19 ms·

Honestly, I reach a very different conclusion. Comparing ERCOT to other grids (PJM or CALISO), ERCOT system has delivered very low prices and very high levels o

Honestly, I reach a very different conclusion. Comparing ERCOT to other grids (PJM or CALISO), ERCOT system has delivered very low prices and very high levels of renewable penetrations. PJM wastes billions of dollars a year in capacity payments to coal plants for no reason. What you write, "The market in power should only exist to optimise" well, that is exactly what ERCOT does. As for the disaster last week, that was a energy system failure as Texas regulations did not require the natural gas infrastructure to be winterized. Climate change creates more extreme weather events (in all directions but on average warmer) so polar air meant there wasn't enough methane ('natural gas') to power the turbines and heat. So the issue is the winterization standard in the natural gas infrastructure, but nothing about the structure of the electrical market. Certainly we need stronger resiliency standards! Events people once thought occurred "1-in-100 years" are actually like "1-in-5 years" in their frequency. And this will only get worse. But that's not a market structure issue it's a standards issue.

godmode2019 6y ago
I'm sorry but how does a trace element affect the polar vortex/ jetstream bending. It doesn't. Its not a good argument if all weather situations can be explained by "climate change". It's too hot - climate change It's too cold - climate change What you are describing is called weather.
- asmithmd1 6y ago
  Also, when an obvious market failure kills dozens of people, “free markets fix everything” is not correct.
- Sparkle-san 6y ago
  Climate change leading to temperature extremes in both directions is an open question within climate science. There are some theories suggesting this is the case and there are skeptics of that theory, but if you've proven otherwise then you should probably submit your research to them.
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    I agree, I feel the burden of proof is in the new theory, rather than - here is a hypothesis, prove its wrong. It's pretty clear in the small scale studies co2 concentration affects temperature in the direction or warming in the long term and the short term affect of cooling because less energy makes it to the surface. (Similar to clouds or smog/ smoke blocking light) But a causing extreme cold weather events..
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      > the short term affect of cooling because less energy makes it to the surface That's absolutely not true, and I've never even heard climate change skeptics argue that.
      - godmode2019 6y ago
        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210202164535.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210202164535.h...
        carbonguy 6y ago
        This article is referring to the effect of a class of compounds called "aerosols," which does not include CO2. Aerosols do prevent some fraction of solar energy from reaching Earth's surface, but this is separate from the effect of increased CO2 concentrations.
        godmode2019 6y ago
        Keep reading. Aerosols are human emitions, carbon heavy pollution being a order of magnitude bigger than the others. The carbon heavy aerosols turn into co2. When I was in China I experienced this first hand , it was super hot summer weather very very high pollution. Over night their was freak rain the must of cleared the air because it was the bluest sky's I have ever seen. This tropical weather suddenly because the coldest I have ever been. The pollution acted like a blanket trapping the warmth. With that blanket gone, I had to rush to the store and buy a large winter jacket. I reread your comment and we may be disagreeing on terms. [Edit] removed an article
- mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
  Godmode2019, I suspect we're strongly agreeing. My point is that Texas didn't assume the 'weather' would ever be bad. So when it got cold they ran out of natural gas to run their electricity system. The reason I bring up methane is that's the raw fuel they need to power their generators. And my proposed solution is to require the energy infrastructure (here the natural gas infrastructure, which is required to power the electricity infrastructure) to be designed to handle bad weather. As you said 'weather' means in gets both hot and cold.
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    I didn't mean to be negative. I just get bothered when see co2 makes things cold, its almost absurdist joke ie the one thing to nullify a hypothesis is now incorporated into the hypothesis to strength the argument. I don't know anything about Texans, I don't even live in America but American politics trickle down
    - mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
      If you're question is 'why can increased CO2 lead to colder weather in Texas?' There's a huge difference between describing average temperatures (what people describe as 'global warming') and describing the temperatures on any specific day. Previously, a strong jet stream air current trapped cold polar air far north of Texas (which is say 30' North latitude). As the pole's warm, the jet has become pone to weakening allowing cold polar air to move very far south e.g. 90'N to 30'N in Texas, which sits east of the rocky mountains in the US. Effects like this are why a lot of people are using the term 'climate change' more frequently. Because an increase in CO2 means more than just an average higher surface temperature. Weather changes and instabilities will grow more common, with a bias to warmer events over all. Think of it as the 'variance in the weather' is growing along side the mean weather (temperature) is going up. Yes, as an American I'll agree our politics has plenty of instabilities as well.
      - godmode2019 6y ago
        I get the idea I just dont think its a strong argument. If you don't mind can you read this article about SSG (which is what caused this weather event, noted in January) https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-affects-the-whole-atmosphere https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-af...
- hedora 6y ago
  Rising CO2 puts more energy into the atmosphere. That means more extreme weather. This has been understood since at least 1980. Here’s a report from the American Petroleum Institute from 1980 that correctly projected the economic impact and timing of current extreme weather events. https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-9-Task-Force-Meeting-1980.pdf https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload... In some other comments you say the science is still an open question. The projections in this report have been refined and confirmed repeatedly by dozens (if not hundreds) of independent research groups for the last 40 years. At this point, I cannot imagine more definitive evidence that the science is settled.
