Winter Storms, Summer Heat, and our 3rd World Electric System

Ok, here's what I think the actual deal is with Texas and "green" energy:

Our state gov't doesn't go along because they're onboard with Al Gore and any "green" agenda--give me a break guys...

They go along, because promoting and subsidizing wind energy effectively amounts to a significant subsidy to big West Texas ranchers and farmers who are getting some pretty good $$$$ from the wind companies on their land/wind leases--often on some otherwise very marginal $ farms/ranches. You ever drive from Abilene to Sweetwater to Roscoe to Post to Lubbock? Those farmers/ranchers on that dry land are probably banking a lot more $$$$ than they used to...

I don't begrudge them. More power to them (pun fully intended).

 

I'm 7th generation.

 

Similar here. But I don't think newcomer vs. old-line Texan matters.

 

There are federal and state subsidies that made the cost to build wind and solar more cost efficient than oil and gas. It was an artificially low price based on government intervention.

 

"In August 2019, the Texas electric grid reached a peak demand of 74,820 MW – the highest value ever recorded. " A substantial part of the grid issue is that Texas has gone from 20MM people to 29.5MM people in the last 12 years. A surge of headcount like that in the residential and business spaces means that our grid is being taxed in a way it hasn't before. While the type of electricity production that is being added does play a small role, the bigger issue is that we haven't added 50% to the overall grid capacity at the same time that we've added 50% to the usage/demands.

 

When wind blows at night and the price of power drops to zero, it’s less money for coal and natural gas plants, thus reducing the incentive to build base load plants. It’s that simple. The incentives in place support building power-producers that rely on wind, which by definition are not base load.

The solution is to charge a fee to wind producers when they DON’T produce power. In this way, wind producers are incentivized to install batteries or solar power to offset lack of wind.

 

mc,

Have you looked at offshore wind turbines? They sold leases in the Gulf, but I couldn't find enough of an advantage to raise the money.

 

Better yet, incentivize building gas and coal.

 

Below is an interesting mass message I got ahold of, blasted out today by Mike Collier to probably hundreds of thousands of folks:

"This message is a little longer than what I usually write, but it’s important, and I hope you will take a few moments to read it.

As we continue to experience record-breaking temperatures this summer, I wanted to reach out because you probably have a lot of questions about the state of our power grid.

Right now, we’re currently in the fourth heatwave of the season. This recent wave began more than a week ago and is still going strong. And this heat, day after day, is now putting a massive strain on our state’s power grid.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, recently put out a statement urging folks to conserve power — especially during peak hours.

Here’s the problem, the Texas GOP claims that the power grid “is better today than it’s ever been” yet the facts show the opposite.

Just last week, ERCOT announced that the state’s air quality regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), will “exercise discretion” in enforcing pollution limits on power plants in an effort to ensure that the state’s power grid will be able to meet expected demand.

And earlier this summer, ERCOT also told power plants to delay planned maintenance to help meet demand, with at least one of those plants later going offline due to mechanical failure.

Deferring maintenance and allowing pollution to meet demand is proof that Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott have not fixed the damn grid.

And here’s the real problem: When the power grid failed during the February Freeze, instead of working to fix it to make sure Texans power stayed on, Patrick rewarded his campaign donors instead.

Patrick received over a million dollars in donations from two energy industry donors who he then appointed to paid positions on the board that oversees the power grid. The donor who was appointed chair of the board donated $350,000 to Patrick’s campaign.

So, let me ask you this: How can we expect our state leaders to fix the grid while they cash checks from the folks that made money from the grid failure?

We can’t. And they won’t.

And since Abbott and Patrick refuse to do right by the people of our great state and deliver them a fully repaired, updated, and modernized energy grid — we’re holding them accountable.

As an energy expert, you have my word that I will fix the damn grid.

These corporate handouts paid for by Texas families and get-out-of-jail-free cards that keep our state’s power grid unstable will be put to an end once I’m elected.

And when we defeat Dan Patrick, I will fully invest in our critical infrastructure and redesign our grid to serve Texas families — not massive corporations.

But we must act now. It’s not a question of if, it’s only a question of when the grid fails.

So, we need to fix the damn grid right now. And if you elect me this November, we will.

Thanks for hearing me out today. I’ll be in touch with more information when I have it."

Mike Collier

 

El Paso businessman Paul Foster named chairman of new ERCOT board

FYI, Here's that big donor guy Collier was talking about who was appointed as Chairman of ERCOT. Paul Foster.

He is chairman of Franklin Mountain Energy, a Denver-based company he co-founded to develop oil and gas reserves.

