Texas' Power Grid Trouble is Far from Over
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Many Texans are still reeling from the power outage crisis that occurred earlier this year.
And "It's not just about Texas," says an environmental engineer. It's about the need to rethink our aging energy infrastructure throughout the U.S. Here’s why-and how it may be a sign of things to come.
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Produced by:
Ari Daniel
Production assistance:
Christina Monnen and Amanda Willis
Archival:
ERCOT, NOAA, Shutterstock, Storyblocks
arbyreed/flickr/CC BY 2.0
kishjar/flickr/CC BY 2.0
Larry D. Moore/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0
NuclearVacuum/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0
Siemens Pressebild/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0
Tony Webster/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 2.0
Texas by Linseed Studio from the Noun Project
NASA Earth Observatory, National Weather Service
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center SVS
Music: APM
Special Thanks: John Watlington
© WGBH Educational Foundation 2021
It's expensive to protect your critical infrastructure from rare events that seldom occur.
But it's F_CKING expensive when you don't.
@Michael Hawthorne 3 times as much power was lost due to natural gas failures compared to wind turbine failures, but you don't actually care about reality anyway, do you? Both types simply needed basic winterization technologies that have been commonly available and in-use elsewhere for decades, but Texas cheaped-out, even after having the same thing happen 10 years ago. Insanity.
Exactly. They are here acting like this wasn't totally avoidable. It's only unavoidable if you are only concerned about profits. Texas F'd up, simple as that.
It's expensive to prepare for Climate Change
Yeah they f’up, and other states have to bail them out...don’t mess with Texas my ass..federal $ begging Texans
@Michael Hawthorne Wind power is forming an increasing amount of the energy mix here in Canada where winters can be brutal. Failure doesn't occur, however, because our wind turbines are adapted to resist the effects of cold weather.
Y'all danced around the main issue: Energy lobbyists completely dominate Texas politics. This is not equitable.
Energy lobbyists and Jesus. lol
Yes!
yep.. can't believe you're the only person talking about it so far in the comments
Jesus, where have I heard that name before? Don't remember. Must be a guy who is ok with letting people die to make a profit. Or better, go into other countries and actively kill them.
The fascist Christianity in the USA is about the opposite of what that Jesus guy had been about.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket You belong on a watch list.
I like how he glossed over the 'various reasons' they didn't winterize their grid after the wake-up call in 2011. Yeah, let's take a closer look into that. That's where the blame needs to lie.
(a) COST. (b) "It doesn't happen (often)" They aren't going to spend billions to fix a problem they _know_ they don't have. (of course, the rest of the world knows they have a problem, however, they refuse to admit it.)
ONCE THE BLAME IS DETERMINED THEN WHAT??? WHAT DO YOU DO TO LEADERS TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR!???
@@falcon127 get rid of people like Abbott, Perry and Cruz. Kick em to the curb.
@@JohnDavis-yz9nq Solar and wind are not very recyclable and work poorly in extreme weather. Fire the green new deal people who initially neglected Nuclear and will likely flip flop against it again just because Green Peace and other groups start throwing tantrums.
@@010203109 green energy is here to stay. Abbott tried to blame the power grid failure on green energy and it didn’t work. It backfired on him. Basically we’ve had 2 governors back to back that didn’t do their job.
Well, when you elect politicians that don't believe in governing with the interests of the people in mind, rather lining their own pockets, this IS the result
I find it puzzling, the Hispanic south boarder area is turning more repugnicon than the major city centers. Especially the way they are vilified by the racists.
Yes...not unique to ERCOT,...PG&E after all had a movie made about their extremly poor stance on public safety.
Its the Republican Party, they are cheap and always do things half ass
@@jaridkeen123 please be specific how is the Republicans Party "Cheap"
@@JR-playlists "I find it puzzling, the Hispanic south boarder area is turning more repugnicon than the major city centers. Especially the way they are vilified by the racists."
That, my friend, is the power of the emotional appeal -- and why every one of us should put critical thinking at the top of our to do list.
My Tesla solar panels and powerwalls got me through the 44hr Houston blackout
☀️⚡🏡
but did your unicorn survive?
