Posted on 02/17/2021 4:25:52 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
AUSTIN, Texas - Anger over Texas’ power grid failing in the face of a record winter freeze mounted Tuesday as millions of residents in the energy capital of the U.S. remained shivering with no assurances that their electricity and heat — out for 36 hours or longer in many homes — would return soon or stay on once it finally does.
“I know people are angry and frustrated,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who woke up to more than 1 million people still without power in his city. “So am I.”
Making matters worse, expectations that the outages would be a shared sacrifice by the state’s 30 million residents quickly gave way to a cold reality, as pockets in some of America’s largest cities, including San Antonio, Dallas and Austin, were left to shoulder the lasting brunt of a catastrophic power failure, and in subfreezing conditions that Texas’ grid operators had known was coming.
The breakdown sparked growing outrage and demands for answers over how Texas — whose Republican leaders as recently as last year taunted California over the Democratic-led state’s rolling blackouts — failed such a massive test of a major point of state pride: energy independence. And it cut through politics, as fuming Texans froze in the dark Monday night, downtown skylines glowed despite desperate calls to conserve energy.
“We are very angry. I was checking on my neighbor, she’s angry, too,” said Amber Nichols, whose north Austin home has had no power since early Monday. “We’re all angry because there is no reason to leave entire neighborhoods freezing to death.”
She crunched through ice wearing a parka and galoshes, while her neighbors dug out their driveways from six inches of snow to move their cars.
“This is a complete bungle,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
LOL. Great point.
you spelled nuclear wrong.
get off the wind and solar..
The grid didn’t fail the generation did.
Gates has personally funded a gen4 reactor design that uses fast spectrum neutrons that can not only burn depleted uranium but also every kg or the major and minor actinidies aka nuclear “waste” which is fuel for these types of reactors. There is enough energy in the wqstes from LWR reactors in the USA for over 100 years of use and over a 1000 years in the depleted uranium its effectively endless considering the USA is under 300 years old
>>Or did this cold weather just overwhelm the conventional power plants.
No.
The energy department issued an emergency order to raise pollution limits for now (as they did in California last year).
They can produce more. They are over regulated to appease the Greens.
>>Coal is the answer.<<
If you’re speaking of btu output from coal, I believe you’re right, however coal fired plants have too many political obstacles that clean burning natural gas does not.
We know that there are clean burning coal operations, but the leftist greenie weenies could care less.
Hard to dispute clean burning natural gas. The nation has trillions of cu.ft. of know gas deposits as well as what is currently stored. Read a couple of years ago, yet another 1.2 trillion cu.ft. deposit discovered off the coast of Louisiana.
Bill Gates wants everyone in electric cars in 30 years. BG will already be dead and gone of natural causes. He dictates a world he won’t live in.
And how are we going to power all of those cars when we’ve throttled back our energy supply vs demand?
bought the wrong diesel.
if you get winter blend that doesn’t happen.
been running my 3126 cat daily hauling the stupid to the repair shops.
Why they allow unwinterized #2 to be sold in winter is nuts. Why people buy it in -25 degree temps is crazy.
>>That’s all great, but most of the lost generation was from natural gas.<<
I’m thinking that’s not accurate. 24% of this states energy is now from wind turbines/solar farms due to the greenie weenie push over the last couple of decades.
24% of the generation capabilities going off line sparked the rolling outages.
Abbott does not have the courage to build nuclear. I don’t buy “no one anticipated” ...it’s all about balancing risk and they blew it.
None of them have generators? Why is this a politicians fault? What’s the difference between a cold snap and a hurricane?
Not Abbot's primary responsibility...the Texas Public Service Commission is that primary faultee.
Texas' big problem....too many windmills, not enough nukes.
STILL FAR BETTER than California....
When Gates can master Windows not freezing or bluescreening for greater than a week or so, then he can move on to controlling the climate of planet earth
Correct, they and ERCOT screwed up, spent the money on other stuff.
ERCOT either needs to be disbanded completely. Or the the “leadership” needs to completely overhauled.
I dont blame Abbott, he isnt a strong governor but this isnt his fault.
BUT he better make sure heads roll on this, if he doesn’t then flush him.
Stores running out of food as well. Why isn’t Biden flying down there showing support? Imagine if this happened under Trump and he didn’t appear?
Where is Fema with heaters, food, etc.
Biden did grant emergency on Saturday while he was playing Mario.
Texas lost nearly 40,000 megawatts of.coal and gas generation capacity due to the cold lack of winterized plants and a critical shortage of.natural gas production which also froze. Wind is 31,000 megawatts installed at its lowest it was 4200 megawatts mostly from.gulf coast turbines. The total lost from the grid was over 50,000 megawatts and demand went to 69,000 Texas has over 100,000 megawatts of installed capacity wind is only 31,000 of that and during the winter time its less. This rests largly on shortages of.gas and also plant operators not freeze proofing their operations. Water intakes froze at coal plants and cooling towers too.
We need to force all Americans to buy electric cars because the electric grid is more than capable of safely and reliably supplying all the extra power that will be required. We must do this to save the planet. /s
Abbott was saying the owners of the Turbine system was suppose to have back up energy plan and he was mad about that and opening investigation.
Feel bad for the Texans. My brother in law has been without electricity for 15hrs and he used his grill to cook as he has an electric stove. That is one reason I will never have electric stove. When our power was out in winter or other seasons, we had gas stove for heat and cooking.
Yep..hopefully the state will investigate ERCOT for this monumental failure...even with advanced warning this was coming.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.