NPR Takes Condescending Tone to Hate On Texas

[Closer]

Meanwhile, when I lived in Silly Con Valley for two years, they had rolling blackouts all the time, and they had no real weather to speak of; I think I turned the wall heater on two nights the whole time I lived there, and a fan was plenty in the summers. They were on a 'power grind', so why is Texas a Big Giant Scandal while enlightened sophisticated commie run California not, when it obviously has worse management than Texas, with its once every 50 years cold weather snap for a week? They also had a Big Giant Wind Farm east of the Bay. I think a species of birds too stupid to dodge the slow moving blades made the state shut them down or something since then, but they were running when I lived there.

 

[Jason Warfield]

The headline is a condescending rebuke of Gov. Abbott's statement which read in part, "Wind and solar got shut down," he said. "They were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis."

NPR attempts to play energy expert and Green New Deal cheerleader, along with CNN, MSNBC, and other liberal "news" outlets to drown out any and all conservative viewpoints under a chorus of "fact checking" and alternative messaging.

If a conservative reported that it's raining in Texas, NPR would opine that it's the actually the tears of marginalized college students buried under loan debt they were tricked into signing.

The problem here is that the Green New Deal has no effect on Texas as they chose not to be regulated by the federal government...which doesn't operate under a New Green Deal anyway...and no one forced Texas to allow 10% or so of their grid to be renewable energy...and no one forced Texas to be unable to properly negotiate power to be shared by the other two federally-regulated grids in case of a failure...which means...

The state of Texas, Abbott and ERCOT are the ones who made the choices so its still their fault. And if you all want to get down on renewable energy and blame it for the failure then you have to blame Texas, Abbott and ERCOT for allowing and/or ordering the state to start to go green.

No matter how you all play this...it's still their fault.

 

[GDViking]

Meanwhile, when I lived in Silly Con Valley for two years, they had rolling blackouts all the time, and they had no real weather to speak of; I think I turned the wall heater on two nights the whole time I lived there, and a fan was plenty in the summers. They were on a 'power grind', so why is Texas a Big Giant Scandal while enlightened sophisticated commie run California not, when it obviously has worse management than Texas, with its once every 50 years cold weather snap for a week? They also had a Big Giant Wind Farm east of the Bay. I think a species of birds too stupid to dodge the slow moving blades made the state shut them down or something since then, but they were running when I lived there.

Slow moving blades???
Haha haha.

Get a clue before posting something you know nothing about...

 

[GDViking]

None of that changes that those windmills are federally subsidized.

As are all fossil fuels...

Your point???

 

[code1211]

Worked out real well, didn't it?

Abbott appointees made 'astonishing' cuts to power reliability team before deadly Texas storm

As disaster approached Texas, the state agency overseeing the power industry operated...

www.houstonchronicle.com

Every time I tried to read the article, the text got blocked with an invitation to pay 99 cents for 4 weeks.

This particular cascade of failure was initiated by the failure to "winterize" the windmills. The additional power from the windmills was needed to cover the additional million or so people added to taxes every two years.

Previous steps that could have avoided this cascade of failure would have been to vastly overbuild power generation capabilities. In that way, no failure cascade starts. Also avoiding the use of windmills at all would have helped avoid this.

Any overbuild probably would have probably needed to start 10 years ago to be in place for the needs at the time of the recent failure cascade.

Did the group cited here make a recommendation 10 years ago to overbuild generation capacity and had they also made the recommendation to winterize the Windmills?

Were these the folks that recommended the use of the Windmills in the first place?

 

[code1211]

Texas had a big storm back in 2011. It was recognized then that they needed to winterize the system but they failed to do so. The bit about the windmills failing caused all the rest of the system to fail just isn't credible as far as I'm concerned. For starters if the rest of the system were that vulnerable, there would have been numerous failures before this. Can you prove that it was the windmills that failed first and caused the rest of it rather than the instruments that froze and the natural gas that was too cold to flow through the uninsulated piipe lines?

Natural gas doesn't freeze until it's about -300 degrees. Frozen Natural Gas seems unlikely.

Both the Windmills and the gas regulating devices seem to have been built to work just fine when it's +110. Not much thought, apparently, was given to sub-freezing.

Obviously, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance applies here as well as anywhere else.

If we adhere to the good advice that a close call is a warning, then the close call you say occurred in 2011, if understood, should have helped to avoid the problem of 2021.

Where I grew up, things sere designed to work well at -50 degrees. Planning for +110 was not a consideration. Cars and homes in Duluth Minnesota are as likely as not to have AC.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Every time I tried to read the article, the text got blocked with an invitation to pay 99 cents for 4 weeks.