@@davidbrydon3969
Lol
@@davidbrydon3969 It's not _that_ rare. My nephew got through it with his rooftop solar.
Sweet!
@@davidbrydon3969 The unicorn went to Mexico with Ted Cruz and decided to sray there.
Superb report. I work in energy efficiency and utility planning, and this overview better explains what happened than a lot of highly technical publications managed to explain.
What happened is that Texas choose to privatize a public utility. Business exists to make a profit... not to provide uninterrupted service.
So during easy times they take a profit... that isn't used to fortify the system that is serving all of Texas. Instead the point is the profit. Not the service.
When the service fails then private owners come to the public with their hands out.... for a bail out.
And you get the worst of both worlds.
You get to pay taxes and a useless profit... for crappy infrastructure that fails you in times of emergency.
It's not a superb report. It's terrible. Not only does it get many facts wrong, it completely ignores congressional testimony. The local papers in Texas got this right, NOVA got it pretty darned wrong. This was a result of rank incompetence in the regulatory agencies, PUC and ERCOT. Run by politically appointed hacks who literally have no clue what they're doing. And literally made maters worse, during the crisis. Check out the testimony, read the local papers. Sheesh.
@@LinasVepstas This is you giving the companies involved in ERCOT a pass.
Gosh who is it that corrupted the regulators?
The companies that didn't want to spend the money on safety upgrades that's who.
Government is owned by business... so that business can blame government when things go wrong... and take profits when things are good for easy pickings.
This is what you are doing.
Fronting for private capitalist who intentionally raped Texas.
Now... what motive would someone have to do that?
Greed.
Never trust a capitalist... they are the worst criminals in human history.
Texas is what happens when energy companies get to make all the rules and write the laws that regulate energy companies.
Indeed...
A lesson in the dangers of selfish, libertarian thinking
@@briand8090 collectivism is a ruse. See history for details.
The goverment appoints libetials from California to sit on the energy board. The goverment forced the use of windmills and solar panel s. Which quit from ice and snow. Combine that with a increase of demand a d you cradhed the grid...... the ptoblem is liberials pushing green energy sacrificing the reliability of tje grid.
@@garymccann2960 of course. Democrats run all the institutions, even in Austin.
Does this mean that we are going to treat Texas like Puerto Rico or Flint Michigan, now?
We should it's what them conservatives been preaching. We should give them a taste of their own medicine. Chances are they'll spit it out.
The problem occured because of too much goverment. But you liberia li s are jealous so stay out of Texas and go hide in.your moms basement. We will explore other worlds while you are slowly destroying you ecomany
@@garymccann2960 Oh bullshit. The problem occurred because Texas privatized is energy grid. And then when the same damned thing happened in 2011 and the feds put together a report letting Texas what they did wrong.
The companies that Texas trusts to provide power did not make the expensive upgrades that would have prevented this latest fiasco.
Thankfully I live in East Texas and our county is one of the few not served by ERCOT! We only lost power when some of our many trees iced and broke down power lines. I was disappointed to see that ERCOT is apparently only interested in keeping those part of the profits that should have been sent to making the infrastructure more stable. And I guess that is why so many of the overpaid ERCOT executives resigned immediately after the crisis! When someone is paid over $100,000.00 a year and they failed to do their jobs, the6 should be tried as a criminal, as that is what they are.
Rolling blackout? My power went out at 1AM Monday morning and I didn't get it back until Friday at 4PM.
My daughter and fiance experienced the same thing, 4+ days without power, 6 days without water due to extensive frozen pipes and needed repairs throughout their apt complex. The video addresses the need for extended multi-day (rather than rolling) blackouts in many areas; see vid beginning at 4:25. It was that or have the entire state grid collapse completely, which would have taken many weeks or even months to restore.
Yes indeed it was blackout roll out.
The issue was so bad that they run out of people to turn off so they could turn you back on. Those who didn't lose power were likely on the same circuit as something critical, like a hospital. Lucky them.
Just keep in mind that the reason you don't have power is because privatization failed you. The businesses sought a profit before they sought to make sure they provided good service. No big government regulation saved the people who froze because businesses sought a profit before seeking to provide good service.
