Texas Power what a Cluster -Generator to save the day

[AP514]

The Power Problem in the Houston area is crazy. Millions have no power with the temps in the teens.....

Luckly I just Finished the last part of my Generator setup last week. (30Gal. Lined Fuel Drum)
I am getting ready for this next years Hurricane Season..it is going to be a bad one for the Houston area.

So, I had Generator power and 30 gal of fuel when we lost power a few days ago.
some Pics of my setup.

Now to top things off most of the people with out power are now having water shut off. If the pipes are not broken by the low temps and NO POWER now they can not even keep water trickling.

 

[Don1357]

I think a lot of people that probably used to make fun of preppers are regretting not doing a bit of prepping themselves.

 

[Bennylava]

I think a lot of people that probably used to make fun of preppers are regretting not doing a bit of prepping themselves.

Those people are complete idiots. What kind of ***** would make fun of disaster preparedness? They probably make fun of seat belts and airbags and other safety equipment that saves lives.

 

[Vtor]

Hurricane sandy left many in northeast without power for WEEKS. Within few days, gasoline supply was running dry. We rationed generator usage enough to heat the house and run the fridge. We hot wired neighbors furnace so they would have heat. The last few days we were reaching out to friends out of state for gasoline, as all local (within hour drive) were DRY or without power.

And this is in the "federally regulated" grid part of the country, it took a major storm to decimated it. We had streets upon streets where utility poles were laying down across the road - like toppled dominoes.

It was VERY quiet as you walked around the neighborhood, only occasional generator humming in a yard that would quickly fade as you walked on.

Stay safe!

 

[dogdog]

Not too many people expect Texas to Freeze over... I think when the company I used to work for was moving data center to that area, Other than tax breaks from state... they were trying to move away from Hurricanes prone states... closed 3 major data centers to move there.... talking about when hell freezes over..

 

[Bennylava]

Any truth to all that "pole shifting" stuff? I've heard people talking about the earth's poles moving a little, and causing changing weather norms. I've always lived in Texas, and I wouldn't be happy to find out that these kinds of winters will be normal now.

I'll take my 40 degree lows and no snow, thanks. 106 degrees in july/august is fine if I don't have to live with this inconvenient weather.

 

[tyme2par4]

Not too many people expect Texas to Freeze over... I think when the company I used to work for was moving data center to that area, Other than tax breaks from state... they were trying to move away from Hurricanes prone states... closed 3 major data centers to move there.... talking about when hell freezes over..

I work with a customer who moved their office from Florida to Houston a couple years ago for the same reasons. Needless to say, it hasn't been a productive change.

 

[b-boy]

I live in Buffalo NY.

We've had this happen several times in the last 20 years. It *****.

The worst for timing was an October storm in 2006. We lost power for a week. Combine that with heavy snow and trees snapping like twigs, and you're in for a good time.

The worst for conditions was a February storm in 2000. We were in single digits and were without power for 4 days. That's when I figured out how to hot wire my furnace.

The biggest concern here is no sump pump. Your basement can flood in a matter of hours. Fuel is always a problem as well. You can't get gas when the gas stations lose power.

Each time we've had an incident, I've spent some time and money trying to make myself storm proof. I have a generator that runs on gas/NG now. I have a NG ventless heater that doesn't need electricity. I have a water powered backup sump pump. I keep ~30 gallons of fuel handy all winter. We keep some canned goods in the basement. I have a chainsaw.

After this is over, survey what happened and try to figure out what you need to keep around in case it, or something else, happens again. You can't be overprepared.

 

[Denwood]

Any truth to all that "pole shifting" stuff? I've heard people talking about the earth's poles moving a little, and causing changing weather norms. I've always lived in Texas, and I wouldn't be happy to find out that these kinds of winters will be normal now.

I'll take my 40 degree lows and no snow, thanks. 106 degrees in july/august is fine if I don't have to live with this inconvenient weather.

The issue is pretty well defined by climate scientists. Climate change has disrupted upper stratosphere temperatures and pressures. This is turn has disrupted containment of the Arctic air mass in winter. Google "Polar Vortex". We have been seeing this phenomena increasing now over the last decade higher up at the 49th parallel. We just saw 18 days with lows at -36 C .. a new record. Will you see this Arctic air "intrusion" south combined with stronger summer storms/hurricanes/tornadoes? Most in the know would answer this question with a yes. Global warming is better described as Global Climate Change. This is likely the new normal :-(

 

[13mo]

There are three things going on in the South and lower Midwest with regards to the electricity issues. I live in southwest Missouri and we have had some issues with power supply in specific cases around here.