This particular cascade of failure was initiated by the failure to "winterize" the windmills. The additional power from the windmills was needed to cover the additional million or so people added to taxes every two years.

Previous steps that could have avoided this cascade of failure would have been to vastly overbuild power generation capabilities. In that way, no failure cascade starts. Also avoiding the use of windmills at all would have helped avoid this.

Any overbuild probably would have probably needed to start 10 years ago to be in place for the needs at the time of the recent failure cascade.

Did the group cited here make a recommendation 10 years ago to overbuild generation capacity and had they also made the recommendation to winterize the Windmills?

Were these the folks that recommended the use of the Windmills in the first place?

The windmills are not the problem, there are windmills in Antarctica for example. The problem is that ERCOT did not mandate that power generation capabilties be able to operate in this sort of cold weather.

 

[calamity]

Does antifa have a problem with the sponsors, or do they embrace Wall Street now?

What does that ^ have to do with the Texas freeze and incompetence?

 

[code1211]

Partially correct. You left out the part about the natural gas systems freezing due to improper or no winterization. The same problems occurred at coal and nuclear plants.

The lack of winterization on the part of the energy company is what caused the failure. The renewable failure was only a small fraction of the problem. Anyone should know that when a solar panel gets covered with snow, it's useless. The problems IMHO were brought on by republican leadership and greed, plain and simple.

In Northern Minnesota, where I grew up, planning and building for +110 temperatures is considered a waste of money.

I suppose in Texas, where 110 is not all that rare, planning and building for sub freezing is probably considered a waste of money.

The unusual cold combined with the growing population straining the capacity was finally pushed over the edge by the lack of cold weather planning.

As far as the greed part of your equation goes, Texas has a 0% income tax rate. I think their fiscal challenges and debt are in line with other states.

Prioritization of needs seems to play a part in all financial decisions.

 

[calamity]

Apparently when cold arctic air breaks loose from the pole, it shoots straight down to Texas before the Jet Stream kicks it Northeast again. Interesting.

They better prepare for more of these events. AGW will gradually eat away at the polar vortex, resulting in many more such Arctic spills.

 

[BlueTex]

Every time I tried to read the article, the text got blocked with an invitation to pay 99 cents for 4 weeks.

This particular cascade of failure was initiated by the failure to "winterize" the windmills. The additional power from the windmills was needed to cover the additional million or so people added to taxes every two years.

Previous steps that could have avoided this cascade of failure would have been to vastly overbuild power generation capabilities. In that way, no failure cascade starts. Also avoiding the use of windmills at all would have helped avoid this.

Any overbuild probably would have probably needed to start 10 years ago to be in place for the needs at the time of the recent failure cascade.

Did the group cited here make a recommendation 10 years ago to overbuild generation capacity and had they also made the recommendation to winterize the Windmills?

Were these the folks that recommended the use of the Windmills in the first place?

Bullshit

 

[BlueTex]

Natural gas doesn't freeze until it's about -300 degrees. Frozen Natural Gas seems unlikely.

Both the Windmills and the gas regulating devices seem to have been built to work just fine when it's +110. Not much thought, apparently, was given to sub-freezing.

Obviously, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance applies here as well as anywhere else.

If we adhere to the good advice that a close call is a warning, then the close call you say occurred in 2011, if understood, should have helped to avoid the problem of 2021.

Where I grew up, things sere designed to work well at -50 degrees. Planning for +110 was not a consideration. Cars and homes in Duluth Minnesota are as likely as not to have AC.

The moisture in natural gas freezes at 32 degrees just like any other water. When it freezes, valves no longer work.. why do you keep doubling on the windmill LIE?

 

[code1211]

A wise move since hurricanes never hit Indianapolis. But it does get cold in Texas every year, so not a great example.



Yes, the population has grown and it is not profitable to expand to keep up with it, thus they paid the price.



The flooding in the MidWest flooding in 2019 comes to mind.

Apparently, it doesn't get this cold for this long in Texas every year. if it did, this problem would be occurring every year. Doesn't sound like this is an annual event.

I've lived in the Mid West most of my life. Mid West flooding is normally the result of too much snow and ice melting in the spring time.

I don't know what the expenditure of the Texas budget is to improve power generation. Do you?

 

[code1211]

This same type of event has happened three (3) times in the past 20 years. Hardly a generational event. Think greed and sheer stupidity on the part of the GOP leadership and their corporate energy companies.

Each time this has happened in the past, recommendations were given by many agencies including the feds as to what needs to be done. Nothing was done. Can you give me a reasonable explanation for that?

I can't find a reference to the three blackouts in Texas over the last 20 years that you cite. Link?

Can you link to the recommendations from the various sources that demonstrate what you say has happened in the past?

