Community Chat

[gertrudecloset]

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@goldensrbest wrote:

I would hope Texans, would learn from this, and not continue to go it alone for their power,just read 3 kids, and grandma died in a fire.

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I'm back to being confused about the whole thing.  Yet, I agree that they must do something because since the Pandemic and now this, it will be much harder for any return to normalcy any time soon.

[gardenman]

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@gertrudecloset wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

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@agb80 wrote:

Didn't Ercot drop the ball? I'm sure Texas leadership will figure this out take care that it never happens again.  

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From what I understand, part of the problem was federal pollution laws. Texas applied for a waiver to those laws so they could use older generators they had on standby that exceeded the federal pollution regulations. The Feds said okay, but insisted the electricity generated by those plants had to be billed at $1500 per MWh which is something like 4000% more than the normal rate. There were other hurdles also, but Texas and Ercot didn't get caught with their pants down. They saw the cold coming and asked for federal help well in advance, but the federal government put an enormous financial penalty on them if they used the alternate means they had available. 

In my opinion, the feds should have given them the green light to use whatever they needed during the cold snap without a ginormous financial penalty. The feds made it nearly impossible for them to use the means they had available though and that punished the residents of Texas. 

The law required Texas to seek approval before restarting those older plants and the feds opted to impose a very harsh penalty on them if they did so. The feds didn't care about the people of Texas in an emergency. They loved their rules and regulations more than the people. Here's a link to the order from the Department of Energy if anyone doubts what I've written.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%20202%28c%29%20Emergency%20Order%20-%20ERCOT... 

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Which year did this happen in @gardenman ?  I'm asking about when Texas energy suppliers asked the Federal government for help?  I thought they didn't want it!  I'm confused still about this whole thing.

Independence?  Yes or No.  Help?  Yes or No?  I thought the Times Article had cleared it all up for me, but maybe not.

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It's all there in the link. It was this year. Texas saw the problem coming, wanted to restart older power plants they had on standby. Those older plants didn't comply fully with modern environmental laws so they needed permission from the DOE to restart them. They just needed the federal government to get out of the way and let them restart those plants to provide the power needed. Imposing a price 4,000% higher than normal for power from those plants made that impossible. In an emergency where people's lives are at stake, the government needs to set aside rules, regulations, and bureaucratic nonsense to help save people's lives.

[CalminHeart]

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@Mindy D wrote:

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@chessylady wrote:

Texas chose to go it alone and not be part of the national grid.The only city that stayed on the grid was El Paso which was minimally impacted and could get energy from other Western states. There are worse things than regulations. I wonder if Texas will continue their solo path.

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@chessylady @It's not just the connection to the grid. It's the grid's lack of winterization that will probably need changing. 

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Texas deregulated their power system and isolated it so power companies would not have to meet industry standards and could make bigger profits. Those standards would have included things like winterizing. Canada and northern U.S. states don't have these problems because they meet industry standards and are connected on the grid. 

[Nonametoday]

Texas stupidly installed  windmills instead of using fuels that they had used for many years.  Now they find that these windmills froze up and therefore cannot produce power they need when they freeze up and people have been leaving California and other states to establish businesses and take up residency.  People from New York are leaving there for Texas and Florida.  Florida and Texas are inundated with new residents to the point it is hard to provide.  What is not happening is people leaving Texas and Florida to relocate to California and New York.  

Their problem is green energy.  They bought into a myth.  

'

Wind power in Texas, a portion of total energy in Texas, consists of over 150 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 30,000 MW (as of 2020).[1][2] If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world:[1] The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.[1][3] According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power.[4][5] ERCOT set a new wind output record of nearly 19.7 GW at 7:19 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2019.[6]

The wind resource in many parts of Texas is very large. Farmers may lease their land to wind developers, creating a new revenue stream for the farm. The wind power industry has also created over 24,000 jobs for local communities and for the state. Texas is seen as a profit-driven leader of renewable energy commercialization in the United States. The wind boom in Texas was assisted by expansion of the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, use of designated Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, expedited transmission construction, and the necessary Public Utility Commission rule-making.[7]

[Lali1]

Several states have ongoing rolling blackouts BECAUSE of regulations. 

[Marp]

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@gertrudecloset wrote:

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@LonestarBabs wrote:

1983, 1989, 2011, 2013 and now 2021. FERC conducted a root cause analysis after 2011 with recommendations. Texas chose not to follow the recommendations.

I've lived in Texas through all of this, and can tell you it's a very complicated situation. Bills have been presented to the Texas legislature (which meets only every 2 years cuz they don't want to govern much as part of the state's constitutional DNA) through the years but don't make it out of committee. Priorities were elsewhere. Short-sightedness and misguided pride of independence and "oh it won't happen again" created a continuum of denial.

Energy industry rules the roost, didn't want to spend $ and be subject to guidelines/mandates/regulations.

I'm not defending it, just stating it.

Wind and solar power contribute perhaps 20% to the state's power grid in the winter, and the ability to draw from other grids is limited to a small amount of power. ERCOT territory covers all but the Panhandle and far west Texas and a sliver of east Texas.

The misery of this latest weather event and subsequent human and economic impacts MAY change something, but it could all be subject to political swirl.

So many problems, so many opportunities...

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Wow....are you talking about the "People of Texas" or its Leadership (as it were)?

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@gertrudecloset,  "people" and "leadership" are inexorably intertwined.

[gertrudecloset]

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@gardenman wrote:

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@gertrudecloset wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

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@agb80 wrote:

Didn't Ercot drop the ball? I'm sure Texas leadership will figure this out take care that it never happens again.  

