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+--- Thread: What's going on with the power failures in Texas? (/showthread.php?tid=252986)
Re: What's going on with the power failures in Texas? - NewtonMP2100 - 02-17-2021
.....the fault.......is in our stars.......
Re: What's going on with the power failures in Texas? - AllGold - 02-17-2021
So I saw another article that mentioned that the grid being independent allowed them to ignore federal regulations that require cold weather capabilities.
Re: What's going on with the power failures in Texas? - Sarcany - 02-17-2021
AllGold wrote:
So I saw another article that mentioned that the grid being independent allowed them to ignore federal regulations that require cold weather capabilities.
Yeah, apparently most of the natural gas generators -- 80% of their power from natural gas -- just stalled out because they never invested in weatherproofing the gas lines. And of course they powered the pumps that pulled the gas out of the ground off the same grid that went out when they lost pressure from the cold. They never invested in storage because they trusted that they could always pull more gas from the ground whenever they needed it, and they never put in backup generators because then they'd have to invest in storage for the fuel for the generators.
And they took nearly 20% of their capacity offline for maintenance this month because that helps them keep the price up when people don't need AC and demand traditionally dips with the pleasantly cool winter weather. If they staggered maintenance over the year to keep capacity up then they wouldn't be able to pretend that they had to raise rates to somehow make up the difference.
Who could possibly be so stupid and shortsighted and so utterly focused on extracting profit to the exclusion of all else?
And what does that remind me of? Hmmm....?
Oh, yeah! Reminds me of the power companies literally EVERYWHERE in the country.