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Texas power prices soared 20,000% Wednesday evening amid another brutal heat wave.
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Spot electricity prices topped $5,000 per megawatt-hour, up more than 200 times from Wednesday morning.
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The state’s grid operator issued its second-highest energy emergency, then later said conditions returned to normal.
Hey little buddy, how’s the independent grid working out for you?
Jesus Christ.
I want a book that’s just passive aggressive notes signed by Jesus
"Bet it all on the Steelers huh? Bet your wife is going to be real happy about that.
-Jesus Christ"
"Oh you sure showed that group of children who’s boss yes sir.
-Jesus Christ"
Pray for Elon to help the poor
Texas: Big government is evil!
Also Texas: Big government, the climate change weve been denying is boiling us please save our freedom grid
My Texan ass was confused because the last week has been the most pleasant weather we’ve had in months. The I looked at the article and saw it’s from 2017. Don’t get me wrong our state is fucking dumb all of the time, but I assure you we are not experiencing a heat wave. It’s been unseasonably cool.
The article was from September 8th. The wind turbine image is from 2017.
I stand corrected. But it’s not so hot now. Also it wasn’t a heat wave, it’s just Texas summer. Which is why there’s no excuse for ercot to be so fucking unprepared.
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Meanwhile in reality:
Texas is 1st in the nation in renewables (thanks Obama).
3000Mw battery storage averted this emergency, and there’s a ton more of that on the way (thanks Biden).
Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma have the best onshore wind power potential. Pretty good solar too. And they’re tapping in to it.
Look, this is super misleading information and I keep seeing it repeated. They’re first in the nation in total electricity generation from renewable sources, but that’s mainly because of how big they are. If you look at what percentage of their consumption is from renewable sources, they’re not even in the top ten.
The reason Texas is #1 in renewables is actually Rick Perry, bless his heart. He pushed for a massive expansion of wind generation capacity back in the early 00s and was instrumental in building high voltage transmission lines between west Texas wind and the more eastern population centers. He would be drummed out of today’s Republican party
When wanting to eliminate the Dept of Education is too woke…
Oh he didn’t mean that, he just wanted to be president and thought that’s how he’d get there. He wasn’t the brightest bulb
Which is why he became Secretary of Energy under Trump. Also I think he was kicked off Dancing with the Stars in one of the early rounds. Certainly makes him qualified to occupy the same chair as Steven Chu.
Good thing they got rid of all those pesky regulations or the poors would be using the power.
Always Mess With Texas!
Wasn’t the whole point in investing in oil in Texas to keep the energy prices low?
How is that working out for em?
Actually, pretty well 99.9% of the time. And if a few people die here or there in a freeze or heatwave, well they shoulda use some of those electricity savings on a generator or something.
^ How the conservatives in Texas feel about the situation
Some of you may die…
…but that’s a price I’m willing to pay?
Texas power prices soared 20,000% Wednesday evening amid another brutal heat wave.
Makes sense. I’m told everything’s bigger in Texas.
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In first world states these kinds of price spikes and lengthy outages due to temperatures don’t happen instead of happening every 6 months.
Sure, hurricanes and other natural disasters, but not simple temperature changes.
This wasn’t a “simple temperature change,” this was a record-breaking heatwave. It hit 108° in Austin that day, which was one of the hottest highs of the entire summer. Ultimately this article is bullshit though, because the “emergency” consisted of ERCOT asking for voluntary energy conservation for one evening and then everything returning to normal.
When every temperature seems to be record-breaking, sure seems like a simple temperature change to me.
This is why poorer people bear the brunt of climate change danger. Maybe the only thing absurd about Tank Girl were the talking kangaroos.
With the way this world is going even the talking kangaroos aren’t that absurd.
Are you idiots Great Again yet?
hey the rest of the american grids are fine. Texas didn’t want to follow certain governemnt regulation so they made their own grid.
I was talking directly to the women hating, book banning, brown people fearing , maga-loving, selfish ignorant racists that vote in Texas.
Love it.
With blackouts. And hookers.
With blackouts. And lobbysts.
C/unexpectedfuturama
c/CommunitiesAsHashtags
This has been going on for years now. I feel bad for those that suffer there because of this, but if you choose to willingly live there when you have the means to leave, I don’t feel sorry for you anymore. It’s the ones unable to leave that I truly feel bad for, those that don’t have any other choice.