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    Thanks I'll need to sit down to read that one
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    'That means more extreme weather. This has been understood since at least 1980.' The article you provided spoke nothing of extreme weather. It only spoke of average temperature rise. Temperature rise is not in dispute. I like the more energy in the atmosphere theory, this would mean events like the suns poles flipping last year or solar events causing ionisation of the poles would also have the same affect increasing energy. Or even that magnetosphere of the earth has decreased by 6%. Which blocks cosmic rays and solar storms. Leading to more clouds being seeded. It is not proven co2 causes extreme cold weather. It's a hypothesis.
- asterialite 6y ago
  There's lots of ways global warming could lead to colder winters.[0] For example, the temperature differential between Arctic and mid-latitude air normally keeps the polar vortex contained. As this differential decreases, however, the polar vortex becomes less contained. As such, the maximum latitude reached by the jet stream increases with the Arctic's temperature. This creates colder weather in some places. [1] [2] As unintuitive as it sounds, global warming can lead to colder temperatures. It is up to people who disagree with this theory, not its proponents, to prove their case. [0] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/does-cold-weather-disprove-climate-change https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/does-cold-weather-disprove-... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455715/ [2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v68.32330?needAccess=true https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v68.3233... [pdf]
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    Thanks I'll give that a read and come back to you.
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    That would be true is their was not already well defined explanations. This article from January talks about SSG and how it will affect the polar vortex in North America. (It's paywalled so using the google URL) https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/environment/article/the-polar-vortex-is-coming-raising-odds-for-intense-winter-weather https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/dist... " The polar vortex is coming—and raising the odds for intense winter weather In the stratosphere over Siberia, temperatures recently jumped nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, shoving the polar vortex off its North Pole perch." This article is very good at talking about what we know from SSG. It has nothing to do with carbon. https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-affects-the-whole-atmosphere https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-af... You have to be trolling. I just read those articles you sent me and they agree with what I am saying. Carbon causes slow and gradual warming but their are still natural cycles that 'cause the snow that skepics get so worked up about'. I said co2 does not cause cooling. Nothing you provided even mentioned that. The only thing was from the first article 'scientists are looking into it' related to co2 causing cooling.
- jml7c5 6y ago
  This was on HN a while ago, and should give you some idea of the complexity involved: https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-winter-weather-europe-united-states-2021-fa/ https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-co... Note that it is from January 10th.
Osiris 6y ago
If the market solves all problems why would the government even need to mandate winterization? Wouldn't smart businesses have done the risk analysis and done the work? Maybe the problem here is that loss of electrical power has a significant external cost that isn't absorbed by the utilities. In other words, the cost of winterization was more than the cost to fix the damage to their equipment but doesn't take into account the cost to everyone else. Externalities are, in my opinion, one of the primary reasons for market failure.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > If the market solves all problems Straw man.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  In a truly free market, Texas would have simply received power production from nearby states that were connected into their grid. This isn't a free-market situation because the state has gone to great lengths to keep this power system isolated.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    The other states that were struggling with blackouts? No. Being on the same grid wouldn’t have solved this, as far as I can tell.
- josephg 6y ago
  Free markets seem to do a bad job with resiliency. Redundancies, winterisation, warehousing N95 masks just in case, etc is treated as inefficiency by a free market and eliminated. These aren’t externalities - is there an economics name for this? I’m sure it’s been noticed before.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Free markets do account for huge shortages, but we’ve eliminated the motivation for actors to do something about it with anti price-gouging regulations. There would be tons of stockpiles if businesses could appropriately upcharge when there was mass panic buying. Instead we stupidly lock prices, which wipes out most of the point of paying extra storage costs compared to a just in time competitor. The problem is we’ve as a society don’t like when prices go up with demand so we’ve crippled markets in their ability to deal with these types of events.
ggm 6y ago
It optimised against resiliency and the state oversight did not capital invest. If the market was meant to ensure resiliency it failed. Now, the green sources are being blamed by AGW deniers for causing the outage, and the coal and oil baseload story is back on the table.
katbyte 6y ago
How much lower then the rest of America? What about compared to Canada? Is that difference more then the human lives lost, property destroyed and time wasted during the last few days?
dann0 6y ago
A free market approach also places focus on the wrong performance indicators. Why is “very low cost” even a consideration when it leads to under investment which in turn results in significant power outages for significant periods of time. The low cost of delivery is irrelevant if there is a strong chance that I’ll freeze to death because my service provider tries to be efficient and profitable instead of trying to be 100% online. I understand the desire to avoid waste and inefficiency, but free market approaches tend to ignore the human factors and prioritise the financial. That’s not the correct.

