Fossil Fuel Apologists Crafted Lies Blaming Wind Power for Texas Blackouts

https://theintercept.com/2021/02/17/fox-news-boosts-republican-lie-that-frozen-wind-turbines-caused-texas-blackouts/

by wombatmobile • 5 years ago

59 23 5 years ago

aeoleonn• 5 years ago

I saw/heard this same effect from politicians in the US Congress & Former President.

Politicians denigrating "wind mills" i.e. wind turbines. And exaggerating their fault in Texas' February 2021 power outages. Clearly the particular politicans are biased towards the fossil fuel lobbyists. I just really hate when they play politics with economic factors such as power generation.

Less polluting, Renewable Electricity/Power generation is a public good.

It should be prioritized over the private gains of fossil fuel executives/employees/lobbyists.

Stop playing politics with my power system.

hfsp6• 5 years ago

Less polluting Are you familiar with the rare earth metal mines, solar, or wind plants in China?
It should be prioritized over the private gains of fossil fuel executives/employees/lobbyists. Stop playing politics with my power system.

You are playing politics. I just want to not freeze to death during the snowstorm, or fry up in the hot summer.

Unreliable electricity sources such as wind and solar are a recipe for paying more for electricity, and losing power when it is most needed.

wombatmobile2• 5 years ago

Something similar happened in South Australia in 2016.

One of the worst storms to hit South Australia in 50 years knocked out 22 high-voltage power pylons, plunging the state into darkness. The lines on those pylons carry electricity generated near Port Augusta to the rest of the state. [1]

The government of the day blamed renewable energy, even though the outage was caused by the loss of core transmission lines that are generation neutral. Australian news media, including press that is 70% owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox in the US, repeated the claims across the news cycle.

- - -

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/29/south...

barbacoa• 5 years ago

"Republicans failed to ensure that the Texas power grid could withstand a cold snap, so the party’s broadcast arm recycled lies about wind energy to deflect blame on to Democrats."

That is such an intellectually dishonest way to frame temperature ratings discussion of critical infrastructure. The people who oversee and maintain the grid operate independent of government and wouldn't let any partisan elected official touch grid infrastructure with a 10' stick.

The right is blaming wind the left is blaming natural gas, they both are wrong, both failed at similar rates.

Trying to frame this according to ideological narratives just comes off as sleazy.

Armisael16• 5 years ago

The people who oversee and maintain the grid operate independent of government and wouldn't let any partisan elected official touch grid infrastructure with a 10' stick.

ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which could have the power to mandate that power producers winterize if elected officials passed appropriate legislation (nothing particularly unusual from a legal perspective would be required).

Elected officials absolutely can be blamed for not taking steps to prevent this.

Blaming natural gas for this as a general energy source is as wrong as blaming wind - both are vulnerable but can be protected - but the idea that the state government had nothing to do with it is silly.

wombatmobile2• 5 years ago

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Monday called for the resignations of Public Utility Commission Chair DeAnn Walker and Electric Reliability Council of Texas CEO Bill Magness, criticizing them for a lack of preparation ahead of the deadly winter storm that led to massive power outages across the state for multiple days.

“Both the PUC Chair and the ERCOT CEO said they were prepared the day before the storm hit in full force, but obviously they were not,” Patrick said in a statement. His statements come after the officials testified for hours late last week in committee hearings as state lawmakers grilled them over the power grid failures.

www.texastribune.org/2021/03/01/dan-patrick-texas-ercot-resign/amp/

hfsp6• 5 years ago

TheIntercept has fallen mightily from breaking the story on Snowden to filling political hit pieces.

Pretty telling their own founder was ousted last year.

Agreed on the ideological slants.

People were put in harms way.

PicassoCTs2• 5 years ago

Which is great- desperate propaganda is one of the stages of grief for a dying market. Solar is already under-pricing them, they can no longer fight it with regulation manipulation alone. Shareholders are already exiting them in droves, waiting for the final blow - the invention of some large scale storage. Either that or supra-conducting pipelines, shifting energy globally to were its needed in location and time.

