"Early critics pointed to the state’s lack of preparation, built around its energy-only markets, with a majority of the state having no interconnections to neighboring grids. The crisis – considered the worst since the Northeast Power Outage of 2003 – was compounded by failure to weatherize power plant infrastructure, in particular natural gas, which represents almost 50 percent of installed capacity in Texas."
Everywhere that intermittent sources of energy become large, costs rise & reliability declines. True in the UK, Germany, California, and now Texas. Also bad for the environment, as solar or wind turbines take hundreds of times more land for the same energy as a nuclear or fossil fuel plant. In California, this has led to wildfires since land near cities is expensive, so renewables must be located far away & the lines go through forests.
I strongly suspect part of the reason why the Texas grid wasn't weatherized properly against the Big Chill was that the climate experts told ERCOT that anthropogenic global warming meant milder winter temps. Why waste money preparing for something that won't ever happen?
That's it for me on the subject. Can we get back to ponds now? I'm really excited that my CNBG survived even in the forage pond!
