See, the power outages don’t really have anything to do with the wind turbines freezing and solar panels covered with snow and ice (and, let’s be honest, that’s only a portion), nope, it’s your fault for that big dinner you had for Valentine’s Day with evil meat
A Glimpse of America’s Future: Climate Change Means Trouble for Power Grids
Systems are designed to handle spikes in demand, but the wild and unpredictable weather linked to global warming will very likely push grids beyond their limits.
Couldn’t even make it past the subhead at the NY Times fable
Huge winter storms plunged large parts of the central and southern United States into an energy crisis this week, with frigid blasts of Arctic weather crippling electric grids and leaving millions of Americans without power amid dangerously cold temperatures.
The grid failures were most severe in Texas, where more than four million people woke up Tuesday morning to rolling blackouts. Separate regional grids in the Southwest and Midwest also faced serious strain. As of Tuesday afternoon, at least 23 people nationwide had died in the storm or its aftermath.
Analysts have begun to identify key factors behind the grid failures in Texas. Record-breaking cold weather spurred residents to crank up their electric heaters and pushed power demand beyond the worst-case scenarios that grid operators had planned for. At the same time, a large fraction of the state’s gas-fired power plants were knocked offline amid icy conditions, with some plants suffering fuel shortages as natural gas demand spiked. Many of Texas’ wind turbines also froze and stopped working.
The crisis sounded an alarm for power systems throughout the country. Electric grids can be engineered to handle a wide range of severe conditions — as long as grid operators can reliably predict the dangers ahead. But as climate change accelerates, many electric grids will face extreme weather events that go far beyond the historical conditions those systems were designed for, putting them at risk of catastrophic failure.
See, power outages never happened before ‘climate change’. Or, is it global warming, as in the subhead? This is all what a cult says. The article keeps going with the cult talk, let’s see what the climahysterics at the LA Times have to say
Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change
…
More than 4 million homes and businesses saw their electricity shut off as a powerful cold snap sent temperatures into the single digits, driving up demand for heating while simultaneously freezing much of the energy infrastructure that would normally keep people warm. Rolling blackouts began in the wee hours of Monday morning and continued into Tuesday evening. (snip)
But for all the differences between the events in Texas and California’s more limited rolling blackouts last year, there’s a common lesson: Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe as the climate crisis worsens. And the U.S. power grid is not prepared to handle the hotter heat storms, more frigid cold snaps and stronger hurricanes of a changing planet.
California’s blackouts were mostly due to a lack of available power due to an over-reliance on solar and wind while doing away with nuclear, natural gas, and coal. But, this is the kind of ghoulish behavior to expect from a cult. Weather can always affect the grid, until such time as pretty much everything is buried, but, there will still be choke points. The lines in my community are all buried, but, if some idiot driving around a corner too fast loses control and hits a pole with a control transformer, up the road, it snaps our power. If there’s a cascade failure in a substation several mile from where I live from a hurricane, it can cause power outages all over. These doomsday cult jerks are using the suffering of people, and even deaths, to perpetuate their cult beliefs.
Most of the country’s power comes from coal, oil and natural gas — the very fuels driving climate change. The grid of the future will need to be powered primarily by zero-carbon electricity sources, such as solar and wind — and rebuilding the grid from top to bottom, without further disrupting energy supplies, will be a delicate balancing act.
The solar panels covered with snow and ice and turbines frozen solid? Turbines that only work with the wind between 5 and 30 miles an hour? Solar panels which can be broken by hail? And don’t work at night? Or when it is overcast and rainy? I triple dog dare the LA Times to run their business solely on solar and wind.
Texas was/is not prepared for the changing climate. In addition, Texas chose to go it alone by NOT being part of the national electrical grid. Wind turbines can be constructed to withstand freezing temperatures (ask Sweden, Finland, Norway etc), Texas chose not to that. Texas may wish to connect the regional grid rather than have citizens suffer. Texas may wish to learn from other states that have developed systems to withstand snowstorms and cold snaps.
Greg Abbott blamed the Green New Deal, which I didn’t know was law. Regardless, the rest of America will help Texas through this crisis.
ERCOT: Most of the power knocked offline was from natural gas.
“Texas not prepared for the changing climateâ€. Actually, Texas wasn’t prepared because they relied too much on unreliable wind and solar. Severe weather has and always will happen. The only variable in this case is the nature of their power supply, not the weather.
ERCOT is a privately owned for profit company whose main purpose is to provide profits and shareholder value to its owners, not to provide the best cheapest power to its customers
“Winter storm outages linked to climate change…†No, winter storm outages linked to some people’s response to climate change
The grid of the future will need to be powered primarily by zero-carbon electricity sources, such as NUCLEAR POWER.
