You are right. I do not understand that since it has not been shown in any fashion to be true.
Ercot does not create those credits. They are not the source of that issue.
Because I understand that authority and responsibility does not magically happen because of the title chosen for them by others. Ercot has no authority is selecting fuel types for power generation sources.
I have repeated said wind is not dispatchable. It is not dependable. That is why it is so limited in Ercot planning. This is no surprise and has always been that way.
Do you realize the circular argument you are using?
The Governor cannot by himself understand the complexities of how a grid operates and how differing actions change its nature.
He therefore hires people(hopefully) that do understand these things. They are the PUC and Ercot. They are the ones who (supposedly) study the aspects of the grid, which is the reason they are employed, and make recommendations to ensure reliability is first and foremost.
I have seen no indication within available Ercot or PUC meetings or news reports that mentioned any suggestions of reliability problems that might occur that was reported back to the Governor before this drastic weather event, only in retrospect.
You do not see a problem with this, the PRIMARY role for them, to provide reliability assessments?
So people conclude Ercot and the PUC are not responsible. (Then why did so many Ercot members resign shortly after the debacle?)
Others say the Governor is not responsible, Ercot told him everything was ok with the grid.
So who is ultimately responsible? This is not an engineering issue. It is a political issue.
It is also certainly not the private entities that place power into the grid. They are under the auspices of the governmental authorities.
One other thing: you say we would have had a worst disaster if more natural gas generation was available.
What if on the other hand 100% of our power came from renewables? Would you continue to say that natural gas would still be a worse situation?
The new DOE chief Granholm has guaranteed she will tee up more renewables into our system and to get Texas connected into other states in order to assert more federal control.
Is that not a political issue as well?
We engineers can easily predict what will result with that disastrous policy.