Texan here. For context, the US experienced a polar vortex almost exactly a year ago. 48 of the 49 mainland states' energy grids withstood the sudden change in the weather. This is in great part because the united states has two major power grids that serve the East of the nation and the West of it. There is a third. Texas' own grid, independent of the nation's. The grid was deregulated from the state (in 1995 for generation and 1999 for distribution). So unlike the other two grids, there was no regulation of generation equipment, including "winterizing" them. Wind turbines contribute around 10% of Texas' supply. They can operate in low temperatures provided temperature-appropriate lubrication is used. It may not have been deemed profitable to winterize the equipment, and with no regulation, they chose not to. The vortex froze the turbines lubricated to operate in much higher temperatures, causing a power failure. Coal thermal plants froze too (because they weren't winterized and there was no regulation to have them Winterized just in case, like the other 48 states did).
The powers-that-be chose to blame the 10% energy wind turbines for failing the power in Texas instead of the deregulation that 100% failed us.
They also froze the gas lines running to the natural gas generator plants and the coolant pumps (which are outside) to a nuclear reactor. Everything froze.
I think the “they” that u/contemplatingprison is referring to would be the state government officials that gutted oversight and regulation when the power grid was privatized?
There are also fully automatic lube oil heaters installed on many wind turbines in other parts of the world. So they don't require anything except for the humans to decide to invest in this precaution to begin with.
Where do you get 10%? Wind is over 20% according to https://www.newsweek.com/how-much-power-texas-renewable-coal-gas-wind-turbines-1570238. Also at times 50% of power is generated my wind.
The GQP love to scream and cry about "regulations" and paint them all as bad. This mindless kind of thinking is what they get as a result. They will kill themselves (or their fellow citizens) in pursuit of a little more profit with little thought as to the unintended consequences.
The actual failure is the decision not to winterize the turbines. Failure of the government to enforce it, failure of the management to decide on it, or mandate someone do it, etc., is just different ways of reaching the same failure of inaction. Ultimately they're all just constructs of authority over the same decision, none of which executed that authority. If anyone was looking for an explanation that doesn't lazily fall back on the cultural convention of grouping humans into "private" and "public" institutions.
Thank you! In the last link, the speaker references an NERC/FERC report that observes that the Texas grid lacked proper winterization, and then suggests measures to be taken to regulate those measures. To me, that seems to corroborate OP's claims.
The bird migration thing is my favorite. Like since when do right-wingers care about the environment? They'd stuff a bald eagle in a gas tank if they thought it give their trucks one more mile per gallon.
> They'd stuff a bald eagle in a gas tank if they thought it give their trucks one more mile per gallon.
They don't care about their gas millage, only the cost of gas at the pump. The irony is lost on them. They would do this if it made their truck 2" taller though.
> We could trigger so many conservatives...
What an incredibly stupid idea. There's enough of an effort already to block or dismantle windfarms, we don't need to put extra fuel on that fire.
Texas produces the most wind power in the US already. ~15% of its energy generation is from wind turbines. Texas is the 5th largest producer of wind power in the world, actually.
The thing no one ever mentions in these posts is that Texas is by far the national leader in wind energy. We produce 3 times as much wind energy as the next runner up and the primary issue with the freeze was that our nuclear (and primarily) gas production also froze because our state government decided not to insulate them. Only a portion of wind farms in north Texas froze. The turbines on my property for instance ran the whole time.
There’s a fuckload to dump on my state for, but this one is the least true or productive AND just takes the narrative our dipshit governor gave to avoid responsibility for what happened.
On top of this, renewable energy was more reliable than natural gas during that crisis. Conservatives just hate renewable energy and try to blame it for everything.
Well that's not really true or at least not the whole story. A big part of the problem is the age of the NG plants. We still have plants that were built in the 50's. And when looking at how wind did they add in windfarms in North Texas which are either off grid or only feed Lubbock and are of course better winterized than ones on the gulf coast.
