(02-18-2021, 06:39 AM)Jags Wrote: If there are wind turbines in AK and Antarctica and those aren’t freezing, what’s up with the  ones in Texas?  They did have a nice spell of unusually cold weather.  Could it be the oil or grease used for their normal temperatures? Or did they ice up too much?

Wind turbines in the north are built for cold weather.  The ones in Texas are not winterized, because they never expected this kind of cold wave that would overwhelm their overall power generation capability.  And because of the way the Texas power grid is regulated or not regulated, there is very little incentive to raise rates to pay for the kind of redundancy in their grid that would handle this type of situation.

Because it is not just the wind turbines that have failed.  Gas and nuclear power plants in Texas have shut down due to frozen pipes.  So it is way off base to say this power failure in Texas tells us anything about whether we should invest in renewable energy.  It has a lot more to do with de-regulation, keeping rates down, and having their own power grid which means they can't import electricity from the rest of the country.  Wind turbines and power plants are still working in Canada, and Antarctica, and Alaska.  All of it failed in Texas because they didn't want to spend the money to make sure the system would operate in extreme cold.  

I know a lot of people are into de-regulation, but this is what regulations are for- if Texas had required their power plants and wind turbines to be built to withstand an unusual event like this, then everything would be okay.  Of course, some people would be complaining about regulations raising the cost of electricity.

Bottom line- if you want low low electric rates, you might also have to take the chance that the system might fail, because it is barely built to meet expected demand.

Of course, the governor of Texas wants to blame someone else for this fiasco, so he goes on TV and blames environmentalists.  And not to be outdone, the Democrats have jumped in and blamed the Republicans.  Which one is at fault?   The Republicans.  Their libertarian approach to supplying the state with power is what led to this.  The Republicans deserve the credit for the low electric rates, and they deserve the blame for the system failure that resulted.

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