and transcends politics.

You’re not that naive. Most of those people will benefit from the profiteering “solution” that team Abbott will come up with (he’ll find a way to make it so) and they’ll be good with it.

This state and its governing party are stridently and unwaveringly against anything that even has a whiff of “the common good.” Of it doesn’t yield profits, it is evil. Full stop.

You know this.

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

Technically if every wind turbine in the state were running 100%, you'd hit that number. Which is to say it isn't a real number and nobody would rely on it for anything. 

And the historical graph shows more like 6 on any given day, and that was the ercot expectation.  As usual, politicians lie to create the story they want. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Technically if every wind turbine in the state were running 100%, you'd hit that number. Which is to say it isn't a real number and nobody would rely on it for anything. 

This.  

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You’re not that naive. Most of those people will benefit from the profiteering “solution” that team Abbott will come up with (he’ll find a way to make it so) and they’ll be good with it.

This state and its governing party are stridently and unwaveringly against anything that even has a whiff of “the common good.” Of it doesn’t yield profits, it is evil. Full stop.

You know this.

You are right but as you know, I’m choose to remain more optimistic than you. 

[Brisketexan 104670]

Except in this case, it’s not ercot or the regional delivery companies OR the power generators that pay the cost, it’s the end users. 

Actually, the generators pay all costs for winterizing, with no way to recover them. They’re just an expense item, and expenses eat into profits. Expenses are bad. So don’t have them. That’s why we have no winterizing.

As for capacity, yes, the end consumer pays for it. But in order to sell the profiteering plan cooked up by Tom Delay and Ken Lay (look up their roles in deregulation), they had to be able to say this was a great saving for the consumer. So....they had to cut costs everywhere they could. “Hey, if we take the insurance premium payment out of this, their costs are even lower! They’ll go for that!”

Again, simplifying, but that’s how it worked.

Oh, and we were warned about this exact scenario after a near disaster in 2011. There was a report with a bunch of common sense recommendations.

Nothing was done, because taking any action for the benefit of the citizens is pussy communist shit, and we’re Texans, not pussy communists! Right...you ain’t one of them pussy commies, are you?

[FondrenRoad 4378]

15 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Per Dan Crenshaw on Facebook:

With blackouts across Texas, many are wondering: what happened?

Leftists are cheering a “red state” having energy problems.

Here’s the truth about what happened.

Summary:

A mix of over-subsidized wind energy and under-investment in gas power means we didn’t have enough base load energy for a massive spike in demand.

Also, Texas infrastructure isn’t designed for once-in-a-century freezes.

#1 - Frozen Wind Turbines:

West Texas had wind turbines that had to be de-iced. The little energy that power regulators planned on being supplied from wind was now gone.

We have almost 31GW of wind installed on the grid, but on Monday we couldn’t even depend on 6 GW working.

To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold.

Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will.

This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it. https://www.forbes.com/.../texas-outages-put-reliability.../

#2 - Nuclear also got too cold: We only have 4 nuclear units in TX, near Houston and Dallas. One of the reactors near Houston turned off due to a safety sensor freezing. No problem with the reactor. But the lack of the sensor forced the plant to shutdown, as a precaution.

(On another note, this shows how safe nuclear is. Lots of safety precautions.)

#3 - We don’t have enough Natural Gas online:

ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we lost the ability to get it transported. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation – so they froze.

Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance.

Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.

Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most?

Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.

Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us. They are *base load* energy.

If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse.

This raises the obvious question: can we ever rely on renewables to power the grid during extreme weather?

No, you need gas or nuclear.

And subsidizing investment in wind has pushed gas and nuclear out.

Now we live with the consequences.

The push to decommission baseload power sources like natural gas would be disastrous when trying to keep the lights on in Texas.

I’ll be joining my Texas colleagues in getting to the bottom of what happened. We can do better, even for once in a century events.

In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe, and stay strong.

 

Denmark and Sweden don't seem to have much problem running windmills in cold weather. Russians can run a nuclear or gas plant at damn near the north pole. 

[Updawg 2261]

I hope a real investigation happens and not a half ass one run by Abbott and cronies.

The only investigating will be done by good reporters. I hope there are some ready to go down this shitshow

[Clintonaldo 2571]

I wonder if insurance companies would be able to subrogate against Ercot ? I am not knowledgeable on Texas law. 

[Brisketexan 104670]

Technically if every wind turbine in the state were running 100%, you'd hit that number. Which is to say it isn't a real number and nobody would rely on it for anything. 

And the historical graph shows more like 6 on any given day, and that was the ercot expectation.  As usual, politicians lie to create the story they want. 

This.  

These.

The generation capacity of wind is what it’s projected to be during a typical timeframe.

Their arguments are like shitting on solar generation for not producing its max capacity....at night. No fucking shit. That’s why ERCOT doesn’t budget for any solar generation as part of the available generation after sunset.

In summary, Crenshaw is a lying sack of shit.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, the generators pay all costs for winterizing, with no way to revive them. They’re just an expense item, and expenses eat into profits. Expenses are bad. So don’t have them. That’s why we have no winterizing.

As for capacity, yes, the end consumer pays for it. But in order to sell the profiteering plan cooked up by Tom Delay and Ken Lay (look up their roles in deregulation), they had to be able to say this was a great saving for the consumer. So....they had to cut costs everywhere they could. “Hey, if we take the insurance premium payment out of this, their costs are even lower! They’ll go for that!”

Again, simplifying, but that’s how it worked.

Oh, and we were warned about the is exactly scenario after a near disaster in 2011. There was a report with a bunch of common sense recommendations.

