I didn't see the show but Tucker Carlson was talking about our little town last night. Like I said the other day, over 300 can be seen from the ranch and not one was turning.

I knew it, they’ve not helped during this.

And their response i guarantee is we didn’t go far enough with windmills

If we were able to build more, some would be spinning

And amazingly, there will be more built!!

I read that the windmills in the Dakotas and Iowa work fine. Not sure why ours don't. Maybe ice versus snow?

The plot thickens.

Jump over on Yahoo for a bit and read the spin over there. Articles stating that "Texans are blaming windmills and solar for the power outages, when in fact the wind and solar only represents 25% of the supply. The real problem is the reliance on natural gas which was not available and had delivery problems such as frozen valves".
I'm paraphrasing, but it's ridiculous the way they're slanting it.

As much as you hate to believe it, what they said is true.

I wonder why the natural gas has not failed in the past. The real problem is/was when the 25% of solar/wind failed the amount of natural gas generators could not handle the extra load and also failed. IMO it is very unwise to shut down operating electrical generating plants. It doesn't matter what they burn for fuel. I can see a plant that was shut down bout 3-5 years ago from my home and I think there are many more in the state of Texas shuttered. There is another generating plant about 15 miles from me that is scheduled to be shut down 2021-2022. Monticello & Welch are the 2 plants. IMHO this episode will be repeated in coming winters probably not to the same degree.

I really wish they would have provided a little evidence to support that claim. I deal with fluids and gasses every day and haven't seen what their claiming and I'm in the worst case scenario since I deal in wet gasses. What they deal with is refined gasses that's very dry. This is the reason we get a premium price for our NG.

I got my info from the guy who hears from the plants, and he hates wind, and solar more then the next guy because it makes his job harder. He does not blame wind and solar for the blackouts, but he said the windmills failure didn't help the matter.

Its ironic that the new petroleum producers wound now opt to green energy.

We won't know the real truth unless the right questions are asked during hearings next week in Austin.

Because electricity is an "on demand" commodity, providers must produce only what's needed in order to remain profitable in a very competitive market. It's not like they can store a few million kilowatt-hours of power in tanks like oil and gas for later use. If it's not needed when it's produced revenue is lost. This also creates a vulnerability when a significant amount of power being pumped into the grid is lost when generating units drop offline.

I suspect the problem started when a significant number of wind turbines failed due to icing at a time when unneeded gas, coal, and nuclear-driven facilities were offline due to seasonal policies. Again, power companies must avoid generating more power than is needed in order to remain profitable. Once the wind turbines failed, too many of the offline units could not be restarted because they had not been properly winterized, and ERCOT inspectors failed to make sure providers were doing this because of fears of COVID.

IMHO, the only way the problem could have been avoided is by having offline units brought back online when severe cold was first predicted. I can only speculate this didn't happen for the reasons described earlier combined with providers put their faith into other providers being able to continue to pump their designated amount of power into the grid.

What makes the situation even worse is that it appears, based on everything that I've seen, power transmission facilities were impacted the least, meaning more Texans would have never lost power had proper planning resulted in more generating units being left online or at least ready to be brought online.

I am hearing windmills are responsible for only 10% of our electrical output. That figure is coming from the highest levels of our Texas leaders. The epic failure we have seen is bigger than that 10% loss of power. The real culprit is the shutting down of our power plants in favor of green energy.

I heard those numbers reported in a different manner, that 40% is provided by wind power and it dropped to 10% when many of the units failed.

Let's just hope the right questions are asked next week in Austin so the truth comes out. There's no question ERCOT leaders have been staying neutral and dancing around the numbers in order to save their company and the reputation of all the providers.

I just looked out the window at the house, over 100 wind turbines sitting still. I can however see a plume of steam coming from both gas fired plants in my area.

-20 temps with out wind chill & hours still working ...

Heads are going to roll soon over this. Luckily for the head ERCOT peeps, they don't even live in Texas or the USA for that matter.

Just spend the money and winterize your infrastructure. It will cost you but pay off in the long run.

Heated blades - frozen precip can take blades out of balance and that would tear-up the massive bearings in no time requiring a rebuild, assuming they don't catch fire.
Texas does not have heated blades.

Same reason if you have a HeatPump right now - make sure unit is not 'shaking' from ice on the fan blade - you'll be replacing a fan motor (or worse).

Yeah, sounds like overall equipment failure on all sources of energy because it was not winterized, and just froze up. Too bad, with that strong north wind, them wind turbines should have been cranking out some energy!

My BIL said they were over forecast before thing went south.

I've heard that the wind generators froze up in the low temps. The reason the SD wind generators are working they have heat. I have no idea what they are heating unless it's the bearings to keep the lubricant from turning into a stickimess

I read where one of 2 reactors in the South Texas Nuclear Power Station in Matagorda County shut down, not good to have these fail!

Not to be a pessimist, but my guess is that the CYA will generate so much finger pointing, smoke and FUD that nobody will ever be completely sure what happened and why. I take that back. Twenty years from now, when everyone currently in office is out of office, there's a chance that a trustworthy postmortem will be produced by some grad student looking to earn his PhD.

Austin TV Station KXAN found that 5 ERCOT board members (15 on Board) don’t even live in Texas, one from Canada, Illinois, Maine and Califorkia is the others States.

BOOOM...............good find Glen