Analysis: Texas power outage leaves officials working political angles

Re:Analysis: Texas power outage leaves officials working pol... by maxerickson on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @08:02PM (#26174117)

Maybe, but only in a sense that doesn't really mesh with the right wing criticism. The adoption of wind and solar isn't because it is green, it's because it is cheaper. And then natural gas is the cheapest make up for when those fall short (or really, it's profitable to build capacity that can come online when energy prices rise).

In any case, the current generation mix isn't particularly dependent on wind/solar (a couple percent of predicted winter generation).

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/216844

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Re:Analysis: Texas power outage leaves officials working pol... by kasey_junk on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @10:42PM (#26175412)

I guess my main point is that this article doesn’t do a good job of arguing one way or another for _weather adjusted_ results for energy production. Effectively all of the energy sources in Texas were impacted by this weather event.

The article takes one position (weakly) that renewables weren’t to blame. The Texas governor for instance has taken a very strong position that renewables are to blame. It seems likely that the real answer is between (and on the side of this articles position) these points. But to just arbitrarily judge based on what solar did vs “expectations” compared to what nat gas did, ignores the idea that solar demands more nat gas than other energy sources.

I’m good with the answer “we’d have adopted solar/wind/nat gas mix in the same proportion given the same risk modeling we had for this sort of event in comparison to coal/nat gas/etc”

But that’s not what the article actually argues.

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