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 megawa
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Texas Launches Probe of Power Companies After Blackouts
The fallout from the severe weather that crippled the power grid in Texas and other states over the past week continues, as officials grapple with what went wrong and who should be held accountable for an energy emergency that left millions without electricity.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Feb. 19 said his office would investigate the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s power grid operator, and issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to ERCOT and other power companies as part of that investigation. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also said ERCOT’s actions would be investigated, and said the state Senate would begin a probe into the system operator in the next week.
FORT WORTH, Texas A frigid record low hit North Texas Monday morning and ERCOT, the electric utility, began rotating outages to reduce the state's demand on energy as Texans tried to keep warm. On Sunday, the entire state of Texas was under a winter warning advisory. And weather forecasters say it may not get above freezing until Friday. At 7 a.m., the temperature was 6 degrees at the .
FORT WORTH, Texas A frigid record low hit North Texas Monday morning and ERCOT, the electric utility, began rotating outages to reduce the state's demand on energy as Texans tried to keep warm. On Sunday, the entire state of Texas was under a winter warning advisory. And weather forecasters say it may not get above freezing until Friday. Early Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of .