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Austin resident here, who used to work in fabs. Basically, there was a time (1980's) when fabs in Austin had their own power generation. AMD, which used to ha

Austin resident here, who used to work in fabs. Basically, there was a time (1980's) when fabs in Austin had their own power generation. AMD, which used to have its own fabs, had its own power for them. Then, they (not just AMD but everybody with fabs in Texas) eventually decided it wasn't worth the cost, and started using the regular power grid, because Austin's power had become more reliable. Obviously, as the percentage of solar, wind, and natgas has increased, and the percentage of coal has decreased, this reliability has been thrown into question. Also, the rapid population increase has also just meant a general problem of building new capacity fast enough. My guess is that they have an eye on it, and it is also possible they will build their own power generation, but more likely they are just getting guarantees of some sort that enough power capacity will be built.

mortenlarsen 4y ago
The recent issues did not have renewable energy as the main cause. Fox News is entertainment, not news (by their own claim).
- makomk 4y ago
  Renweable energy was not the "main cause" because it reliably fails to generate adequate amounts of power at that time of year and so the grid was entirely reliant on other generation (mostly natural gas) to fill in the gap. Basically, it wasn't the fault of renewable energy because everyone knew it was useless anyway.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I would like to point out that the New York Times has made the same claim very recently too (in the same context, a defamation trial). Events like the Texas blackouts rarely have one sole cause. Reliance on renewables was clearly one factor out of many.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    It's actually not a meaningful factor AT ALL. Where renewables failed it wasn't because the nature of the technology but because of failure to winterize.
    - hadleybelter 4y ago
      It was, and is, a hugely meaningful factor. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that it's a republican smear campaign doesn't help. Texas has more wind power generation than any other state in the US by far. Texas is all aboard the wind train. It's a huge part of the economy. Texas wants wind to win. But that doesn't change reality. In the last month, Texas has gotten close to electricity demand exceeding supply. A significant factor behind this is that Texas gets nearly 20% of its electricity from wind generation. On your average summer day, wind generates between 15 and 25 GW. However, during the recent heat wave, wind speeds dropped in west Texas (where the bulk of the wind farms are) and wind was only generating less than 2 GW during the hottest part of the day. Similarly, Texas usually gets about 10 GW of power from solar. However, solar drops off to 0 GW very rapidly around 7 or 8 PM. However, in the summer in Texas, the temperature is still at its peak around 7 PM, so there is still significant demand while solar generation is dropping. Wind and solar are unlike thermal generation in that we (humans) can choose to burn more oil and create thermal generation when needed. But with solar and wind, we cannot choose to suddenly create more wind or sun. We are at the whims of nature, and until we figure out better solutions for these problems (battery storage, maybe), wind and solar have their disadvantages compared to thermal. Pretending otherwise is not helpful.
      - michaelmrose 4y ago
        There is nothing but incompetence and greed keeping Texas from having as good a grid as the rest of the US.
        hadleybelter 4y ago
        You mean the rest of the US that has been facing widespread threats of blackouts this summer? https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypnja/majority-of-us-power-grid-at-risk-of-failure-this-summer-report-warns https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypnja/majority-of-us-power-... https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-grid-climate-change/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-gri... https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-renewables-electric-grid/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-rene... https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-blackouts-in-sobering-report/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-bl... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/02/blackout-states-summer-heat/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/02/blackout-... I'll agree with you that there's greed and incompetence all over Texas's politicians and state management. But it isn't unique to Texas. We have a widespread societal problem with our electrical grid that transcends state lines.
- rayiner 4y ago
