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ERCOT Urging For Energy Conservation

Vic Mackey

By Vic Mackey
in Daily Texan

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He sure sang a different tune when that oak tree shed a load on his hypocritical ass. Fuck you Greg.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9,083

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8 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Don’t you know that dinosaurs aren’t real, but rather the bones were planted underground by god to test our faith?  There’s no dinosaurs in the Bible and that’s a comprehensive world history starting on the first day. 

Thanks for clearing THAT up for me.

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Guest Lobo

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If Texas (the portion on ERCOT anyway) were to join an interstate grid for backup purposes, that is a Federal issue.  And thus, Senator Cruz would play a pivotal role.  Whoever said Cruz has nothing to do with this is wrong.  He has nothing to do with the current problem, but he choose to play a critical role in one, or all, of the many solutions.  This could truly be a career-defining moment for Ted.  

Narrator:  It would be.  But not in the way they all thought.  

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BurntOrange&White

BurntOrange&White 39,865

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19 minutes ago, Lobo said:

If Texas (the portion on ERCOT anyway) were to join an interstate grid for backup purposes, that is a Federal issue.  And thus, Senator Cruz would play a pivotal role.  Whoever said Cruz has nothing to do with this is wrong.  He has nothing to do with the current problem, but he choose to play a critical role in one, or all, of the many solutions.  This could truly be a career-defining moment for Ted.  

Narrator:  It would be.  But not in the way they all thought.  

Cruz doing something good for Texans, yeah right. He will frame it as the government trying to overtake Texas and ruin our power grid 

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52,411

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1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Cruz doing something good for Texans, yeah right. He will frame it as the government trying to overtake Texas and ruin our power grid 

Half or a third of the state by geography, the part that is predominantly Republican, is already on the national grid. The big blue cities are the ones forced to put up with ercot, along with the flotsam and jetsam that resides between them. 

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Enchubben

Enchubben 5,509

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1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

eta:  are they building any new plants to handle the people pouring into the state?

https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/nuclear-energy-in-texas/ - this is super old now but gives you an idea.  It's not like NRG can go down the road and decide they want to build a power plant, pay a fee and start tomorrow.  EPA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies all must approve. 

Several energy companies are planning to build nuclear power plants to meet electricity demand in a way that is cost effective and protects air quality. In Texas, Exelon, Luminant and NRG Energy have filed license applications with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build at least five reactors in Victoria County, Glen Rose and Matagorda County. Plans for expansion in Matagorda were put on hold after the March 2011 earthquake in Japan caused a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant, 155 miles north of Tokyo. Amarillo Power/UniStar is planning to build one additional reactor near Amarillo, but plans there have also hit delays. Upon completion, the plants could provide enough electricity to serve 6.8 million homes annually.

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Viper

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46 minutes ago, Steamboat1874 said:

And where would you put all of the radioactive waste it produces?

In a small lead lined closet. 

"What is nuclear waste and what do we do with it? - World Nuclear Association" https://www.world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-do-we-do-with-it.aspx#:~:text=As a result%2C a correspondingly,as a sheet of paper.

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On average, the waste from a reactor supplying a person’s electricity needs for a year would be about the size of a brick. Only 5 grams of this is high-level waste – about the same weight as a sheet of paper. 

Our coal power plants generate more radioactive waste than modern nuclear plants

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pantone159

pantone159 719

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1 hour ago, Steamboat1874 said:

And where would you put all of the radioactive waste it produces?

