3 ms·

Yeah I was going to say: > My friends on the right tend to send blame towards green energy. And they have a point! Renewables are temperamental – with too many

Yeah I was going to say: > My friends on the right tend to send blame towards green energy. And they have a point! Renewables are temperamental – with too many clouds solar doesn’t do anything, and frozen blades can’t turn wind energy turbines. The impact of the storm is to shift energy supply curves to the left, and the more the grid relies on renewables, the bigger that shift is. The basic problem renewables have had is that it’s really difficult to STORE their energy for future use. If we could create really large energy reservoirs, we could store Texas’ abundant solar and wind energy for a literally-rainy day. Renewables were literally not the problem and it’s hard to take any kind of advice from this article when it gets the basic facts wrong.

bighitbiker3 6y ago
Do you mind pointing me to some reliable links that do highlight the actual problem?
- Pulcinella 6y ago
  The ArsTechnica article is a decent place to start. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters... This is still an on-going event so the “history” is still being written. Also https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...
chrismcb 6y ago
My understanding is that renewables were one of the problems. Wind makes up just under a quarter of the energy. And, depending on who you ask, they lost half to almost all of the energy from wind. That is a problem when the demand goes up. It wasn't the only problem, but it was definitely part of the problem
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Wind capacity changes over time. While the wind turbines were producing less than their theoretical max, they were producing more than ERCOT’s own models expected. The real issue here is that thermal plants (coal, gas, and nuclear) failed exactly as the 2011 report warned. While wind was producing more than expected, it was never going to produce enough to cover the difference as thermal plants started to shut down.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pwinnski 6y ago
  Wind and solar are both currently over-producing. Not "lost half to almost all." That's an almost-certainly deliberate misrepresentation based on the fact that winter production is always lower than summer production, and comparing the total peak capacity on the best possible summer days and comparing it to now. We had projections for both wind and solar for these last few weeks, and both wind and solar OVER-produced, exceeding those projections. On the other hand, we had projects for coal and natural gas, and both of us failed spectacularly. So yes, I am concerned about any article that spends time talking about wind and solar, when the ACTUAL problem that caused it to be 41ºF in my living room was natural gas and coal.
mdip 6y ago
I'm having a difficult time understanding why the entire article should be dismissed due to your disagreement with the quoted statement. First, I don't find the quoted statement to be false: (1) Wind turbines/various solar methods have numerous problems beyond that; as do all methods of providing power. (2) Both would be better at providing energy the way we consume it if we had a cheap, reliable method to store large amounts of energy[0]. I don't work in energy, but I follow enough of it to know that these statements are reliable. There are companies looking into various, exotic, methods for storing large amounts of generated electricity so that the "we don't control the fuel" problem of many renewable options is a non-issue. Not all renewables have this problem, hydro can be consistent/reliable, provide large amounts of energy and is cheap. All of these problems have technology solutions waiting to be discovered/applied. It's hard to find anyone who will complain about hydro-electric plant[2] -- electric bills go down and there's less smoke in the air. The same thing is started here with wind/solar. Complainers stop when they actually read their bill. "Oh, it doesn't cost more? ... oh,... well... ~noises in political~" Was it that the author indicated that the Green Energy Blamers "have a point"? See, that's a nice psychological trick. I suspect you are a big supporter of renewable/environmental politics. I suspect his goal with that statement was to make a point to the blamers. Aside from the first sentence, pointing out an obvious, well-known fact about renewables than any "Green Blamer" has been screaming -- forever -- and baking in a solution[0]. And he's not advocating getting rid of anything/building up the "expensive/easy to turn on/off" technologies. [0] What you produce has to be used or stored. That's the case with every utility -- water/gas -- things just move, and can get out of hand, a lot faster I gather. [1] And yes, energy storage on a multi-day scale is science-fiction, AFAIK, presently. This is a hard problem. [2] Assuming it's designed taking into account whatever new "evil" thing hydro does to the environment that I'm not yet aware of. :)
- pwinnski 6y ago
  My disagreement is based on the fact that it was 41ºF in my living room due to failures with coal and natural gas, so any time spent talking about weakness of power-production methods that were exceeding expectations is beyond wasted. It's a distraction from the real issues. If solar and wind had failed spectacularly, then I'd want to see that. But they didn't. Coal and natural gas did. So we should be talking about how natural gas and coal failed, not some hypothetical alternate reality where solar and wind under-delivered.

bighitbiker3 6y ago

Do you mind pointing me to some reliable links that do highlight the actual problem?

