My take is that this is not primarily a left/right or wind/gas issue. Politics do play a role in the design and construction of energy networks, and that's a fact: but voters and politicians of all stripes should fight for their preferred sources of energy while making absosmurfly sure the damn network works, and works well, even under huge stress.
Texas had bigger problems than natural gas vs wind energy during this storm. Texas had:
* insufficient reserve generating capacity to handle the interruptions in power production
* insufficient fuel storage capacity to handle the interruptions in fuel supply
* insufficient energy storage capacity to handle the interruptions in energy delivery
* too many energy suppliers who got crushed in storms a decade ago but still hadn't hardened or improved their systems so they could make a bigger short-term profit, so they got crushed again
* regulators who hadn't ridden herd on said greedy energy suppliers
* and Texas had decoupled from the broader regional/national grid a long time ago, for reasons I currently don't recall and on which I won't speculate.
The systems failed. Yes, the energy generation/transmission/delivery systems, but most importantly the regulatory systems. Texas should have been able to generate power with any mix of methods, and still be protected from massive failure. Heads should roll, because people died needlessly.
Feb 19, 2021 at 08:59 PM
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