Y'all okay down there in Texas? Just pointing out how Rick Perry was President Trump's energy secretary. The whole nation might have dodged a bullet here. Stay warm.
Perry's the reason we have such a large renewable component in our grid - he really championed wind and solar while Governor. He had big, forward-thinking plans like the Trans-Texas Corridor, a
massive infrastructure project for transportation and utilities that had everyone losing their minds because it was very "big gummint" and would have had an eye-watering price tag. We're talking rights-of-way on the order of a quarter mile wide for roads, rail, and utility lines. There were real practical issues with the plan beyond the cost, though, and it was eventually shelved.
Perry always frustrated the hell out of me because he's not stupid
1, but he always played into the yee-ha culture of "We're Texans, we
thrahv on adversity" and it's all bullshit. No, I would
not rather spend three days freezing than allow the federal government to regulate our grid, thank you
very much. But otherwise, I would take Perry back in a hot minute over Abbott right now
2. Abbott using this as an opportunity to take shots at the GND (which isn't even a law yet) is just downright gross.
Our deregulated grid is cheap, most of the time. It works, most of the time. But when it falls down, it falls down
hard. Anyone on a wholesale rate plan like Griddy is staring at bills in the thousands of dollars for several hours of power usage, but fortunately most of us go through providers that negotiate fixed prices for 6 to 12 months at a time. We're part of the Bluebonnet Electric Co-op, which was able to keep all their customers up (within the limits of the rolling blackouts mandated by ERCOT).
Natgas delivery (which is the responsibility of the Texas Railroad Commission
3, not ERCOT) was the big failure as the lines are not winterized and froze up, which was the bulk of the shortfall on the generation side. What gas was available was prioritized for residential use (for good reason - you don't want everyone's pilot lights to go out, then start the gas up again and asphyxiate or explode everybody). The older coal-fired plants had their coal piles freeze up so they were down as well. Apparently there were some idle plants that weren't frozen but also weren't brought on line, and there are questions that need to be asked about that.
But everyone needs to remember, we don't
do winter. South of the Caprock we don't have 100+ straight hours of subfreezing temperatures combined with freakish amounts of frozen precipitation. Plants were down for maintenance because this is the time of year power usage is typically at its lowest.
In a
bad winter down here (Austin area) we'll get an overnight hard freeze four of five times a year, a night of freezing rain that leaves elevated roads an ice rink, and maybe some sleet a couple of times. It'll snow once a decade, usually a light dusting that's gone by noon because the ground is still warm from the previous day being sunny and 70. But usually the lows are in the 40s and we'll have extended periods of warm and sunny. Houses are built to keep heat
out, external hose bibs and faucets are fully exposed, inner pipes often aren't insulated, many houses are built on slabs (no basements or crawlspaces), all because we deal with six straight months of daily highs in the 90s or higher. In August our daily lows can be in the 80s.
We came out of it about as well as anyone could expect - even though we were caught in the rolling blackouts, we never lost our water and we have gas for heating and cooking, so we always had hot water. Had a couple of inside lines freeze up, but I was able to run the hot water long enough to get the cold side moving again. Only burst pipe was an exposed line from the house to the garden, which has its own shutoff valve and I will fix in the next day or so. Between that break, the constant drips, and needing to run hot water to unfreeze the cold side, our water bill is going to be a bit uglier this month, but better that than having to replace a bunch of plumbing. Little did we know 16 years ago we were moving into the one neighborhood that could weather this storm as well as it did.
1. I have (very briefly) met the man in person. Yes, he had some bad moments in the 2016 primary - he was also on painkillers for a back injury.
2. I would prefer a Democrat, but the state Democratic party is dysfunctional, and Democratic candidates for state office tend to be...well, not good.
3. Which could really stand a name change, as they haven't had anything to do with railroads for a while now.
.