1. Massively increased demand. There is a very high prevalence of air-source heat pumps with electric resistive backup in this fairly temperate region, particularly as you go south of where I live. Air source heat pumps are efficient at cool but not cold temps but depending on what exact unit is used, these all but stop working at temps ranging from about freezing down to about 0 degrees. When the heat pump quits working, that previously 30-40 amp load to run the compressor suddenly becomes a 60-120 amp load to run the resistive backup. Couple that with the significantly increased amount of heat that needs to be pumped into houses to keep them warm with the very low temps and the duty cycle (and this total amount of electricity consumed) skyrockets.

2. Cold temperatures rendering certain types of electricity generation inoperable. In Texas, windmills now make up about 25% of their generation capacity and the cold weather caused these to freeze and become inoperable. Also, many peak-demand plants there and also nationwide are fueled by natural gas and the cold weather has caused the wells to freeze up, taking some of that offline as well. Windmills have been installed due to national and state so-called "green energy" mandates and subsidies, and natural gas has been used instead of oil or coal peaking plants primarily due to "environmental" regulatory burden as well, but to be fair the very low price of natural gas recently and the rapidity of which a natural gas plant can start and stop relative to others has contributed as well.

3. Utility regulations regarding financing of capital projects such as increasing line capacity and generation capacity generally requires for the utility to borrow money for the projects first and then only be allowed to derive any revenue from it after the project is completed. This requires the fronting of a lot of money with an unclear return on investment. This has definitely killed capacity expansion. As a case in point, Ameren was going to significantly expand the Callaway reactor in the late 2000s but scrapped the project as they would have had to front at least $6 billion to build and complete the plant before they could see a single cent in revenue.

The solutions to the problem would be to:

1. Have utilities size their generation and distribution capacity for usage scenarios such as this that fall well outside of the "average" usage, and also allow them to charge users to support that capacity. As much as people gripe about utility bills, I'd bet the people in Texas would gladly have paid an extra $20 per bill and still have power now.

2. Repeal the "green energy" mandates that require a certain amount or percentage of total power generation to be specific modalities that have well-known failure mechanisms.

 

[Perroflojo]

The issue is pretty well defined by climate scientists. Climate change has disrupted upper stratosphere temperatures and pressures. This is turn has disrupted containment of the Arctic air mass in winter. Google "Polar Vortex". We have been seeing this phenomena increasing now over the last decade higher up at the 49th parallel. We just saw 18 days with lows at -36 C .. a new record. Will you see this Arctic air "intrusion" south combined with stronger summer storms/hurricanes/tornadoes? Most in the know would answer this question with a yes. Global warming is better described as Global Climate Change. This is likely the new normal :-(

What most people do not get about global warming is not the every day temperature but what happens at the extremes hot or cold portions.

 

[AP514]

The wind Generatoin problem is from Lack of being Prepared...other places a lot farther north an in Cold climates use wind gen for Power without problems.

 

[dogdog]

.....
The solutions to the problem would be to:

1. Have utilities size their generation and distribution capacity for usage scenarios such as this that fall well outside of the "average" usage, and also allow them to charge users to support that capacity. As much as people gripe about utility bills, I'd bet the people in Texas would gladly have paid an extra $20 per bill and still have power now.

2. Repeal the "green energy" mandates that require a certain amount or percentage of total power generation to be specific modalities that have well-known failure mechanisms.

Lets not get into this political debate. (the response seems like something cut and paste from some where)
The subsidies should be roll back and paid back (with interest too right ) as well right ??

 

[Ralf11]

The wind Generation problem is from Lack of being Prepared...other places a lot farther north an in Cold climates use wind gen for Power without problems.

yes, like Norway, etc.

AND, the fossil fuel plants had instrument outages that added up to 2x the outages from windmills

all the above work fine in the north but you have to pay a little extra to winterproof them - TX didn't

TX also is not linked to the 2 big US or N. American grids, so when they lose power they can't borrow from elsewhere

 

[dogdog]

yes, like Norway, etc.

AND, the fossil fuel plants had instrument outages that added up to 2x the outages from windmills

all the above work fine in the north but you have to pay a little extra to winterproof them - TX didn't

TX also is not linked to the 2 big US or N. American grids, so when they lose power they can't borrow from elsewhere

why is that, I though all the grids in the nation are connected.

