Like it's pulling a lot of weight because it's 80% of the capacity if nothing's going wrong! If it was 100% then maybe 40 GW of thermal capacity would _also_ be offline.
ERCOT assumed 0% from Wind. Instead we're getting 25% They assumed 100% from gas. Instead we're getting 50% (or 70% or whatever). You look at that and tell me gas is what's performing well here, and the segment that should be expanded. (EDIT: Sorry, I think your original thing was "all in nuclear." I think I read nuclear was also having some issues but it's at least not the "more gas is the solution for a situation where gas is failing" narrative)
I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now.
Go to here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-vi... , select "daily" view and put in 60 days to get a more representative sample.
on 12/19/2020 -- looks to be a fairly typical Texas winter day
natural gas production was 331660 megawatthours
wind was 191415 megawatthours
for a ratio of 1.73 gas/wind
this appears to be fairly typical numbers on a daily basis over the winter -- actually on a number of days wind surpasses gas
on 2/16/2021
natural gas 692091
wind 90087
for a ratio of 7.68 gas/wind
natural gas 2/16 vs natural gas 12/19 is ratio 2.09
wind 2/16 vs wind 12/19 is ratio 0.47
so as expected during an inclement weather event natural gas ramped up and wind ramped down. natural gas just didn't ramp up enough to pick up all the slack from increased demand and ramped down renewables.
"I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now." -- Wind is failing much worse than gas from an objective power generation standpoint. All wind has going for it is the tyranny of low expectations.
> https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414
I think wind can play a huge role in fixing this. Check out: https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4
And you've got plenty of massive offshore wind resources on both sides of the continent that are blowing right now (Feb 17th 7:49pm PDT) if we had installed capacity.
We need to keep our nuclear fleet (20% of electrical generation) and invest in a TON of transmission.
If we had this electrical grid, we'd be doing far better: https://twitter.com/Sammy_Roth/status/1356442256866037766
https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-2...
I do like the idea (from the linked tweet) of underground transmission lines (underground alongside railroads is probably mitigates the NIMBY objections):
https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power
Best way to do it is to go: 1. All underground transmission. 2. Expand the natural gas pipeline permitting process (which is controlled at the Federal level and already overrides state's jurisdiction) to include underground electrical transmission.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/e...)
Your first statement is partially true. The ERCOT "planners" expected their gas capacity to basically always be there, and the fact that 30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out.
But the remaining gas is pulling almost all the weight keeping people alive so we shouldn't neglect that.