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Arctic 'Polar Vortex' Visits Texas
- What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic
Top of the News @GreenPolicy360
Freezing Cold in Texas (& Don't Blame Texas Wind Farms)
- Texas not prepared for a 'Polar Vortex' era
- More on the storm & Texas oil/gas politics
'Historic Freezing Cold in Texas' (and Power Outages): It's a Polar Vortex
No, Texas Gov. Abbott, and Fox News opinion. Wind Farms are not close to being the main problem causing power outages in a historic (Polar Vortex, extreme weather) ice/snow/freeze in your state. Times are a'changing and so's the weather -- Arctic changes, polar winds don't and won't stay in the Arctic.
It's time to prepare, plan, change with the times...
Look at the natural gas turbines. Look at the statistics, the power production percentages of fossil fuels in Texas...
Look at your electric grid, state deregulation, lack of planning and preparation...
Here, from the Houston Chronicle, reporting at the center of the U.S. oil/gas industry:
Ten days ago, (Texas state energy system) ERCOT meteorologists warned powerplant operators the polar vortex could strike. But West Texas winds are weak in winter, and they make up a small proportion of ERCOT’s generation compared to fossil fuels. In winter, ERCOT relies on coal and natural gas peaker plants, because we do not have enough renewables in the right places, such as offshore.
ERCOT publicly reports what generators are offering and how much they actually provide to the grid. These numbers are available both a day-ahead and as it happens. You can also track which source of power—renewable or fossil fuel—is meeting its obligation.
Wind generators did not bid a lot of power due to the ice storm. Plenty of natural gas and coal plants made bids, so it looked like ERCOT was adequately supplied to meet record-high winter demand. Heroics like de-icing blades with helicopters seemed unnecessary.
ERCOT needed a little more than 70,000 megawatts of juice early Monday morning when the fossil fuel plants failed and took 30,000 megawatts off the grid. Wind came within 1 gigawatt of meeting its obligation and then wind and solar outperformed expectations during the day.
The fossil fuel plants failed because they were not prepared for the cold. Texas could have relied on wind, but operators opted-out of buying cold-weather add-ons used in the Arctic. Texas electricity generators did not want to spend the money to build resilient equipment because it would cut into their profits.
“Power outages in Texas have nothing to do with power generation technology,” said Jim Krane, an energy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “Texas’ unwillingness to regulate turns out to be an unwillingness to buy insurance. Sure, it makes power cheap most of the time. But we wound up with a system designed for making a quick buck under optimal conditions. When something unusual happens, it’s a crisis.”
The Texas Legislature and the Public Utilities Commission could require Texas power providers to better prepare. But even after a similarly catastrophic failure in 2011, Texas regulators have failed to mandate a more resilient power grid.
Extreme weather events like the polar vortexes of 2011 and 2021 will become more common due to climate change, just as heat waves have worsened. If Texans do not insist on a stronger grid, we will spend a lot more time at the mercy of the elements.
More from the Houston Chronicle on the Texas grid, deregulation and go-it-alone state energy system
We are willing to suffer more blackouts says Rick Perry, former Texas Governor and U.S. Energy Department Secretary
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What a Storm in Texas
'Polar Vortex' is here. A warming Arctic releases stratospheric changes and new extreme weather patterns...
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Arctic 'Polar Vortex' Visits Texas
GreenPolicy360:
What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic
Big Freeze hits hard as some blame, what? Wind farms.
CNN / Opinion
As winter storm sweeps through US, millions without power in Texas
Some blame Texas' wind turbines for the outages — but wind accounts for just a tenth of the winter power
(GreenPolicy Emphasis added) As some conservatives blame the environmental movement and frozen wind turbines for the power outage disaster in Texas, it's a cold reminder that the path to clean American energy is blocked more by ideology than technology.
Since wind accounts for a tenth of the Lone Star state's winter power and the Permian Basin leaks and flares enough natural gas to heat two million homes a year, it's a bit like blaming your car battery for a stalled engine when you've run out of gas.
“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” former Governor and Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in an interview posted on House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy's website.
While properly engineered turbines have been proven to work from Alaska to Antarctica, many in Texas did freeze up. But so did pipelines, diesel engines and even the reactor at one of the state's two nuclear power plants.
In typical "Don't Mess with Texas" fashion, the state has its own power grid on purpose, which is a major impediment to creating a national "smart grid," in which a sunny day in Arizona could power primetime in Boston and vice versa.
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