Texas is trying to attract crypto miners, I hear.
…
giggle
Crypto miners say “ok you need power so we will stop our servers” and Texas gov gives them millions of $ to thank them.
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Turd Cruds spends most of his time in DC eating fancy $300 per person lunches.
How many persons do you reckon he eats in one sitting?
No fewer than 2. But where else is he going to get human DNA?
They have an excess of energy (too much sun) but the grid is close to collapsing (too much cooling). Maybe install more solar power?
Many Texas leaders (and other Taxans) see any energy source that’s not oil and gas based as “part of the radical liberal agenda.”
Pay 1000$ electrical bill to own the libs!
Many Texas leaders (and other Taxans) see any energy source that’s not oil and gas based as “part of the radical liberal agenda.”
Solar energy is also decentralized, so people/villages can have their own source of energy and the profits won’t go to one monopoly and that can’t happen, because free market - yes - but not actual free like this.
Well yeah, being a manly man means being inconsiderate and destructive to the environment.
Oh, you care about nature? You want to be a steward of the Earth? Sounds gay. And gay men get beat to death and sent to hell.
They do, but capitalism is gonna win this one. Solar is cheap and sunshine is plentiful so it is still getting built. ERCOT is a disaster, most of it on purpose but the legislation that set it up.
Would probably be a good idea to hook up to the neighboring power grids too for emergencies… like every day in the summer is turning in to.Sure they do, then they get run the fuck over by the big money Capitalists who are building it anyway. Texas is #1 in renewable energy production for a reason.
The problem is ideology. The Texas power grid is the end state of neo-liberalism taken to the extreme.
The belief that natural monopolies should be privately controlled with minimum regulations has lead to this. A power grid run for maximum short term profit with minimum investment. The grids poorly maintained, because that doesn’t make money. The grid is unfit, because implementing designs that cover the extremes is expensive. The price is excessive because the state is ideologically unwilling to intervene.
I work in Solar Construction and Texas is our fastest growing market right now.
Quick question, how do I get solar installed (in Texas) without getting scammed. Every company I have talked too has felt like dealing with the slimmest used car salesman.
I think you run into this problem anywhere in the country. We were recommended our solar company by our neighbor, who had a good experience. They finally finished our job, and mechanically, they did a fine job. But their interpersonal interactions were mostly bad, and my wife would vehemently not recommend them to anyone else. Seems like it’s going to be a crapshoot. Good luck
If only there was some kind of energy source that worked best during intense sunlight.
Solar is only half the battle though. There can often be a severe electricity shortage in the evening when solar power shuts off but temperates are still high. This issue is greatest in the late summer and fall because it’s still very hot but the sun sets earlier.
There are solutions to this issue but they are fairly early in development and sometimes expensive. California is struggling with this issue currently. We’ve installed a huge amount of battery power over the last few years which has prevented several catastrophes so far but heat continues to get more severe, increasing energy needs as we are trying to shut down the state’s remaining gas peaker plants.
recently learned that if we went with nuclear decades ago this whole problem wouldn’t even exist. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/nuclear-power-isnt-perfect-is-it-good-enough/
Not to mention Diablo Canyon. Last I heard, we were working on an expansion at Long Valley Geothermal station, but it won’t be ready before DCNR goes offline.
I think they’re going to postpone its closure which will be controversial but necessary to avoid burning more natural gas.
It’s 2018 and California has postponed the closure of DCNR. It’s 2020 and California has postponed the closure of DCNR. It’s 2023 and California has postponed the closure of DCNR. In the time we’ve been kicking the can down the road, we could have built a newer, better, safer nuclear power plant to replace DCNR. Instead, we keep pushing DCNR way past its intended service life, and we’re going to be shocked, shocked I tell you, when something finally cocks up.
This is solar’s half of the battle, high energy demand during bright sunlight.
The Texas grid issues have been right after solar drops off (evening, not day) because Texas does rely on solar for a small, but necessary, part of it energy. The second half is energy storage, and Texas lacks that which is why its been having many close calls this summer and has resorted to paying cryptominers to not mine to narrowly scrape by after solar power drops off.
Texas has 3000Mw of battery storage with 10000Mw on the way.