What this means is that you don't get to claim privatization is great... you don't get to think Capitalism is great.... you don't get to say big government is bad and regulating companies is bad...And you don't get to think that Texas is great.
It's not... it's a big con job that takes your money and then leaves you freezing in a storm.
Just as it always has.
Because the point of business and markets and capitalism is to MAKE A PROFIT... not provide you with electricity in a storm.
Providing you with electricity in a storm... that is what PUBLIC utilities do.
So what I'm saying is now is the time for you to retract all that bullshit about how great capitalism is... how business provides the best service because of competition.
How did that work out for you?
People froze for unregulated capitalism in your state.
@@blogintonblakley2708 That's part of the story. The other part was rank incompetence of the regulators. They're politically appointed apparatchiks, who are there to hold the GOP party line.
I believe that they forgot to mention that 110 lives were lost in that Texas disaster.
111 now.
There was no disaster. It was an inconvenience
Texas at 111 is still less than the 15,000 who died in New York under the guidance of Andrew Cuomo.
You GET what ya vote for! Remember this next election!
Ooh you can say that every time someone elect Somebody everywhere.
you also get this if you don't vote. Lots of voter suppression tactics used in Republican strongholds like texas...
@@ThomasBomb45 I understand. And I think WE are all lost. Sadly.
@@ThomasBomb45 EXACTLY. Should have added that, too: "You ALSO get what you DON'T VOTE AGAINST.
@@vernalc2449 And we also should not blame groups for which voting is intentionally made more difficult. There are many minority voters in the south who don't want Republicans in office but don't have much of a say because voting requires waiting in line for 5 hours
Puff piece ...an eight minute tour of a broom closet that assiduously avoids brushing up against the elephant: Texas state politicians in bed with the utilities industry, rolling back regulation and business practices that could have easily prevented dozens of lives and billions of dollars lost by the consumers.
The EPA refused operating plants to temporarily increase their output beyond agreed limits because "Climate Change". NPR is not allowed to tell that story. Commies
@@albing1397 You know what's wrong w/ commies? They appointed Soviet apparatchiks who didn't know what they were doing. Totally incompetent administrators whose only job was to make sure that everyone toes the party line. You know how we do it in Texas? We let the GOP appoint totally incompetent morons whose only job is to make sure everyone toes the GOP party line. Same deal, same end-results. Although kudos to Gov. Abott - he actually fired the appartchik he'd appointed earlier to the PUC. Checkout the testimony in the Texas Leg.
@@albing1397 That's false. A request to exceed the limits was approved.
www.factcheck.org/2021/02/biden-administration-approved-texas-power-request-contrary-to-false-claim/
When the weasels run the henhouse ....
They have known for years what needs to be done but choosing instead to keep their wallets fat instead of helping the people they "serve"
"Low income communities tend to be more vulnerable in a crisis like this..." The swirling graphic at the end was awesome.
So what
And you can vote out the Republican leadership who care about their personal short-term financial benefits rather than the residents of Texas.
This problem is political, not complacency or technological.
They all point to California and claim it is a 'failed state'. Well, California is the fifth largest economy in the world. Doesn't sound like a 'failed state' to me. And you jackasses lost all your power and heat with a little cold weather that killed a bunch of people. I think the Bible talks about glass houses and throwing rocks or something that applies here.
"That's what we need to do"...but we won't do it.
With like Rick Perry and Greg Abbott no it will not happen. Not to mention Cancun Cruz. No problem for him. It gets too cold he will go to Mexico and you fend for yourself.
Nobody wants to go to their large bank accounts to pay for it. They want to borrow money from China.. then have the taxpayers and the electricity customers to pay off the loans
@@markadams5823 capitalism my friend. It only works for a selected few people. We need new leadership here in Texas. We have been under 3 republicans back to back and their democracy is not working. Bush, Perry and Abbott are all duds. If you are a Texan think about that when you vote next year. You keep doing what you have been doing and you keep getting what you have been getting. As a Texan I am tired of being stupid by voting these incompetent people in office. How about you?
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. In other words, water freezes.
