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Questions for all you Texas members?? How did Texas reach the point of running out of electricity??
dreher
Member Posts: 8,803 ✭✭✭✭
When I think of Texas I think of things like oil wells, cattle ranches and wide open spaces.
All those oil wells make me think that Texas is awash with energy.
I keep reading these articles about an extra hot summer could crash Texas's electric grid.
This is not a point arrived at over night, this took a long time to get to this point.
So what happened??
Comments
Cell phone charging for the influx of illegals.😉
According to US Census data, the population of Texas has grown by about about half a million people a year, every year for the last 25 years.
I suspect the growth is out pacing the ability to provide adequate infrastructure across a state the size of TX.
Selling electricity to Callie so they can charge their batt(ery)mobiles.
All those Texas windmills are generating AC for someplace else.
Texas isn't on the national grid. They don't buy or sell across state lines. So not federally regulated.
In Texas we have our own grid and it wasn't designed or maintained to handle the influx of people and businesses we have and are still experiencing as was already said by Warbirds. So tell everyone you know that we are full and don't need anymore folks… The process to meet demand doesn't happen overnight and kicking the can down the road only works for so long, but hey the home generator market is booming.🤣
Texas has also shuttered 7 coal fired power plants in the last 12 years.
May have something to do with it.
Brad Steele
It's been a couple of decades since I've seen the Montana coal trains going back and forth, through our area of North Texas......…..although obummer and obiden's war on coal haven't helped. IIRC.......there were 4 to 6 trains a day.
Fortunately..…due to the Eagle Ford, and other shale plays, many power plants were converted to natural gas. So much so that the US was a net exporter of NG......until the afore mentioned o's limited LNG exports by limiting ship loading plant licensing. Always "helping"......those guys.😫
Even so......a few years ago The Big Freeze caught ERCOT with their maintenance scheduling "pants down"......along with many in South Texas discovering substandard construction/codes.
Then......as has been said......"foreigners", from all directions, are invading the state.
Kind a like a few years back when they didn't have heat for the winter. I guess they didn't learn or slow to beef up the grid.
So let's replay the pitch, certainly the one Nevada uses: blare at top-volume that it's a great place to live because it's warm, (or hell-on-earth-warm 5 months of the year), has no state income tax, and way less overall regulation than red states. But - either not knowing it would work or not caring - don't build out the infrastructure to support that growth. And let's face it, w/no state income tax the resources to do that probably didn't exist anyway.
Fast forward and now power and water bills are through the roof. There's no silver bullet for this stuff…
Nevada has pockets of population at best. Had they not built around Vegas no one would move there. It'll be California East soon enough.
Oh don't forget it gets cold in Nevada, too. Like eat your neighbor cold.
I know this is about Texas, but I have to chime in……Here in Kansas, my little electric coop sends out this nice little magazine every month. It tells in it every month that they cannot sustain their current electrical load. There "Will Be" rolling electric black outs this summer, as with most states in the mid-west. They point to increasing shut downs of coal fired plants, along with losing our grid to wind farms that just do not produce enough (and often get their energy sold to different area's anyway), and then the ever increasing demand, along with more and more legislation against any real energy solution.
There was a small article or two about the brand new Panasonic battery plant they are building in Desoto. They were going to shut down the coal fired plant near Lawrence next year. But since the lithium battery plant is coming in, they won't be able to. They actually have to add on to it to meet the energy needs!!
It also mentioned how the new Japanese battery plant will cost $4 billion to build. I actually forget the actual numbers, (they are infuriating!!) but they will receive like $2 billion from the state of Kansas, and $8 billion in subsidies from the Federal Government!!
We're in the wrong business, Man!!!!!🤑😤
Nuke.Is.The.Answer.
When run responsibly and reliably they out produce and out perform any other medium or method - besides a few hydro projects . But like hydro, they need water - lots of it. Not that most of it doesn't make it's way back. I have never seen anything like one of the 15 foot diameter intakes in Lake MI. for the Zion plant from a boat-side view. Even surrounded by 2 ft thick pilings about 12 in apart - still gives me nightmares to this day.
It ain't about the wind turbines...…it ain't about the solar farms....…it ain't about the ethanol......(edit: and it ain't about the EV's).
It always has been.....and ALWAYS will be..........…about THE MONEY!!!!😎
It's all about the government taking care of you.