Pulcinella 6y ago
The ArsTechnica article is a decent place to start. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters... This is still an on-going event so the “history” is still being written. Also https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...

chrismcb 6y ago

My understanding is that renewables were one of the problems. Wind makes up just under a quarter of the energy. And, depending on who you ask, they lost half to almost all of the energy from wind. That is a problem when the demand goes up. It wasn't the only problem, but it was definitely part of the problem

ashtonkem 6y ago
Wind capacity changes over time. While the wind turbines were producing less than their theoretical max, they were producing more than ERCOT’s own models expected. The real issue here is that thermal plants (coal, gas, and nuclear) failed exactly as the 2011 report warned. While wind was producing more than expected, it was never going to produce enough to cover the difference as thermal plants started to shut down.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pwinnski 6y ago
Wind and solar are both currently over-producing. Not "lost half to almost all." That's an almost-certainly deliberate misrepresentation based on the fact that winter production is always lower than summer production, and comparing the total peak capacity on the best possible summer days and comparing it to now. We had projections for both wind and solar for these last few weeks, and both wind and solar OVER-produced, exceeding those projections. On the other hand, we had projects for coal and natural gas, and both of us failed spectacularly. So yes, I am concerned about any article that spends time talking about wind and solar, when the ACTUAL problem that caused it to be 41ºF in my living room was natural gas and coal.

mdip 6y ago

I'm having a difficult time understanding why the entire article should be dismissed due to your disagreement with the quoted statement. First, I don't find the quoted statement to be false: (1) Wind turbines/various solar methods have numerous problems beyond that; as do all methods of providing power. (2) Both would be better at providing energy the way we consume it if we had a cheap, reliable method to store large amounts of energy[0]. I don't work in energy, but I follow enough of it to know that these statements are reliable. There are companies looking into various, exotic, methods for storing large amounts of generated electricity so that the "we don't control the fuel" problem of many renewable options is a non-issue. Not all renewables have this problem, hydro can be consistent/reliable, provide large amounts of energy and is cheap. All of these problems have technology solutions waiting to be discovered/applied. It's hard to find anyone who will complain about hydro-electric plant[2] -- electric bills go down and there's less smoke in the air. The same thing is started here with wind/solar. Complainers stop when they actually read their bill. "Oh, it doesn't cost more? ... oh,... well... ~noises in political~" Was it that the author indicated that the Green Energy Blamers "have a point"? See, that's a nice psychological trick. I suspect you are a big supporter of renewable/environmental politics. I suspect his goal with that statement was to make a point to the blamers. Aside from the first sentence, pointing out an obvious, well-known fact about renewables than any "Green Blamer" has been screaming -- forever -- and baking in a solution[0]. And he's not advocating getting rid of anything/building up the "expensive/easy to turn on/off" technologies. [0] What you produce has to be used or stored. That's the case with every utility -- water/gas -- things just move, and can get out of hand, a lot faster I gather. [1] And yes, energy storage on a multi-day scale is science-fiction, AFAIK, presently. This is a hard problem. [2] Assuming it's designed taking into account whatever new "evil" thing hydro does to the environment that I'm not yet aware of. :)

pwinnski 6y ago
My disagreement is based on the fact that it was 41ºF in my living room due to failures with coal and natural gas, so any time spent talking about weakness of power-production methods that were exceeding expectations is beyond wasted. It's a distraction from the real issues. If solar and wind had failed spectacularly, then I'd want to see that. But they didn't. Coal and natural gas did. So we should be talking about how natural gas and coal failed, not some hypothetical alternate reality where solar and wind under-delivered.