130 billion dollar bill. All because elected officials decided not to hook the Texas grid to the rest of the country. Given the behavior of officials such as Cancun Cruise I doubt little will change.
Texas is connected to the rest of the grid, just not enough. We were cut off from our East, West, and Mexico links because all those regions were hit with this perfect storm too.
The DC interconnects already exist, but there wasn’t enough power from other states. Get it?
@@obits3 Those HVDC connections only had a capacity of 820 MW which wasn't enough.
Building a new house. Getting a backup generator. Running it on propane.
If only Texas was part of the SPP (Southern Power Pool), they could averted this disaster by getting power from surrounding states that share their generating capacity. Just across the Red River, power remained on even though the weather was even worse.
No one had extra power to give it wasn't localized to Texas and Texas does have interconnects with neighboring grids.
They gave as much as they could, but they were also dealing with a cold spike so they didn't have much to spare
Much of the Panhandle of Texas, down to south of Lubbock IS on SPP.
I retired December 31st after 35 years as a grid operator in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections. If the Texas operators have even half of the emergency operations training that I had, then they would have been able to restore a completely collapsed system in 12 to 24 hours, not the weeks implied in the video.
That's in a perfect world though. If you put a plant in the black in cold weather it won't take much to start freezing equipment then you're just stuck. You can't get the grid back up if you don't have generators.
They probably had less than half your training as a cost saving measure.
@@Banzai51 Chuckle...
Up in Quebec, we had a reletively short and mild winter this year.
Is it possible that this is a new trend for us too?
mild for you is harsh in most parts of Texas
See an Inconvenient Truth for direction on your question. The heat of this planet moves towards the poles where the planet's rotational speed is slower.
@@briand8090 But their models are exaggerated ... just. like the death estimates from covid. Paid science, sponsored by those who are invested in those results leads to corruption.
The estimated damage of 130 billion could have been mitigated wit relatively small investment (compared with the losses) spent over a decade in hardening infrastructure. One has to wonder how much of that 130 billion in losses were actually borne by the power companies. How much money from the state and federal governments is going to these companies to fix the infrastructure that was damaged by the weather? So what is the incentive for them to fix their vulnerabilities to prepare for the next time?
Keep voting for the big Red, Texas, keep being the "lone" star. All about that strength...ain't so strong when nobody comes to bail out your failing power grid.
This is what happens when the commons are privatized for profits for Uber corporations ! The general welfare is ignored!
Collapse is not only inevitable but assured! The electrical grid must be PUBLICLY RUN AND ACCOUNTABLE !
Day-67 STILL NO GRANULAR AID TO A DESPERATE POPULACE!
Why not be truly independent and make each building an island? Ditch the grid and get rooftop solar, geothermal heat pumps, and on site electrical storage in each house?
I do not know your age but, if you live another thirty or so years, you will see those changes. Perhaps not universally across the country but a big chunk nonetheless. We're getting there my friend...stick around.
It is happening in Australia.
This is B.S. we've had colder weather for longer periods of time. ERCOT failed!
It's not super cold condition. It's not even considered "cold" if you live to the north of Texas and things like this never happened. And those states do not use so many excuses.
It was very cold. I’ve lived many years in Michigan & I had to get under like 4 blankets here and keep my head under them at night. This was no ordinary weather. We are fine and I have no issue with our leaders. I am proud of them and stand with Texas. The best state you can live in
Good info but a fluff piece compared to the dirty back room dealings in corporate & Texas government that got us to this place. Tx is a state for corporations, not citizens.
Why was the CEO of one of the companies responsible interviewed so much?
This shows a larger problem. We are becoming way too reliant on power/energy. What happens when the next Carrington Event occurs? It won't be just our power that goes out, we'll also be without communications.
The distributed power that solar farms could offer may provide some relief.
Shows the larger problem that privatization doesn't work. That you need to actually have government regulations.
Turns out Ayn Rand was wrong.
@@robertlongoria765 The problem with electricity is the energy grid and its need to be load balanced. Solar farms add to that problem, not reduce it. The part of the problem that needs to be solved is energy storage.
