“In 2011, even though the market was caught by surprise by one of the hottest summers in Texas history, Texans did not experience any blackouts because of reliable generation. Today, however, the reckless rush toward renewables has changed the situation completely. ”
– Bill Peacock, Energy Alliance (below)
Bradley: How did the just-completed Texas legislative session deal with the February Blackout that caused so much damage to life and property?
Peacock: The session had two issues to address here. One was dealing with the aftermath costs; the other was reform to prevent it from happening again. The lawmakers did poorly with both.
Q: What did the Legislature do wrong in dealing with the aftermath?
… Continue ReadingA: The Legislature failed to appropriately address the massive financial costs of the blackout, most of which came from the Public Utility Commission of Texas’s (PUCT) panicked decision to raise electricity prices to $9,000 per MWh and leave them there for three days.
“Which source of mortality kills more or less birds is somewhat irrelevant…. the threat posed by wind turbines grows with each facility constructed in a high-risk area for birds.”
– Joel Merriman, American Bird Conservancy
The “avian mortality problem” has long been an issue for industrial wind turbines, as chronicled over the years at MasterResource. Even fossil fuel critics, such as Paul Gipe (and Christopher Flavin) in Wind Energy Comes of Age (1995), have lamented the by-products of industrial wind. And who can forget the characterization used by the Los Angeles head of the Sierra Club in a 1989 hearing? “Cuisinarts of the Air’.
The problem persists. At the anti-wind site, Stop These Things, one author wrote this week: “Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill Eagles – like the critically endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, but 60m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350Kph routinely smash them out of existence.”…
Continue ReadingThe Wood et al. op-ed/policy analysis is a whitewash of epic proportions. Maybe the Titanic did not sink, and renewables forcing was not the iceberg behind Texas’s failed electricity grid in February.
Why did natural gas underperform during the Texas power crisis? Why did Atlas Shrug? Incentives matter.
The RMS Titanic sank, and the Electric Reliability Commission of Texas (ERCOT) failed in an ocean of government intervention. But you would scarcely know the latter from the narrative offered by experts, regulators, planners, and heads at the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), the governing body behind ERCOT.
The narrative is predictable. Natural gas was the problem. Corrective regulation from the Texas Legislature and the PUCT is needed. ERCOT needs a promotion with more experts and planners. Fine tuning, not fundamental reform.…
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