Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[Ta Town Shocker]

If a rolling blackout happens for a couple or three days? Do you have a full root cellar, or ice brought to your home daily to keep your food from spoiling? Your great grandparents did. Now processed and smoked meat isn’t considered healthy either.

The most impactful energy shortage I'm aware of in recent years occured in Texas a couple of years ago. Businesses who were heavy natural gas users had to shut down.
Looks like Texas has similar problems as Cali this summer but I don't see a Fox news article blaming the Dems for it.

[Shockm]

The most impactful energy shortage I'm aware of in recent years occured in Texas a couple of years ago. Businesses who were heavy natural gas users had to shut down.
Looks like Texas has similar problems as Cali this summer but I don't see a Fox news article blaming the Dems for it.

This happened in Texas last winter because leaders didn’t plan ahead for the cold winter spell. Other states had to contribute their fossil fuels to states who didn’t plan enough. Texas is a warm southern state that doesn’t need fossil fuels in February. Right?

it’ll be worse this winter with many weather experts predicting a frigid winter.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02...er-storm-2021/

[Ta Town Shocker]

All of these shortages are a concern and I'm definitely not a proponent for a rapid switch to green energy. The green initiative definitely seems to be a contributing factor to the problems. Maybe a generator wouldn't be a bad investment.

[Shockm]

All of these shortages are a concern and I'm definitely not a proponent for a rapid switch to green energy. The green initiative definitely seems to be a contributing factor to the problems. Maybe a generator wouldn't be a bad investment.

Generally, people (like you)may be uninformed and unaware about the short and long term consequences of these woke energy policies that will continue to be a burden on lower income, and middle income families. Lots of small oil companies in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas closed up after Biden shut down the pipeline. The UK , and other European countries are also seeing what can happen when they go green too early. It’s 100% avoidable and as I said earlier, unrest from the public (world wide) could be in our futures. Voting Biden and all of his “green” cabinet members out of office would be another option.

[Ta Town Shocker]

Generally, people (like you)may be uninformed and unaware about the short and long term consequences of these woke energy policies that will continue to be a burden on lower income, and middle income families. Lots of small oil companies in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas closed up after Biden shut down the pipeline. The UK , and other European countries are also seeing what can happen when they go green too early. It’s 100% avoidable and as I said earlier, unrest from the public (world wide) could be in our futures. Voting Biden and all of his “green” cabinet members out of office would be another option.

You only seem to see what's on your agenda. Texas may have some "woke" energy policies but it's not a blue state so there's more to their recent energy concerns. The 2000-01 California energy shortages would have been before the green energy push.

[wufan]

The energy shortage in Texas was due to a winter freeze. Natural disasters will always cause short term energy crisis. For this reason, a generator is definitely a good idea!

California’s energy crisis is an annual event. The reason for it isn’t due to woke energy policy, it is due to green energy policy (but I repeat myself). They have shut down almost all nuclear power plants and have replaced them with less reliable solar and wind power. This started in the 1970s…and the greenies were in full swing.

The California problem will continue due to the woke policies as they purposefully refuse to increase their capacity.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

[Kung Wu]

Hhahaha

[Ta Town Shocker]

The energy shortage in Texas was due to a winter freeze.

Like California, Texas had energy concerns earlier this summer also.

[wufan]

Like California, Texas had energy concerns earlier this summer also.

Okay…maybe I’m not in the know about Texas, but are they having quote “energy concerns” or annual planned blackout events going back to the year 2000?

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/case-study-california-blackouts

[Ta Town Shocker]

Okay…maybe I’m not in the know about Texas, but are they having quote “energy concerns” or annual planned blackout events going back to the year 2000?

https://education.nationalgeographic...rnia-blackouts

If you're interested in knowing more about the Texas situation in July, I have the link below. Really not sure why I went down this rabbit hole to begin with since I didn't put anything about blackouts in my original post. I was simply noting my experience with the Westar Energy thermostat program.

