191–200 of 1001 posts
Nuclear is the cheapest, cleanest, safest form of electricity generation. Do some research into who pushed FUD propaganda about Nuclear industry, (Big oil) and who paid off the shrill environmental FUD lobby, (Bug oil). Nuclear power is used safely in aircraft carriers and submarines for decades. It's time to build more nuclear power and build the cleaner, safer, cheaper electrical energy future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates. The technologies can work, but only if measures are taken to make them work that way, and those measures are expensive. Texas' grid, like most of the nation's grid, is optimized to keep prices low for consumers and profits steady for generators and distributors, and it's worked amazingly well at that. But "running lean" is great and everyone wins…
I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mostly because paying the cost to prepare for one of these is reasonable, but preparing for all of them would be very expensive and I will trade cheap power for the occasional inconvenience.
The Texas-only grid was definitely part of it, and should be a lesson to people who thought the lesson from Covid is "do more locally." No, having stronger, longer distance connections is what makes you more resilient, at least when there are local problems.
Agree on the point about Texas extreme stance on having their own power grid. I don’t known if there’s enough micro grids in Texas to determine how well, or not, they worked in these conditions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's probably not that clear cut. What happens in a cascading blackout scenario? If you are part of a larger pool are you more exposed to have a service disruption now when there is a problem in another part of the grid of the pool that you don't directly control?
You can isolate yourself from cascading blackouts while still being able to share power. This is why they may cross several states, but never hit nationwide.
The Texas-only grid was definitely part of it, and should be a lesson to people who thought the lesson from Covid is "do more locally." No, having stronger, longer distance connections is what makes you more resilient, at least when there are local problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mostly because paying the cost to prepare for one of these is reasonable, but preparing for all of them would be very expensive and I will trade cheap power for the occasional inconvenience.
> every thirty years Climate change says hi.
Even today, homes are built with an overhead tank and anyone who can afford it has a UPS capable of powering the home for a few hours under load or a few days if used sparingly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates. The technologies can work, but only if measures are taken to make them work that way, and those measures are expensive. Texas' grid, like most of the nation's grid, is optimized to keep prices low for consumers and profits steady for generators and distributors, and it's worked amazingly well at that. But "running lean" is great and everyone wins…
I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mostly because paying the cost to prepare for one of these is reasonable, but preparing for all of them would be very expensive and I will trade cheap power for the occasional inconvenience.
I would love to know just how much we'd be talking about per-customer. Ten cents over ten years? A dollar over ten years? Twenty dollars? More?
Without knowing that "I wouldn't pay any more" seems foolhardy.
Lots of folks in these comments seem to want to use this event to litigate wind vs. solar vs. gas vs. nuclear vs. coal, but it seems like, across the board, power generation facilities in Texas were simply unprepared to operate in such low temperatures. All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates.
> All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates. The technologies can work, but only if measures are taken to make them work that way, and those measures are expensive. Texas' grid, like most of the nation's grid, is optimized to keep prices low for consumers and profits steady for generators and distributors, and it's worked amazingly well at that. But "running lean" is great and everyone wins…
Hip jargon aside, planning for low-probability events was invented a long time ago.
Unfortunately, so were politicians, who will operate within the parameters they are given. If you want real resilience, you want better governance.
The Texas-only grid was definitely part of it, and should be a lesson to people who thought the lesson from Covid is "do more locally." No, having stronger, longer distance connections is what makes you more resilient, at least when there are local problems.