re: Reasons why Texas power grid failed:

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We have almost 31GW of wind installed on the grid, but on Monday we couldn’t even depend on 6 GW working.

To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold.

Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will.

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The whole point of Nat Gas, coal, and nuclear power generation is called: RELIABILITY

Guess what? The wind does not blow very much during intense heat and windmills freeze in extreme cold. The non-green generators don't care. This is why brilliant men built these type of generators years ago. They had common sense. Today, it is rare to meet someone with common sense, and they aren't a liberal.
I have not met one liberal with common sense. The ones who get common sense are no longer liberal.

Liberal policies are dangerous and can lead to deaths. Their ignorant policies can lead to people freezing to death or dying of heat stroke because liberal energy does not work when needed the most.

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Blah blah blah, he is FOS

Bottom line, private companies do not like to carry spare capacity just in case you need it as that is expensive and financial decisions based on this led to a shortfall.

This is the downside to deregulation and a "free market", it is what it is.

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I not only agree with some part of this but the fact is Illinois, Kansas, and colder states have hundreds upon thousands of windmills, Texas was just too damn cheap/stupid to realize inclement conditions happen.

The nuclear plants are shut down as well

So much in Crenshaws piece.

1. Shouldn't the system be designed to work efficiently in a worse case massive spike event? Just think if planes were designed to only fly when everything worked perfectly.

2.Why was it not a requirement for de-icing rings to be on the turbines for them to be accepted for use on the grid?

3.Natural gas line froze. Aren't these lines buried? The depth of the trench can't be that deep to get below Texas frost line. Cost prohibitive? What is the life of a line vs the additional costs?

4. Plants down for scheduled maintenance? How long are pants down for maintenance? Seems like in texas July and August would be full capacity. Same for Dec through February. Can they not get maintenance done all other months?

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This idiot doesn't understand that wind turbines are designed for the prevailing climate of the region they operate in.

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False

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here are significant design differences used to optimize them. Turbines in northern states would fail if exposed to 100+F summers year after year.

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Another false statement. Preventative measures aren’t taken during construction. It’s not like illinois builds the turbines out of complete different materials. The difference is tejas reacted extremely slow to the weather patterns either out of complacency or incompetence.

Southern illinois weather isn’t that much different from the southern states yet they never have a problem keeping the turbines running in summer.

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If you want cheap power 99.9% of the time then be prepared to handle the consequences when things get off the rails.

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I don’t think you understand how ironic this is coming from a Marxist

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You could prepare for it but the cost would be more than the customers would be willing to pay.

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This. The same people in here bitching about this event would be bitching about how Govt fricks everything up and about Govt over reach if they made the "winterizing" packages mandatory. Rate payers would be howling about high energy prices.

Natural gas and nuclear? What about coal, dumbshite? 90 day coal inventory on the ground.

Nuclear? So when is Vogtle coming on line? Georgia can’t run a gd election. Think Georgia power can complete a nuclear plant. On time and on budget? Don’t think so.

Use of nuclear has gotten safer over the decades and the nature of the product and byproducts of nuclear require nothing less than extreme built in safety measures.
After working in the power industry all my life, I believe that most major power generators would love to build nuclear units because of their capabilities but when you consider the permitting process, all the applications and paperwork, the government regulations and testimonies and politicking required just to have a nuclear plant considered, then if it ever is approved, the cost of construction, oversight, all the regulations and construction requirements. It just cost too much and takes too long for most companies to be able to seriously attempt building a nuclear.
In the length of time and with the cost overruns that every nuclear incurs, a company can build multiple combined cycle or even coal burners but the government has done everything within its power to cripple and shut down the coal burners, so nobody is attempting to build coal burners anymore.
The real problem with America’s energy grid and energy supply is government interference and intervention into a free market, supply and demand commodity. Our government has made it almost impossible to build, run and maintain any kind of reliable electric generation. If they had subsidized clean coal such as IGCC technology as much as they have wind and solar, Americans would be able to use the most abundant source of fuel we have in a environmentally cleaner way than in the past and have reliable electrical production nationwide, fueled by American fuel and free of foreign manipulation.