@@blogintonblakley2708 Ayn Rand is a joke. I tried reading Atlas Shrugged, but couldn't stop laughing. I gave up on the book when Dagny got to Galt's Gultch and there was no lengthy discussion about how her economical theory actually functions. Right, all these old rich white people are going to labor to build that town. Fantasy. And who are they gonna trade with? No economy can function without outside trade. Fantasy. Plus, John Galt was an intellectual property thief. That coach company owned the idea for his imaginary, thermal energy law avoiding motor.
@@briand8090 Yup. Same thing happened to me. I tried reading it in high school and thought... wow here is a person that just doesn't understand why people are social.
Then study her life... you realize how true that is.
Bad thing is that she personally influenced a couple of generations of spoiled rich kids here in the USA... some of whom ended up running some important things. Like the Federal Reserve.
If you are a greedy individualist, then the book is like Carlos Castanedas' work is to the stoned ape crowd.
I've gotten to the point where I see these kinds of movements as religions... just with non anthropomorphic god's.
Like Capitalism's god is property.... something that completely misses people like Sam Harris who for some bizarre reason considers himself atheist.
{shrugs and grins}
Don't blame stupidity when Greed clearly explains it
¿por qué no los dos?
True they always play dumb while making millions so they can get away with it
Seems weird that a state with so much oil passing trough it, so many homes would use electricity for heat.
Nobody uses oil for heat, really, it's almost all natural gas or electric heat in homes, with wood burning for vanity reasons.
@@jacobpitts6846 Like they said in the video, 60 percent use electricity for heat. I gotta believe that is in apartments where electric is cheapest to install and have the renter pay the electric bill.
Electrical heat is expensive and clearly strains the grid. They should start there. Cold weather may be rare in some years, but getting as much of that 60% as possible off of electricity reliant heating should be the most straightforward and economically viable things to do right away. Once they reduce the major causes and issues with grid overload, the rest can be dealt with relatively quickly.
@@ronaldlindeman6136
I don't believe I have ever rented an apartment without natural gas appliances. In California, I did once have one with an electric dryer for unknown reasons, and that was bad enough. I wouldn't think that running gas lines to the few areas in an apartment would be anymore problematic than running copper wiring for 240v required for electric equivalent appliances. Natural gas is superior to electricity in almost every way for heat requirements. I'm actually hard pressed to come up with anything other than maybe a soldering iron or coffeemaker, neither of which are substantial energy hogs relatively speaking. There are even practical whole home generators set up to run when the power does go out.
Yeah, I understand that some natural gas lines went down too, but shedding people off of electricity heat use and onto natural gas would provide incentives to upgrade that infrastructure and sell that to skeptical people.
@@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou Years ago I lived in an apartment with electric heat. I only stayed a short time, the electric heating costs were to high. At first, the apartment complex had electricity in the rent price, then they found out that was to expensive, they rerouted the electrical to each apartment. But as you say, electricity is costly heat. I'm sure they went to natural gas eventually.
Wrong lesson. Here is the right lesson: if it can happen at all, it will happen in Texas.
How about Earthquakes and volcanos?
@@erikkovacs3097 earthquakes happen here too.
@@JohnDavis-yz9nq Well....... nothing compared to California. Same with tornadoes. We get them in California too just nothing compared to Texas.
@@erikkovacs3097 I’ve never heard of a tornado in California unless it’s a fire tornado from the wildfires. They have water spouts in Florida which is a tornado on the water.
@@JohnDavis-yz9nq Yes. They are rare. Usually they're just dust funnels. Rarely cause any damage.
It's simple,....follow the money...
When you let corrupt fossil fuel companies run your state.
Hey DJTardo it was those useless fucking wind turbines that froze up and caused Texas to loose 37% of it’s generation capacity. But before that the EPA said they would fine Texas if we ramped up our natural gas power plants.
We need to build more nuclear and natural gas power plants and ban those stupid electric cars that suck down the grid.
@@dondahl2056 turn off fox news and turn on your brain. It wasn't the wind turbines. Wind turbines work fine even in freezing cold Canada. We do need more nuclear, especially thorium molten salt reactors, but no more fossil fuel plants. Fossil fuels are the reason Texas is getting raped by crazy weather lately.
