Posted on 02/03/2011 6:28:53 AM PST by detective
As was discussed on the February 2nd edition of Pratt on Texas, the ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) rolling blackouts across the state could have been prevented with better planning and policy.
Electrical engineer, Ross Aten, joined Robert Pratt to talk about how too many coal and natural gas power plants within ERCOT were taken offline for maintenance. Ross also explained that if you, ran the numbers, the only way ERCOT could have met peak winter demand usage is if wind energy across the state was producing at significant totals. However, because of the ice storm and lack of wind, windmills werent producing any energy.
That is scary to think about. ERCOT without any public proclamation or policy announcement, put all of its proverbial eggs into the wind energy basket. Or, think about it this way, because of bureaucratic policy and bad planning, millions of Texans had to deal with rolling blackouts during deathly cold conditions.
We heard some horrible stories on the show from people in Abilene that had electronics damaged, and destroyed, because of the electricity popping on and off during the rolling blackouts.
A quick aside, I know the term rolling blackout has become accepted because its a temporary blackout that is supposed to spread the pain, but in reality a blackout is a blackout. It doesnt matter how your home or business doesnt have power. If you dont have power, you cant work and in many conditions, cant live.
Luckilly (for today), the Lubbock Power & Light and Xcel Energy grids in the South Plains and Panhandle is not connected to ERCOT. Id imagine that if those two companies systems were connected to ERCOT, the rolling blackouts would have encompassed an even larger portion of the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at kfyo.com ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110202/ts_alt_afp/mexicousweatherstorm
The liberals and environmentalists are trying to turn our great country into a backward, third world dictatorship. Wake up America.
It’s not the end of the world if people can’t watch Oprah for fifteen minutes or heat up their chicken pot pie. It will all be over in a day so everyone just needs to man up.
Let’s project along the same path, when electric vehicles are stuck in snow, run out of power, run out of heat, stranded owner freezes to death.
Think of all the carbon credits you Texans racked up during the blackouts.
“Electric Reliability Council”
The Peter Principal rule is that government agencies are to be named after what they don’t do, or try to make worse.
Schools don’t school.
Prisons don’t keep.
Public Works don’t work....etc..
I read elsewhere people are p*ssed because the stadium wasn’t having the same problems...
How is it that Texas and Mexico just happened to already have the infrastructure in place to swap electricity?
I mean, it’s not exactly as easy as running an extension cord across the Rio Grande, is it?
Has this occurred before, maybe in reverse?
Yeah maybe we will end up like Iraq. Power for 8 hours a day.
Obama would LOVE that.
Good Grief.
I’ve got a friend who owns an environmental cleanup company. He comes in and does a large-scale toxic scrub every time a power plant shuts down. I’m guessing he’s not complaining about the shut downs.
“Its not the end of the world if people cant watch Oprah for fifteen minutes or heat up their chicken pot pie. It will all be over in a day so everyone just needs to man up.”
And just how easy is it to “man up” with no heat when it is -5 outside with -20 wind chill factor.
What Texas and the rest of the nation needs are a few more bureaucrats making decisions that take us Totally back into the 19th century.
BRILLIANT... simply freakin’-out B R I L L I A N T ! ! !
Pinwheel/blackout PING!
In Scotland this past December, they had to import electricity from France because of their wind power fantasy.
In the UK, wind power has the capacity to be 5% of their total electric supply when the windmills are operating at peak efficiency. What the greenies and the political green energy whores fail to realize is that when DEMAND for electricity is at its peak, the CAPACITY of wind to generate any electricity is at its MINIMUM.
In the bitter cold of December, the windmills in Scotland were not providing 5% of the electricty for the UK, they were supplying less than 2/10th’s of 1% because when it was bitter cold, the windmills were freezing up and the wind was not blowing.
The same goes for solar. The peak demand on a hot summer day is between 6-9pm, when people come home from work, turn up the AC and cook dinner. Solar don’t work with no sun, so just like wind, when you need the generating capacity the most, it ain’t there.
We own a windmill and they are unreliable. Unless you live in a place that gets lots of direct wind, forget it. It works great when the winds blowing. No wind, no power. Now if you want to spend another $20,000 on top of the $15,000 you can get battery back up. Which at the rate we make power( makes an average of 1/4 of our power) it could take a long time to charge up those batteries. Want to make all our most of your power? You have to buy the big one at $45,000. That doesn’t include the battery back up. If the power goes out without the battery back up, the windmill stops working.
Hmmmm, that’s interesting. Just yesterday, the lying liberal propagandists were saying that the rolling blackouts were necessary because water mains at two plants went down.
There are a bunch of principles associated with man up, and the “event” that are going over someones head, and it has nothing to do with Oprah or chicken pot pie.
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