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Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by jillesvangurp on Thursday April 08, 2021 @07:31AM (#26737502)
According to this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733 about 30GW of coal and gas was taken offline and about 16GW of renewables. Peak demand was 69GW.

So, gas and coal affected represented about 43+% of the total demand for energy. Coal piles froze and reduced capacity (shoveling wet coal frozen solid is hard). Gas pipes froze because of humidity in the pipes (removing water from gas takes energy). Both are preventable problems of course and commonly dealt with elsewhere.

Wind turbines were also affected. That too would have been preventable: weather proofed turbines exist and operate in both polar regions, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, etc. and other places where what happened in Texas can happen any day of the year and does not count as remarkable weather and arguably should have been planned for in Texas where it is rare but not that rare for it to be cold once in a while.

The reason for this push for reducing subsidies is simple: wind and solar reduce the demand for more expensive gas and when that peaks, gas plants are not profitable and may even have to shut down temporarily. Coal is already past the point of being even close to credible as a cost effective alternative. It only survives with subsidies, tax benefits, and other forms of government support. Hence recent closures of coal plants across the US even in states where they actually mine coal. It's just too expensive even in places where they have every incentive to pretend otherwise.

Wind grows by the MWs of capacity per month in Texas currently. There is a massive investment in it everywhere and that has been going on for years in Texas. Likewise grid solar is also rapidly growing there. It's basically becoming the dominant source of energy. People adding subsidized solar on their roof also put power back in the grid during the most lucrative moments in the day.

This presents the dual problem of the grid having to pay for that (to buy it back from consumers) and reducing utilization of their expensive gas and coal plants at the same time. In peaker plant form, operating gas plants becomes even less attractive. Which is why expensive batteries are preferred instead. That's another thing that is growing rapidly in Texas. Batteries are expensive but still preferable to a gas plant that you don't operate most of the time that is really expensive to start and stop.

Gas and oil producers dominate politics in Texas because they are such an important part of the local economy. They prefer to let consumers pay for expensive dirty power as much as they can so they can milk the sunk investments of gas and coal plants a bit longer and so they can sell their gas to the electricity providers. So that is two powerful lobbies with a vested interest in the status quo and a big reason for why things are the way they are. For the same reason weather proofing never happened because that would make gas plants even more costly and thus less attractive.

Local politicians act in the interest of these powerful lobbies rather than consumers (who got some outrageous bills after the storm to pay for the mistakes by their own representatives). The interest of consumers would of course be lower prices and a cleaner grid (less pollution, reduce CO2 impact). But that directly affects the profitability of gas plants and gas producers. Even without clean energy subsidies this trend will continue of course. Of course when talking subsidies, you have to consider that a lot of that already benefits fossil fuel production and consumption whether it comes in direct form, or in the form of tax benefits, environmental legislation, etc. Cutting that would accelerate the demise of coal and gas plants even further. So, instead, politicians do their best to slow the growth of renewables. In the same way interconnecting the grids to the rest in the US is controversial in Texas because that puts locally expensive producers on the spot.

Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by verall on Thursday April 08, 2021 @11:24AM (#26739949)
I agree with most of this, but

> who got some outrageous bills after the storm to pay for the mistakes by their own representatives

This was only for people on market-rate plans, who were paying a flat $5-$10 connection fee and then market rate for electricity. They regularly would pay about $15/mo for 2-3kwh; I pay about $85/mo for that much on a fixed rate in Austin, which is a regulated monopoly (you cannot purchase a market rate plan).

The constituents of townships that allow variable and market rate plans _love_ spending 1/5 of the energy cost, and have been doing so for years. It's hard to sympathize with people who were actively told to disconnect and stop using power during the highest demand, chose to continue, and now have fat bills to show for it.

Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by briffle on Thursday April 08, 2021 @01:02PM (#26741182)
> Wind turbines were also affected. That too would have been preventable: weather proofed turbines exist and operate in both polar regions, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, etc. and other places

The biggest wind producing state is Iowa, where it regularly hits sub-zero temperatures. Sometimes for weeks. I would argue winterizing is more the 'standard' that Texas companies didn't follow to save a few bucks.