@@dondahl2056 Texas lost more natural gas than wind electricity production.
Turbine... not Turban
There are 3 area's, East, West and Texas.
You have to feel sorry for the poor folk, they get switched off first.
When you design something you hope it will survive extremes of any temperature, taking all eventualities into account.
Saying that this wasn't anticipated was no excuse.
That was what we call a "complete whitewash". Well done, PBS!
you know whats messed up i live in south texas and the power went out on the first night before it was even cold enough to be an issue the second night was 9 degrees i could understand. they were keeping the businesses powered during the day and at night we would get one to two hours a night power. they decided to turn it off point blank they didnt care what would happen alot of people down here are getting ready for this to be normal during the winter now. its sad but needed.
Proper insulation keeps both cool air and warm air inside.
While the failure to winterise the grid, the HUGE mistake was to allow end users to participate in the wholesale market.
That is what caused some homes to get bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.
End users should NEVER play in the wholesale market, they don't have the volume for it to make sense, nor do they have the knowledge to create all the required contracts to hedge against events like this.
You get what you pay for.
Is the music really necessary?
VERY SMART MOVE TEXAS LEADERS! DON'T WORRY NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO YOU! THE US NEVER HOLDS GOVERNMENT LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE!
Ignore the facts blame the libs
See? Exactly what I've been saying. Privatizing public utilities is not done to create efficiency... It's done to create profit. Period.
Companies do not pursue efficiency... they pursue profit.
Which means giving as little as possible for as much money as the market will bear.
Capitalism has failed... over and over again.
This is just another example of it.
And all the failures are based on greedy people scamming others...
For profit.
Deregulation and privatization of public services that are in fact human needs for life itself, is how these Republican and corporate Democrates stay in office and pad their bank accounts. This must end under Biden and the current, and ongoing Congress. Voters need to start voting for their own best interest, and that's not party ideologies that has done nothing but leave us the 99% behind on all that counts ashumane human care and happiness.
The talk about winterizing like Minnesota. How about winterizing like Oklahoma.
The Okies suffered, too.
TXU used to control the northern half of the state of Texas and answered to the PUC. Then forced deregulation hit and TXU divested all of its generating plants and become Oncore, which only delivers power. Now we reap the dividends of those decisions. Lack of power, poor grid system quality, lack of regulation, and lack of planning and enforcement. The reason why we don't connect our grid outside of Texas? Because THEN we would have to follow the same regulations that everyone else does, which includes proper winterizing and reserve power generation capabilities. This is from the old "there's 49 states and then there is Texas" mentality.
Blame it on Ronald Ray-gun, he is the one that pushed all that deregulation crap. After he made his push, utilities got higher than house payments, and he wasn't even from Texas.
🌄Winterize homes and offices, then demand isn't running so close to the margins. Take a whole systems approach. Avoid having so much demand in the first place so that during a severe weather event you still have a large margin for problems should they occur. Too razor thin were the margins that failure was statistically almost a certainty.
Texan homeowners need to know enough to turn off the water to the house if they loose power for a prolonged period of time so the pipes don’t freeze.
Treating electricity as a commodity is not intelligent.
It is a commodity.
Republikans just passed a tax payer funded fund to sue other states that drop coal, we are so 🍆ed
There was a catastrophic bank failure in 2008, AND WHAT REGULATORS DECIDED TO DO WAS "STRESS TEST" THE BANKING SYSTEM before they would be reactivated. From Jersey, I suggest you ask the Engineers how to SEVERELY STRESS TEST the entire energy system ALL THE WAY FROM 120% DOWN TO SCRATCH. To design overall live time-feedback throughout the whole system industrially hardened, and fallback contingency plans, that the system can continue operating and including system self-defense, to minimize losses of all kinds, LIFE, Dollars, resources, inconvenience. I'm saying to design a well-behaved, robust, system to handle all contingencies of weather, disasters, earthquakes, supply-line collapses, Acts of God, terrorists, saboteurs, hackers, External Enemy attacks, acts of war, "all conceivable failure modes." At least put it on the table, articulate all aspects of the system, at least so it can be evaluated, WITH ALL STAKEHOLDERS BEING FULLY INFORMED AND REPRESENTED(residential, commercial, military, industrial). Scientific, fact and evidence-based, non-political, and non-corruptable whatever that means. When 9/11 happened Homeland Security Resulted. You need something a lot better than that, like as if your personal life depends on it. Engineers, not politicians.