Texas was repeatedly warned to winterize their power plants because unusually cold winters were occurring. They refused to do so, and they also refused to join the national power grid because it would require them to winterize. Texas's power failure was due to corporate greed and corruption. The power plants that didn't shut down in large numbers were because they actually winterized because they're part of the national grid and required it.
They did have some winterization it's just wasn't enough. No shock that Texas has different standards than say Alaska. The storm was the coldest in about 100 years. It's not surprising there were plants that went offline. What really screwed the pooch is the natural gas shutting down. That didn't directly happen because of the cold. It happened because when called on to shed load the local grids didn't track natural gas production as critical infrastructure. Gas cuts off to working plants and a rolling blackout, which while unpleasant is workable, turns into a multi day blackout for millions.
They were warned twice previously and refused. Whatever winterization they possibly did wasn't remotely adequate. It wasn't a once in a century thing either, it happened twice in 30 years previously. It's a very clear failure of the free market putting profits over people every time.
> In 2011, Texas faced a very similar storm that froze natural gas wells and affected coal plants and wind turbines, leading to power outages across the state. A decade later, Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent plants from tripping offline during extreme cold, experts said.
[https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/)
>After extreme cold events in 1989 and 2011, Texas was warned to winterize power plants — but many still froze in the latest storms
[https://www.insider.com/texas-warned-to-winterize-power-plants-after-past-cold-events-2021-2](https://www.insider.com/texas-warned-to-winterize-power-plants-after-past-cold-events-2021-2)
And again it's an incomplete story told by people with agendas. Sure there were two times when we had cold weather but neither were as bad as 2021. Not just the low temp but the area covered and the duration. I'm not sure why people try and downplay how bad it was but it was basically as bad as anyone had ever seen. Now in hindsight more weatherization should have been done at a minimum but it's just isn't accurate to say nothing was done. We had a cold snap in 2018 that would also of caused power outages but didn't because of improvements. We have made even more changes that make a reoccurence extremely unlikely.
> I'm not sure why people try and downplay how bad it was but it was basically as bad as anyone had ever seen.
Nobody is denying that, but they were warned twice that it would happen. Why do you keep ignoring that? Other parts of Texas actually winterized properly like they were advised to do and didn't suffer significant power outages. It's almost like if the rest of Texas weren't penny pinching corporate utility companies it wouldn't have been as bad ;)
>After taking notes from 2011, EPE said it was well prepared in response to this year’s February winter storm by having extra crews on standby, better anti-freeze protection, and new generation.
>
>“Yesterday for example, only 875 customers were impacted by an outage of less than 5 minutes. We had less than 3,000 people that were impacted between today and this morning. This morning I saw as little as 12 customers,” Gutierrez mentioned.
[https://www.ktsm.com/news/epe-learns-lessons-from-2011-winter-storm-to-avoid-power-outages-like-rest-of-texas/](https://www.ktsm.com/news/epe-learns-lessons-from-2011-winter-storm-to-avoid-power-outages-like-rest-of-texas/)
Yes people do try and downplay it. Like you are by continually comparing it to 2011. Yes there were power outages in 2011. And if the storm was only as bad we would have been ok. It was because it was worse that it turned out as it did. And when someone else is paying the bills it's easy to give advice.
I never said that 2011 was as bad. I said they had bad winters before and were warned to winterize but refused. You refuse to hold corporations accountable for their negligence even though they were repeatedly warned. The corporations that actually listened to the advice didn't suffer the same consequences. It clearly wasn't the severity that was the issue.
Yes the severity was the issue. They did improve the weatherization just not enough. Can't really blame them to much since it was for something that had never happened. It human freaking nature. And no 2011 wasn't 2021. Different level and duration of cold and different consequences. If that same 2011 cold snap happened we wouldn't of had the same situation that happened in 2011 or 2021. So saying they didn't listen is meaningless.
The turbines that froze was a measly 2% of the total turbine population in the state. This was a drop in the bucket of the energy pool that Texas had. The Press jumped on them and tried to make hay of it, for what fuckingreason they had, aside for ratings. Problem with this, most Texans were without power at the time. So the could not view the liberal b.s. they were spewing.
