Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Wed Feb 17 05:15:19 UTC 2021

On Tue, 16 Feb 2021, Robert Jacobs wrote:

> How about letting us Texans have more natural gas power plants or even
> let the gas be delivered to the plants we have so they can provide more
> power in an emergency.  Did not help that 20% of our power is now wind
> which of course in an ice storm like we are having is shut off... Lots of
> issues and plenty of politics involved here..

  Turns out that you Texans already get a majority of your power from
  Natural Gas.

  So there's already a significant amount of power from natural gas already.

  Things I learned about the most-of-Texas Grid today:

 	- Natural Gas plants provide MORE THAN HALF of their total electricity
         generation in 2019 (WOW!)
     - Texas has their own grid to avoid Federal regulation.
 	- Texas does have some links to other grids but they don't trigger federal
 		regulation for some reason.
     - Texas is the largest energy-producing and energy-consuming state in
         the nation. The industrial sector, including its refineries and
         petrochemical plants, accounts for half of the energy consumed in the
         state.
     - 5 Gigawatts of coal-fired capacity has retired since 2016, and
         supplies 20% of power currently.
     - Wind power provided about 17% of their usage
     - There are two nuclear plants in Texas, only providing 10% of power.
     - One of those nuclear plants are offline due to weather-related issues.

>From the WashPost: 
"The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to
prepare for cold weather"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/ercot-texas-electric-grid-failure/

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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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