Nothing was done, because taking any action for the benefit of the citizens is pussy communist shit, and we’re Texans, not pause communists! Right...you ain’t one of them pussy commies, are you?

Not to worry. You won't get your state taxes raised to pay for needed upgrades. Instead, my federal taxes are going to bail yall out of yet another natural disaster your "low tax" state refuses to prepare for. 

[Pato del Muerto 52347]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, the generators pay all costs for winterizing, with no way to revive them. They’re just an expense item, and expenses eat into profits. Expenses are bad. So don’t have them. That’s why we have no winterizing.

As for capacity, yes, the end consumer pays for it. But in order to sell the profiteering plan cooked up by Tom Delay and Ken Lay (look up their roles in deregulation), they had to be able to say this was a great saving for the consumer. So....they had to cut costs everywhere they could. “Hey, if we take the insurance premium payment out of this, their costs are even lower! They’ll go for that!”

Again, simplifying, but that’s how it worked.

Oh, and we were warned about the is exactly scenario after a near disaster in 2011. There was a report with a bunch of common sense recommendations.

Nothing was done, because taking any action for the benefit of the citizens is pussy communist shit, and we’re Texans, not pause communists! Right...you ain’t one of them pussy commies, are you?

The meaning was that the end user pays the cost of not winterizing or having capacity, in the form of no power. Nobody in the system above the user will have to change a thing as a result of this, they’ll claim “once a generation” and skate, because they are untethered from government oversight and what little they have are in full cooperation because they share the profit. 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6555]

At this point I don’t think this story is about just Texas anymore.  I see the way the Right wing media and Republicans are working this tragedy.  It’s all about making sure the Republican base in all states start to look down on solar and wind energy because they aren’t “reliable” and we need to start putting more money into gas, oil and coal.  While we are at it we need to stop regulating gas, oil and coal so they can create more jobs for ‘Merica.  That’s what the narrative is about to be going forward. This is another last gasp to get more money into fossil fuels and less out of renewable energy.  Make AOC and her New Green Deal the boogeyman for America when at the end of the day it is just fossil fuel companies and their politicians trying to make as much money as they can even if it screws the environment and the people that live in that environment, you know us.

[Brisketexan 104670]

I wonder if insurance companies would be able to subrogate against Ercot ? I am not knowledgeable on Texas law. 

The Texas Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether ERCOT has governmental immunity in just a few weeks.

The GOP Texas Supreme Court.

Place your bets.

Also...Beantown gets this. This crisis will serve one purpose here: a massive shift of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars to their friends in O&G....without delivering on any real improvements. Because improvements are for commies. Profits are for ‘mericans.

[Clintonaldo 2571]

The Texas Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether ERCOT has governmental immunity in just a few weeks.

The GOP Texas Supreme Court.

Place your bets.

Shocked they already don’t have it to be honest.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Beantown Express 2.0 6555]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

The Texas Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether ERCOT has governmental immunity in just a few weeks.

The GOP Texas Supreme Court.

Place your bets.

They will obviously side with the hard working people of Texas over the...  Sorry I couldn’t even finish typing that sentence.  Yeah we all know how that will end.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

5 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Not to worry. You won't get your state taxes raised to pay for needed upgrades. Instead, my federal taxes are going to bail yall out of yet another natural disaster your "low tax" state refuses to prepare for. 

And this.  

[Okie State 3788]

At this point I don’t think this story is about just Texas anymore.  I see the way the Right wing media and Republicans are working this tragedy.  It’s all about making sure the Republican base in all states start to look down on solar and wind energy because they aren’t “reliable” and we need to start putting more money into gas, oil and coal.  While we are at it we need to stop regulating gas, oil and coal so they can create more jobs for ‘Merica.  That’s what the narrative is about to be going forward. This is another last gasp to get more money into fossil fuels and less out of renewable energy.  Make AOC and her New Green Deal the boogeyman for America when at the end of the day it is just fossil fuel companies and their politicians trying to make as much money as they can even if it screws the environment and the people that live in that environment, you know us.

This is absolutely what's happening and it's spreading like wildfire just as planned.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19095]

6 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

At this point I don’t think this story is about just Texas anymore.  I see the way the Right wing media and Republicans are working this tragedy.  It’s all about making sure the Republican base in all states start to look down on solar and wind energy because they aren’t “reliable” and we need to start putting more money into gas, oil and coal.  While we are at it we need to stop regulating gas, oil and coal so they can create more jobs for ‘Merica.  That’s what the narrative is about to be going forward. This is another last gasp to get more money into fossil fuels and less out of renewable energy.  Make AOC and her New Green Deal the boogeyman for America when at the end of the day it is just fossil fuel companies and their politicians trying to make as much money as they can even if it screws the environment and the people that live in that environment, you know us.

This is ABSOLUTELY right.

And those of us who are supportive of green energy understand that at present, it does have constraints.  But those can be overcome in the next 5-10 years.  It just takes research and ingenuity, and that means big $$$ as the industry expands.  What the Trumptards and the GQP pedal is fear, plain and simple.

FYI, Oil and Gas isn't going away immediately in any case.  We still have to have them for things like production of plastic and chemicals (they are working on totally green processes, but they are done on a small scale, and so far are not able to be ramped up to larger items).  Not being completely dependent on oil and gas isn't a bad thing, and the biggest oil and gas companies see that and are moving in that direction.  The gaslighting by the GQP and its sycophants pisses me off.

[Cacti 191]

36 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

...Texas' market is completely separate from the rest of the grid. If it were attached to the US Grid, other areas could have provided power to Texas to make up the difference. 

If Texas were connected to the national grid during this particular nation-wide storm, would other states have enough excess electricity to help Texas in a substantial way?