Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan

[thackney]

Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/02/what-went-wrong-texas/618104/

...At least 30 Texans have died so far...

... more than 450 carbon-monoxide poisonings...

... half of state residents were under some kind of water advisory...

1. It’s simple: Nobody planned for this. “We are not known for our winters here,” Joshua Rhodes, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute, told me. “We vastly underestimated how cold [it]—and how widespread that cold—could get in Texas.”...

2 ...when Texans demand more than 70,000 megawatts of power. During this week’s coldest days, Texans demanded about that much power again, Rhodes said. Yet this time, the grid could deliver only about 40,000 megawatts....

...Texas “had a system that depended on one fuel alone, natural gas, to provide two-thirds of our supply when we needed it most in the winter,” Cohan said. Then “an Arctic blast hit all of our components at once,” and the energy system cracked apart...

3. Yet why didn’t someone plan for a natural-gas shortage? A wintertime run on supply was entirely foreseeable. Pipelines could have been ordered to winterize; power plants could have maintained on-site backup. The natural aspect of this disaster had precedent: Although Texas saw brutal temperatures this week, they were within the historical norm....

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Kind of a nasty article with too much hard truth in it

[Cyber Liberty]

Well, it's The Atlantic. Was there a good dollop of demands to Federalize the TX power grid? Perhaps a word about it being difficult to spend the necessary money because of the squandering on "renewables?   

[txradioguy]

Texas wouldn't have failed if the DOE had granted the state the waiver they requested to run their fossil fuel power plants at 100% capacity.

The DOE said "sure you can run them at 100% if you charge $1,500MW/h.

Which was effectively telling the Governor no.

[libertybele]

This is the kind of crappola we in conservative states can expect from the Feds --- there's  no planning that's going to free us from the chains of Big Brother.

[thackney]

Texas wouldn't have failed if the DOE had granted the state the waiver they requested to run their fossil fuel power plants at 100% capacity.

The DOE said "sure you can run them at 100% if you charge $1,500MW/h.

Which was effectively telling the Governor no.

They did grant it, the same day it was requested.  We have tried to share that info on every thread from mostly click-bait misleading and outright falsehood articles.

[Cyber Liberty]

They did grant it, the same day it was requested.  We have tried to share that info on every thread from mostly click-bait misleading and outright falsehood articles.

And we all know bureaucrats are all perfect, and communications never break down during a crisis. Did you miss in TRG's post where it was OK as long as they charged rates 300X normal? Those folks we hear about with $17K electric bills got charged that because bureaucrats ordered it.

The anti-gouging laws don't apply to gummint drones.

[thackney]

And we all know bureaucrats are all perfect, and communications never break down during a crisis. Did you miss in TRG's post where it was OK as long as they charged rates 300X normal? Those folks we hear about with $17K electric bills got charged that because bureaucrats ordered it.

The anti-gouging laws don't apply to gummint drones.

The rates were already at the max allowed.  This was not an impact to us at all, beyond some paperwork.

And those Very high electric bills are because they foolishly choose an extremely high risk rate plan that passed through all wholesale cost.  No purchases of a base amount through normal contracts like everybody else.  Only the spot market price at all the time.

It is not the first time such a planned burned a lot of people.  But greed overlooks risk for too many people.  They got savings over my type of plan, or most peoples.  But last week, they got to pay the piper.

Griddy customers feel bite of soaring wholesale power prices
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Griddy-customers-feel-bite-of-soaring-wholesale-14352985.php
Aug. 16, 2019

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Texas failed primarily due to political patronage positions were placed into control of our grid by Greg Abbott.  The head of the PUC is a lawyer who was Abbott's Asst Counsel,  and her two other members are a lawyer (and another Asst Counsel) and an Anthropology major whose only credentials were being an aide to two state senators for ten years and a 'Greenie'.  More prioritization has been made on installing renewable power than ensuring reliability of grid.

This is a recipe for failure as there was no competence in these three to understand any technical operational aspects of the decisions by them or Ercot on impact to grid of say, more windmill power which is extremely unreliable as a base power supply during the winter.

Greg Abbott just the week before the storm gave his State of the State where anything connected to the electric grid was deprioritized out of the speech.  Instead, after the storm he blamed everyone else for the debacle, and did not take responsibility for his own appointments which failed to adequately address competent plans to ensure grid reliability.

The continued bombardment by the feds to restrict or dismantle reliable coal power plants has not been resisted enough by state officials.  Now we see the results of acquiesce to environmental mandates:  it kills Texans.

We have a leadership problem at the highest levels of state government.

[txradioguy]

Texas failed primarily due to political patronage positions were placed into control of our grid by Greg Abbott.  The head of the PUC is a lawyer who was Abbott's Asst Counsel,  and her two other members are a lawyer (and another Asst Counsel) and an Anthropology major whose only credentials were being an aide to two state senators for ten years and a 'Greenie'.  More prioritization has been made on installing renewable power than ensuring reliability of grid.

This is a recipe for failure as there was no competence in these three to understand any technical operational aspects of the decisions by them or Ercot on impact to grid of say, more windmill power which is extremely unreliable as a base power supply during the winter.

Greg Abbott just the week before the storm gave his State of the State where anything connected to the electric grid was deprioritized out of the speech.  Instead, after the storm he blamed everyone else for the debacle, and did not take responsibility for his own appointments which failed to adequately address competent plans to ensure grid reliability.

The continued bombardment by the feds to restrict or dismantle reliable coal power plants has not been resisted enough by state officials.  Now we see the results of acquiesce to environmental mandates:  it kills Texans.

We have a leadership problem at the highest levels of state government.

Actually the way the grid is set up IIRC...was started under Ann Richards...not Abbott.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Actually the way the grid is set up IIRC...was started under Ann Richards...not Abbott.

Ann Richards was so long ago, any number of changes could have been made to accommodate more reliability into it.

The current makeup of the grid is made up of political hacks.  Some on the Ercot board do not even live in Texas, so have little idea or maybe do not care what happens as a result of their actions.

[txradioguy]

Ann Richards was so long ago, any number of changes could have been made to accommodate more reliability into it.

The current makeup of the grid is made up of political hacks.  Some on the Ercot board do not even live in Texas, so have little idea or maybe do not care what happens as a result of their actions.

You're right.  Every governor from Richards forward hold some amount of blame for what happened.