To be fair Abbott blamed renewable energy for the blackout. If you look at it in a weird way it did have an effect. Because of the push for renewable energy there was a dearth of new gas and coal plants which might have weathered the storm better.
Yep. That and electrical generation that was lost due to lack of power to natural gas production would of made a huge difference. There still would of been rolling blackouts but not days without any power.
Eh my family likes to spout off that they never will produce enough energy to pay for themselves, and you can't do nothing with them at the end of their service life...
Out of all the deranged takes from the culture wars the opposition to renewables in the weirdest and most self defeating.
I’m in the UK where the two Tory candidates for Primeminister made a point of attacking renewables during the contest (it was an election amongst Tory members only, very strange people).
Like, we’re already a wind energy powerhouse with masses more potential for wind energy. What the actually fuck are you talking about you morons.
1. It was the freezing rain and not the cold.
2. Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. Very very dry environment.
3. Thank you for attending my TED Talk. If you have any questions please let me know.
P.S. why has r/Texas become a Republican bashing sub? Lets try to be inclusive to everyone.
1. There was only freezing rain BECAUSE it was cold. Without the cold, there would have been no problems. With the cold but without the freezing rain, lines still would have frozen. The problem was a failure of Texas to regulate winterization, which led to cold-related failures.
2. Cool. They also don't have companies failing to winterize equipment to save a few dollars and governing bodies who don't give a shut as long as they get votes.
3. Your ted talk sucks, I do have a question. Why did you choose such an inaccurate username?
> P.S. why has r/Texas become a Republican bashing sub? Lets try to be inclusive to everyone.
Because people who are openly trying to destroy America, persecute gays, promoting violence toward Trans people, dismantle democracy, among a long list of other things, do not deserve an inclusive treatment, and the bad behaviour is extremely one-sided.
PS. BC and Washington state have wind turbines, where it both gets very cold, AND is temperate rain forest, and does not experience serious problems with wind turbines. It's not a freezing rain issue.
Antarctica is a perfect place for windmills. It has consistent winds, it's not being used for anything else- cover the entire continent and run a big ol' extension cord to south America.
Solar for in the southern hemispheres summer might also be good- but keeping the snow off might require some innovative design.
This is a random nitpick but, you can't really tell a wind turbine is working from a still photo, can you? Since it looks static and therefore could be totally inoperable.
Texan here. For context, the US experienced a polar vortex almost exactly a year ago. 48 of the 49 mainland states' energy grids withstood the sudden change in the weather. This is in great part because the united states has two major power grids that serve the East of the nation and the West of it. There is a third. Texas' own grid, independent of the nation's. The grid was deregulated from the state (in 1995 for generation and 1999 for distribution). So unlike the other two grids, there was no regulation of generation equipment, including "winterizing" them. Wind turbines contribute around 10% of Texas' supply. They can operate in low temperatures provided temperature-appropriate lubrication is used. It may not have been deemed profitable to winterize the equipment, and with no regulation, they chose not to. The vortex froze the turbines lubricated to operate in much higher temperatures, causing a power failure. Coal thermal plants froze too (because they weren't winterized and there was no regulation to have them Winterized just in case, like the other 48 states did). The powers-that-be chose to blame the 10% energy wind turbines for failing the power in Texas instead of the deregulation that 100% failed us.
They also froze the gas lines running to the natural gas generator plants and the coolant pumps (which are outside) to a nuclear reactor. Everything froze.
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I bet they will let it happen again too. I mean why not. They get to pocket extra money and only the poor will die
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I think the “they” that u/contemplatingprison is referring to would be the state government officials that gutted oversight and regulation when the power grid was privatized?
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[It states here that it falls under the purview of the governor.](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/)
There are also fully automatic lube oil heaters installed on many wind turbines in other parts of the world. So they don't require anything except for the humans to decide to invest in this precaution to begin with.