  It goes without saying that, just because Fox News is saying it doesn’t mean it’s right. Partisan bickering in either direction isn’t a good way to educate yourself on the issues. Renewable power throws a wrench in how Texas does grid planning. In every other ISO, there is both a capacity market, which pays providers to commit to making certain generating capacity available, and a generation market, which pays for actual electrical production: https://cpowerenergymanagement.com/why-doesnt-texas-have-a-capacity-market https://cpowerenergymanagement.com/why-doesnt-texas-have-a-c.... In Texas, there is just a generation market. Ordinarily that isn’t a big deal. Generators build adequate capacity so they can be in a position to receive payments for generation at times of peak demand. Renewables break this down. They undercut traditional generation sources in the summer, but can’t be counted on to be there at times of peak winter demand. So last winter renewables didn’t fail in the sense that nobody was expecting them to generate much power begin with. But the natural gas plants that are irreplaceable for dealing with winter demand are dealing with reduced revenue because renewable sources are underbidding them in peak summer months.
  - mortenlarsen 4y ago
    It sounds like a free market working as expected. Maybe something important like this needs regulation to prevent optimization based on only one parameter ($).
    - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
      In a functional free market customers who need reliable electricity would specifically pay for the reliability or guaranteed capacity.
      - mortenlarsen 4y ago
        Only if they are being told the truth. A functional free market requires symmetrical information (ie. both seller and buyer has the same information about the product). It is just a theoretical thing. But you can get closer to that ideal with regulation and strong buyer protections.
- hadleybelter 4y ago
  The most recent issues for which the Texas electrical grid was in the news for, the near-blackouts earlier this month, were specifically because of unpredictably low wind speeds in west Texas which reduced Texas's expected wind generation from ~20 GW to under 2 GW during the periods of peak demand. For context, peak demand in Texas is around 80 GW. Taking 18+ GW off the table is a huge blow. 18 GW is more than the entire electrical demand of most US states. Fox news has nothing to do with it. Generation capacity being reduced by nearly 25% due to unpredictably low wind speeds is physics. It's a huge problem being faced, and sticking your head in the sand and crying "fake news" isn't helpful.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    https://www.ercot.com/ https://www.ercot.com/ gives you some idea of what's going on in TX at any given time. One neat thing about summer is that peak demand also tends to be because of AC use which also correlates with sunshine. Works for the summer at least.
  - reddog 4y ago
    "near-blackout". Isn't that another way of saying that they matched capacity and demand almost perfectly?
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  So, I wouldn't know, because I haven't watched Fox News in many years. The best low-emotion, technically informed analysis of "Snowpocalypse" is probably this one from "Practical Engineering", made by a San Antonio-based engineer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM The outages were not from any one "main cause", except perhaps "Texas doesn't get cold that often and wasn't ready". But, wind icing up was certainly one of several major causes, along with natural gas pressure dropping so that natgas-powered electrical plants could not keep operating.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
HWR_14 4y ago
I have no idea why natural gas was third in your list. Texas's power issues are entirely predicted by natural gas power plants failing (or voluntarily shutting down because of price spikes).
VintageCool 4y ago
My understanding is that the Texas grid issues are largely due to increased population and lack of a capacity market. Texas has been hitting record high demand again and again in the past few years. Aggregate demand went above ERCOT's worst case projections during the recent heat wave.
- pydry 4y ago
  They also do insist on having their own grid - separate from the rest of the country.
  - rossdavidh 4y ago
    It's true, but they are able to buy and sell power from the eastern grid (my understanding is it's less efficient, because it goes to DC and back to AC at the interface, but it does happen normally). They weren't able to buy any power a year and a half ago, because the eastern grid needed theirs for the same winter storm, but presumably during summer heat waves it works better as long as points north aren't all running their air conditioners nonstop as well. The low natgas line pressure was also related to the fact that points north were using more than usual as well. In fact, one of the responses to the power outage was to stop all natgas flowing from Texas to Mexico. So it's not only the power grid, but also the natgas lines, that connects Texas to points outside.