 

[larry4406]

why is that, I though all the grids in the nation are connected.

Apparently Texas wanted independence from federal regulations of their grid.

 

[tarmy]

Lets not get into this political debate. (the response seems like something cut and paste from some where)
The subsidies should be roll back and paid back (with interest too right ) as well right ??

Why not? The politics (meaning the laws, mandates, licensing and the construction permitting processes are ALL POLITICAL) of this state are what has raised utility bills to some of the most expensive electricity, fuel and conveyance systems in the nation.

I am not trying to start a political fight...but ignoring the affect and role of political involvement in utilities is not going to solve any problems.

 

[Ralf11]

why is that, I though all the grids in the nation are connected.

not really connected - there are 2 big ones for the E. US and E. Canada then W. US & W. Canada

Alaska is their own of course

then TX has their own

and - of course - Quebec has their own poutine gird

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid

 

[Jeepster04]

It does amaze me how little people are prepared. My power went off for 3 days and my neighborhood was a ghost town, everyone just left.

I was able to borrow a generator and Im struggling with the thought of buying one since this was the first time in my lifetime Ive needed one.

 

[13mo]

Lets not get into this political debate. (the response seems like something cut and paste from some where)
The subsidies should be roll back and paid back (with interest too right ) as well right ??

This wasn't a political comment and certainly wasn't a copy and paste. These are facts:

- There are laws and regulations that exist at the state and federal level that mandate that a certain amount (usually a certain percentage of the total) of electricity is produced using specific modalities, such as windmills and solar panels.

- Those modalities have well-known failure mechanisms. Solar panels do not work when it is not sunny and windmills do not work when the wind is not blowing, it is blowing too fast for the generator to safely handle, or if they are frozen and cannot turn.

- Having a decrease in the ability to generate power because you are required to have a certain percentage of your generating capacity be modalities that are known not to work in certain situations can lead to inadequate generation of electricity in those situations, which is exactly what happened here.

- Therefore, if the mandates didn't exist, the utility companies could choose the percentage of what modalities they use to generate power, and could set this mix as such so they could continue to generate sufficient power in those situations.

There is nothing political about the above- laws were made that set up a series of events and I merely stated that if the decisions had not been made, the series of events would not have necessarily had to happen. The discussion about global warming in this thread is far more political than this discussion about requirements on energy production modalities.

 

[HaiKarate]

It does amaze me how little people are prepared.

I was able to borrow a generator and Im struggling with the thought of buying one since this was the first time in my lifetime Ive needed one.

 

[Denwood]

...... The discussion about global warming in this thread is far more political than this discussion about requirements on energy production modalities.

Climate change is based on well established science, ie. observation, computer modelling etc. There is much still to learn.

Also whether you accept these observations and models is irrelevant. We were studying this **** 35 years ago (thanks Dr. Deacon!) and the only thing surprising me right now is accelerated pace of change. Try having the climate change argument with an Inuit elder and he'd laugh you out of the room.

How we collectively manage what's coming is entirely in our hands. Think about the ozone issue. Issue identified, CFC's banned, hole is closing (slowly). CO2 is just another gas we need to deal with. Acid rain, leaded gasoline...all examples of observations, holy **** moments and action to ameliorate. Climate change is much more complex, and our rather pedestrian life span (dropping this year, yay) puts a myopic lens on our ability to accept what is happening around us.

Fixing problems is what the garage journal is all about. This one is just a lot bigger Like Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that".

My heart goes out to you across the continent dealing with the challenges of this winter. Stay warm and healthy, friends.

 

[dogdog]

Why not? The politics (meaning the laws, mandates, licensing and the construction permitting processes are ALL POLITICAL) of this state are what has raised utility bills to some of the most expensive electricity, fuel and conveyance systems in the nation.

I am not trying to start a political fight...but ignoring the affect and role of political involvement in utilities is not going to solve any problems.

This wasn't a political comment and certainly wasn't a copy and paste. These are facts:

- There are laws and regulations that exist at the state and federal level that mandate that a certain amount (usually a certain percentage of the total) of electricity is produced using specific modalities, such as windmills and solar panels.

- Those modalities have well-known failure mechanisms. Solar panels do not work when it is not sunny and windmills do not work when the wind is not blowing, it is blowing too fast for the generator to safely handle, or if they are frozen and cannot turn.

