4.2 Million Texans Without Power

Yes, that graph shows that on the morning of 15 Feb 2021, i.e. when everything hit the fan, output from natural gas plummetted hugely. All sectors experienced drop offs at the same time.

 

Way too many factors to point to just one shortcoming in the system.

Cascading failures, started at the generation sources, and continuing down the grid to the customer.

Plenty of bad actors, and unwise decisions across the board here.

Power companies and politicians sucking up renewable energy tax credits, while betting it was never going to get this cold.

They lost that bet.

They can keep their private system, but they must insure continuous 24/7/265 power, that is hardened against the elements. Not much anyone can do about Hurricanes or Tornadoes, but those happen in warm weather where the average citizen's life is not in danger from a blackout. This was simply a long foreseen winter storm, and the grids, pipelines and plants must be hardened to withstand cold weather.

It's not real complicated here... problem is as usual, everyone wants to blame someone else, or use this crisis to push an agenda.. and no one wants to pay for the required equipment and methods to insure this never happens again.

Harden the facilities against the cold, and keep fossil fuel power generation capability in reserve to meet any need, in any season. Piles of Coal protected from the weather, and tanks of Natural gas are not rocket science here folks.. and not an unreasonable requirement if your going to profit from selling the state grid electricity.

The other option is some very expensive high voltage transmission lines, spreading out the vast distances of such a big state. And the Federal Regulation that comes with them, that most Texans don't want.

TX has the fuel, and the generation capability to keep the current grid lit up all the time. What they don't have is any penalties for power providers, or any accountability for the government agencies tasked with operating the grid system. A body that can "recommend" things, but not require them, is useless.

They had a similar, although not quite as severe, event in the winter of 2011.. Studies were commission, lip service was given to the need to prevent cold weather outages, but in the end, the Private companies that supply the power bet on it not happening again. That's a safe bet, when there are no penalties.

I believe a mix of common sense requirements, as well as penalties for the inability to supply power, are needed to prevent this from happening again.

And with that, let's get back on topic here.

Thanks
JW