mortenlarsen 4y ago

The recent issues did not have renewable energy as the main cause. Fox News is entertainment, not news (by their own claim).

makomk 4y ago
Renweable energy was not the "main cause" because it reliably fails to generate adequate amounts of power at that time of year and so the grid was entirely reliant on other generation (mostly natural gas) to fill in the gap. Basically, it wasn't the fault of renewable energy because everyone knew it was useless anyway.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
I would like to point out that the New York Times has made the same claim very recently too (in the same context, a defamation trial). Events like the Texas blackouts rarely have one sole cause. Reliance on renewables was clearly one factor out of many.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  It's actually not a meaningful factor AT ALL. Where renewables failed it wasn't because the nature of the technology but because of failure to winterize.
  - hadleybelter 4y ago
    It was, and is, a hugely meaningful factor. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that it's a republican smear campaign doesn't help. Texas has more wind power generation than any other state in the US by far. Texas is all aboard the wind train. It's a huge part of the economy. Texas wants wind to win. But that doesn't change reality. In the last month, Texas has gotten close to electricity demand exceeding supply. A significant factor behind this is that Texas gets nearly 20% of its electricity from wind generation. On your average summer day, wind generates between 15 and 25 GW. However, during the recent heat wave, wind speeds dropped in west Texas (where the bulk of the wind farms are) and wind was only generating less than 2 GW during the hottest part of the day. Similarly, Texas usually gets about 10 GW of power from solar. However, solar drops off to 0 GW very rapidly around 7 or 8 PM. However, in the summer in Texas, the temperature is still at its peak around 7 PM, so there is still significant demand while solar generation is dropping. Wind and solar are unlike thermal generation in that we (humans) can choose to burn more oil and create thermal generation when needed. But with solar and wind, we cannot choose to suddenly create more wind or sun. We are at the whims of nature, and until we figure out better solutions for these problems (battery storage, maybe), wind and solar have their disadvantages compared to thermal. Pretending otherwise is not helpful.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      There is nothing but incompetence and greed keeping Texas from having as good a grid as the rest of the US.
      - hadleybelter 4y ago
        You mean the rest of the US that has been facing widespread threats of blackouts this summer? https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypnja/majority-of-us-power-grid-at-risk-of-failure-this-summer-report-warns https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypnja/majority-of-us-power-... https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-grid-climate-change/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-gri... https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-renewables-electric-grid/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-rene... https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-blackouts-in-sobering-report/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-bl... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/02/blackout-states-summer-heat/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/02/blackout-... I'll agree with you that there's greed and incompetence all over Texas's politicians and state management. But it isn't unique to Texas. We have a widespread societal problem with our electrical grid that transcends state lines.
rayiner 4y ago
It goes without saying that, just because Fox News is saying it doesn’t mean it’s right. Partisan bickering in either direction isn’t a good way to educate yourself on the issues. Renewable power throws a wrench in how Texas does grid planning. In every other ISO, there is both a capacity market, which pays providers to commit to making certain generating capacity available, and a generation market, which pays for actual electrical production: https://cpowerenergymanagement.com/why-doesnt-texas-have-a-capacity-market https://cpowerenergymanagement.com/why-doesnt-texas-have-a-c.... In Texas, there is just a generation market. Ordinarily that isn’t a big deal. Generators build adequate capacity so they can be in a position to receive payments for generation at times of peak demand. Renewables break this down. They undercut traditional generation sources in the summer, but can’t be counted on to be there at times of peak winter demand. So last winter renewables didn’t fail in the sense that nobody was expecting them to generate much power begin with. But the natural gas plants that are irreplaceable for dealing with winter demand are dealing with reduced revenue because renewable sources are underbidding them in peak summer months.
- mortenlarsen 4y ago
  It sounds like a free market working as expected. Maybe something important like this needs regulation to prevent optimization based on only one parameter ($).
  - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
    In a functional free market customers who need reliable electricity would specifically pay for the reliability or guaranteed capacity.
    - mortenlarsen 4y ago
      Only if they are being told the truth. A functional free market requires symmetrical information (ie. both seller and buyer has the same information about the product). It is just a theoretical thing. But you can get closer to that ideal with regulation and strong buyer protections.
hadleybelter 4y ago
The most recent issues for which the Texas electrical grid was in the news for, the near-blackouts earlier this month, were specifically because of unpredictably low wind speeds in west Texas which reduced Texas's expected wind generation from ~20 GW to under 2 GW during the periods of peak demand. For context, peak demand in Texas is around 80 GW. Taking 18+ GW off the table is a huge blow. 18 GW is more than the entire electrical demand of most US states. Fox news has nothing to do with it. Generation capacity being reduced by nearly 25% due to unpredictably low wind speeds is physics. It's a huge problem being faced, and sticking your head in the sand and crying "fake news" isn't helpful.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  https://www.ercot.com/ https://www.ercot.com/ gives you some idea of what's going on in TX at any given time. One neat thing about summer is that peak demand also tends to be because of AC use which also correlates with sunshine. Works for the summer at least.
- reddog 4y ago
  "near-blackout". Isn't that another way of saying that they matched capacity and demand almost perfectly?
rossdavidh 4y ago
So, I wouldn't know, because I haven't watched Fox News in many years. The best low-emotion, technically informed analysis of "Snowpocalypse" is probably this one from "Practical Engineering", made by a San Antonio-based engineer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM The outages were not from any one "main cause", except perhaps "Texas doesn't get cold that often and wasn't ready". But, wind icing up was certainly one of several major causes, along with natural gas pressure dropping so that natgas-powered electrical plants could not keep operating.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

HWR_14 4y ago

I have no idea why natural gas was third in your list. Texas's power issues are entirely predicted by natural gas power plants failing (or voluntarily shutting down because of price spikes).

VintageCool 4y ago

My understanding is that the Texas grid issues are largely due to increased population and lack of a capacity market. Texas has been hitting record high demand again and again in the past few years. Aggregate demand went above ERCOT's worst case projections during the recent heat wave.

pydry 4y ago
They also do insist on having their own grid - separate from the rest of the country.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  It's true, but they are able to buy and sell power from the eastern grid (my understanding is it's less efficient, because it goes to DC and back to AC at the interface, but it does happen normally). They weren't able to buy any power a year and a half ago, because the eastern grid needed theirs for the same winter storm, but presumably during summer heat waves it works better as long as points north aren't all running their air conditioners nonstop as well. The low natgas line pressure was also related to the fact that points north were using more than usual as well. In fact, one of the responses to the power outage was to stop all natgas flowing from Texas to Mexico. So it's not only the power grid, but also the natgas lines, that connects Texas to points outside.