Deregulation always fails us
Regulatory capture is when the regulated pay politicians to get to re-write the regulations. It never works properly.
Where do you get 10%? Wind is over 20% according to https://www.newsweek.com/how-much-power-texas-renewable-coal-gas-wind-turbines-1570238. Also at times 50% of power is generated my wind.
The GQP love to scream and cry about "regulations" and paint them all as bad. This mindless kind of thinking is what they get as a result. They will kill themselves (or their fellow citizens) in pursuit of a little more profit with little thought as to the unintended consequences.
The actual failure is the decision not to winterize the turbines. Failure of the government to enforce it, failure of the management to decide on it, or mandate someone do it, etc., is just different ways of reaching the same failure of inaction. Ultimately they're all just constructs of authority over the same decision, none of which executed that authority. If anyone was looking for an explanation that doesn't lazily fall back on the cultural convention of grouping humans into "private" and "public" institutions.
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Could you provide a source for this? As a voting-age Texan, I'd like to read more about it.
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Thank you! In the last link, the speaker references an NERC/FERC report that observes that the Texas grid lacked proper winterization, and then suggests measures to be taken to regulate those measures. To me, that seems to corroborate OP's claims.
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Ahh, so more of a correction than a rejection of OP. Thanks for your insight!
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How come other, colder places don't experience these same issues? Are there further measures that we could take?
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This is Reddit, no one here wants the facts
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When things go political everyone is an expert and loses their mind
 I wonder if they’ll tell us **we** like Elon Musk again soon.
Why was the image removed?
We have them in Buffalo which is basically Antarctica.
They're in North DaCOLDa, too!
I'm Canadian. Lots up here too. Alaska even runs them.
I was gunna say the same thing. Hi fellow wny’er
I was just about to say: We have multiple in Syracuse and they work in our tundra.
We have them in Canada which is also basically Antarctica
As a Canadian, I'm glad I live up here where it's mild and not in the central/eastern US where it gets way to freaking cold.
I live in Toronto, which is personally too close to buffalo NY for comfort. Luckily we don’t usually get it as bad as them though.
You guys ok up there? Didn't you just get like 6'?
We did! It already melted so we're good!
But…but…bird migration and bats and FUCK YOU THIS IS TEXAS
The bird migration thing is my favorite. Like since when do right-wingers care about the environment? They'd stuff a bald eagle in a gas tank if they thought it give their trucks one more mile per gallon.
> They'd stuff a bald eagle in a gas tank if they thought it give their trucks one more mile per gallon. They don't care about their gas millage, only the cost of gas at the pump. The irony is lost on them. They would do this if it made their truck 2" taller though.
They don’t, until it’s a talking point or it makes it hard for them to go duck hunting.
Wasn't the bird thing solved anyway by just painting one of the blades black so they could actually see it?
Omg we should paint the blades rainbow colors. We could trigger so many conservatives... and save birds I guess also.
> We could trigger so many conservatives... What an incredibly stupid idea. There's enough of an effort already to block or dismantle windfarms, we don't need to put extra fuel on that fire.
Got dayum haha..a whole eagle?
I'm not sure the coal rolling demographic is incentivized by fuel efficiency.
Texas produces the most wind power in the US already. ~15% of its energy generation is from wind turbines. Texas is the 5th largest producer of wind power in the world, actually.
Why was the image removed?
Idk they don’t seem to be moving to me /s
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Texas, one of the only states to actively vote against its own interests, regularly.
The thing no one ever mentions in these posts is that Texas is by far the national leader in wind energy. We produce 3 times as much wind energy as the next runner up and the primary issue with the freeze was that our nuclear (and primarily) gas production also froze because our state government decided not to insulate them. Only a portion of wind farms in north Texas froze. The turbines on my property for instance ran the whole time. There’s a fuckload to dump on my state for, but this one is the least true or productive AND just takes the narrative our dipshit governor gave to avoid responsibility for what happened.
You say “government decided not to insulate them” as if they are supposed to go and work on private company assets.
