.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

16 minutes ago, Ecocharger said:

You can start here, click on the author's name, which will bring up a list of previous publications, the top of which is a joint study with three other scientists published in 2019, and was widely debated in the media last year. No public authority has taken or heeded the warning, which is repeated in the article linked above, to prepare for colder temperatures.

https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7575229/

Thanks, I was well aware of that theory, it has been around for many years. Nothing new, it just didn't fit the desired narrative of the establishment wo got very little publicity in the mainstream media. I have been collecting information for ten years on over 215 topics. 

One is Global Warming AKA Climate Change, and Just Plain Weather  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHU2hHXebxpvExT7srNNnX-VM7Qn9Ak_ZmdKCIcUti8/edit

[ronwagn + 6,290]

51 minutes ago, NickW said:

Fair play to you but there has been plenty of opposition to controls on all those things I cite. 

The kids up chimneys a bit tongue in cheek

It all comes down to the cost benefit that people perceive. Not everyone is concerned beyond their lifetime or a couple of generations. That is a problem and they need to be given honest information that is well founded. 

[NickW + 2,714]

23 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Demonstrably false, see my link above. 39% from wind and solar, and in the winter that solar amounts to nothing. I see that the authors did a great job banging their political drum but they're a bit light on facts. Lemme guess, they want Texas under the Federal government thumb? Lol

Lets apply some basic maths

If a 30GW loss equals 87% of the outage

Then the 13% attributed to wind equals about 4.5 GW

The cumulative generating capacity under  ERCOT is approx 60GW (Coal, gas, nuke, Hydro and Biomass). Assuming that was all operating before this event and ERCOT runs at an 8% (very low) reserve) then that could just about accommodate that loss of wind but obviously when half your generating capacity fails there is no hope. 

I suspect the difference is the generating shortfall was about 2GW of wind. When the grid started going down that took another 2.5GW with it (cascade event)

Edited February 19, 2021 by NickW

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

6 minutes ago, NickW said:

Lets apply some basic maths

If a 30GW loss equals 87% of the outage

Then the 13% attributed to wind equals about 4.5 GW

The cumulative generating capacity under  ERCOT is approx 60GW (Coal, gas, nuke, Hydro and Biomass). Assuming that was all operating before this event and ERCOT runs at an 8% (very low) reserve) then that could just about accommodate that loss of wind but obviously when half your generating capacity fails there is no hope. 

I suspect the difference is the generating shortfall was about 2GW of wind. When the grid started going down that took another 2.5GW with it (cascade event)

Flunked maths? 

Quote

As of 6 p.m., approximately 43,000 MW of generation has been forced off the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that, 26,500 MW is thermal and nearly 17,000 MW is wind and solar.

Take 17,000/43.000 and tell me what you get. It's somewhat pointless to talk about things that are not relevant. Don't confuse "capacity" with "production"

[Boat + 1,315]

Awhile back I think I posted a link showing those safety margins by state. Some states have safety margins over 20%. Texas gambled for a long time and then got burned. 
If you live in rural Ga for example, expect power outages of 1-3 days twice a year, year in and year out. There everyone kinda took it in stride.

[NickW + 2,714]

12 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Flunked maths? 

Take 17,000/43.000 and tell me what you get. It's somewhat pointless to talk about things that are not relevant. Don't confuse "capacity" with "production"

Where has this 17GW come from?

Ergot stated that13% of the outage was attributable to wind. If that 13% IS 17Gw then the other 87% is 130Gw . TEX doesn't have 130GW of coal,nuke, and gas its nearer 60. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

48 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Demonstrably false, see my link above. 39% from wind and solar, and in the winter that solar amounts to nothing. I see that the authors did a great job banging their political drum but they're a bit light on facts. Lemme guess, they want Texas under the Federal government thumb? Lol

Ward, There is no discrepancy here. ERCOT has lots of wind generators with a total nameplate capacity that is in excess of 16,000 MW, which is somewhere around 20% of the total Texas nameplate generation capacity. However, they know that they cannot depend on wind for more than about 6,000 MW  in February, so that's what they did, assuming you can believe the Oilprice story I linked to, which quoted ERCOT. When the windmills iced up, total wind dropped to 4,000 MW. There is no reason to believe that the authors have some sort of hidden agenda, and I personally have no agenda, hidden or otherwise, about how ERCOT does business. I'm just trying to understand what happened. Being reasonable business people, the generator companies choose to use winds when it it available to the extent of more than 40% when everything lines up, thus saving a lot of money by not burning coal and NG.  They use fossil when wind is not available.  Also, being reasonable business people, they chose to not invest in capital equipment that will only be used once a decade during an extreme cold weather event in their nuclear, coal, NG, and wind systems, and they try for 8% reserve instead of a larger reserve. This lowers the cost of electricity for everybody, and that is what the people of Texas, through their elected representatives, chose to do. The tradeoff is rolling blackouts approximately once per decade, and every once in a long while those blackouts will be much more extensive. This was the year. In the immediate aftermath, The people will be really upset and angry, but by next spring they will go back to being concerned about the price of electricity instead.

