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Texas sets single-day wind power record

blogs.scientificamerican.com

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#14

You can actually see it. Driving country (state) highways, from ,say, just west of Ft Worth, up to the border, hundreds of turbines. There's also a factory in between Ft Worth and Denton where, I believe, some pieces of the turbines are built and (I know) the larger section of the turbines are assembled. It makes sense as well, especially to the west, where wind is a near constant and there is nothing . Scrub from th…

That is one of the reasons why Facebook Data Center is in Ft.Worth, easier access to Wind power.

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#15
post #12

In Denmark, it was 42% for all of 2015; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

That's 42% of electricity only, though.

In 2013 (the last year for which the table in Wikipedia has data) they consumed ~30 TWh of electricity --- but 200 TWh of fossil fuels. This'll be heating and transport.

Heating and transport always dominates energy consumption. Yes, generating that much electricity via renewables is a very good thing. But electricity is just a small slice of a much larger pie.

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#16

What, ahem, political climate would that be? Y'all think this state is full of idiots. Y'all are only half-wrong, and it's still probably better than your state.

I live in Texas and I'm as surprised as the parent. It's not that I think the state is "full of idiots" as you say, but because the oil and gas industry has the state by the balls.

edit: judging by the downvotes, apparently this is a controversial statement. weird.

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#17
post #4

For those who do not know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection Texas is the only state that has it's own power grid, owned by the state. The stuff they are working on right now, including massive distributed battery systems, solar, more wind, etc. will be the one of the most advanced renewable systems in the world given the amount of power and consumption. It's awesome to see how as 'relatively' small…

I'm actually both shocked and surprised how quickly Texas is transitioning to renewables with their, ahem, political climate, but happy nonetheless! Warren Buffet should be ashamed of Berkshire Hathaway's role in strongarming the PUC in Nevada in NV Energy's favor.

Except for some pockets around Austin, and some Retail Energy Providers and co-ops, Texas does not have net-metering for distributed solar.

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#18
post #4

For those who do not know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection Texas is the only state that has it's own power grid, owned by the state. The stuff they are working on right now, including massive distributed battery systems, solar, more wind, etc. will be the one of the most advanced renewable systems in the world given the amount of power and consumption. It's awesome to see how as 'relatively' small…

This has nothing to do with Texas being forward thinking, but more with the huge subsidies dealing with wind power in the US. Private companies are building turbines and farms all over as Washington is fronting much of the bill for awhile. This is all about profit. It just so happens we get something good out of it, and yes ERCOT has some great engineers.

Re: Texas sets single-day wind power record

#20
post #4

For those who do not know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection Texas is the only state that has it's own power grid, owned by the state. The stuff they are working on right now, including massive distributed battery systems, solar, more wind, etc. will be the one of the most advanced renewable systems in the world given the amount of power and consumption. It's awesome to see how as 'relatively' small…

This has nothing to do with Texas being forward thinking, but more with the huge subsidies dealing with wind power in the US. Private companies are building turbines and farms all over as Washington is fronting much of the bill for awhile. This is all about profit. It just so happens we get something good out of it, and yes ERCOT has some great engineers.

Here is an interesting insight on this issue.

http://apps.texastribune.org/perry-legacy/energy/

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