He made his BIG a$$ $$$$$ buying an oil refinery in El Paso, and an oil refinery in New Mexico, on the cheap, and selling them later for billions to Tesoro (they're now owned by Marathon). Good timing, and more power to him on that multi-billion $$$$$ deal.

He's on the UT Board.


But he's a Baylor alum.

 

Collier's Proposal to fix the grid:

 

Summary of Mike Collier's video solution:

De-regulation was flawed in that it did not attract capital to build reserve capacity.

When the wind stops blowing, we're in deep trouble.

We have to invest in generating capacity, wind, solar, storage, and transmission.

 

Dan Patrick





Mike Collier



in case anyone cares about school loyalty...

 

Isn't he finally off the University board? He was little Rickie Perry's bitchslap to our numbnuts administration. Guy gave money to Baylor (he graduated there) & Tech, but never a dime to The University of Texas, and Rickie makes him Chairman of the Board of Regents.

I don't know him, but he doesn't seem to have a lot of friends amongst the Baylor $$$. I spent a morning of my life having breakfast at the home of a Baylor BMD (name on buildings, etc) and I bitched about Perry doing that. It was like someone backed a dump truck up and unloaded a load of manure. WOW, my friends really didn't like him.

 

Did Dan graduate from UMd? I know his dad was supposed to be a well-respected sportswriter for the Baltimore Sun.

 

wth? This is brain dead. Storage? Want to bankrupt the state? Li+ batteries are super expensive compared to natural gas, coal, and oil. Fossil fuels are energy storage made by nature.

 

Looks like Foster isn't listed on the UT Board anymore. He seems to spread his $$$$ around. He donated $50 million to fund Texas Tech's medical school (named after him). Paul L. Foster School of Medicine - Wikipedia

Another source said he gave $35 million to Baylor and served as a Baylor Regent. He's also in big with the Koch Brothers' PAC.

Baylor University regent Foster steps down to chair UT System board

He apparently got into a spat with Royce West in 2017, after he said something to the effect of having a Black perspective on the UT Board isn't critical.

UT regents chairman apologizes for saying black perspective on board not 'critical'

Flawn pushed him on keeping UT a University of the First Class.

Flawn to Regents Chair: Don’t Lessen UT-Austin

People can like or dislike someone for personal (or other) reasons--and maybe their reasons are valid, but a man giving that many millions of $$$$$ to the State's Universities is at least doing the State a big service on that front, and is doing something right...

 

Especially gas. It's now even considered clean/green energy--if you ask the Euros. We're floating on an ocean of gas, it's super cheap in Texas, it's also a by-product of oil production. More gas burning power plants, please.

 

Patrick graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Dan Patrick (politician) - Wikipedia

 

To tie this all back to the point of the thread:

One might think that having a oil & natural gas guy like Foster as the Chairman of ERCOT, they would push for the permitting and building of more natural gas powered generating plants, but maybe not...

 

UMBC. I didn’t think he went to UMd

 

Chop,

I’ll leave the Foster discussion alone with the thought I guess money can cover a lot of warts.

 

More expensive than land-based is what I have consistently read.

 

I guess so. I don't know what he did, or didn't do, at Baylor. There's been lots of really nasty stuff happening at that school over the last decade. Beats me if he had any involvement in any of that whatsoever. What we do know is that he has done plenty of good with his donations.

On a somewhat similar note, the Catholic Church used to grant indulgences to Kings, Dukes, Earls, etc. who donated big $$$$$ to build a cathedral or big church...

 

That's the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus.

 

Which, of course, suggests he is capable of learning from past mistakes....something that ERCOT could benefit from.

 

Mike Collier proved he is a liar and hack with that video. His graph is generally true. But blaming deregulation is a sleight of hand. His description of wind and solar as saving us is a lie. People like him propose policies to stop producing scalable power from gas and coal. Then he proposes all these costly and unproven technologies to "fix" the grid. Smart grid can help the grid function more efficiently regardless of energy source. His solution is taking a grain of truth and wrapping it in lies.

Electing him and his ilk would destroy Texas. We would be California 2.0 without the good skiing and surfing.

The solution is to incentivize grid load reliability and actually remove regulations that hamper building out more coal and natural gas production.

Rolling blackouts in the 21st century is a result of green woke marxism. Anyone who would vote for a dolt like this needs to get ready to sweat ALL SUMMER LONG.

 

? Have there been rolling black outs here in Texas? None in Dallas
So far
But with 10 more days of over 100 it is bound to happen.

 

And FREEZE ALL WINTER!

In other words...vote to make the rational people miserable and woe be unto you!

 

Not aware of any...some localized outages but nothing that appears to be a rolling blackout/brownout...