The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 20, 2024“The Kiesling/Giberson (et al.) narrative is a call for more government. MORE wind. MORE solar. MORE Batteries. MORE central planning to correct prior. And rationing from ‘smart meters’ to forgive all that came before. Think Big Brother, the Electricity Road to Serfdom.”
Three years ago this month, a prolonged, extensive cold snap did the unthinkable to Texas’s huge electricity grid. The shared narrative from proponents/apologists of forced energy transformation (‘Energy Transition’, ‘Decarbonization’, ‘Net Zero’, ‘Green New Deal’, ‘Virtual Power Plant’) focused on the failure of natural gas infrastructure as the cause of the debacle, a sort of “market failure” from “an Act of God.” The cancer in the system, intermittent wind and solar ($66 billion worth), was forgiven, and central planning of the state’s grid by Austin politicians, regulators, and administrators was treated as a neutrality.…
Continue ReadingEnergy & Environmental Review: February 19, 2024
By John Droz, Jr. -- February 19, 2024Ed. Note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.
Greed Energy Economics:
*** Dispelling the Cult Claim—”Wind and Solar are Lower Cost Generation than Natural Gas”
Two wind facilities share $100± million to turn off
Unreliables (General):
*** Time to retire the term ‘renewable energy’ from serious discussion and energy policy directives
*** The State of Reliability in PJM and Nine Slides from My Testimony in Ohio Explaining Why Costs are Rising and Reliability is Faltering
Wind Energy — Offshore:
Danish Clean Energy Giant Sucking Wind
Study Provides Guidance on Detecting North Atlantic Right Whales in Wind Energy Areas
Wind Energy — Other:
*** Taking the Wind Out of Climate Change (referencing 60± studies)
Industrial Wind Turbines demonstrate their Unreliable and Intermittent Nature Generating 1.8% of their Capacity than jumping to 80.4% only a few days later
Solar Energy:
*** Stealing with Solar: The Great Net-Metering Heist
*** Steal from the Poor, Give to the Rich
Nuclear Energy:
*** After scrapping nuclear reactors, Germany to spend billions on new gas power plants
Fossil Fuel Energy:
*** Coal’s Life-Saving Role Ignored by Climate-Obsessed Media
House delivers blow to Biden’s climate agenda, votes against natural gas moratorium
Biden to Export Ideology Instead of Natural Gas
Climate Cultists at The Guardian: This Time, It’s Evil Propane
Electric Vehicles (EVs):
*** Ford Lost $4.7B On EVs Last Year, Or About $64,731 For Every EV It Sold
Car Dealers Slash Prices Of EVs As Demand Craters
Experts warn electric vehicle weight threatens road safety and infrastructure
Heavier EV’s tearing up the roadways but paying nothing for road maintenance
Miscellaneous Energy News:
*** A landmark Energy Freedom Resolution from the RNC
*** Introducing: AlexAI (energy questions answered by Alex Epstein’s AI)
*** The Deindustrialization of Europe in Five Charts
Congress and courts enable energy and climate fantasy and tyranny
Energy regulator’s exit may flummox Biden’s green plans
Can the government create a green hydrogen fuel industry?…
Wind power output in Texas is trending down even as wind generation capacity increases
By Ed Ireland -- February 16, 2024The inherent unreliability of wind power is highlighted by the recent experience in Texas.
I have written extensively about the intermittent nature of wind power (here, here, and here), highlighting that the only way wind power has survived and continues to increase is through federal tax subsidies. Wind proponents have long argued that the intermittent nature of wind is offset by over-building wind generation, based on the theory that the wind is always blowing somewhere.
The reality that the wind is not always blowing where it is needed, even over very large areas, is highlighted by the fact that wind power in Texas has been declining.
Total wind power generation in January 2024 was less than in January 2023. According to Reuters in an article published on February 16, 2024:
… Continue ReadingCumulative wind power output in 2023 was 4,500,000 MWh, compared to 4,400,000 MWh in 2022, LSEG data shows.