Texas doesn't ordinarily have to deal with these temperatures, so the total/excess capacity was not enough. Gas production and wind production that could have been "winterized" to be reliable at ultra low temps weren't, because those temps were not seen as likely. Maybe the overall capacity is too low, from not keeping up with the growth in demand.

It's probably a lot more complicated than I'm making it but nobody saw this coming. I'll bet that many people here that have been affected by this haven't worn a winter coat this year, until a few days ago. I've lived in this part of the country for 40 years and never seen anything remotely like this.

I got a reply in a different thread (mistake?)

Thanks beep

Although that appears to be a very small part of the lacking power

An idea of the records being set:

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/weather/2021/02/15/a-full-list-of-all-the-record-cold-texas-temperatures

Power, back 3:30 yesterday. Still on this morning. Hopefully crisis over in Texoma, soon to be over in the rest of Texas.

Thanks. Looks like we've beat global warming!

It is tough to get specific information on why these other energy sources are down. As Jolly Amaranto sez ...finger pointun time.

Point the finger at Canada, for sending this crap weather this far south.

Where I am, they haven't seen temperatures this low in my entire lifetime, and then some. And I'm not a youngster...

Everyone always say the Canadians are friendly. The send stupid cold weather down here in February and it is warmer in Canada than Oklahoma or Texas in winter now. Yet next August they are going to horde all the cool air and not share any of it. Dang Canadians!

We should have built the border wall up north, to keep the cold air out.

It is a long and sordid tale of how Texas got in this position but it all goes back to Jeff Skilling, ENRON, George W. Bush, Rick Perry, Phil Graham, etc and the deregulation of Texas Electrical Utilities.

Perhaps some of you Californians recall your experience with Enron back in the early 2000's...

This article more or less hits the high points:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/ercot-texas-electric-grid-failure/

Actually Austin owns 16% of STP.

Extreme weather events such as this are absolutely the result of climate change/disruption. I didn’t think that anyone would be stupid enough to pull the old, “end of global warming” jokes out when people are suffering and dying in Texas but here you are. The “frozen wind turbines” story is a BS line being fed to conspiracy people by the usual BS sources.

On a positive note, all the people who moved to Texas from CA. are feeling right at home w the power outages.

As of last night, 17,000 MW of wind and solar generation capacity was still off-line. If it wasn’t related to the cold temperatures and snow, why was it off-line?

Despite how cold it’s been, our record low here is from 1899. So I guess cow farts?

All my kin down there have plenty of firewood and generators. Would take them a while to get through the meat in their freezer, and their chickens are fine. I think the lights came back on at the in laws' place yesterday. My parents had their lights out longer from a windstorm last month.

Lighten up Francis.

So you are insisting that wind turbine don't freeze up? ...That's just all conspiracy theory?

Oye. Step away from the Flavor-Aid.

Airfoils have a long history of being defeated by ice. Wind turbines are no exception.

its almost like when you optimize your utilities towards a profit motive, they become unreliable when its unprofitable to supply power.

huh, wonder if there is a late 1800/early 1900s solution to the this problem. maybe we should try that. oh the rest of the country does that? and they dont have rolling blackouts and people dying when it goes below 30 degrees? huh. crazy.

this is how i enjoyed weekend at about -6 last weekend:

https://j.gifs.com/r8vqYp.gif

Ice racing or time trialing is about the most fun you can have w your snow pants on. Texas is experiencing temperatures that would be a warm winter day in MN. but w no heat, it’s catastrophic. :(

And one of our state's elected leaders apparently decided that the thing to do, while scores of his constituents are suffering, is to fly he and his family to Cancun - unreal douchebaggery from Ted Cruz, if true.

Other than bad optics to the liberals and other clueless types, how did this impact the problem in Texas?

Where's Joe? Kamala?

This looks like Joe's Katrina, right?

BTW, this was ZARF central starting last page.