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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: the longhorn who wrote (10956)	2/16/2021 4:42:04 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26545

I posted that image on FB yesterday. Texas power seems it is like PG&E... prefers to make money rather than save customer's lives with reliable power. Rather than spend $ fixing leaks in pipes that killed some neighbors, PG&E paid large dividends while wining and dining their regulators... They did the same for trimming trees near power lines. Trees fell during wind, started fires and many died. Corruptifornia at its best. Good news is this year they trimmed the trees near my home and we had a HUGE wind storm a few weeks ago and power stayed on... in most of the state. Seems Texas is no different. wfaa.com "There are things that can be done, but it will cost some money," he added. "About every decade we have these long-sustained periods. And then, you know weatherization is supposed to happen, and then, it doesn't because it costs money." The windmills in other states that froze have batteries and heaters.... costs more but is reliable.

To: the longhorn who wrote (10956)	2/16/2021 5:12:28 PM
From: John Koligman	1 Recommendation Recommended By rdkflorida2 Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26545

All the articles I have been reading have stated the major failures were due to conventional energy plants going offline. Here is one from Bloomberg. This is a major failure on the part of Texas state government and a bunch of people will have died because of it. Frozen Wind Farms Are Just a Small Piece of Texas’s Power Woes By Will Wade , Naureen S Malik , and Brian Eckhouse February 15, 2021, 6:29 PM CST Updated on February 16, 2021, 10:28 AM CST Natural gas, coal and nuclear played bigger role in blackouts Blaming reduced wind output ‘is really a red herring’ Don’t point too many fingers at Texas wind turbines, because they’re not the main reason broad swaths of the state have been plunged into darkness. While ice has forced some turbines to shut down just as a brutal cold wave drives record electricity demand, that’s been the least significant factor in the blackouts, according to Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid. The main factors: Frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities, as well as limited supplies of natural gas, he said. “Natural gas pressure” in particular is one reason power is coming back slower than expected Tuesday, added Woodfin. “We’ve had some issues with pretty much every kind of generating capacity in the course of this multi-day event,” he said. The blackouts, which have spread from Texas across the Great Plains, have reignited the debate about the reliability of intermittent wind and solar power as the U.S. seeks to accelerate the shift to carbon-free renewable energy. Rolling outages in California last summer were blamed in part on the retirement of gas plants as the state pursued an aggressive clean-energy agenda. Wind shutdowns accounted for 3.6 to 4.5 gigawatts -- or less than 13% -- of the 30 to 35 gigawatts of total outages, according to Woodfin. That’s in part because wind only comprises 25% of the state’s energy mix this time of year. While wind can sometimes produce as much as 60% of total electricity in Texas, the resource tends to ebb in the winter, so the grid operator typically assumes that the turbines will generate only about 19% to 43% of their maximum output. Even so, wind generation has actually exceeded the grid operator’s daily forecast through the weekend. Solar power has been slightly below forecast Monday. “The performance of wind and solar is way down the list among the smaller factors in the disaster that we’re facing,” Daniel Cohan, associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, said in an interview. Blaming renewables for the blackouts “is really a red herring.” That doesn’t mean that frozen turbines are playing no role in the energy crisis, which the grid operator has highlighted. Cody Moore, head of gas and power trading at Mercuria Energy America, noted that wind generation this week is down markedly this week from last week, possibly indicating that turbines are automatically shutting down due to ice. “We are seeing wind generation down 60% week-over-week,” said Matt Hoza, manager of energy analysis at BTU Analytics. But wind and solar that are operating “are in a very advantageous position” as power prices have topped $1,000 a megawatt-hour. The situation raises questions about the grid’s preparedness. “Grid demand is so much higher than we’ve really built the system for in the wintertime,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.