the link again:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Whos-To-Blame-For-The-Texas-Power-Crisis.html

[Ecocharger + 1,378]

10 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Ward, There is no discrepancy here. ERCOT has lots of wind generators with a total nameplate capacity that is in excess of 16,000 MW, which is somewhere around 20% of the total Texas nameplate generation capacity. However, they know that they cannot depend on wind for more than about 6,000 MW  in February, so that's what they did, assuming you can believe the Oilprice story I linked to, which quoted ERCOT. When the windmills iced up, total wind dropped to 4,000 MW. There is no reason to believe that the authors have some sort of hidden agenda, and I personally have no agenda, hidden or otherwise, about how ERCOT does business. I'm just trying to understand what happened. Being reasonable business people, the generator companies choose to use winds when it it available to the extent of more than 40% when everything lines up, thus saving a lot of money by not burning coal and NG.  They use fossil when wind is not available.  Also, being reasonable business people, they chose to not invest in capital equipment that will only be used once a decade during an extreme cold weather event in their nuclear, coal, NG, and wind systems, and they try for 8% reserve instead of a larger reserve. This lowers the cost of electricity for everybody, and that is what the people of Texas, through their elected representatives, chose to do. The tradeoff is rolling blackouts approximately once per decade, and every once in a long while those blackouts will be much more extensive. This was the year. In the immediate aftermath, The people will be really upset and angry, but by next spring they will go back to being concerned about the price of electricity instead.

the link again:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Whos-To-Blame-For-The-Texas-Power-Crisis.html

Next year and the three decades after that will continue to be problematic, with a new cooling period rolling in. Not business as usual.

Time to heed the warnings raised by some serious scientists.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

2 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

According to this article here at Oilprice,  ERCOT planned for the wind turbines to provide 6,000 MW in February because that's all the wind yiu can expect in February. Due to freezing. they only got 4,000 MW, having lost the rest due to cold weather problems.  Total ERCOT capacity is 80,000 MW, but (estimated) demand was about 72,000 MW. Natural Gas, coal, and Nuclear collectively lost about 30,000 MW of capacity due to cold weather problems. The most power systems factor in a 15% reserve, but ERCOT runs with an 8% reserve.

TRUTH!

One more time, just for the hell of it. 

According to the EIA statistics, wind power in all of Texas plunged 93% between 12 a.m. on Feb 8 and Feb. 16, while coal increased 47% and gas 450%. 

Wind turbines failed almost 100%. 

Most of these articles that have been cited on these pages are total junk. Unreliable. Badly researched. Skewed. 

Big surprise, eh?

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

Where has this 17GW come from?

Ergot stated that13% of the outage was attributable to wind. If that 13% IS 17Gw then the other 87% is 130Gw . TEX doesn't have 130GW of coal,nuke, and gas its nearer 60. 

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225696

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Ward, There is no discrepancy here. ERCOT has lots of wind generators with a total nameplate capacity that is in excess of 16,000 MW, which is somewhere around 20% of the total Texas nameplate generation capacity. However, they know that they cannot depend on wind for more than about 6,000 MW  in February, so that's what they did, assuming you can believe the Oilprice story I linked to, which quoted ERCOT. When the windmills iced up, total wind dropped to 4,000 MW. There is no reason to believe that the authors have some sort of hidden agenda, and I personally have no agenda, hidden or otherwise, about how ERCOT does business. I'm just trying to understand what happened. Being reasonable business people, the generator companies choose to use winds when it it available to the extent of more than 40% when everything lines up, thus saving a lot of money by not burning coal and NG.  They use fossil when wind is not available.  Also, being reasonable business people, they chose to not invest in capital equipment that will only be used once a decade during an extreme cold weather event in their nuclear, coal, NG, and wind systems, and they try for 8% reserve instead of a larger reserve. This lowers the cost of electricity for everybody, and that is what the people of Texas, through their elected representatives, chose to do. The tradeoff is rolling blackouts approximately once per decade, and every once in a long while those blackouts will be much more extensive. This was the year. In the immediate aftermath, The people will be really upset and angry, but by next spring they will go back to being concerned about the price of electricity instead.

the link again:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Whos-To-Blame-For-The-Texas-Power-Crisis.html

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225696

Whom to believe, two authors with a political axe to grind or ERCOT themselves?

