Don't Mess With Texas

There is a saying that everything is bigger in Texas. I guess weather events and the power grid are included in this aphorism. 

In case you’ve missed the news there is a really big energy crisis in Texas which happens to be a consequence of a really big cold snap. The stretch of cold snap now has extended to three consecutive days of energy outages. 

Natural gas distribution has slowed to a crawl.  The grid is down and plagued with rolling blackouts.

The extended power outages have led to unheated homes, apartments and offices, frozen and burst pipes (flooding), closed gas stations (no electricity to run the pumps), boil advisories (if you have running water), inoperable handheld devices (no power to recharge them) and an abundance of Texas-sized finger pointing and blame-shifting. 

Let me begin by pointing out that 90 percent of Texas’s power needs (more than 25 million customers) are served by the Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT) an independent and largely unregulated energy grid. 

Governor Greg Abbott (R) has aimed his ire at frozen wind turbines. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has also falsely blamed frozen wind turbines for the mass outages adding: Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business. 

So what’s Texas’s business problem? 

The main problem is frigid temperatures and frozen natural gas pipelines that stalled ERCOT’s natural gas production and distribution, which is responsible for the majority of Texas’s power supply.  Wind and other renewable energy resources are hardly insignificant yet contribute less than 10 percent of the state’s overall mix of power generation. 

Unremarkably, here in the frozen tundra, we get natural gas to heat houses and generate electricity through pipelines carrying natural gas from Texas. Our end of the pipeline doesn't freeze - even at 30 below zero. Our wind and solar generation work just fine at 30 below.

As remarkable as it is that Texas supplies the world with talented engineering minds this is an engineering problem. Really bad engineering - pure and simple.  Engineers don't design things to simply work - they design things to not fail. Texas’s ERCOT was negligent in the design and construction standards of their gas pipelines, power plants and energy distribution system. Texas standards are lower than those applied in other states and countries because Texans chaff over the notion of being regulated. Texas made a calculated choice to avoid federal regulation and a requirement that the grid be effectively winterized. The ERCOT equipment that failed in Texas is working just fine in predictably colder northern latitudes everywhere else in the world where it has been winterized. 

The Texas privatization system discouraged redundancy in critical systems.  And as a consequence they have no one to blame but themselves. Blaming wind or solar energy is a lame distraction. 

As evidence of this reality consider the fact that all the neighboring states are suffering identical and even colder weather than Texas yet their power grid is fully-functional. And as much as they’d like to lend a friendly neighborly hand to help Texas out of its predicament they cannot. Texas does not allow their power lines to cross the state line.  Go figure.  

So what about the other 10 percent of Texans not dependent-upon ERCOT?  Ironically, these Texans belong to well-managed Rural Electric Co-Ops. They haven’t suffered any service interruptions, blackouts or water issues. 

Don't mess with Texas.