godmode2019 6y ago

I'm sorry but how does a trace element affect the polar vortex/ jetstream bending. It doesn't. Its not a good argument if all weather situations can be explained by "climate change". It's too hot - climate change It's too cold - climate change What you are describing is called weather.

asmithmd1 6y ago
Also, when an obvious market failure kills dozens of people, “free markets fix everything” is not correct.
Sparkle-san 6y ago
Climate change leading to temperature extremes in both directions is an open question within climate science. There are some theories suggesting this is the case and there are skeptics of that theory, but if you've proven otherwise then you should probably submit your research to them.
- godmode2019 6y ago
  I agree, I feel the burden of proof is in the new theory, rather than - here is a hypothesis, prove its wrong. It's pretty clear in the small scale studies co2 concentration affects temperature in the direction or warming in the long term and the short term affect of cooling because less energy makes it to the surface. (Similar to clouds or smog/ smoke blocking light) But a causing extreme cold weather events..
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    > the short term affect of cooling because less energy makes it to the surface That's absolutely not true, and I've never even heard climate change skeptics argue that.
    - godmode2019 6y ago
      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210202164535.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210202164535.h...
      - carbonguy 6y ago
        This article is referring to the effect of a class of compounds called "aerosols," which does not include CO2. Aerosols do prevent some fraction of solar energy from reaching Earth's surface, but this is separate from the effect of increased CO2 concentrations.
        godmode2019 6y ago
        Keep reading. Aerosols are human emitions, carbon heavy pollution being a order of magnitude bigger than the others. The carbon heavy aerosols turn into co2. When I was in China I experienced this first hand , it was super hot summer weather very very high pollution. Over night their was freak rain the must of cleared the air because it was the bluest sky's I have ever seen. This tropical weather suddenly because the coldest I have ever been. The pollution acted like a blanket trapping the warmth. With that blanket gone, I had to rush to the store and buy a large winter jacket. I reread your comment and we may be disagreeing on terms. [Edit] removed an article
mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
Godmode2019, I suspect we're strongly agreeing. My point is that Texas didn't assume the 'weather' would ever be bad. So when it got cold they ran out of natural gas to run their electricity system. The reason I bring up methane is that's the raw fuel they need to power their generators. And my proposed solution is to require the energy infrastructure (here the natural gas infrastructure, which is required to power the electricity infrastructure) to be designed to handle bad weather. As you said 'weather' means in gets both hot and cold.
- godmode2019 6y ago
  I didn't mean to be negative. I just get bothered when see co2 makes things cold, its almost absurdist joke ie the one thing to nullify a hypothesis is now incorporated into the hypothesis to strength the argument. I don't know anything about Texans, I don't even live in America but American politics trickle down
  - mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
    If you're question is 'why can increased CO2 lead to colder weather in Texas?' There's a huge difference between describing average temperatures (what people describe as 'global warming') and describing the temperatures on any specific day. Previously, a strong jet stream air current trapped cold polar air far north of Texas (which is say 30' North latitude). As the pole's warm, the jet has become pone to weakening allowing cold polar air to move very far south e.g. 90'N to 30'N in Texas, which sits east of the rocky mountains in the US. Effects like this are why a lot of people are using the term 'climate change' more frequently. Because an increase in CO2 means more than just an average higher surface temperature. Weather changes and instabilities will grow more common, with a bias to warmer events over all. Think of it as the 'variance in the weather' is growing along side the mean weather (temperature) is going up. Yes, as an American I'll agree our politics has plenty of instabilities as well.
    - godmode2019 6y ago
      I get the idea I just dont think its a strong argument. If you don't mind can you read this article about SSG (which is what caused this weather event, noted in January) https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-affects-the-whole-atmosphere https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-af...
hedora 6y ago
Rising CO2 puts more energy into the atmosphere. That means more extreme weather. This has been understood since at least 1980. Here’s a report from the American Petroleum Institute from 1980 that correctly projected the economic impact and timing of current extreme weather events. https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-9-Task-Force-Meeting-1980.pdf https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload... In some other comments you say the science is still an open question. The projections in this report have been refined and confirmed repeatedly by dozens (if not hundreds) of independent research groups for the last 40 years. At this point, I cannot imagine more definitive evidence that the science is settled.
- godmode2019 6y ago
  Thanks I'll need to sit down to read that one
- godmode2019 6y ago
  'That means more extreme weather. This has been understood since at least 1980.' The article you provided spoke nothing of extreme weather. It only spoke of average temperature rise. Temperature rise is not in dispute. I like the more energy in the atmosphere theory, this would mean events like the suns poles flipping last year or solar events causing ionisation of the poles would also have the same affect increasing energy. Or even that magnetosphere of the earth has decreased by 6%. Which blocks cosmic rays and solar storms. Leading to more clouds being seeded. It is not proven co2 causes extreme cold weather. It's a hypothesis.
asterialite 6y ago
There's lots of ways global warming could lead to colder winters.[0] For example, the temperature differential between Arctic and mid-latitude air normally keeps the polar vortex contained. As this differential decreases, however, the polar vortex becomes less contained. As such, the maximum latitude reached by the jet stream increases with the Arctic's temperature. This creates colder weather in some places. [1] [2] As unintuitive as it sounds, global warming can lead to colder temperatures. It is up to people who disagree with this theory, not its proponents, to prove their case. [0] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/does-cold-weather-disprove-climate-change https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/does-cold-weather-disprove-... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455715/ [2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v68.32330?needAccess=true https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v68.3233... [pdf]
- godmode2019 6y ago
  Thanks I'll give that a read and come back to you.
- godmode2019 6y ago
  That would be true is their was not already well defined explanations. This article from January talks about SSG and how it will affect the polar vortex in North America. (It's paywalled so using the google URL) https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/environment/article/the-polar-vortex-is-coming-raising-odds-for-intense-winter-weather https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/dist... " The polar vortex is coming—and raising the odds for intense winter weather In the stratosphere over Siberia, temperatures recently jumped nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, shoving the polar vortex off its North Pole perch." This article is very good at talking about what we know from SSG. It has nothing to do with carbon. https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-affects-the-whole-atmosphere https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-af... You have to be trolling. I just read those articles you sent me and they agree with what I am saying. Carbon causes slow and gradual warming but their are still natural cycles that 'cause the snow that skepics get so worked up about'. I said co2 does not cause cooling. Nothing you provided even mentioned that. The only thing was from the first article 'scientists are looking into it' related to co2 causing cooling.
jml7c5 6y ago
This was on HN a while ago, and should give you some idea of the complexity involved: https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-winter-weather-europe-united-states-2021-fa/ https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-co... Note that it is from January 10th.