[turbguy + 1,402]

8 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225696

Whom to believe, two authors with a political axe to grind or ERCOT themselves?

ERCOT's system history shows that at 6:00 PM (central), wind output was almost 6600 MW.   Very much in line with expected.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by turbguy

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

12 minutes ago, turbguy said:

ERCOT's system history shows that at 6:00 PM (central), wind output was almost 6600 MW.   Very much in line with expected.

 

 

And yet, http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225922 as of this evening

Quote

As of 6:30 p.m., nearly 36,000 MW of generation remains on forced outage due to this winter weather event. Of that, approximately 21,400 MW is thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar.

Considering at 1830 there is no solar the "missing" energy is over 40%. I'll assume you can run a calculator.

Why assume, that's 14,600 MW of "missing" wind generation. You're showing what is, I'm showing what isn't. This isn't so hard to comprehend is it? 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Ward Smith
Did the math after all so no mistakes

[LANDMAN X + 181]

 

Trying to understand why so many Americans can not understand how much safer underground pipelines are compared to RR cars going all over the country???.   Every huge pipeline I worked on has been restored with better top dirt than before it was ripped up.  The cattle go to the plush green seeded parts of the 50 to 100 foot land above the new pipelines.  Loved negotiating with the small land owners.   Paid them the most possible...take look at map of just natural gas lines going all over the country.   Texas has the most and still trying to figure out how everything went haywire there?

 

  

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

3 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225696

Whom to believe, two authors with a political axe to grind or ERCOT themselves?

The actual quote from your reference is

"As of 6 p.m., approximately 43,000 MW of generation has been forced off the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that, 26,500 MW is thermal and nearly 17,000 MW is wind and solar."

Again, no discrepancy. ERCOT had 17,000 MW of wind and solar "forced offline". That's nameplate capacity.  But ERCOT had forecast that in February, they could not depend on more than 6,000 MW of generation from wind and solar in the first place, even if all of them were fully functinoal. In this extreme event, wind power dropped all the way down to 4,000 MW: A lot of windmills froze up, just as did the coal, nuclear, and NG, because they did not have the cold-weather enhancements required to operate in very low temperatures. In the case of wind they lost 2000 MW that they were counting on. In the case of the other generators, they were counting on at least 20,000 MW that they suddenly did not have. Wind turbines, NG plants, nuclear plants, and coal plants don't freeze up (much) in Minnesota or North Dakota, because they are engineered to continue to operate.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Just now, LANDMAN X said:

 

Trying to understand why so many Americans can not understand how much safer underground pipelines are compared to RR cars going all over the country???.   Every huge pipeline I worked on has been restored with better top dirt than before it was ripped up.  The cattle go to the plush green seeded parts of the 50 to 100 foot land above the new pipelines.  Loved negotiating with the small land owners.   Paid them the most possible...take look at map of just natural gas lines going all over the country.   Texas has the most and still trying to figure out how everything went haywire there?

 

  

The answer is simple. The compressor stations which push that natural gas along run on electricity. When the power went out, the compressors went dark, which had the added benefit of cutting off the fuel needed by the utilities. QED

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

5 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

And yet, http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225922 as of this evening

Considering at 1830 there is no solar the "missing" energy is over 40%. I'll assume you can run a calculator.

Why assume, that's 14,600 MW of "missing" wind generation. You're showing what is, I'm showing what isn't. This isn't so hard to comprehend is it? 

It is easy to comprehend that the wind turbines are operating at 14,600 below their nameplate capacity. The are not expected to operate a more than 6000 MW in February. Is that so hard to comprehend?

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 minute ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

The actual quote from your reference is

"As of 6 p.m., approximately 43,000 MW of generation has been forced off the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that, 26,500 MW is thermal and nearly 17,000 MW is wind and solar."

Again, no discrepancy. ERCOT had 17,000 MW of wind and solar "forced offline". That's nameplate capacity.  But ERCOT had forecast that in February, they could not depend on more than 6,000 MW of generation from wind and solar in the first place, even if all of them were fully functinoal. In this extreme event, wind power dropped all the way down to 4,000 MW: A lot of windmills froze up, just as did the coal, nuclear, and NG, because they did not have the cold-weather enhancements required to operate in very low temperatures. In the case of wind they lost 2000 MW that they were counting on. In the case of the other generators, they were counting on at least 20,000 MW that they suddenly did not have. Wind turbines, NG plants, nuclear plants, and coal plants don't freeze up (much) in Minnesota or North Dakota, because they are engineered to continue to operate.