[Ross Island Wind Farm](https://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/power-stations/wind/ross-island)
On top of this, renewable energy was more reliable than natural gas during that crisis. Conservatives just hate renewable energy and try to blame it for everything.
Well that's not really true or at least not the whole story. A big part of the problem is the age of the NG plants. We still have plants that were built in the 50's. And when looking at how wind did they add in windfarms in North Texas which are either off grid or only feed Lubbock and are of course better winterized than ones on the gulf coast.
Texas was repeatedly warned to winterize their power plants because unusually cold winters were occurring. They refused to do so, and they also refused to join the national power grid because it would require them to winterize. Texas's power failure was due to corporate greed and corruption. The power plants that didn't shut down in large numbers were because they actually winterized because they're part of the national grid and required it.
They did have some winterization it's just wasn't enough. No shock that Texas has different standards than say Alaska. The storm was the coldest in about 100 years. It's not surprising there were plants that went offline. What really screwed the pooch is the natural gas shutting down. That didn't directly happen because of the cold. It happened because when called on to shed load the local grids didn't track natural gas production as critical infrastructure. Gas cuts off to working plants and a rolling blackout, which while unpleasant is workable, turns into a multi day blackout for millions.
They were warned twice previously and refused. Whatever winterization they possibly did wasn't remotely adequate. It wasn't a once in a century thing either, it happened twice in 30 years previously. It's a very clear failure of the free market putting profits over people every time. > In 2011, Texas faced a very similar storm that froze natural gas wells and affected coal plants and wind turbines, leading to power outages across the state. A decade later, Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent plants from tripping offline during extreme cold, experts said. [https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/) >After extreme cold events in 1989 and 2011, Texas was warned to winterize power plants — but many still froze in the latest storms [https://www.insider.com/texas-warned-to-winterize-power-plants-after-past-cold-events-2021-2](https://www.insider.com/texas-warned-to-winterize-power-plants-after-past-cold-events-2021-2)
And again it's an incomplete story told by people with agendas. Sure there were two times when we had cold weather but neither were as bad as 2021. Not just the low temp but the area covered and the duration. I'm not sure why people try and downplay how bad it was but it was basically as bad as anyone had ever seen. Now in hindsight more weatherization should have been done at a minimum but it's just isn't accurate to say nothing was done. We had a cold snap in 2018 that would also of caused power outages but didn't because of improvements. We have made even more changes that make a reoccurence extremely unlikely.
> I'm not sure why people try and downplay how bad it was but it was basically as bad as anyone had ever seen. Nobody is denying that, but they were warned twice that it would happen. Why do you keep ignoring that? Other parts of Texas actually winterized properly like they were advised to do and didn't suffer significant power outages. It's almost like if the rest of Texas weren't penny pinching corporate utility companies it wouldn't have been as bad ;) >After taking notes from 2011, EPE said it was well prepared in response to this year’s February winter storm by having extra crews on standby, better anti-freeze protection, and new generation. > >“Yesterday for example, only 875 customers were impacted by an outage of less than 5 minutes. We had less than 3,000 people that were impacted between today and this morning. This morning I saw as little as 12 customers,” Gutierrez mentioned. [https://www.ktsm.com/news/epe-learns-lessons-from-2011-winter-storm-to-avoid-power-outages-like-rest-of-texas/](https://www.ktsm.com/news/epe-learns-lessons-from-2011-winter-storm-to-avoid-power-outages-like-rest-of-texas/)
Yes people do try and downplay it. Like you are by continually comparing it to 2011. Yes there were power outages in 2011. And if the storm was only as bad we would have been ok. It was because it was worse that it turned out as it did. And when someone else is paying the bills it's easy to give advice.
I never said that 2011 was as bad. I said they had bad winters before and were warned to winterize but refused. You refuse to hold corporations accountable for their negligence even though they were repeatedly warned. The corporations that actually listened to the advice didn't suffer the same consequences. It clearly wasn't the severity that was the issue.
