Month: February 2021

The Environmentalist Empire is Striking Back with a new strategy to control the damage from the failure of wind power during the Great Texas Power Outage Debacle of 2021.

With the failure of wind turbines, which froze up during the Arctic blast, the Enviros have had to throw another, less “politically correct”, alternative energy source under the bus. Their victim: natural gas generation. (“Sorry, Comrade, but your execution is necessary for the good of the State.”)

Several news articles are already pushing the “Green Party Line” regarding the debacle in Texas:

“Woodfin said Tuesday that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, are offline and that 30 gigawatts of thermal sources, which include gas, coal and nuclear energy, are offline.” ( https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/ )

But the news articles cannot completely hide the truth. If you read between the lines, you will discover an essential clue to our problem in Texas:

“A combination of mostly natural gas, some coal and a nuclear power plant failed to meet up with the demand that customers had, Cohan [Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University] said.” (https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/texas-weather-power-outage-rolling-blackouts-leave-millions-dark/6764764002/ )

Ultimately, this USA Today article notes that it was a failure of natural gas generating capacity, and that we wouldn’t have had this problem with coal:

“Third, some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, Cohan  said. Unlike a coal plant that has an  ready stockpile, natural gas plants don’t store as much on site, meaning any disruption at the supply source will lead to a disruption in turning on the lights.” (Emphasis added.) (https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/texas-weather-power-outage-rolling-blackouts-leave-millions-dark/6764764002/ )

Do you see that? We wouldn’t have had that problem with coal, which has fuel stored on site.
“Still, Cohan said issues on the supply side better explain what happened. “I think there wasn’t enough planning for how interdependent our natural gas and electricity systems were.”” (Emphasis added) (https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/texas-weather-power-outage-rolling-blackouts-leave-millions-dark/6764764002/ )

So, they’re going to sacrifice natural gas (less politically correct) in order to save wind power (more politically correct). But, a more traditional energy source is “completely off the table”, as it were. (Coal.)

Why has Texas become so dependent on natural gas?

Is it because we’ve been moving away from some other, more reliable, and tested source of power? (Perhaps due to EPA regulations and mandates?)

Several news articles over the years provide us with a hint of  this:

For instance, this article notes that coal power plants are being shut down in Texas to meet Federal Clean Air Standards:

“Billed as ‘a practical and lower-cost option for helping the area attain higher federal clean air standards'” ( Xcel Energy to convert oldest Texas coal plant to burn natural gas by January 2025) (https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/111620-xcel-energy-to-convert-oldest-texas-coal-plant-to-burn-natural-gas-by-january-2025)

There has been a headlong rush in conversion of power plants from coal to natural gas in Texas:

“One of the latest electrical power plants in Texas to make the switch from coal to natural gas is in the Panhandle.” (http://www.okenergytoday.com/2020/11/texas-panhandle-power-plant-switching-from-coal-to-natural-gas/ )

Some coal plants are just being shut down entirely due to Federal Environmental Rules:

“A coal-fired power plant in East Texas will close and another will stop using the fuel to comply with federal environmental rules…” ( https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Another-coal-plant-to-close-in-Texas-15708417.php )

Since 2010, Texas has drastically increased its reliance on natural gas, while drastically reducing the use of Coal:

“Texas’ fuel mix has changed considerably in the past decade. In 2009, coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed and the use of wind power has more than quadrupled, as more transmission lines bringing electricity from remote wind farms to urban market centers came online. “ (https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php)

An article from the Financial Times shows how the use of Coal has gone from more than 40% of the energy mix in Texas to less than 20% in the past ten years. Natural gas has risen from about 40% to 50% and wind has gone from ten percent to about 25%:

“Wind power surged past coal in Texas’ electricity mix for the first time in 2020, the latest sign of renewable energy’s rising prominence in America’s fossil fuel heartland.” (https://www.ft.com/content/225dacb0-fa6e-4f38-a8d2-64517731a228)

It is 9:10am in the morning on Wednesday, the 17th of February, 2021, as I write this from Plano, Texas. My phone is pared to my laptop, since the power is out again. Since early Sunday morning, we’ve had power about half that time. Since yesterday afternoon, the blackouts seem to be on a schedule. Off for four hours, and on for about two.

Before that, we’d go for as long as eight hours without power. The randomness of it was the worst part. I understand why they torture POW’s with irregular sleep, eating, light/dark schedules now. I understand why totalitarian states can completely destroy the will of a people with their randomly applied rules and regulations, that seem to only apply some of the time, to some of the people. You never know when the Sword of Damocles will drop on your head. It makes any sort of planning or long-range action impossible. It destroys any achievement you may wish to accomplish with your life. We’ve been reduced to a stone age mindset, even if some of our technology remains behind, like Ancient Roman aqueducts that continued to work during the Dark Ages. But, I think that’s exactly what the environmentalists want:

“The deeper significance of the ecological crusade lies in the fact that it does expose a profound threat to mankind – though not in the sense its leaders allege. It exposes the ultimate motive of the collectivists -the naked essence of hatred for achievement, which means: hatred for reason, for man, for life.” (Ayn Rand, The Anti-Industrial Revolution.)

 

 

 

https://www.kxan.com/weather/green-energy-report-where-does-texas-rank-in-solar-wind-nuclear-energy/

I sit here in my room at home. It’s about 18 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I’ve paired my phone to my laptop computer to post this. [EDIT 3: In the daytime. At night, its more like 5 degrees.]

Starting at about one o’clock this morning, we’ve been experiencing rolling blackouts in North Texas.

Initially, they lasted about forty-five minutes.

This last one has been going on three hours. [EDIT: It stayed out from 10am to 6:00pm on Monday.] [EDIT 2:  It went back out at 6:25pm on Monday.] [EDIT 3: power came on about 2am, Tuesday. Stayed on until about 4am. Came back on about 8:00am, and has been on until now (9am, Tuesday).]

I’ve written before on the dangers of “alternative energy sources” in California and the deterioration of that state’s power infrastructure and the resulting forest fires.

It turns out the environmentalist ideological rot has infested Texas, as well.

Over the past decade, Texas has increased it’s dependence on wind-power generation until it constitutes about 23% of the power generation in this state.

Guess what happens when it gets really cold, and there is snow and ice?

Of course, the media mentions that the increased wind is adding additional generation from other turbines.

Until they freeze over, I suppose.

[EDIT 4:] This editorial from a professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, Mark J. Perry, written last year, notes that Texas has become so dependent on wind power, that when part of that system fails, it can cripple the rest of the energy infrastructure with suddenly excess demand. As he notes, only Nuclear and Coal can provide the sort of round-the-clock stable energy production necessary for our electric generation system:

“As millions of Texans sweated through a heatwave last summer, the electric grid was pushed to its limits. Power demand surged to a record high. Texas wind generation — which provides more than 20% of the state’s power — flopped.

Because wind turbines don’t operate in the still air of July, reserve margins evaporated. Officials with ERCOT, the state’s main power supplier, looked on in disbelief as electricity prices spiked from the normal range of $20 to $30 per megawatt-hour to $9,000 not once but twice.

Had a power plant or two gone offline for maintenance or a gas pipeline ruptured, the entire electric power system would have come undone. Renewables supply power only when the wind blows and the sun shines, and there is no technology available for storing large amounts of power. Fortunately, there were no rolling blackouts or brownouts. Texas dodged the bullet…” https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2020/06/03/opinion-electricity-reliability-tightrope/3128224001/

This editorial notes that Texas got lucky in 2019. In 2021, our luck with wind power ran out.