Either you're being purposely obtuse or you're just that dense. You're talking about a projection made for budgeting purposes and I'm talking about what really happened. They need much more power than they're getting from the windmills even though the wind is blowing quite well. That's because they're iced up, pure and simple. At the time they budgeted for 6 gw from wind they were also projecting about 15 gw less demand than they have right now, due to the cold. 

[turbguy + 1,402]

7 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

And yet, http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225922 as of this evening

Considering at 1830 there is no solar the "missing" energy is over 40%. I'll assume you can run a calculator.

Why assume, that's 14,600 MW of "missing" wind generation. You're showing what is, I'm showing what isn't. This isn't so hard to comprehend is it? 

They EASILY plan (I think even expect) for the sun to go down.  

You don't get 100% of nameplate from wind most of the time, that's also expected, and planned for.  "Missing" capacity from that source is to be expected.

I would really like to see this graph on the day before, day of, and day after the close call. It's burried on tat website somewhere, I just cannot find it.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

@Tom Nolan should like this, right up his alley. Why, exactly, did Xiden open up the US power grid to China in an executive order? Who does he work for again? 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 minute ago, turbguy said:

They EASILY plan (I think even expect) for the sun to go down.  

You don't get 100% of nameplate from wind most of the time, that's also expected, and planned for.  "Missing" capacity from that source is to be expected.

I would really like to see this graph on the day before, day of, and day after the close call. It's burried on tat website somewhere, I just cannot find it.

You're talking about nameplate, but that's not what they're talking about. Hint, when ERCOT uses the word "generation" they mean "generation" not blue sky nameplate. Texas has been getting 40% of their power needs from wind as @Gerry Maddoux and I have been trying to tell you. Coincidentally only 28% of nameplate capacity belongs to wind there, the rest belongs to thermal nameplate capacity plants that are mostly gas fired quick on quick off plants. Lots of idle capacity that can't spin up because the power to the gas pipelines is off. Catch22

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,541]

2 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

TRUTH!

One more time, just for the hell of it. 

According to the EIA statistics, wind power in all of Texas plunged 93% between 12 a.m. on Feb 8 and Feb. 16, while coal increased 47% and gas 450%. 

Wind turbines failed almost 100%. 

Most of these articles that have been cited on these pages are total junk. Unreliable. Badly researched. Skewed. 

Big surprise, eh?

Odd does anyone see the headlines in the coming days stating something along the below lines...

 

Breaking News: Today in Texas after both intensive and decisive deep investigations it was discovered that the Gas Generator Network was discovered to have failed running at 450% of it's rated capacity, this dismal performance was due in part to a temporary minor glitch of wind power. Solely due to a once in 100 yrs MEGLA  ARTIC CYCLONE!.

Stay tuned from commentary for Beto O'Rourke announcement's in his New Candidacy Run Governorship!

Edited February 19, 2021 by Eyes Wide Open

[turbguy + 1,402]

26 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

You're talking about nameplate, but that's not what they're talking about. Hint, when ERCOT uses the word "generation" they mean "generation" not blue sky nameplate. Texas has been getting 40% of their power needs from wind as @Gerry Maddoux and I have been trying to tell you. Coincidentally only 28% of nameplate capacity belongs to wind there, the rest belongs to thermal nameplate capacity plants that are mostly gas fired quick on quick off plants. Lots of idle capacity that can't spin up because the power to the gas pipelines is off. Catch22

Ah, OK.  That would also include considering derates ("partial outages").  It doesn't include Planned outages (nameplate not available due to approved outages). 

So, an unexpected decrease in wind power, combined with an unexpected rise in demand, were the initiating causes?

BTW, all plants are "quick off", but I know what you meant.

Edited February 19, 2021 by turbguy

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

This is all cutting along two sides.

On the one side is the clear, indisputable evidence by the EIA that the wind turbines failed by freezing up. At the same time, coal and NG revved up. Eventually the system got overwhelmed. A lot of that had to do with the fact that wind energy has become--in good conditions--about 40% of all Texas power. And that's just a cold, hard fact. 

