This is the first I've heard about the 2011 power failure in Texas, perhaps because I haven't been reading much about the current crisis. Thank you for this background info and your report on the causes of this year's outage.
The contiguous US electrical power grid has three parts: The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection, which together power 47 of the lower 48 states, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCT), an electrical island that powers 90% of Texas residents. ERTC connects to the rest of the world at two points in NE Texas (a WWII legacy totaling less than 1 gigawatt) and two in Mexico (half a gigawatt). Typical daily demand in TX is 75 gigawatts.
ERTC was created to keep TX exempt from the Federal Power Act of 1935 so that TX could then set its own rates. Today there is perhaps more concern that green power from the windy panhandle not flow west to CA, which would raise rates throughout TX. An ambitious project to connect ERTC and the Western Interconnection in NM, called Tres Amigos, has been stalled for decades.
Whether from wind, oil, coal, or nuclear fission, all power faces transmission obstacles such as load balancing and frequency matching across grids. The farther it must travel, the worse these problems get. An easy solution is to have reserve power available near the place where it will be needed, especially if far-away sources of power connect via only a few low capacity links.
The main problem in TX was not ice on windmill blades, nor was it frozen parts in conventional power plants. It was lack of accessible reserve power. CA had a similar issue last summer, and suffered a similar fate, except that air conditioning was impacted, not heating.
With oil, coal, or nuclear power, you can tap reserve capacity onsite by flipping a switch. With solar or wind power, you must deploy more panels or erect more windmills. This gets prohibitively expensive when the reserve power is needed only rarely, perhaps for a day or two, once in a decade. So instead you import reserve power from outside your grid, if you can, or else suffer brownouts. Perhaps, even, blackouts.
It is amusing to watch the Left and the Right bend and distort this simple narrative to match their agendas.
Oh, and congratulations on your recognition from Forbes. You deserve it.
This is the first I've heard about the 2011 power failure in Texas, perhaps because I haven't been reading much about the current crisis. Thank you for this background info and your report on the causes of this year's outage.
The contiguous US electrical power grid has three parts: The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection, which together power 47 of the lower 48 states, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCT), an electrical island that powers 90% of Texas residents. ERTC connects to the rest of the world at two points in NE Texas (a WWII legacy totaling less than 1 gigawatt) and two in Mexico (half a gigawatt). Typical daily demand in TX is 75 gigawatts.
ERTC was created to keep TX exempt from the Federal Power Act of 1935 so that TX could then set its own rates. Today there is perhaps more concern that green power from the windy panhandle not flow west to CA, which would raise rates throughout TX. An ambitious project to connect ERTC and the Western Interconnection in NM, called Tres Amigos, has been stalled for decades.
Whether from wind, oil, coal, or nuclear fission, all power faces transmission obstacles such as load balancing and frequency matching across grids. The farther it must travel, the worse these problems get. An easy solution is to have reserve power available near the place where it will be needed, especially if far-away sources of power connect via only a few low capacity links.
The main problem in TX was not ice on windmill blades, nor was it frozen parts in conventional power plants. It was lack of accessible reserve power. CA had a similar issue last summer, and suffered a similar fate, except that air conditioning was impacted, not heating.
With oil, coal, or nuclear power, you can tap reserve capacity onsite by flipping a switch. With solar or wind power, you must deploy more panels or erect more windmills. This gets prohibitively expensive when the reserve power is needed only rarely, perhaps for a day or two, once in a decade. So instead you import reserve power from outside your grid, if you can, or else suffer brownouts. Perhaps, even, blackouts.
It is amusing to watch the Left and the Right bend and distort this simple narrative to match their agendas.