Texas can use up to 100GW of power and was basically always over 60GW during that time of day this summer. The 3GW was used on a few days to bridge the gap, but wasn’t quite enough on its own on other days. 10GW more would have covered this summer though. Hopefully next summer isn’t worse though (seems like expectations is next year is supposed to be hotter). Population also continues to grow and electrification continues. And NG makes up the bulk of the power still. Hopefully wind and solar installations grow significantly in the next year as well.
I fail to see the problem. You cool your house down while the sun is up and even if it is still hot outside, then your house gets a bit warmer, so what? Still it is comfy inside and in the night you can open everything up to get some fresh wind in.
This is what I do, but there are still problems. Some people are at work and don’t have programmable thermostats. If you have a poorly insulated house, even if you do pre-cool in the middle of the day, by the time late evening rolls around, it can be getting quite hot again. And during extreme heat waves, the overnight temperature can remain very high. Last night I went to open my windows around 10 PM but it was still hotter outside than in my house. And yesterday wasn’t even particularly hot where I live, the high was only in the low 90’s.
okay, i didnt think it this bad. i thought it should cool down quite quickly at night because half of the state is a dessert, but i now realize most of the people life in the subtropical part.
Even in the desert it can be an issue. Phoenix had an overnight low of 97 this summer. Soon that may be commonplace.
Part of the problem is poor planning by utilities but our systems are also being tested by weather that is truly unprecedented in human history. Our grid, and our strategies for keeping cool were developed in a different climate than the one we now inhabit.
Solar is only half the battle though. There can often be a severe electricity shortage in the evening when solar power shuts off but temperates are still high
That’s true of household panels (which are great for offsetting your daytime usage, which is usually your highest usage), but that is generally not true of large solar installations that heat up a huge mass of salt until it’s molten and then produce power from that source 24/7. Example: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated-solar-molten-salt-storage-24-hour-renewable-energy-crescent-dunes-nevada/
TL/DR: large solar installations produce power 24/7 (yes, even when it’s dark)
I saw something recently which is the same principle as molten salt, except the medium never melts, is stable, and… iirc is pretty much just carbon. I was trying to look for a source and all I could find was the equally-encouraging news that the humble red brick has now been turned into a capacitor (with a wall of bricks being able to perform as a supercapacitor)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120154.htm
Solar thermal isn’t really what we mean when we say solar power. The vast majority, even at utility scale, is PV panels just like the ones on your roof. Historically, solar thermal was too expensive and PV panels are still far cheaper.
That said, for areas like CA that may soon approach maximum solar penetration it may deserve a second look because of its more consistent energy output. It will mainly be competing with batteries, pumped hydro, and new generations of geothermal technology. All of these are new and fairly unproven at scale so we’ll have to learn as we go which is the best option for the later stages of decarbonizing the electrical grid.
Geothermals been proven since the 60s. It’s a sealed system, there’s no pollution (even if the pipe popped, it’s just water), stations can be planted next to preschools and daycares and no one would be the wiser.
If your state has mountains, geothermals prob the answer. If your state doesn’t have mountains (Kansas, Florida, Delaware), being from Washington, I don’t know how you guys can live there. Not being able to orientate by the horizon fucking weirds me out. Especially in fucking Florida. I was driving thru the Ocala “forest” and it’s all Spanish moss and saw palmettos everywhere. You can’t see more than 10ft into the forest, and that’s when I noticed you can’t see the sky thru it either. It’s just barely slivers of rays making it to the floor. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life. *shudder fuck florida
I didn’t mean geothermal was entirely new but traditionally it has been limited to very specific geologic conditions which have largely already been developed. Newer technology (ironically pioneered by oil and gas drilling) has recently made many more sites possibly economical. But as with the other things I listed, these new types of geothermal plants are still somewhat unproven and expensive. I know they’re being investigated but so far very few have been built.
I wonder if they could drill down and capture the heat from the hotspot under Missouri.
Alaska, The Rockies, Yellowstone, the Sierras and the Cascades are all no brainers.
And Hawai’i for obvious reasons.
I’m not familiar with the geology of Missouri but it mostly depends on how deep you need to go. The deeper the more expensive it will be to build.
Yellowstone
No. We’re absolutely NOT poking a hole into the world ending super caldera.