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From what I understand, part of the problem was federal pollution laws. Texas applied for a waiver to those laws so they could use older generators they had on standby that exceeded the federal pollution regulations. The Feds said okay, but insisted the electricity generated by those plants had to be billed at $1500 per MWh which is something like 4000% more than the normal rate. There were other hurdles also, but Texas and Ercot didn't get caught with their pants down. They saw the cold coming and asked for federal help well in advance, but the federal government put an enormous financial penalty on them if they used the alternate means they had available. 

In my opinion, the feds should have given them the green light to use whatever they needed during the cold snap without a ginormous financial penalty. The feds made it nearly impossible for them to use the means they had available though and that punished the residents of Texas. 

The law required Texas to seek approval before restarting those older plants and the feds opted to impose a very harsh penalty on them if they did so. The feds didn't care about the people of Texas in an emergency. They loved their rules and regulations more than the people. Here's a link to the order from the Department of Energy if anyone doubts what I've written.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%20202%28c%29%20Emergency%20Order%20-%20ERCOT... 

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Which year did this happen in @gardenman ?  I'm asking about when Texas energy suppliers asked the Federal government for help?  I thought they didn't want it!  I'm confused still about this whole thing.

Independence?  Yes or No.  Help?  Yes or No?  I thought the Times Article had cleared it all up for me, but maybe not.

---

It's all there in the link. It was this year. Texas saw the problem coming, wanted to restart older power plants they had on standby. Those older plants didn't comply fully with modern environmental laws so they needed permission from the DOE to restart them. They just needed the federal government to get out of the way and let them restart those plants to provide the power needed. Imposing a price 4,000% higher than normal for power from those plants made that impossible. In an emergency where people's lives are at stake, the government needs to set aside rules, regulations, and bureaucratic nonsense to help save people's lives.

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So, they wanted Federal intervention for something they created?  Yet, they don't want the Federal government involved?  OK....makes sense now.

[gertrudecloset]

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@CalminHeart wrote:

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@Mindy D wrote:

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@chessylady wrote:

Texas chose to go it alone and not be part of the national grid.The only city that stayed on the grid was El Paso which was minimally impacted and could get energy from other Western states. There are worse things than regulations. I wonder if Texas will continue their solo path.

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@chessylady @It's not just the connection to the grid. It's the grid's lack of winterization that will probably need changing. 

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Texas deregulated their power system and isolated it so power companies would not have to meet industry standards and could make bigger profits. Those standards would have included things like winterizing. Canada and northern U.S. states don't have these problems because they meet industry standards and are connected on the grid. 

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So they can't get mad at the Federal government if something goes wrong.  Either you're in or you're out.  That's how I see it.  Nothing wrong with going it on your own.  You need to deal with the ramifications of such a decision though.....

[gertrudecloset]

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@Marp wrote:

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@gertrudecloset wrote:

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@LonestarBabs wrote:

1983, 1989, 2011, 2013 and now 2021. FERC conducted a root cause analysis after 2011 with recommendations. Texas chose not to follow the recommendations.

I've lived in Texas through all of this, and can tell you it's a very complicated situation. Bills have been presented to the Texas legislature (which meets only every 2 years cuz they don't want to govern much as part of the state's constitutional DNA) through the years but don't make it out of committee. Priorities were elsewhere. Short-sightedness and misguided pride of independence and "oh it won't happen again" created a continuum of denial.

Energy industry rules the roost, didn't want to spend $ and be subject to guidelines/mandates/regulations.

I'm not defending it, just stating it.

Wind and solar power contribute perhaps 20% to the state's power grid in the winter, and the ability to draw from other grids is limited to a small amount of power. ERCOT territory covers all but the Panhandle and far west Texas and a sliver of east Texas.

The misery of this latest weather event and subsequent human and economic impacts MAY change something, but it could all be subject to political swirl.

So many problems, so many opportunities...

---

Wow....are you talking about the "People of Texas" or its Leadership (as it were)?

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@gertrudecloset,  "people" and "leadership" are inexorably intertwined.

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@MarpI'm trying to stay above the fray in this thread.  Don't want to cause "trouble."  So....never mind with my question.

[shoesnbags]

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@Nonametoday wrote:

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@Mindy D wrote:

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@SilleeMee wrote:

In 1989 Texas experienced their last cold wave but since then the need to prepare for the next deep freeze was ignored. 

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@SilleeMee @I lived in Texas in the 80's. We had very cold winters when I lived there with tons of snow and ice. At the time, I thought that this weather was normal for Texas.  I thought this way because it was all I saw and because there were so many fireplaces in living spaces. I didn't know any better. There was enough heat indoors but the roads were covered with snow and ice. I kept wondering why they didn't get the roads clear the way the roads were clear when I lived in New York. They put salt on the roads but in Austin and San Antonio where I lived they were not prepared the way places with cold climates are. Texas and other places will have to prepare for more than the impact of climate change on power. I'm in Florida and I've been wondering if it's time to take SCUBA lessons

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@Mindy D There was a lot more cold weather in the 1980s in the southeast.  At the time I lived in the southeast and I can assure you, Texas was no different from Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, et al.  I recall a time in the 1990s (day before St Patrick's, I beleive) as well when there was a huge thundersnow event that took out a whole lot of tender shrubbery in New Orleans and Hauma.  As well, even around 2006 (I am not quite sure of the year), there was a big freeze on Easter Sunday that killed all the budding roses along the South Carolina Coast unless they had been winterized.

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@Nonametoday 

I'm not sure exactly what you're remembering, but NOLA hasn't had any snowfalls in March.   I checked the statistics because I thought maybe I was forgetting, but actually couldn't find any snowfalls inNew Orleans in the 90s at all. Could you be remembering the Dec. 1989 snow that we had? Snowfalls around here are so rare that we can usually remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when it happened lol.