Anything else is wishful thinking – which is why liberals buy into it.
Texas’ problem can be linked to two primary sources.
1) Massive immigration from outside the country escaping grinding poverty.
2) Massive immigration from “Blue states” escaping grinding poverty due to socialism.
The electrical grid simply has not kept up with the demand because the growth in demand is directly related to the growth in population. Building any kind of power plant is hugely expensive, made more so by massive government over-regulation, especially by aging hippies that infest the EPA like fleas on a stray dog. They aren’t going to windmill their way out of that problem. Thank God they don’t have a state government demanding electric cars.
Another problem is Wind and Solar get subsidies and it makes it harder for coal and gas plants to compete. Thanks to the “Green Lobby” politicians are bribed to keep extending these subsidies.
Most of the folks where I live are the very people who vote for these politicians and are the ones affected by the blackouts. Unfortunately they drag some of us with them.
Last time I experiences rolling blackouts, I was in Iraq. These things are normal in third world countries.
It’s curious that the mayors of Texas Cities (Democrats all) haven’t re-enacted the Carter energy saving proposals like shutting off street lights and forcing businesses to shut off outside lights and signage to save electricity for home heating. It’s as if they WANT there to be blackouts.
“Winter storm linked to “climate changeâ€. And rain causes drought…
It was known well in advance that Texas was showing the very same weather pattern as the Great Blizzard of 1899 (which also caused great havoc), so a warning was sounded to the MSM and the White House to spread the word and take action. I guess “Climate Change” might well have factored in the catastrophe in the left’s desire to maximize the death and suffering (particularly in a state where the left has been meeting resistance) so it could proclaim the climate change mantra, leading the MSM and White House to pay no attention the warnings aside from five minutes from Sean Hannity?
P.S.–Even if that was not their actual motive, at this point if a cynical public naturally reacts by assuming that’s the case, with the level of credibility the MSM and White House have at this point, who’s going to believe them if they do deny it?
William Teach: California’s blackouts were mostly due to a lack of available power due to an over-reliance on solar and wind while doing away with nuclear, natural gas, and coal.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Energy Commission (CEC) determined that the problem was an extreme heat wave caused by climate change and resource planning targets that have not kept up with demand. Market rules were also implicated.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-releases-final-root-cause-analysis-of-august-rolling-blackouts/593436/
However, the grid never went down like it has in Texas. Texas failed. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to blame a freshman Representative from New York for the debacle, and a green energy plan which has not been enacted.
William Teach: See, power outages never happened before ‘climate change’. Or, is it global warming, as in the subhead?
They are different phenonema. Global warming refers to an increase in the Earth’s mean surface temperature. Climate change refers to the effects of global warming on regional climates. Global warming has strong scientific support. Climate change is highly chaotic and therefore more obscure. For instance, there is tentative evidence that Arctic warming will lead to more severe winter weather in the mid-latitudes.
William Teach: I triple dog dare the LA Times to run their business solely on solar and wind.
California has a mixed energy system and doesn’t rely solely on solar and wind. Gas typically fills in the gaps as it can be ramped up or down quickly.
“Arctic warming  And there is evidence that the same weather phenomenon happened in the 70s and was blamed on global cooling. In other words, they don’t know.
“Determined that the extreme heat was caused by “climate changeâ€. So how hot would it have been without “climate changeâ€? It would be like saying one would know what the score of the game would have been if player “x†hadn’t played. In other words, impossible.
Jl: “Arctic warmingâ€â€¦ And there is evidence that the same weather phenomenon happened in the 70s and was blamed on global cooling.
As already mentioned, climate change is highly chaotic; however, we know much more now than we did in the 1970s.
Jl: So how hot would it have been without “climate change�
It’s a statistical relationship. Current heat waves are beyond what would be expected without global warming.
The Texas grid failed partly because necessary maintenance (such as winterproofing gas pipeline and generating infrastructure) was ignored while billions were spent on windmills and solar collectors. Why maintain bad old fossil fuel infrastructure when all the “experts” say they are going to dismantle it all anyway in favour of green tech and other magical thinking? Well, now Texas is finding out why.
A couple of you refuted “Abbot’s claim that the Green New Deal was a factor.”
I thus conclude that you are misinformed and none of what you say is to be trusted. What Abbot actually said was that the failure of wind turbines showed that the Green New Deal would not be wise for our future.
Michael Johnson: What Abbot actually said was that the failure of wind turbines showed that the Green New Deal would not be wise for our future.
Except that:
1) Wind turbines can work in cold weather if they are properly designed and maintained.
2) Failures of the fossil fuel plants was the primary cause of the system breakdown.