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Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wind turbines usually brake after 25m/s wind speeds for safety reasons. They stopped working in Texas cause they were frozen, not because it was too windy.
Clearly this is a Texas only problem, given it works in much colder countries and States. Texas did not want to pay to winterize to maximize profits. Risk reward, a few hundred dead people once in a while vs. profits every year.
This is not even close to fair. Everyone is forgetting how exceptional the storm really was. If Miami were hit by a magnitude 7 earthquake would you all be whining about Miami’s building codes?
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#53This makes me wonder. Basic macroeconomics tells us that savings must be invested. If you do not invest your savings, unemployment will go up because people are cutting spending and since they are not investing they are also not creating new jobs. Interest rates being lower than inflation are a signal that pressures people to stop saving because the savings = investments equation has been broken by a huge margin. The…
The loanable funds theory is wrong. Banks don't loan savings. So, investment doesn't come from savings. The Bank of England explaining it: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2018/banks-are...
Notably one of the other banks owned by the British government exists specifically to use savings by individuals as a source of capital for the government itself.
[As a result NS&I cannot "fail" in the sense a commercial bank could, your deposits are guaranteed by the continued existence of the United Kingdom, and since it has its own currency this means if the bank fails, the country fails, the currency fails and the money was actually now worthless anyway.]
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
A nuclear plant went offline due to the recent event. Pretending this has anything at all to do with the type of power generation, instead of properly weatherizing infrastructure is absurd.
If the grid frequency is not stable enough (i.e. demand outstrips supply) any type of power plant will trip off line when the protection circuitry kicks in. Anything else risks damage to transformers and industrial machinery downstream.
No you don't understand, the plant didn't trip.
The nuclear plant's turbines were literally on the "roof" of the reactor complex completely in the open. Nuclear regulations only require the reactor itself to be enclosed and protected.
No shit the turbines froze over. They ignored reports advising them to fully enclose the plant for years.
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#55It'd be interesting to see Texas tax deployments of wind and solar within the state but incentivize manufacturing of wind and solar. If oil and gas exports from Texas are going to decline in coming years, having wind and solar exports increase would be a nice logical offset. And even if oil/gas exports don't decline it does seem like manufacturing of wind/solar products will only increase so it would be seemingly low…
Sometimes it seems like TX and FL are in a bizarre secret competition...
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#56I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables ( https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st... ) so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
Yes, the loud politicians have always been painting this as a Green/Wind vs Fossil problem as soon as the storm hit and that the solution is Fossil. It's frustrating because unlike other debates - the underlying truth is quite clear. Cold temperatures affected both Natural Gas & Wind bringing both power types[0]. Winterizing both can be beneficial. Wind can operating in those temperatures just fine[1]. It wouldn't be…
Oil and ff interests bought them some politicians laying down FUD at press-conferences and policies just how industry wants them.
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#57I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables ( https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st... ) so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
While many generation sources were negatively impacted, including natural gas around Feb 15 - natural gas drastically increased generation between February 8 and 22, increasing the overall generation as well as making up for shortfalls in other generation sources. The federal EIA has ok charting and a really good API:
https://www.eia.gov/opendata/embed.php?geoset_id=EBA.NG.WAT.HL&type=chart&relation_mode=line&map=none®ions=&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&date_mode=range&start=202101&end=20210401&periods=
https://api.eia.gov/series/?api_key=&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&start=20210101&end=20210401
(Get an API key for the second URL from https://www.eia.gov/opendata/commands.php)Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#58Living in Texas here (hopefully not too much longer).
Texas does everything it can to cater to the oil and gas industry. Let's not even talk about our recent ice storm debacle. There have been cries from the public for years about getting high speed rail between Houston and Dallas. Every time this comes up, the oil and gas industry steps up and kills it. They don't want high speed rail or wind and solar. They want people slurping up the gasoline/diesel to make that 4-hour trip. Sure, wind and solar exist here, but the o/g industry does its level best to keep it in check.
It's the thinking in Texas that is one of the reasons I want to move to the PNW. No place is perfect, but Texas is a special kind of stupid when it comes to progress. Between the oil and gas industry, redneck NIH attitude, and the serious desire by an alarming number of people to "secede", it's difficult to take this place seriously.
Texas has basically a 9-month, humid-as-hell summer and no winter to speak of. It doesn't rain enough here, the sun is out too much, and the people (not transplants) are the most insular I've ever experienced and I've lived in 5 different countries. The education here in the schools is among the worst I've ever seen. I frequently compare my children's learning, topics, etc., with my European family, and the difference is shocking. American kids, with exception, don't get the level of education that other children receive. Don't think for a moment that children of oil and gas employees are going to be open to wind and solar, something that would kill their parents' lifeblood. I've actually heard this talked about. Oil and gas kids are told there is no such thing as climate change, no use in being "green", etc.
Texas may have some good aspects, but I've not seen many. Let's not even get started on the property taxes here compared to other states.
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#59I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables ( https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st... ) so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
Yeah, the big problem is the death of coal power. Coal power plants can stockpile enough fuel to run for a good while no matter the weather. Natural gas power plants cannot; they rely on a continuous supply of gas, and it turns out that every part of the Texas natural gas supply chain is vulnerable to cold weather and power outages. Fixing this will be slow, incredibly expensive, probably increase CO2 emissions and d…
>Yeah, the big problem is the death of coal power. Coal power plants can stockpile enough fuel to run for a good while no matter the weather.
I read that multiple coal plants went offline due to weather related issues including problems with the water supply needed to operate the steam turbines and freezing of coal piles.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063727799 has some good details including that 38% of coal generation capacity was offline during the worst of the recent freeze in Texas.
I think this all just comes back to the point made up-thread: preparing power infrastructure for bad weather is essential, and the size of the relative advantage of coal vs. other forms of generation is dominated by the improvement in availability that comes from that.
Re: Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar
#60I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables ( https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st... ) so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
> so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
It's not. The problem was caused by the natural gas plants freezing. Full disclosure: I work in the utility industry and I'm very familiar with ERCOT. Here's the reality: any power bid into the market coming from an "unreliable" source such as wind and solar must be covered by power coming from a natural gas or coal powered plant. Those are ERCOT's rules. By "covered" I mean you must have allocated the reserve off of the capacity market. This bill is based on lies, misconceptions, and deceit.