Osiris 6y ago

If the market solves all problems why would the government even need to mandate winterization? Wouldn't smart businesses have done the risk analysis and done the work? Maybe the problem here is that loss of electrical power has a significant external cost that isn't absorbed by the utilities. In other words, the cost of winterization was more than the cost to fix the damage to their equipment but doesn't take into account the cost to everyone else. Externalities are, in my opinion, one of the primary reasons for market failure.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> If the market solves all problems Straw man.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
In a truly free market, Texas would have simply received power production from nearby states that were connected into their grid. This isn't a free-market situation because the state has gone to great lengths to keep this power system isolated.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  The other states that were struggling with blackouts? No. Being on the same grid wouldn’t have solved this, as far as I can tell.
josephg 6y ago
Free markets seem to do a bad job with resiliency. Redundancies, winterisation, warehousing N95 masks just in case, etc is treated as inefficiency by a free market and eliminated. These aren’t externalities - is there an economics name for this? I’m sure it’s been noticed before.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Free markets do account for huge shortages, but we’ve eliminated the motivation for actors to do something about it with anti price-gouging regulations. There would be tons of stockpiles if businesses could appropriately upcharge when there was mass panic buying. Instead we stupidly lock prices, which wipes out most of the point of paying extra storage costs compared to a just in time competitor. The problem is we’ve as a society don’t like when prices go up with demand so we’ve crippled markets in their ability to deal with these types of events.

ggm 6y ago

It optimised against resiliency and the state oversight did not capital invest. If the market was meant to ensure resiliency it failed. Now, the green sources are being blamed by AGW deniers for causing the outage, and the coal and oil baseload story is back on the table.

katbyte 6y ago

How much lower then the rest of America? What about compared to Canada? Is that difference more then the human lives lost, property destroyed and time wasted during the last few days?

dann0 6y ago

A free market approach also places focus on the wrong performance indicators. Why is “very low cost” even a consideration when it leads to under investment which in turn results in significant power outages for significant periods of time. The low cost of delivery is irrelevant if there is a strong chance that I’ll freeze to death because my service provider tries to be efficient and profitable instead of trying to be 100% online. I understand the desire to avoid waste and inefficiency, but free market approaches tend to ignore the human factors and prioritise the financial. That’s not the correct.