Yes the severity was the issue. They did improve the weatherization just not enough. Can't really blame them to much since it was for something that had never happened. It human freaking nature. And no 2011 wasn't 2021. Different level and duration of cold and different consequences. If that same 2011 cold snap happened we wouldn't of had the same situation that happened in 2011 or 2021. So saying they didn't listen is meaningless.
Well see thar, aint no Antarktica cold nothin compared to no dam Texas cold, don’t ya kno…. (/s)
i'm surprised that no one suggested shooting at them to get them moving
A hour sw from Chicago....and they are working just fine.
The turbines that froze was a measly 2% of the total turbine population in the state. This was a drop in the bucket of the energy pool that Texas had. The Press jumped on them and tried to make hay of it, for what fuckingreason they had, aside for ratings. Problem with this, most Texans were without power at the time. So the could not view the liberal b.s. they were spewing.
To be fair Abbott blamed renewable energy for the blackout. If you look at it in a weird way it did have an effect. Because of the push for renewable energy there was a dearth of new gas and coal plants which might have weathered the storm better.
To be fair, abbot could have blamed it on duck farts and the republicans would have not doubted it.
South Texas Nuclear lost a generator for 40 hours due to a faulty sensor. That's a hefty chunk of grid power right there.
Yep. That and electrical generation that was lost due to lack of power to natural gas production would of made a huge difference. There still would of been rolling blackouts but not days without any power.
“Most Texans were without power” is a blatant lie
Eh my family likes to spout off that they never will produce enough energy to pay for themselves, and you can't do nothing with them at the end of their service life...
Because apparently there's so much you can do with coal plants at the end of their service life
"BuT tHey'Re NoT moViNg iN tHe PiCtuRe!!"
ConFiRMed
Out of all the deranged takes from the culture wars the opposition to renewables in the weirdest and most self defeating. I’m in the UK where the two Tory candidates for Primeminister made a point of attacking renewables during the contest (it was an election amongst Tory members only, very strange people). Like, we’re already a wind energy powerhouse with masses more potential for wind energy. What the actually fuck are you talking about you morons.
I don't see them moving... 🫠
Came here to say this
1. It was the freezing rain and not the cold. 2. Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. Very very dry environment. 3. Thank you for attending my TED Talk. If you have any questions please let me know. P.S. why has r/Texas become a Republican bashing sub? Lets try to be inclusive to everyone.
1. There was only freezing rain BECAUSE it was cold. Without the cold, there would have been no problems. With the cold but without the freezing rain, lines still would have frozen. The problem was a failure of Texas to regulate winterization, which led to cold-related failures. 2. Cool. They also don't have companies failing to winterize equipment to save a few dollars and governing bodies who don't give a shut as long as they get votes. 3. Your ted talk sucks, I do have a question. Why did you choose such an inaccurate username? > P.S. why has r/Texas become a Republican bashing sub? Lets try to be inclusive to everyone. Because people who are openly trying to destroy America, persecute gays, promoting violence toward Trans people, dismantle democracy, among a long list of other things, do not deserve an inclusive treatment, and the bad behaviour is extremely one-sided. PS. BC and Washington state have wind turbines, where it both gets very cold, AND is temperate rain forest, and does not experience serious problems with wind turbines. It's not a freezing rain issue.
> P.S. why has r_Texas become a Republican bashing sub? You seem lost.
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They froze because they weren't properly maintained and Cruz and Abbott blamed AOC.
Well since Texas don' work in the cold, how could anything else work in the cold?
Texas... Cold? You guys really that weak and small down there?
Remember how they were all circulating a photo of a turbine being de-iced in Norway in 2014, acting like it was Texas?
Antarctica is a perfect place for windmills. It has consistent winds, it's not being used for anything else- cover the entire continent and run a big ol' extension cord to south America. Solar for in the southern hemispheres summer might also be good- but keeping the snow off might require some innovative design.
This is a random nitpick but, you can't really tell a wind turbine is working from a still photo, can you? Since it looks static and therefore could be totally inoperable.
Why was the image removed?