Electric Buses grind to a halt

Originally posted by acorn ↑

OMG.

" Wind energy supplied Two thirds of Texas Power in 2020 "

Yeah, nah. Might want to fact check that one, old mate.

As to the wind turbines, over half of them were still operating. That's a fact. Texas wind turbines aren't designed for such cold weather operation.

Wind turbines operate in colder temperatures than Texas experienced so the issue isn't wind turbines . It's their winter prep that is the issue.

You seem to be omitting the 28000mw of fossil generation that failed. Why is that ?

" By Wednesday, 46,000 megawatts of power were offline statewide — 28,000 from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants and 18,000 from wind and solar, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid. "

" Most of Texas is very dependent on real-time production of gas. And the gas production infrastructure, as well as the electric power infrastructure, has been hobbled by freezing. Also, the state’s gas production requires electricity supplied by the state’s grid for its operations. So when you shut down the grid, you shut down gas production, and it becomes a house of cards. Heavy dependence on natural gas, along with the lack of natural gas storage, has really put the state in a difficult position here. "

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...xas-to-connect-with-the-nations-power-grids1/

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I use to live in the "South" in the USA I was surprised how cheap power per kilowatt hour was compared to NZ and NSW , at around 30% the price , the main reason was the large amount of cheap running cost coal fired power stations in the USA , down side was the pollution , windshield wipers would only last a season , metal clad roofing would rust out fast , so imagine it was not great for my family's lungs .
Everything comes with its positives and minuses .
Last time I looked natural gas prices were around US 3 cents per 1000 cubic feet in the USA (which is around the same as the MMbtu price ) probably be 3 times as much in Australia partly because of the stupid deals in making big discounted contract sales of LPG to China years ago , and not having a reserve for domestic consumption
As you mention the failure to winterize wind turbines and pipelines is more to do with gas companies and pipeline companies operating unregulated and just looking at bottom line not insuring customer service for uninterrupted service .