If you are conditioned to believe the renewables narrative and you've dreamed it and inhaled it and it has invaded your brain to the extent that you have no room for truth, then you're going to believe the Joe Biden/Beto O'Roark/Gavin Newsom narrative that this was just a major goat-ropin' down in Texas because they were so dumb and pig-headed that they didn't know to go to all renewables. Didn't know how to work the grid. Ignored the basics.

It's just not worth arguing with you people. 

You would do yourselves a big favor--that would serve you well for the rest of your lives--to just go to the EIA log and ERCOT log and discover what really happened. Don't read some bullshit from the internet and believe it and then quote it on here, saying over and over that you can't imagine why a paid journalist would lie. Just go look at the data. Think for yourselves.

I can tell you for a damn truth that Gregg Abbott and Ken Paxton and the Texas state legislature are going to study this until it bleeds. And after they do that, it's going to be so damn difficult to get a new permit for a windmill in Texas that even the cows could get thirsty. The numbers don't lie. They can spin this from Joe Biden's angle, or Beto O'Roark's angle, or NickW's angle or Dan Clemmonson's angle, but the real answer lies in exactly how much electricity was generated from the wind turbines, and from coal and NG, and also from nuclear. 

What I can tell you is that the damn windmills froze up. And they dropped the energy input. And the grid became overwhelmed, even though natural gas utility plants performed at amazing rates . . . until the whole thing failed for want of enough energy. In a grid--any grid--failure begets failure. Throw enough ice and rain and sub-zero temperatures at a grid and it will fail if it has not been winterized. 

And that happened because a very large natural gas producing state failed to see that they were sitting on top of the mother lode and tried to fit in with the national, nee' the global narrative of renewables. This began with Texas selling wind energy electricity to Florida via Next Era, and then it morphed. 

Well, it's about to morph back. And when it does, they will have redundant protection mechanisms: methanol infusion into production streams, pipe-warmers on the Christmas tree, chemicals for downstream send. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,541]

47 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

This is all cutting along two sides.

On the one side is the clear, indisputable evidence by the EIA that the wind turbines failed by freezing up. At the same time, coal and NG revved up. Eventually the system got overwhelmed. A lot of that had to do with the fact that wind energy has become--in good conditions--about 40% of all Texas power. And that's just a cold, hard fact. 

If you are conditioned to believe the renewables narrative and you've dreamed it and inhaled it and it has invaded your brain to the extent that you have no room for truth, then you're going to believe the Joe Biden/Beto O'Roark/Gavin Newsom narrative that this was just a major goat-ropin' down in Texas because they were so dumb and pig-headed that they didn't know to go to all renewables. Didn't know how to work the grid. Ignored the basics.

It's just not worth arguing with you people. 

You would do yourselves a big favor--that would serve you well for the rest of your lives--to just go to the EIA log and ERCOT log and discover what really happened. Don't read some bullshit from the internet and believe it and then quote it on here, saying over and over that you can't imagine why a paid journalist would lie. Just go look at the data. Think for yourselves.

I can tell you for a damn truth that Gregg Abbott and Ken Paxton and the Texas state legislature are going to study this until it bleeds. And after they do that, it's going to be so damn difficult to get a new permit for a windmill in Texas that even the cows could get thirsty. The numbers don't lie. They can spin this from Joe Biden's angle, or Beto O'Roark's angle, or NickW's angle or Dan Clemmonson's angle, but the real answer lies in exactly how much electricity was generated from the wind turbines, and from coal and NG, and also from nuclear. 

What I can tell you is that the damn windmills froze up. And they dropped the energy input. And the grid became overwhelmed, even though natural gas utility plants performed at amazing rates . . . until the whole thing failed for want of enough energy. In a grid--any grid--failure begets failure. Throw enough ice and rain and sub-zero temperatures at a grid and it will fail if it has not been winterized. 

And that happened because a very large natural gas producing state failed to see that they were sitting on top of the mother lode and tried to fit in with the national, nee' the global narrative of renewables. This began with Texas selling wind energy electricity to Florida via Next Era, and then it morphed. 

Well, it's about to morph back. And when it does, they will have redundant protection mechanisms: methanol infusion into production streams, pipe-warmers on the Christmas tree, chemicals for downstream send. 

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-wind-turbines-frozen-power-why-arctic-1570173

Already the press has begun to spin the narrative, I must say this "cold weather" package is rather unique. 

The press will fault the decision makers, aka the Texas governing body. 

Never mind the gas generation system over performing.  It makes one wonder why wasn't there not more scrunity involved in the initial implementation. 

A war of unfounded narratives and truth will be lost.