My takeaway from all of this is natural extreme weather poses the greatest risk for extended power outages. The shift to green energy doesn't help the matter by any means.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07...-conservation/

[wufan]

If you're interested in knowing more about the Texas situation in July, I have the link below. Really not sure why I went down this rabbit hole to begin with since I didn't put anything about blackouts in my original post. I was simply noting my experience with the Westar Energy thermostat program.

My takeaway from all of this is natural extreme weather poses the greatest risk for extended power outages. The shift to green energy doesn't help the matter by any means.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07...-conservation/

No, I’m not really interested in Texas this past July. I’m curious about different energy policies and how they lead to long term issues. Has Texas had a 20 year energy policy problem to the degree that California has?

[Shockm]

This is the information from the article above that was critical of the Texas energy decisions prior to last Winter which contributed to the winter energy shortfall. While the legislature (run by Republicans) ordered the State Commissions to plan for "extreme weather", evidently, it didn't happen.

"The Texas Legislature in 2021 ordered electricity regulators to require power plants to better prepare for extreme weather. The Public Utility Commission has imposed some early requirements, such as requiring plants to winterize based on previous federal guidance, but lawmakers did not require the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the gas industry, to quickly impose weatherization standards."

[Shockm]

This article gives more detail on what happened last winter in Texas. Too much dependence on Wind energy that the federal government (Woke energy policies) has pushed. Not enough on Electricity

Conclusions
The proximate cause for the Texas grid collapse was the very cold weather from February 9 to 17. The initial problem was that wind was producing over 25% of Texas’ power and it is intermittent. Knowing it was intermittent, ERCOT ramped up natural gas generation as an instantaneous backup for the wind, but they forgot that natural gas is supply-on-demand, and the pipelines are vulnerable to disasters, especially cold weather. Disaster power sources are coal and nuclear, they have fuel on site for days or weeks and do not require a pipeline or a backup.

Policy implications
Texas has encouraged the building of wind turbines. They do this, in concert with the U.S. government, through direct subsidies and by paying for wind generation, rather than paying for electricity purchased. This guarantee of revenue means generating companies do not have to consider market demand, they can build wind turbines endlessly with no risk. They can even pay others to take their power and then be reimbursed by the government with our tax dollars! Since 2006, federal and Texas subsidies to wind power, have totaled $80 billion, this foolishness is explained well on the stopthesethings website.

The wind power excess capacity has distorted the generation mix in Texas to a dangerous and unbalanced level. Natural gas, coal and nuclear generating companies have too little revenue to increase or fortify their plants, since wind can generate as much as it wants and is guaranteed revenue for the electricity it generates.

The subsidies and mandates must be stopped and our baseload (aka emergency) capacity increased and fortified. Coal and nuclear power generation must increase. It should be clear to everyone now that, while natural gas is a perfect minute-by-minute grid stabilizer, since it is an on-demand electricity generator, it is vulnerable to weather disruptions. Texas’ current emergency baseload capacity is too small and too vulnerable.

Politics has thoroughly corrupted climate science as I explain in my new book: Politics and Climate Science: A History. The thoroughly corrupt field of climate science politics is now corrupting the fields of engineering involved in power generation. This is dangerous, engineers must make engineering decisions, not politicians. Reliable electricity is essential to our prosperity and well-being, our various governments should not be purposely destabilizing our electrical grid with dumb renewable policies, they should be strengthening the grid to make Texas more resilient.

https://clintel.org/the-texas-energy-disaster/

[1972Shocker]

Wait a minute I thought this was settled science?

There is no climate change emergency!

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...emergency.html

There is no climate change emergency, human-caused or otherwise, according to over 1,100 objective, truth-seeking scientists and professionals from over 35 countries. Many of the scientists are climatologists, environmental scientists, pollution meteorologists, and climate researchers who fully support the findings of the Global Climate Emergency Group (GCEG) in its recently released report, entitled "World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency."