Enough

[kck]

Simple. Demon-rats have their electricity and gas turned off first, just cut the main off and lock em up. They shoulda had their solar panels charging their battery backups weeks ahead of time.

[PondPopper]

We are flaring natural gas and yet at the same time people are freezing to death due to lack of heat(electricity)..... It is F%#@ing insanity!!!!!!! Truly unbelievable...

[stickerpatch59]

Another good point - I mentioned some of that in another thread. A lot of coal generation has been taken off line in recent years due to environmental pressure. That would have provided additional megawatts in this situation. But for some reason we allow China to keep building coal plants. I guess they use a different atmosphere?

But But But china is a developing country... didn't you get the f'in memo?

yeah, we have a bunch of dumb azzes and traitors running this country.

[stickerpatch59]

We are flaring natural gas and yet at the same time people are freezing to death due to lack of heat(electricity)..... It is F%#@ing insanity!!!!!!! Truly unbelievable...

I have always wondered about this, why are we just flaring it out; can't we recover it and use it for something???

[RiverRat1]

I have always wondered about this, why are we just flaring it out; can't we recover it and use it for something???

To save it you need pipelines and a system to get it places.
Let a system be built and things would work out great.

But "they" won't/can't let that happen. Would be cheap energy and their 50 year BS play green projects will take even longer to become even half way doable.

[stickerpatch59]

To save it you need pipelines and a system to get it places.
Let a system be built and things would work out great.

But "they" won't/can't let that happen. Would be cheap energy and their 50 year BS play green projects will take even longer to become even half way doable.

I understand that it's 'DIRTY' fuel, but why do we need pipelines; just put a storage tank at the well and truck it like we do propane.

[meltingfeather]

Part of the reason it failed is because money that could be spent on weatherization is spent on green energy. In addition, money is being sent to China and other countries for us using the same fuel sources they do. Again, that money could be spent upgrading / weatherizing facilities here.

Coulda shoulda woulda... hindsight is 20/20.

Nothing stopping producers from winterizing if they wanted to in this deregulated market— except the market doesn’t want to pay for it. We’re coal plants winterized before green energy was a thing? Nope. Has natural gas from fracking ever been winterized since it was developed? Nope.

[ram04]

Coulda shoulda woulda... hindsight is 20/20.

Nothing stopping producers from winterizing if they wanted to in this deregulated market— except the market doesn’t want to pay for it. We’re coal plants winterized before green energy was a thing? Nope. Has natural gas from fracking ever been winterized since it was developed? Nope.

Exactly shareholders demand profits, don’t demand customers well-being. Big Business climate and thought is to make max profits at all cost and buy politicians to maintain their business model. Customers have zero power to demand anything because the system has been built against them and competition has been removed. You get what you get.

[muzzlebrake]

Tree huggers and bunny fornicators sure can mess things up and then there is that AOC dimwit talking bout crap she knows nothing about. Ercot is a useless entity that should go away after this if Grabbot does his job.

[ram04]

We need tree huggers to check corporations from going too far in damaging the environment we all love, just like we need capitalist businessmen to progress technology to make a better product. Don’t hate the tree huggers, left leaning and right leaning people are what give checks and balance to the country. It’s the closed minded on both sides that will be death of the American experiment.

[BowhunterB]

Coulda shoulda woulda... hindsight is 20/20.

Nothing stopping producers from winterizing if they wanted to in this deregulated market— except the market doesn’t want to pay for it. We’re coal plants winterized before green energy was a thing? Nope. Has natural gas from fracking ever been winterized since it was developed? Nope.

Exactly what I am saying. It has to be paid for, and they are also "strongly encouraged" to add wind and solar to their generation portfolios. There are also "penalties" for using coal, which had been removed or minimized but will be coming back thanks to Sleepy Joe. These are additional costs that make it more difficult to winterize, although you make it sound like it is just a bake sale away.

[4wheels]

It does not help the argument against wind that the gas plants froze up. They could not get enough gas because pipelines froze. (which I still don't understand). I understand that we have 30,000 megawatts of wind capacity and only 800 megawatts were working the night of the freeze. That is a lot of money just sitting there.

[4wheels]

Exactly what I am saying. It has to be paid for, and they are also "strongly encouraged" to add wind and solar to their generation portfolios. There are also "penalties" for using coal, which had been removed or minimized but will be coming back thanks to Sleepy Joe. These are additional costs that make it more difficult to winterize, although you make it sound like it is just a bake sale away.

When it comes to winterize, I think this is something that should always be happening. Why are colder places able to move gas and Texas falls apart during any super cold breeze. Droughts happen, cold storms happen. I think saying winterize is too expensive is just stupid. Infrastructure has to work.

Same thing with homeowner having to deal with broken pipes. Why are we tolerating this? The average homeowner should not have to worry about pipes busting in the cold. We need to upgrade our plumbing standards. At least so that newer homes don't have to deal with broken water pipes in their house. There is just no excuse for that non-sense. Super expensive homes are dealing with broken water pipes just like super cheap homes. To me that makes the 'it is too expensive to winterize' just wrong.

How much did this just cost Texas? What ever we saved by not winterizing just went out the window.

[RickBarbee]

The "pipelines" did not freeze.

It was the above ground pneumatic controls (for valves, etc) within the power plants, and gas compressor plants that froze.

Why did they freeze?

A couple of reasons:

(1) Lack of maintenance funding, because it was being bled off to go to the wind generators maintenance (among some other pockets).

(2) Direct result of #1 - those in charge quit caring about the maintenance due to that lack of funding.

Rick

[Runnin4D]

Coulda shoulda woulda... hindsight is 20/20.

Nothing stopping producers from winterizing if they wanted to in this deregulated market— except the market doesn’t want to pay for it. We’re coal plants winterized before green energy was a thing? Nope. Has natural gas from fracking ever been winterized since it was developed? Nope.

I am curious where you get your information to make a blanket statement that coal (and lets include NG) plants are not winterized.