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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "100 year winter" storms It’s like the third time in 30 years.
"100 year" is shorthand for probability. In reality, these are storms that have a 1% chance of occurring in any given year.
This is only a problem because we haven't figured out a good way to store electrical energy.
Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.
In the 2011 cold snap, the problem was all about frozen lines like the pressure sensing line that caused a problem yesterday for the nuclear reactor. Likely similar things are causing problems for natural gas.
The answer is weatherization of all these sources. Wind turbines work great in other settings with icing wind, you just have to have the hardware for it. Just like you have to have the hardware to keep your pressure sensing lines from freezing.
We are likely to experince more events like this before a single nuclear plant could be built. And the idea of building 30GW of new nuclear, the amount of gas/coal/nuclear that was lost, is so daunting that not even China is trying to build that much nuclear, and they're pretty much the best at doing it of anyone out there.
Honestly, building 60GW more of wind and solar, and 10GW/40GWh of storage would be a lot easier and cheaper than building 30GW of nuclear. Solar delivered an extra GW when it wasn't expected, wind dropped 4GW from what was expected, and gas/coal/nuclear dropped 27GW.
The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…
Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.
> Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? No. Most of the missing production was not wind, and several nukes went out (unclear whether that was because the grid was dying though). What would have helped was proper standards (avoiding emergency being much of the reason why Texas still has its own grid) and properly winterising. The wind thing is just a bullshit excuse, the vast majori…
Did the utility companies ask for voluntary reduction in power consumption ahead of time? We had a situation here where extreme weather and a natural gas pumping station that exploded caused real problems in our natural gas supply. The utility asked everyone to lower their consumption by turning their heat down to 65. Luckily, that was the extent of the rationing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? No. Most of the missing production was not wind, and several nukes went out (unclear whether that was because the grid was dying though). What would have helped was proper standards (avoiding emergency being much of the reason why Texas still has its own grid) and properly winterising. The wind thing is just a bullshit excuse, the vast majori…
What is "proper winterizing" for a state where the 99th percentile design temperature is mostly 25-30ºF? Properly sized heating systems should run 24 hours a day when the temps are well below the design temp. If almost all of those systems are electric (because they are simple and cheap to install and don't get a ton of use), you get a lot of constant demand for electricity. Smart load-shedding (to dump large 240VAC…
Considering it’s more energy efficient to cool with Air Conditioning on the hottest summer days than it is to heat with electricity in the winter, it’s no wonder the grid collapsed when the region was below freezing for several days and some generating capacity was lost.
This whole episode also reminds us how far we are from going 100% renewable. In winter all renewables are inhibited and at risk. Wind: frozen/disabled turbines. Water: low water levels, small hydro plants often have to shut down. Solar is obvious. I'm not a fan of nuclear - externalities that last thousands of years are horrible. But until fusion arrives (if ever), nuclear and gas sadly are the baseline providers we…
I find it really weird that everyone is jumping to blame wind here, but totally ignoring all the natural gas plants that are turned off.