…by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor
“Beware the snake oil peddlers”
[ Editor’s Note: The Republicans need to clean house and get some new blood in, but that would require a political bloodletting they seem hesitant to engage in. In this case, they were trying to hinder Biden’s favorable ratings, thinking they could jump on the Texas energy problem and would have an easy shot on undermining climate change defense planning and prevention.
Fox News was quickly out of the gate with its focus on the ‘failure’ of alternative energy sources (ie. frozen wind turbines), and the ‘disaster’ it had caused. But Fox did not bother to even check in with the Texas state energy people first.
If it had it would have learned that ‘alternative energy source shutdowns’ was not the major cause of the millions of homes without power. There was a simple answer. The controlling equipment for the traditional energy sources froze up and shut the power off. That was it.
The biggest failure was with the gas line pumping facilities, as they all went down. But such news is not ‘sexy’ enough for the likes of Fox News, so it just pumped out its usual garbage, which now has blown up in their faces.
The video covers quite succinctly how the public does not want to foot the bill to protect against a once in 40 year weather event. And if a ‘solution’ is found where the cost is passed on to the taxpayers, even it they have demanded ‘the fix’, then they vote the politicians out of office.
We have seen this love affair the Trump Republicans have with the biggest lie, where even if the lie does not work, you just float another lie, and keep doing it until you hit a nerve with the mentally challenged Trumptards… Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … February 17, 2021
Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power-generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm.
An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, was offline. Nearly double that, 30 gigawatts, had been lost from thermal sources, which includes gas, coal and nuclear energy.
“Texas is a gas state,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. While Webber said all of Texas’ energy sources share blame for the power crisis, the natural gas industry is most notably producing significantly less power than normal.
“Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now,” Webber said. Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, echoed that sentiment Tuesday.
“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” he said during a Tuesday call with reporters.
You can read the full ABC article here:
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Such harsh weather is a real test for Americans. In our country, half of Russia faces such frosts every winter. But the energy structure of Russia is adapted to such cold weather. I want to wish American citizens to survive this cataclysm and to take care of their families, to help each other.
It is quite profound , that while millions have no power, heat or water,…NASA is landing a rover on Mars, and Ted Cruz is landing in Cancun.
The entire landscape is littered with oil derricks, and fracking juice all over it. Billions in government contracts and banks built of glass dominating the skylines of every city in Texas,.
It is the face of arrogance greed and deception and false fierce independence with egg yolk running all down over it.
It’s the face of Mammon.
GOP are Fake Christians.
They worship/serve Mammon.
Job 1 is calling ’em out.
Just so everyone is aware, with the weather prediction of sub freezing temps being at least 48 hours out front, any maintenance mechanic would have easily predicted everything from the outages to the freezing pipes. The massive funds we spend on disaster preparedness is apparently all for naught, if people were not advised ahead of time to use the main valve for the water supply. For this to happen to the degree it has in state that boasts NASA and military bases galore, a heads up from the weather center,..is just plain old ineptitude and callous disregard, as well as a peculiar display of timidity by people supposed to be in charge. Or, something much more insidious.
Well, Texas? What are you waiting for? Wouldn’t this be the time for a mob of citizens to descend on the State House in Austin much like the Trump supporters did at the Capitol on 1/6? Oh, that’s right, it’s only the ReTrumplicans who are crazy enough to do that. Their religious end-times nihilism is not into actually making government work, just in bringing everything down in preparation for the upcoming Apocalypse.
Texas was a BLUE state until Karl effing Rove and his famed claim of his office being bugged by the DNC in early 80’s. Just left after 25 Years and won’t be going back. Gordon was correct when he called Texas a backwards hellhole.
Yep. The other half came from there and has always said that it’s great place…to be from. Her sister still lives there (Reno/Houston) and is a ‘real Texan’…meaning she’s a repug. They are not dealing with the disaster very well. My 2 brothers lived there and are glad to be gone, the luster of snow-birding worn away by corruption and property taxes. Had to laugh, SiL said it was those damn wind turbines, while her husband in the background was saying no, it was the gas system. She never mentioned that though. Funny how they have a good time visiting my backward state and talk about moving here…from paradise. We were power-less in ’09 for 15 days, sub-zero temps and 1 1/2 inches of ice. We survived with our ‘antiquated’ wood heat. Her remark? I’d never live in a place where service is so bad. I wanted to ask how her foot tastes, but wife said NO.
>>>Texas was a BLUE state<<<
Don't worry. Texas will be a Blue state again. With a 'path to citizenship, the Dem's will turn it blue.
(3rd verse of Yellow rose of Texas)
'Texas was a Red State, but now it's turning Blue,
Sometimes Republicans won elections .. but that's no longer truuuue'
No bailouts. Absolutely no disaster relief or federal relief funds should go to Texas. States should pay for their mismanagement. Isn’t that what the Ingraham’s tell us about Covid relief packages? Except Coronavirus was a global even the fed did not control properly while the failure of the Texas grid is actually a failure of state and local govt.
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