- Having a decrease in the ability to generate power because you are required to have a certain percentage of your generating capacity be modalities that are known not to work in certain situations can lead to inadequate generation of electricity in those situations, which is exactly what happened here.

- Therefore, if the mandates didn't exist, the utility companies could choose the percentage of what modalities they use to generate power, and could set this mix as such so they could continue to generate sufficient power in those situations.

There is nothing political about the above- laws were made that set up a series of events and I merely stated that if the decisions had not been made, the series of events would not have necessarily had to happen. The discussion about global warming in this thread is far more political than this discussion about requirements on energy production modalities.

For one thing, and no matter how you are going to spin this... Politic is the number one NO in this site...

for the other.. it was pointed out... they were Ill prepared for winterizing their equipment as oppose to the neighbors to the northern part, countries north of the USA... third... No redundancy as in connecting to grids in the neighboring state in case of emergencies... not sure what that logic there, but sure ok, go pay back those grants (subsidies) with interest, and move on with life.

 

[walrus]

Lots of information out there but no one is really going to know until all of this is over. Texas will regroup and hopefully fix some of the problems they have.

In Maine we lose power all the time, I've had my gennie running 3 times this winter, several days at a time so I don't believe Texas is the only state with grid issues. The storms we had were nothing out of the ordinary compared to what Texas has seen. The damage in Maine was nowhere near as bad yet we still lost power for multiple days. Generators are extremely common up here as a result.

 

[tyme2par4]

Wind turbines are not the problem in Texas.
Yes, a portion of the wind turbines were inoperable due to freezing up, but regulators estimate reduced output from wind turbines during the winter anyway. Plus wind turbines in coastal areas are actually overperforming due to the higher winds from the storms.
There is more generating capacity from coal and natural gas that is frozen due to being unprepared than there are frozen wind mills.
Plus they have the same issue we face in New England during extreme cold snaps. Natural gas pipelines become the limiting factor as they become overtaxed due to heating demand. Natural gas power plants are sometimes forced to shutdown because heating is prioritized.

 

[consti2tion]

Wind turbines are not the problem in Texas.
Yes, a portion of the wind turbines were inoperable due to freezing up, but regulators estimate reduced output from wind turbines during the winter anyway. Plus wind turbines in coastal areas are actually overperforming due to the higher winds from the storms.
There is more generating capacity from coal and natural gas that is frozen due to being unprepared than there are frozen wind mills.
Plus they have the same issue we face in New England during extreme cold snaps. Natural gas pipelines become the limiting factor as they become overtaxed due to heating demand. Natural gas power plants are sometimes forced to shutdown because heating is prioritized.

Heating being a priority is obvious, but most people cannot run their gas furnaces without electricity. It's certainly an awful conundrum.

 

[Bennylava]

What about making windmills that don't freeze up? Seems like something that the engineers might be able to handle.

"Also, many peak-demand plants there and also nationwide are fueled by natural gas and the cold weather has caused the wells to freeze up, taking some of that offline as well."

That! ^^^ That right there. You can't trust natural gas because of this kind of thing. It's still a utility, it's still being piped in to your house and there's a lot of failure points. In some areas they even shut if off due to earthquakes. I think the only way to be totally safe is to get a large propane tank and run your generator off of that.

Just need to figure out how much propane I'll need, in order to run a generator for 5 days straight. I think it's likely they'd have any problems fixed by then. I'm thinking of 14kw, or a 20kw Kohler generator. The Champions have a 10 year warranty, vs the Kohler's 5.. but I'm still betting Kohler is the better generator.

Someone said solar doesn't work unless it's sunny - not true. It doesn't work at night, but it'll work when it's cloudy. It's just at a reduced capacity. This can be overcome by adding more panels to the system, since even on a cloudy day, there's still light and some electricity is still generated. Although adding more panels is of course more expensive.

Apparently Texas wanted independence from federal regulations of their grid.

To answer a couple of people's questions in regards to this, I'll just say this: In the back of every real texan's mind is the idea that we may have to leave the union. We technically have the legal right to do so, and if the U.S ever devolves and balkanizes, I guarantee you tx will take the opportunity and leave. I would also almost guarantee that was part of the decision making process with having our own grid. Sure money was involved and changed hands. But I'd be willing to bet that it was made possible by the aforementioned thought process.

For one thing, and no matter how you are going to spin this... Politic is the number one NO in this site...

