Millions of Texans were without heat and electricity Monday into Tuesday as snow, ice and frigid temperatures caused a catastrophic failure of the state’s power grid. All Texans should read what happened at the Houston Chronicle.
Windmills Propel the Power Grid
The Texas power grid, powered largely by wind and natural gas, is relatively well equipped to handle the state’s hot and humid summers but not the severe winter weather as it increased demand.
Natural gas shortages and frozen wind turbines were already curtailing power output when the Arctic blast began knocking generators offline early Monday morning.
Controlled outages followed.
More than 4 million customers were without power in Texas, including 1.4 million in the Houston area, the worst power crisis in the state in a decade. The forced outages are expected to last at least through part of Tuesday, the state grid manager said.
Dan Woodfin, ERCOT’s senior director of system operations, said the rolling blackouts are taking more power offline for longer periods than ever before. An estimated 34,000 megawatts of power generation — more than a third of the system’s total generating capacity — had been knocked offline by the extreme winter weather amid soaring demand as residents crank up heating systems.
The U.S. Energy Department, in response to an ERCOT request, issued an order late Monday authorizing power plants throughout the state to run at maximum output levels, even if it results in exceeding pollution limits.
We’re the Old Soviet Union
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants.
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“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.
“For more than a decade, generators have not been able to charge what it costs them to produce electricity,” said Hirs. “If you don’t make a return on your money, how can you keep it up? It’s like not taking care of your car. If you don’t change the oil and tires, you can’t expect your car to be ready to evacuate, let alone get you to work.”
Hirs said Houston residents can expect more power outages in the future.
“The year 2011 was a miserable cold snap and there were blackouts,” said Hirs. “It happened before and will continue to happen until Texas restructures its electricity market.”
IT WILL GO COUNTRYWIDE, CHECK OUT NEW YORK
When the same thing happens in New York with its harsh winters, it will be a predictable disaster.
Democrats plan to carbon tax New Yorkers during a pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Carbon taxes will line pockets, nothing else. New Yorkers are all going to be forced to go to electricity that relies on alternative energy in only nine years. Oh, and the alternative energy needed does not exist.
In nine years, New York will be forced to give up fossil fuels rapidly for energy sources that do now exist.
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