Thursday, February 18, 2021

About Texas energy

This article in New York Magazine No the Green New Deal did not cause the Texas power outage strikes me as one of the most balanced and comprehensive discussions of the issues.  

It does end with this fair enough point, for example:

Progressives need clear answers about how a green transition can make America’s electric grids more robust against the coming storms. The Week’s Ryan Cooper, drawing on the insights of climate wonk Dave Roberts, sketches out what such an answer might look like. Specifically, Cooper argues that America can achieve electricity resilience by exploiting its vast size and climate diversity through a nationally integrated power grid.

Update:   Oh - 

(Bloomberg) -- Federal regulators warned Texas that its power plants couldn’t be counted on to reliably churn out electricity in bitterly cold conditions a decade ago, when the last deep freeze plunged 4 million people into the dark.

They recommended that utilities use more insulation, heat pipes and take other steps to winterize plants -- strategies commonly observed in cooler climates but not in normally balmy Texas.

“Where did those recommendations go, and how were they implemented?” said Jeff Dennis, managing director of Advanced Energy Economy, an association of clean energy businesses. “Those are going to be some pretty key questions.”

As investigators probe the current power crisis in Texas, which has left millions of people without power or a promise of when it will be restored, questions are sure to be raised about how the state responded to the urgings from the 2011 analysis, issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North America Electric Reliability Corporation, which sets reliability standards.

4 comments:

Not Trampis said...

good stuff. I have linked most of this with attribution of course

Steve said...

Sorry to read about your heart attack, Homer. (I left a message on your blog too.) Keep well.

Not Trampis said...

It was only mild

GMB said...

There's that stiff upper lip. Just a scratch sir.