Unfortunately there is still no good answer. In many ways, the best waste disposal is to leave it on site in water pools for a century, and let the hottest stuff decay, leaving just the very long lived isotopes (the ones that make the waste hazardous for millenia, and also the ones you can make bombs from). Then the waste would be much simpler to deal with and move somewhere permanently, is NIMBY ever made that possible. But this is really very vulnerable to a terrorist attack, blowing up a spent waste pool to scatter the stuff into the environment. That could make areas uninhabitable for generations. This is a real problem, and not just with any future plants.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 46,986

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https://www.fox4news.com/news/energy-experts-warn-energy-conservation-alerts?fbclid=IwAR2pjWnHKHqhFIpPKsgk6bavZdQo6NT4PTgT91fgWTVUNFGP9oEVDGvrgTk

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Experts warn of major problems with Texas power grid during upcoming summer

DALLAS - ERCOT didn't directly appeal for people to conserve their energy on Wednesday, unlike it did the day before. But it did say the grid is operating with a lot less generating power.

The question is whether it should even be acceptable to operate like this, what might happen in a few weeks when it gets really hot, and ERCOT learned anything from the winter storm catastrophe.

Experts say the Texas grid should be able to handle generators going offline for maintenance on a mild spring day. And the fact that the state inched so close to needing to have blackouts Tuesday is a sign of the bad shape the grid is in.
 

Daniel Cohan is an associate professor of environmental engineering for Rice University. He says Tuesday's plea for conservation on a mild spring day is a sign someone didn't plan well.

"This was a real surprise with about as mild weather as you can get. It should be the easiest week to keep the lights on, but we are at a razor's edge of blackouts," he said. "Who is doing the scheduling? Why is the maintenance all happening at the same time?"

Cohan says Texas remains vulnerable by operating its power grid on an island instead of hooking into larger grid operators.          

"Texas is great at importing and exporting other forms of energy," he said. "Why we’re not willing with electricity is shooting ourselves in the foot."

Cohan says there’s another issue.

"We haven't built enough lines connecting to cities like Dallas and Houston," he said. "We have times when power prices are zero where it is windy and through the roof in another part of the state."

Ed Hirs, Energy Fellow at the University of Houston, says the problem is a lack of incentive for generators to operate in Texas so more and more are leaving at a time the population is growing.

"It's the only business I know where you fail and you jack up the price," he said. "Rerverse incentive is for generators to leave the market to encourage higher prices for generators they have left."

Hirs says generators need to be able to receive funding even at times when they are not needed.

"It's like thinking of the Rangers as an electricity-only team. If they were paid the way generators are paid, only 10 guys on the field are getting paid tonight. Other guys on the bench, they are not going to pick up a check."

FOX 4 asked ERCOT spokeswoman Leslie Sopko why the agency allowed 25% of its generating capacity to go offline for maintenance.

"We only have a short window of time to allow them to come offline," she said.

We also asked as summer approaches, should consumers be prepared have bottled water canned goods on hand.

"What I can say is if we see potential tight conditions coming, we will communicate with the public," Sopko said.

ERCOT came under fire for not communicating the dire situation before massive blackouts began in February. The agency has since vowed to improve that communication.

 

 

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Captainant

Captainant 27,526

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16 minutes ago, Vic Mackey said:

https://www.fox4news.com/news/energy-experts-warn-energy-conservation-alerts?fbclid=IwAR2pjWnHKHqhFIpPKsgk6bavZdQo6NT4PTgT91fgWTVUNFGP9oEVDGvrgTk

Gotta love that free market™ at work! We can't have consistent power meeting baseline usage, because their shareholders want to goose pricing to get better profits. Duh!

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Blotto

Blotto 23,470

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14 hours ago, pantone159 said:

Unfortunately there is still no good answer. In many ways, the best waste disposal is to leave it on site in water pools for a century, and let the hottest stuff decay, leaving just the very long lived isotopes (the ones that make the waste hazardous for millenia, and also the ones you can make bombs from). Then the waste would be much simpler to deal with and move somewhere permanently, is NIMBY ever made that possible. But this is really very vulnerable to a terrorist attack, blowing up a spent waste pool to scatter the stuff into the environment. That could make areas uninhabitable for generations. This is a real problem, and not just with any future plants.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/08/claiming-a-landmark-in-fusion-energy-tae-technologies-sees-commercialization-by-2030/

No worries. Fusion reactors are just around the corner. For real this time.....or maybe not. 

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