High humidity plus freezing temps is what caused this because water is so incredibly heavy.
Snaps power poles and not just power lines.
The good news is that this is a stupendous amount of water.
Don't invest any money in your future, wait for someone else to do it. Did anyone ever stop to think that may be the reason parents walked to and from school uphill? I guess better to do that than be accused of thinking ahead.
And the Republicans & ERCOT have already forgotten February 2021 winter.
Pretty irresponsible not to even mention that this isn't the first time Texas' grid froze .. over a decade ago a very cold snap shorter and less broad froze critical parts of ERCOT's grid ... The feds (who cannot force ERCOT to implement changes investigated wrote a nice paper with lots of recommendations that ERCOT ignored ... Allowing the even bigger freeze.
It's important to give a story this important the proper context .. to not even mention this history is a serious journalistic problem.
Too much of the dependence on one power source. Green wind and solar will never meet Texas needs.
I don't think you actually watched the video and know the percentage of power that is satisfied by wind/solar energy in Texas.
Spoiler, 80% is through classical resources like natural gas, coal, nuclear energy and so on. So what you're babbling is pure fiction and propaganda, ey.
Hope most Texans were smart enough to use their last Covid stimulus check to buy a generator. You're gonna need it.
Actually we are a very special kind of stupid here in Texas. We keep electing people like Rick Perry, Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz. And no people will not spend their Money on a generator.
@@JohnDavis-yz9nq The Dumbocrats here are the ones who built the useless windmills and solar panels and expected them to work in an arctic ice storm.
Why? It's over for another 125 years. Last time an arctic front like this came thru electricity wasn't even harnessed in the U.S. Everybody burned wood. Get a grip.
@@KB-ke3fi bullshit. In 1983 we had a freeze that was worse than this one. A whole lot worse.
Texas GOP policy in a nutshell: deciding not to prepare so the elite can line thier pockets and then everyone else paying the price for it.
This was also an example of how people have become too reliant on other people or government entities and forget that you must be better at self sufficiency and prepared for even the basic of needs for you and your family. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out, but you could have had a better chance to control YOUR OWN outcome.
The Ercot-air traffic controller analogy is flawed. Air Traffic Controllers, whether government employees or under contract with the government, are regulated by the FAA (i.e. the government). Ercot is not regulated by the State of Texas or any other government entity.
climate change is about climate instability.
Also, what happens when that freeze event happens over the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans?
Less secession talk by idiotic politicians and more action to improve vital infrastructure for the benefit of citizens. Vote out the corrupt big business boot lickers.
Another channel stated
Gas 48%
wind was/is 28%
Solar 5.67%
My Texan friend blamed my state, California, and “liberals”
Raising excessive profits by maintaining on the cheap.
This is what happens when you privatize the power grid. It needs to be regulated br the federal government or it will continue to go out whenever it gets too cold
Yeah because we're all so satisfied with the job the federal government is doing, right? When anything goes wrong sans regulation you people say its the lack of regulation to blame. When things go wrong that are regulated you people say there's not enough regulation.
Ya - we need the fed to fix everything for us……….
The grid is ok. What is needed are more power plants
Mother nature makes the rules she going to come back around to put it back the way it should be
And She is Great. We love Texas, everyone is cooking ! Check out our Chefs recipes and tools ....
There are several methods for water removal from the gas pipelines. Water provides no benefit at all to the gas flow, etc. I believe that few water extraction methods were being used in Texas, so the water in the pipes froze, not the gas. That would cost them money. Now the head of Ercot says they see no need to change anything. I bet not. Adding water extraction if it is not being used, on SO MANY systems might cost a lot and that's really all they care about. Also, water in the pipes might corrode the pipes, shortening their life. Perhaps pipelines aren't so wonderful after all?
