Some thoughts from a survivor of the Texas winter storm crisis
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Karen TownsendPosted at 2:31 pm on February 20, 2021
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The temperatures in Texas are on the rise and that’s an excellent thing. It’s been a very tough week in the Lone Star State, harrowing, really, and the fall-out from the winter storm isn’t over. It’s really only just beginning.
There is plenty of blame to go around and lots of finger-pointing, as always happens in a crisis situation. Was the power outage caused by the state’s renewable energy sources? The traditional energy sources of natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy? It’s all of those sources. Everything failed at the same time. The very rare extreme winter storm caught Texas unable to keep up with energy demands. Factors of the mass failure include frozen wind turbines, limited gas supplies, low gas pressure, and frozen instrumentation. 185 generating units have tripped offline. 46,000 megawatts of potential power can’t be generated right now, according to the latest reports this morning as I write this. Here’s a breakdown of that power – 61% of thermal forces (natural gas, coal, nuclear) and 39% of renewable energy (solar and wind).