Well politics can be mentioned without devolving into arguments. I know the rules and although my politics are very clearly defined, I won't go into it because I don't want to be banned, and it's just not a good idea on most sites unless they're dedicated to politics. It makes people start feuding and people that are otherwise friends hate each other and won't talk to each other and that harms the site. Although in many cases, like this one, mentioning politics is unavoidable. Otherwise you may as well not even create the thread.

 

[tarmy]

For one thing, and no matter how you are going to spin this... Politic is the number one NO in this site...

Agreed on obeying the rules....and I am aware of them. I also believe both quoted posts also contain an intent to not be political.

If you read the quoted posts carefully you would notice that there is no politics...only reference to the existence of politics as it relates to the subject matter. They both point out the effects of and nature of the political influence and impact of politics on the threads topic.

Again, the subject topic and the influence of political decisions is what has affected millions of people’s lives. Somehow, discussions about these topics needs to occur...and the affect of political decisions and their resultant impacts needs to be considered, analyzed and used to determine if there are improvements that can be made as to how energy is supplied in this country.

 

[gsmith22]

What about making windmills that don't freeze up? Seems like something that the engineers might be able to handle.

They do and every other state that has to abide by federal regulations has incorporated technology to keep the windmills running when its cold out. Texas (because of the individual grid) decided they wouldn't enforce that as part of their regulations. But this is all a moot point because wind makes up a small percentage of Texas' power production. The real problems were with natural gas.

 

[Bennylava]

Someone said the windmills are what... 30%? Or maybe that's all of the clean energy sources combined. Either way it's bound to increase. There's easily enough area and wind to make it 100% if they really wanted to, although I'm sure that would be a bad idea for many reasons.

 

[Max]

They do and every other state that has to abide by federal regulations has incorporated technology to keep the windmills running when its cold out. Texas (because of the individual grid) decided they wouldn't enforce that as part of their regulations. But this is all a moot point because wind makes up a small percentage of Texas' power production. The real problems were with natural gas.

Wrong. Is 20% of total production a small amount?? The windmill "farms" I've seen in TX dwarf any of the ones I have seen in CA.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

Ignoring the political posturing, I don't blame the TX engineers for not building for something that is historically rare. Building things so they are "ready for anything, even if it never happened here before" gets expensive fast. In a similar vein, while CA has a pretty strict building code around surviving earthquakes, many states don't. Hindsight is so 20-20...

 

[tim9lives]

The Texas power grid failure is a perfect example of why regulations sometimes are a good thing. If the natural gas pipelines were buried a little deeper then the gas generation electric plants wouldn’t have had to shut down.

That attitude of we don’t need no stinkin regulations is just dumb. It’s like saying you want to buy a house where the tradesmen ignored all codes. Many regulations are there to protect the public.

 

[tim9lives]

By the way...windmills work fine in North Dakota and Sweden. It’s called weatherizing the system.

 

[nynexit]

You would think weatherizing the grid would be cheaper than the possible disaster in the grand scheme of things.

(Property damage , lost lives , lost economic activity )

What are we really talking about here ? A one time investment . Could this really be so expensive as to make it cost prohibitive ?

If I was a manufacturer/ producer and this outage cost me money in lost productivity, downtime etc. I’d be pissed .

 

[dogdog]

Wrong. Is 20% of total production a small amount?? The windmill "farms" I've seen in TX dwarf any of the ones I have seen in CA.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

Ignoring the political posturing, I don't blame the TX engineers for not building for something that is historically rare. Building things so they are "ready for anything, even if it never happened here before" gets expensive fast. In a similar vein, while CA has a pretty strict building code around surviving earthquakes, many states don't. Hindsight is so 20-20...

But the driving argument is not oops this is a more than one occasional 100 year disaster but occurs quite often, or the technical merits / Demerits of independent grid that gets the hoohaa or haahaa. What gets pet peeves is that the internet shills automatically go on offensive and started the blame game first thing, like there are fishes to fry..... probably from warm cozy homes away from the disaster area. Some one mention cancun.

I was going to respond on the other thread that got closed as I was hitting the submitt button. Don't remember the exact detail now but it goes something like this.

These kind of situation there are probably 3 good guess...

1) they know of the failure and risk, let it fail and have a million zombies (*people) behind you in your agenda. It's a well know strategy btw...