Blunt lies to the former middle-class, who by nostalgia associate that technology with there own lost status, wont save them, they may only prolong the inevitable.

Let Don Quixote ride one last charge against the giants..

darepublic• 5 years ago

Don Quixote I can feel sympathy for. The fossil fuel industry not as much

hfsp6• 5 years ago

Have sympathy for yourself.

Please note organic fuels: -provide parts for your computer, smart phone, router -power your home, and office so you can use above -keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter -transport you on the ground and in the air from A to B -power the agricultural sector so you don't have to grow all your own food

Unlike you, there are a billion people+ on Earth who do not have access to cheap, and reliable energy.

This is peak developed world virtue signaling.

AnimalMuppet• 5 years ago

Shareholders are already exiting them in droves...

Source?

PicassoCTs2• 5 years ago

The global energy demand is rising constantly.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2020

This makes re-investment necessary. These rates are actually shrinking for fossils, meaning shareholders don't expect much return on investment from them. They are expensive to get, volatile to trade and as e-cars show, fast to replace when push comes to shove. So everyone is looking for the door- aka the big battery. The moment the light never goes out in some battery lab, it will be a full blown fire-sale.

no-s2• 5 years ago

One could reasonably argue that since wind and solar power wouldn't save their bacon in an extreme weather situation it could also be perceived as a mal-investment, HHOS. If investing in "green" energy can divert capital and attention from systems reliability and resiliency, ERCOT's got some splainin' to do...especially since the author (Mackey) asserts that wind and solar were not expected to produce in the winter, whereas Texas supposedly has about 30 GW of wind power capacity[1].

The article seems to be relying mostly on indignant protestations. In reality solar and wind must be coupled with storage in order to act as reliable baseload generation.

So although solar and wind (and hydro) can reduce combustion generation, it can't be relied on to offset these particular risks of excessive demand (from people freezing, y'know?) which resulted in costly exposure. As evidenced by the reduced capacity.

[1] There exist more balanced analysis that cite data, e.g https://www.americanexperiment.org/2021/02/wind-energy-fails...

hfsp6• 5 years ago

Texas supposedly has about 30 GW of wind power capacity In reality solar and wind must be coupled with storage in order to act as reliable baseload generation.

The problem is there is no grid scale storage, and neither ERCOT nor any other organization I know of can will solar nor wind into production.

Completely agree with your assessment.

ERCOT leadership failed.

TX power grid failed.

People died.

aaron695• 5 years ago

People really don't know how siphon's work. Wikipedia is shit. Because it's two process that are interacting with different weights, it's complicated.

My understanding is wind failed, gas took up what it was failing at, then gas failed.

To me that's wind failing, if we have to say something.

I do know an article saying "Fossil generators deserve an F here" without assigning a grade to wind is propaganda.

hfsp6• 5 years ago

There's two underlying issues:

1) Failure of winterization across both wind and organic power sources 2) Unreliable nature of wind

1958325146• 5 years ago

Here is a graph of Texas's generation by source during that time and the surrounding time. It seems borderline dishonest to have an article about this topic not include this. The sharp dip in the middle on the image (the beginning of Feb 15th) is when my power went out. https://postimg.cc/FfG4XdDy

telchar• 5 years ago

On a side note, that graph is almost unreadable to me. What, are we paying by the pixel now? The legend is barely there.

EdwardDiego• 5 years ago

Why is it dishonest? I'm unsure what you're inferring from that graph.

8bitsrule• 5 years ago

"Texas Gov. Abbott blames solar and wind for the blackouts in his state..."

World, if we don't quit putting stupid/cunning people in leadership positions, we're all going to die.

Fossil Fuel Apologists Crafted Lies Blaming Wind Power for Texas Blackouts

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