Power shortages show the folly of eliminating natural gas—and coal.
Gas and power prices have spiked across the central U.S. while Texas regulators ordered rolling blackouts Monday as an Arctic blast has frozen wind turbines.
Herein is the paradox of the left’s climate agenda: The less we use fossil fuels, the more we need them.
A mix of ice and snow swept across the country this weekend as temperatures plunged below zero in the upper Midwest and into the teens in Houston. Cold snaps happen—the U.S. also experienced a Polar Vortex in 2019—as do heatwaves.
Yet the power grid is becoming less reliable due to the growing reliance on wind and solar, which can’t provide power 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
While Texas is normally awash in gas and oil, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the state’s wholesale power market, urged residents this weekend to conserve power to avoid power outages.
Regulators rationed gas for commercial and industrial uses to ensure fuel for power plants and household heating.
Texas’s energy emergency could last all week as the weather is forecast to remain frigid. “My understanding is, the wind turbines are all frozen,” Public Utility Commission Chairman DeAnn Walker said Friday. “We are working already to try and ensure we have enough power but it’s taken a lot of coordination.”
Blame a perfect storm of bad government policies, timing, and weather. Coal and nuclear are the most reliable sources of power.
But competition from heavily subsidized wind power and inexpensive natural gas, combined with stricter emissions regulation, has caused coal’s share of Texas’s electricity to plunge by more than half in a decade to 18%.
Wind’s share has tripled to about 25% since 2010 and accounted for 42% of power last week before the freeze set in. About half of Texans rely on electric pumps for heating, which liberals want to mandate everywhere.
But the pumps use a lot of power in frigid weather. So while wind turbines were freezing, demand for power was surging.
Gas-fired power plants ramped up, but the Arctic freeze increased demand for gas across the country. Producers couldn’t easily increase supply since a third of rigs across the country were taken out of production during the pandemic amid lower energy demand. Some gas wells and pipelines in Texas and Oklahoma also shut down in frosty conditions…
Coal still accounts for 60% of China’s energy, and imports tripled in December. China has some 250 gigawatts of coal-fired plants under development, enough to power all of Germany. Unlike Democrats in the U.S., Chinese leaders understand that fossil fuels are needed to support intermittent renewables.
“Power shortages and incredibly high spot gas prices this winter are reminding governments, businesses, and consumers of the importance of coal,” a Wood Mackenzie consultant told Reuters recently.
California progressives long ago banished coal. But a heatwave last summer strained the state’s power grid as wind flagged and solar ebbed in the evenings. After imposing rolling blackouts, grid regulators resorted to importing coal power from Utah and running diesel emergency generators.
Liberals claim that prices of renewables and fossil fuels are now comparable, which may be true due to subsidies, but they are no free lunch, as this week’s energy emergency shows.
The Biden Administration’s plan to banish fossil fuels is a greater existential threat to Americans than climate change.
Read more at WSJ ($)
Thank you “Dumb Energy”! The stupidest public policy since the Luddites mobbed to tear down mechanical looms. 0.04% of the atmosphere CO2 is essential to life on earth, but inconsequential to climate. That is what science says. Redundant energy from solar panels and windmills will triple the cost of consumer energy, just as it has done in the EU. All to reduce the basic ingredient of life on earth – CO2. Which has been naturally reducing on its own from life-enriching levels ten to twenty times those of today for the entire existence of multicellular life. Declining towards a lack of CO2 oblivion (within 30ppm of LETHAL LOWS during glacial phases of our ongoing Pleistocene Ice Age).
A recent discussion with a media-informed progressive:
me – This cold snap is proof that there is no global warming.
Progressive – No, this is just weather.
me – then why is every heat spell and storm blamed on global warming, not weather.
Progressive – because they are caused by global warming.
me – silence. You can’t teach a pig to sing. You just get yourself frustrated and end up pissing off the pig.
I’ve said it before the preferred order of electric power sources are:
1) Nuclear
2) Coal
3) Oil
4) Natural gas
5) …
100) “Green Energy”
Coal and nuclear are best for providing base-load power. Nuclear has the fuel needed to run months/years in its reactor core. Coal has spare fuel stored onsite for many days of power generation. Gas on the other hand cannot be stockpiled and needs to have a constant source. That is why Texas is having so much additional problems beyond just the lack of wind generation. Too many other demands for gas such as heating homes and industrial use beyond power generation. Gas is great for the marginal production of electricity during high demand periods since it can be quickly brought online, something not possible with coal and nuclear.
I worked at the Nanticoke Generating Station in the ’70’s. Each unit was capable of 500 MW. If we had 8 units running at 200 MW, we could quickly ramp up from 1600 MW to 5000 MW. How quick? 20 minutes.
However, in sympathy with Texas’ current dilemma, during the blizzards of 76 and 77, Nanticoke GS fell on its face. The snow fell so fast, the coal pile crew couldn’t separate snow from coal. Visibility was near zero. Boilers don’t run well on snow. We tried, but “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”
The many articles in the climate change dispatch show the impact of relying on wind and solar and then having a big freeze hit. However, there will be more than the large events that Texas and its neighbors are experiencing. The net zero goal would eliminate fossil fuel back up for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. We don’t have the technology to store electric power on the scale needed to run a power grid. We can expect power outages to become a routine part of life.
The ones who should feel the Cold and Snoew should be the Anti-Fracking,Anti-Fossil Fuels Keep it in the Ground idiots who carry around he signs with Fossil Fuel based Paint on them and the stupid finger pointing at the ground
New energy technologies should compete in the market for energy and if it is a better technology it will beat the competition and take over without the need for fear based activism against the competition.
Conversely, the need for fear based activism against the competition is itself the evidence that the product being promoted is not competitive and not ready for the market for energy.
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