2) psychology of a dubious character that goes automatically on the offensive. Yes, the blame game. I have worked with those before, you'll see them in a lot in corporate world. The one that throws you under the bus and automatically points finger to every one else but them self. and the first one in line to get attention from a successful project. Loud squeaky wheel gets the grease type. We have seen that character before in social media.


3) well there was a third one, but I forgot... probably unimportant. but it is, I forgot so.

 

[alexb2000]

The Texas power grid failure is a perfect example of why regulations sometimes are a good thing. If the natural gas pipelines were buried a little deeper then the gas generation electric plants wouldn’t have had to shut down.

That attitude of we don’t need no stinkin regulations is just dumb. It’s like saying you want to buy a house where the tradesmen ignored all codes. Many regulations are there to protect the public.

Where are you getting this in bold?

The compressor stations and above ground equipment are what froze from everything I am reading. Most of this has to do with taxation, building a barn around a compressor station makes it a structure subject to increased property taxes (big deal in Texas) so the operators avoid it. There was also a transition to heating the compressor stations with electric to avoid the emissions from heating them with NG (zero emissions- big political issue on the Keystone Pipeline), that doesn't work with no power, so perhaps a warning for the rest of the pipeline infrastructure..

I don't think it's an attitude of "we don't need no stinkin regulations" either. The O&G industry is heavily regulated everywhere including Texas. Requiring weather hardening to -10 in retrospect is an easy call, some operators did it on their own, most didn't, now I'm sure it will be required. Live and learn.

 

[13mo]

Wrong. Is 20% of total production a small amount?? The windmill "farms" I've seen in TX dwarf any of the ones I have seen in CA.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

The link Max posted shows that Texas's energy production is about half generated by natural gas (48%), 20% by wind, 20% by coal, 11% by nuclear, 1% by solar, and a tiny bit of "other."

This is a pretty common mix with the majority or at least a large portion of the energy coming from wind and natural gas, and with wind being a large component of that. The three-state cooperative association that provides the electricity to my area has a mix of 46% coal, 28% natural gas, 16% wind, 9% hydroelectricity, and 1% purchased from generation sources outside their service area. We were warned by the local branch of the cooperative to keep usage in check but didn't have any issues.

The nearest municipal utility, Springfield's City Utilities, did have rolling blackouts. They have a much larger percentage of their power coming from windmills at 43.4% (39.2% directly contracted and then 16% of the 26.4% they buy from the outside grid.) They have much less natural gas at 11.9% (4.5% directly generated and 28% of the 26.4% they buy from the outside grid.) Coal is fairly similar at 42% of their energy mix. Since the main difference between them and the cooperative that serves me is the almost threefold larger reliance on wind power, and with the reports from Texas that the windmills froze and stopped operating, that would certainly fit with why they had the rolling blackouts and I did not.

 

[dogdog]

By the way...windmills work fine in North Dakota and Sweden. It’s called weatherizing the system.

This is probably true in the corp world...

For every $1 the engineer justify to save on a large scale product or services there are $100,000 bonus in their bosses pocket year end.

 

[gsmith22]

Wrong. Is 20% of total production a small amount?? The windmill "farms" I've seen in TX dwarf any of the ones I have seen in CA.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

Ignoring the political posturing, I don't blame the TX engineers for not building for something that is historically rare. Building things so they are "ready for anything, even if it never happened here before" gets expensive fast. In a similar vein, while CA has a pretty strict building code around surviving earthquakes, many states don't. Hindsight is so 20-20...

there is nothing political about what I wrote and there is no posturing on my part. My statement is based on facts and corroborated by your link that shows 20% wind and 48% natural gas. if 20% is wind and you lose half of that then you lost 10% of your overall power production. and remember, wind is constantly criticized for not being continuously available so any realistic planning for the overall grid would have to assume that you could lose a large % (if not all) of wind at any time. if you lost half of the natural gas, that is more than all of the wind produced at any time. So I stand by what I said, wind was not the issue. loss of natural gas was the problem

 

[dogdog]

there is nothing political about what I wrote and there is no posturing on my part. My statement is based on facts and corroborated by your link that shows 20% wind and 48% natural gas. if 20% is wind and you lose half of that then you lost 10% of your overall power production. and remember, wind is constantly criticized for not being continuously available so any realistic planning for the overall grid would have to assume that you could lose a large % (if not all) of wind at any time. if you lost half of the natural gas, that is more than all of the wind produced at any time. So I stand by what I said, wind was not the issue. loss of natural gas was the problem

you sure it's not poor planning.