What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
houstonchronicle.com
What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#2Choice quote from the article: “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#3Choice quote from the article: “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”
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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#4Maybe 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.
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#5Choice quote from the article: “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”
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Please don't. We're looking for curious conversation, not ideological battle (which tends to be an angry kind of boilerplate).
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#6Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#7Choice quote from the article: “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”
Which confuses me, as it follows a statement about how energy has been deregulated.
Of course, deregulation would also reduce some of the incentives for maintaining preparation for "100 year winter" storms. Much like how hospitals reduced the number of beds based on their average case loads, not the uncommon-but-not-unheard-of peaks.
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#8Maybe 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 majority of the missing generation is in fossil power plants. Even with half the turbines frozen over (which still has to do with Texas’ lack of proper winterization, those things work fine in Canada, Washington State, Montana, etc…) wind performed above expectations for the period.
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#9Choice quote from the article: “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”
Which confuses me, as it follows a statement about how energy has been deregulated. Of course, deregulation would also reduce some of the incentives for maintaining preparation for "100 year winter" storms. Much like how hospitals reduced the number of beds based on their average case loads, not the uncommon-but-not-unheard-of peaks.
> "100 year winter" storms
It’s like the third time in 30 years.
Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
#10is this the wakeup call that texans need to acknowledge that climate change isn't a coastal elite type thing, and that it affects us all and requires investment from all of us?
imo texas is in a great spot to capitalize on the shift to green tech. they have strong engineering talent, large investments from the energy sector. car manufacturers are already clamoring to be the next to go fully electric. get your leaders in line and cash in on the trend, and save the world in the process! or go the way of detroit when oil demand tanks...