re: Texas Power Grid

You can thank Obama regulations for coal going away. I know southern company tried to build a coal/gasification plant in Mississippi. Hence converting coal to a gas type hybrid spent 50 million and never worked. It’s now abandoned. They are also in the process of building 2 nuclear plants so that will help in Georgia.

I'm stupid or just missing this........

Why the rolling blackouts? Has this ever happened before?

Rolling blackout because the lack of natural gas and solar/wind generation. Natural gas has taken a huge hit and prices have soared to incredible record numbers because of demand. If damns start freezing up on rivers then expect more. About 80 percent of the country is expected to be in record lows about 50 degrees below normal.

We are at the beginning of a grand solar minimum that could last for 50-200 years. The last really big grand solar minimum happened in the 1800s and was the real cause of northeast folks moving west to California because of multiple year crop failures. In 1948 gold was discovered in Cali and then you had the gold rush of 1849 which brought more people to California and the west. Hence why San Fran is called the ‘49ers.

Not calling OP out, or anyone else on this forum, but I wish people would do a little research before they commented on social media.

I am seeing many people posting from East Texas about how ERCOT is a big POS - yet they aren’t even on the ERCOT grid.

We’re hearing that the majority of East Texas power outages are the result of three Entergy generating stations going offline. These stations are not on the ERCOT grid.

I am 90 minutes NW of Houston and we’ve had rolling outages since 2 AM. 20 minutes on, 40 minutes off, every hour. We are all gas, so we’re relying on our fireplace, stove and water heaters.

I think you have completely misunderstood my post, or simply failed to read it.

I am not disputing anything you’ve said about energy prices, or the fact that the “clean” generating resources in West Texas have gone offline.

I am saying that there are a fair number of people - not on this forum - pointing the finger at ERCOT, when they don’t get power from an ERCOT connected provider. They just assume because they live in Texas, power comes from ERCOT, and post wildly to social media, which stirs other people up.

I’m sure they see it as price gouging but supply and demand. Maybe PG&E has reserves on the west coast and can sell some generation to Texas cheaper then Texas can produce it. Higher cost then normal I’m sure but maybe it will balance out and PG&E can actually do what they need to do and clean up around their power lines and reduce the damn wildfires.

Amazing how we can run Wind Turbines off of Atlantic City but they shut down in cold weather in Texas. Somebody cut some corners.

Likewise, these blackouts have nothing to do with green energy vs gas vs coal. It has to do with how innefficiently Texas heats its homes and businesses. The power demand is spiking above the hottest days in summer.

I am also willing to bet that some energy execs instituted some "cost saving" measures anticipating low demand and they can't just ramp things back up that fast.

Most energy execs are now flaming liberals that work hand and hand with regulation at the national level. Being utilities they have many protections by the federal government. Prices are set but the power companies will be paid. The problem now is demand of natural gas.

quote:

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Normal Texas rates are 9cents per kwhr. Rates expected Monday and Tuesday if no relief is found is expected to rise to $4 per kwhr.

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I'm late to the discussion, but this confuses me. For those of us who have a contract with a set rate, how can a company like Reliant charge us more than what's stipulated in the contract?

Not saying I know you're wrong, but what's the point of a contract if they can increase the rate by 40X at their discretion?

(Haven't read the thread, so maybe this has already been addressed).

I think what everyone else is trying to say is that something somewhere will happen so that Joe Consumer doesn't go from paying 50 bucks for gas one month to 10,000 bucks the next month....now I'm not sure what that looks like but if it takes the Feds bailing out the power companies it will probably happen.