 

[rocket88]

Yeah, like I said, "...liberals don't even want to discuss the acquisition of cobalt and precious metals *look the other way*"

Which is related to the power grid in Texas how?

 

[calamity]

Apparently when cold arctic air breaks loose from the pole, it shoots straight down to Texas before the Jet Stream kicks it Northeast again. Interesting.

They better prepare for more of these events. AGW will gradually eat away at the polar vortex, resulting in many more such Arctic spills.

Following up.

Texas and California built different power grids, but neither stood up to climate change

The winter storm that crippled Texas this week and heat wave the hit California last summer show much more needs to be done to protect power supplies from extreme weather.

www.politico.com

Let's face it. These weather events will continue to get worse. As a nation, as a state, as a municipality...everyone better freaking prepare. Climate Change is real.

 

[rocket88]

Meanwhile, when I lived in Silly Con Valley for two years, they had rolling blackouts all the time, and they had no real weather to speak of; I think I turned the wall heater on two nights the whole time I lived there, and a fan was plenty in the summers. They were on a 'power grind', so why is Texas a Big Giant Scandal while enlightened sophisticated commie run California not, when it obviously has worse management than Texas, with its once every 50 years cold weather snap for a week? They also had a Big Giant Wind Farm east of the Bay. I think a species of birds too stupid to dodge the slow moving blades made the state shut them down or something since then, but they were running when I lived there.

Occasional loss of power in small areas is usually just an inconvenience. I would say you probably knew the difference, but clearly not.

 

[rocket88]

The moisture in natural gas freezes at 32 degrees just like any other water. When it freezes, valves no longer work.. why do you keep doubling on the windmill LIE?

That's the official propaganda from his party though.

 

[GolfingChef]

Apparently, it doesn't get this cold for this long in Texas every year. if it did, this problem would be occurring every year. Doesn't sound like this is an annual event.

How often does this need to happen before you think they should do something about it?

I've lived in the Mid West most of my life. Mid West flooding is normally the result of too much snow and ice melting in the spring time.

Not like we had in 2019. I work with farmers that have been on the same land for 3 generations and they had never seen anything like it.

I don't know what the expenditure of the Texas budget is to improve power generation. Do you?

ZERO because it is totally private. There is no profit motive to winterize, as the people making those decisions are not the ones suffering.

 

[BlueTex]

I can't find a reference to the three blackouts in Texas over the last 20 years that you cite. Link?

Can you link to the recommendations from the various sources that demonstrate what you say has happened in the past?

Texas leaders failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable to winter extremes, experts say

Texas officials knew winter storms could leave the state’s power grid vulnerable, but they left the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies — many of which opted against the costly upgrades. That, plus a deregulated energy market largely isolated from the rest of the...

www.texastribune.org

I'll even suggest some good search terms... "recommendations 2011 freeze texas"

 

[ALiberalModerate]

I read it. I've read several articles that all say the same thing. Where's the condescending part?

The science and reality part is what he takes as condescension.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

The headline is a condescending rebuke of Gov. Abbott's statement which read in part, "Wind and solar got shut down," he said. "They were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis."

NPR attempts to play energy expert and Green New Deal cheerleader, along with CNN, MSNBC, and other liberal "news" outlets to drown out any and all conservative viewpoints under a chorus of "fact checking" and alternative messaging.

If a conservative reported that it's raining in Texas, NPR would opine that it's the actually the tears of marginalized college students buried under loan debt they were tricked into signing.

Gov. Abbott's statement was a lie. The bulk of the reduction in power production in Texas was with natural gas powered plants. So instead of getting mad at a governor lying to the state he was elected to serve, you are angry with NPR for reporting the truth?

Ars does an excellent breakdown of what happened in Texas here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/

If you take reality as condescension, then God help you. Seriously.

 

[code1211]

Tx had similar outages for similar reasons in 1989 and 2011 also.
Seems to happen about 1X/decade

Link(s)?

 

[ElChupacabra]

No, The Blackouts In Texas Weren't Caused By Renewables. Here's What Really Happened



Important Info: NPR'S Corporate Sponsors reads like a list of Who's Who in the liberal activists community.

It's organized propaganda.

And do you think the governor of the state making incorrect statements on the cause was not "organized propaganda"? He took the opportunity to make a political statement against the Green New Deal when it played no role in the state's dilemma nor were the energy sources associated with the GND the main causes.

 

[code1211]

Bullshit. It gets cold in Minnesota all the time. We have more green energy than Texas and my lights didn't even flicker in the last few weeks with many days where it didn't even get above zero.

Texas apparently needs a lot of work on their power grid, but windmills causing cancer osn't the problem.

Your post doesn't seem to address any point from my post.