An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

> I'm against the current narrative's misinformation which cherry-picks stats to push a political agenda.

and

> If we're just going off journalists' opinion pieces, then we're not ever going to get any further than the cherry-picked stats that they choose to provide. If you don't think my numbers are worth taking into account because they come from the source data and not someone's propaganda, then I don't know what to tell you. You're happy enough to cite numbers when they fit into your argument.

However, all your figures push the narrative that wind is / should be 25% of the total state capacity all the time:

> There are over 25000 GW of wind capacity, so we would expect to see a maximum of a bit less than 6250 GWh of wind output in the best 15 minute periods ...

and

> ... being dismayed by fact-checking pieces that turn "only 25%" of our capacity being 87.5%

Despite, as I quoted earlier:

"Wind energy accounts for 10% of Texas's winter energy capacity and throughout the entire year it is able to provide 24.8%"

So your 25% ratio, and all the GwH figures you keep extrapolating from that, are not what ERCOT projects or expects to obtain in winter. (EDIT: Indeed, this implies the average for the whole of winter is 10%, with an understanding it will dip well below that figure through those months.)

Are you cherry-picking yearly average figures and inappropriately applying them here to push a narrative?

That figure informs an earlier calculation, which got you to here:

> [nuclear fission] Performing at 75% of capacity is completely different from [wind] performing at 12.5%.

Which is why I'm alerting you to your seemingly intentional misuse of the numbers coming out of ECOT.

AIUI their own reports indicate wind in winter accounts for 10% of the state's power.

Because the yearly average is 24.8% indicates that through the other times of the year ERCOT budgets / forecasts something > 24.8%. (Which in turn indicates that your 25000GW figure can not equate to 25% - there's clearly fluctuations on the constituent power sources through the year.)

So if everyone expects wind to provide ~10% that time of year -- with a good deal of hour/day variability -- then your earlier mathematical wrangling:

> ... 25000 GW of wind capacity .. we would expect to see ... 6250 GWh of wind output in the best 15 minute periods.

> The data matches this, as we see peaks reaching about 5600 GWh.

> ... a theoretical ceiling of 600,000 GWh capacity per day ... the most actually produced on any day in Jan or Feb 2021 was 458,000 GWh on January 6th, 76% of capacity.

> ... February 15, 16, and 17, output was 225,000 GWh for all three days combined, or a whopping 12.5% of capacity.

-- where you've taken the yearly average of state supply (24.8%), incorrectly applied it to winter (whereas ERCOT anticipates an average of 10% during those months), and are complaining you're seeing 12.5% of a total that's out by a factor of 2.5 (ie. it'd be 31% expected capacity for that time of year).

And that's all ignoring the fact that ERCOT failed in their duty of care so ~half the fleet was inoperable.

This is why I think you're being disingenuous with your calculations.

As to your other points:

> Focusing solely on winterization is being used as a diversion from the problem that Texans actually care about, which is simply having power in their homes during extreme winters.

I don't live there, but my understanding is there was a strong movement to decomm coal power plants to reduce pollution & improve air quality, so 'power in homes in extreme winters' is doubtless on the list, but isn't the list.

It's reasonable that the good people of Texas assumed all would be fine, anyway.

The people running this system said, in January:

"We studied a range of potential risks under both normal and extreme conditions," Pete Warnken, ERCOT's manager of resource adequacy, said in its Seasonal Assessment for Resource Adequacy prepared in November, "and believe there is sufficient generation to adequately serve our customers."

and in February:

"Bill Magness, president and chief executive officer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, spoke briefly about the winter weather during his report to the board at the Feb. 9 meeting, the only mention of the incoming storm during the public portion of the virtual meeting, which spanned two hours, 28 minutes.

"Magness spoke about the approaching cold front for about 40 seconds:

" “It is actually going to be winter here pretty soon. As those of you in Texas know, we do have a cold front coming this way. We’ll probably see our winter peak later this week or in the very early part of next week. And Operations has issued an operating condition notice just to make sure everyone is up to speed with their winterization and we’re ready for the several days of pretty frigid temperatures to come our way."

Refer: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/18/ercot-said-g... and https://www.statesman.com/story/news/environment/2021/02/19/...

Given the claims immediately fired off when things went titsup, blaming legislation that hadn't been enacted yet, wind turbines, solar, everything other than poor management and poor preparation - it's unsurprising that much of the FUD stuck.

> By refusing to look at the data, you are missing the fact that wind actually does produce quite a lot of power on many winter days.

I'm very much not missing that.

I understand wind is highly variable.

Hence you support it (today) with gas plants that can spin up in under 10 minutes, and insert a buffer (batteries, say) in between.

> It should be obvious that wind significantly reduces the average profits for other generation sources in winter, and thus has a negative effect on the market for more reliable generation capacity.

I really don't get how that might work. Whoever's selling the power sets the price (as we've seen to some ludicrous extent this year). If wind power generation wasn't profitable, it presumably wouldn't be so popular. Especially the case in a exuberantly commercial landscape such as Texas / ERCOT.

> Wind's high variability does contribute to a lack of output during extreme weather.

I'm not sure if that's false, a truism, or a blend.

If you're saying that variable sources of power will contribute to variable power generation - yeah, sure.

OTOH if you're asserting that small-term (hours, days) variability -- that can be forecast reasonably accurately over short-term periods (weeks, months) -- means less power than you were expecting, then that makes no sense at all, unless your forecasting is consistently appalling, in which case .. you know .. the problem's not with your plant.

> With all this taken into account, I think that I favor a system of primarily nuclear power providing baseload needs ...

If you mean nuclear fission, then I suspect you're going to be disappointed.

I've asked twice already - has there previously been comparable blackouts there where the root cause wasn't a lack of winterisation?

Looking to the rest of the world could be informative, as I don't think we see this kind of event in countries with comparable power generation breakdown and similar climates. But I haven't done any deep research there.

7 days ago I had a new array of 12kW of solar panels plugged into the grid.

So far I've had one properly sunny day - that generated about 53kwH.

Because we're in autumn, two weeks away from the equinox, I know that this is going to be 'about average', but through the year there'll be seasonal variations.

In 3 months from now, f.e., at the winter solstice, I may hit 30kwH on a clear day, but averaging probably 20kwH per day. Some days, if it's raining, or very overcast, of course, it'll be less.

Thinking that my 'installed capacity' is the maximum available in the middle of summer, on a cloudless day, would be an unhelpful way to think of it. Rather, I'd consider 'over the year, I'll get x amount of power generated', and then divide that by 365 for an average daily amount.

Similar to how the ERCOT team has said 'over the year, our wind turbines will generate x amount of power' - but they've also gone into seasonal sub-divisions.

So, if you want to make a point about wind turbines not fulfilling the theoretical maximum output in the wrong half of the year while half the fleet is frozen, I can see why you'd want to assume it's mid-summer all year around.