Build more power plants more depending electricity and the rise of electric automobiles
With the amount of money our government gives away to other countries, the entire system could be updated and made to be more prepared for any extreme circumstances in the future. Sadly our politicians are too stupid or too corrupt to fix it.
25 MILLION DOLLARS FOR WOMEN'S STUDIES IN PAKISTAN!
Start with the military budget, everything else is peanuts.
And Abbott wants his reelection
🤣🤣🤣
the horrible background music should have just been left out! it blows!
The state,,,, infrastructure, more infrastructure. Be prepared.
So your saying they made poor choices in design and building power plants.
No, it's not just the power plants. As the vid made clear numerous times, TX's independent deregulated grid components - including oil/gas/wind/nuclear energy production and distribution facilities - were designed and built in compliance TX's independent deregulated grid requirements, which by law don't require weatherization protections for cold weather.
That music is so cloying irritating.I *hate* drama-music when watching something putatively informative.
Corporate needs to pull it together, and make it right. No money in the world is going to save you from God's wrath. Take care of your responsibility. Fix the problem.
The Texas rush to deregulation has roots all the way back into the "70s, when the Glen Rose Power Plant was being debated and TXU was seeking the Texas DoE's permission to build it. It was much covered int he Dallas Morning News of the time- there is nothing new here at all- this train wreck is most of 50 years in the making. ERCOT was created back then, to provide a "cutout" and take any political heat for the Governor or Legislature- Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, performed that function well, letting Gov. Gregg hector and browbeat him publicly for 4 hours, and then he was fired, a man who never had any authority to make the utilities do a damn thing, no ability to fine them, no ability to modify their licenses, no ability to do anything accept "manage" the rolling black outs- and he was fired by the idiot politician looking for a scapegoat, not an answer.
I'm a little irritated that NOVA did such a poor job of researching this- Texas electric power transmission system has had huge short falls in maintenance and upkeep going back to before Glen Rose's nuclear plant was built- a billion dollars worth at 1980 money, in 1980. Two Texas DoE engineers were fired then for pointing that out to the committee that was to decide on allowing the Glen Rose plant to be built. BTW, you haven't even touched on the balloon pricing scandal that has come out of this- that will likely cost Texas power consumers several more billion before this is over- and not a dime will be spent by the utilities to improve their equipment. FR
How's that lone thing working for you now?
Wait a minute! While the Texas power grid is independent of others in the U.S., why not connect with grids in Mexico? Is that a possibility.?
They are just making excuses
We all got to reach out to each other when we need help! Texas is strong enough to get through this
The free market will work things out. Privatization is the solution. Texans are lucky to have Ted Cruz and Governor Abbott representing them. The power failure was due to the greedy democratic owners of the power plants because instead of winterizing them, the took bonuses.
Freezing gas, water and oil totalling $130 Billion costs, because winterisation steps were not implemented by energy companies. That was a huge mistake, costing all the Texans! (Not as softly described at 7:10) . Those unrestricted energy companies who did have power could charge high (a year's) cost to you for a few days power.
People need to stop being so dependent on the power grid.
The bells could have been done without in the background.
We could have had WIRELESS electric. BUT, they killed Tesla.
Wireless transmission of power just isn't practical (in most cases). Inventions aren't reliant on one person. Killing an inventor can only delay the invention because someone else will come up with it eventually.
The Texas grid doesn't do too well in the summer either.
I always get warnings to turn up my thermostat (use less AC) in the summer. Our home builder thinks it’s gonna happen this summer. Adding so many homes to the grid.
Please do tell, if you have info. I worry about this summer, but this NOVA episode spoke of only the wintry stress.
Reform ERCOT and follow El Paso's plan
I bet them republican texans did not learn their lesson, so they will be doomed to repeat it.
unpleasant rapid light flashes not friendly
Don't worry about.
This time they will fix it.
For real.
DEFINITELY this time.
Fix, yes Fix it.
Plan ahead. Buy a generator instead of a new boat or four wheeler. Family first.
Lesson learnt: Do not ignore reality. Now roll out high insulation everywhere, renewably powered electricity, electric heated floors, grid storage, solar heating and electric transportation.