51–60 of 60 posts
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.
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> Y'all think this state is full of idiots. Y'all are only half-wrong, and it's still probably better than your state. Texas ranks dead last in education, healthcare, and most indicators of quality of life. Clearly, it can't be better than any other state, unless your compared metrics are restricted to "no taxes" or "cheap housing".
source?
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source?
Do a Google search for: texas dead last You'll find things like Texas being the worst in terms of: Highest percentage of residents over age 25 without a high school diploma Lowest funding of mental health care Lowest funding of legal services for the poor Lowest average credit score Lowest voter participation Highest percentage of uninsured residents Highest per-capita gasoline consumption Highest level of cancer-cau…
http://web.archive.org/web/20150401050939/https://www.texast...
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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.
So nobody in the bay area that drives a Nissan leaf is forward thinking then either because they are heavily subsidized. Am I correct in understanding your reasoning? Just because something has a subsidy doesn't mean the supporters are automatically profit hungry morons.
Of course I wont count government subsidies as profit because after all the poor Americans who end up paying tax aren't paying for that energy willingly. Arguments for massive government subsidies such as $8K for rich people's car Tesla is that this might speed up the economy of scale for these businesses and that it will eventually be affordable for ordinary people. ( Of course also the dubious claim that this all might help reduce some environmental problems.)
I am worried that specific government subsidies for say Wind or Solar might be hurting some innovation in radically different directions.
Not strictly related to wind power in Texas, but reminded me how at the same time in Finland a few authorities recommended consumers to actually limit their use of eletricity "for the common good". The main cause was increase in wind power capacity in the last few years (as there was practically no wind that day), coupled with very low temperatures and problems with buying electricity from Russia. It's kinda scary ho…
The right way to do deal with this is to have variable, minute by minute pricing. Fixed prices don't make much sense when the supply varies dramatically.
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Texas is a great example of what happens in an almost uncontrolled free market. With renewables becoming far cheaper, it makes sense that markets that work off basic free market economics will adopt them. Texas is pragmatic that way and often provides a very simple model for what it takes to get things adopted without strong regulations forcing the matter. It's a weird state only insomuch that it isn't like everywher…
Before we get too voluntary here, let's remember that wind power was developed through heavy subsidies from many governments over the years.
One thing that's not discussed too frequently about renewables is that the operating costs are less variable than fossil fuel based systems. You have a pretty good idea what the costs are going to be over the lifetime of an installation and this helps with planning and deployment. Fossil fuel prices are variable enough over 20 years that you can't plan more than a few months out, or you need to have enough cash reserves in place to weather out price spikes.
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It amazes me how well the stuff works most of the time, considering that it's a ridiculously just-in-time system where production must match consumption on a second-by-second basis. No other industry is like this. I think we badly need good storage solutions to decouple the two sides.
The lack of storage isn't a problem when you are using reliable sources of generation such as nukes, coal, nat gas, and hydro. He problem is integrating wind and solar into a system that is designed for reliable generation.
Not strictly related to wind power in Texas, but reminded me how at the same time in Finland a few authorities recommended consumers to actually limit their use of eletricity "for the common good". The main cause was increase in wind power capacity in the last few years (as there was practically no wind that day), coupled with very low temperatures and problems with buying electricity from Russia. It's kinda scary ho…
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Do a Google search for: texas dead last You'll find things like Texas being the worst in terms of: Highest percentage of residents over age 25 without a high school diploma Lowest funding of mental health care Lowest funding of legal services for the poor Lowest average credit score Lowest voter participation Highest percentage of uninsured residents Highest per-capita gasoline consumption Highest level of cancer-cau…
It's quite humorous you were downvoted considering everything you mentioned is true. http://web.archive.org/web/20150401050939/https://www.texast...
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It's not so much Washington fronting the bill as making an investment. And the cumulative effect of those investments globally is working. LCOE of wind is now $83/megawatt hour compared to $82 for natural gas(1). 1 - http://fortune.com/2015/10/06/wind-cheap-coal-gas/
You have to be careful comparing the cost of wind to the cost of nat gas and other reliable sources of generation. You can't count on wind. That makes it much less valuable than natural gas. But don't take my word for it, here is the Energy Information Adminstration making that point. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm This wind build out really is driven by subsidies such as the wind produc…
I heard the following quote recently, "I know what the price of fuel for wind will be for the next 20 years. I know what the price of natural gas was yesterday."
To us, it sounds like wind is intermittent. But that's fine; the wind is always blowing and the sun always shining somewhere (its transmission that needs to catch up). Non-renewable fuel coasts will always be unpredictable.