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originally posted by: shooterbrody
a reply to: Phoenix
Yep
$1000 megawatts and $300 mmbtu gas when people are on rolling blackouts is obscene imo.
originally posted by: ArMaP
Also, considering that in all of Portugal's recorded history (almost 900 years) we had only 3 hurricanes, the last one, also the strongest, had a record 176 km/h wind gust and made some damages, and 61 people had to be relocated because of damage to their homes, we don't need that much to worry about hurricanes. Where I live we didn't have any problems.
originally posted by: ArMaP
Just to get an idea, anyone knows how much electricity does a common home in the US uses per month?
originally posted by: Xtrozero
So maybe not 900 years, but damn, really you want them to engineer in basically a 100 year event?
Also, the big deal was the wind turbines that froze which provide 25% of their energy in "green energy" that failed...funny how nuclear is also green but not politically correct it seems and wouldn't care whatever the temp is...lol
originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: ketsuko
The only green energy that's reliable today is hydro and nuclear.
Some day people will understand that.
I've always been a big nuclear fan
originally posted by: ketsuko
This is why having diversified power grid generation capability is so important. Right now, most of the US's green energy generation capability is frozen solid during a period of the highest demand experienced ever in decades thanks to the worst string of freezing, sub-zero temps since the '80s. For the record, I was a kid then and lived through that string too.
Here's live updates for rolling blackouts in the KCMO area.
If you have an update string to add for you area, please do so. Knock on wood, we haven't experienced a blackout yet, but that may be due to being in the same area as a hospital, so we may luck out. Others have lost power randomly and suddenly for between 30 and 60 minutes at a time. I understand this is going on all over the Midwest.
Things are a little more complicated than just frozen windmills. The natural gas infrastructure in Texas has frozen too. Between the two, the power grid is stressed to breaking. Sure would be nice if we balanced our energy portfolio a bit with some coal and nuclear, wouldn't it?
More than 2.5 million people in Texas are currently experiencing rolling blackouts as temperatures remain in the single digits in many parts of the state. The Lone Star state is currently short of electricity because half of the Texas wind fleet (the largest in the nation) is iced over and incapable of generating electricity. Additionally, the natural gas infrastructure Texas has become so reliant upon has also frozen up.
Texas’s experience highlights the perils of becoming overly reliant upon wind, solar and natural gas because these energy sources are not as reliable as coal or nuclear power during extreme weather conditions.
Look, no one is against the greener sources of energy where and when they work, but no one wants to sit in -15 degree weather freezing their butts off, either because the windmills can't turn and the natural gas won't flow. Sometimes, you need to have some fallbacks to keep you going.
The picture of what went wrong in Texas is incomplete. But while some wind generators did go offline as turbines iced over, the state's largest grid,the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said the shortage was driven by a failure not of renewable sources but of traditional "thermal" sources: coal, nuclear and especially natural gas. Energy experts said that gas lines supplying gas-fired plants may have frozen or that supplies to the plants may have been limited as gas was prioritized for homes that rely on gas for their heat.
originally posted by: Hypntick
There's part of the problem. TX doesn't have the nuke infrastructure that other states have. We have seven reactors in SC and five across the border in NC. Given the size and population of TX compared to even the three other states mentioned, it looks like nuclear is highly under-represented in the marketplace. As for "green" technologies, it's not even close to meeting a peak demand situation like this one.
originally posted by: ArMaP
Nuclear energy is not considered "green" because of the radioactive waste it produces. If we were talking about nuclear fusion, then that would be "green".
originally posted by: ArMaP
Nuclear energy is not considered "green" because of the radioactive waste it produces. If we were talking about nuclear fusion, then that would be "green".