Texas taxpayers' $'s not going where it should.

At least it is only Texan's taxpayer $. Wait until they have to raise taxes to cover their BS.

There is no reason to raise taxes when cutting social services will do and also pander to toxic ideological ideas.

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if it isn't cold, it is heat
https://www.ercot.com/news/release?id=90030206-5cf5-db8e-13d1-f8fe2bd0128f

Teddy boy certainly left himself open there.

Cruz Blasted After Ripping Newsom on California's Electricity Issues.

I wonder if there'll be another Mexican holiday this winter down in Cancun for Teddy.

And winter hasn't even started yet.

Houston mayor defends boil order as millions remain without water.

...According to Turner, two transformers failed, causing power outages at the East Water Purification Plant, which he said provides water for much of Houston's 2.2 million residents. There was no indication the water system had been contaminated, he said....

Looks like the Mad Abbott of Texas still hasn't fixed his state's power problems.

Greg Abbott Slammed as Thousands Lose Power in Texas During Bomb Cyclone.

... That is fully to be expected...

Especially so being as our pollution is now making the supposed "once in a millennia" weather events occur more likely every year...

Shame how politics can stay so aloof and on a different planet.


Stay cool?...

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

SUPERTEXAS is SUPERDUPER

SUPER(B)

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

While Texas freezes due to incompetence in other states wackos are sabotaging the grid.

4 substations attacked in Washington state, leaving thousands without power.

I wonder if these 1's were shot up just like those North Carolina 1's were.

Another WONDERFUL Day and Year in This FUNVille Country.

SUPERYep

SUPER(B)

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

Well it looks like Texas maybe getting somewhere finally (for summer anyway).

Solar power proves its worth as heat wave grips the state.

While Texans drag through another punishing heat wave, people have nervously watched the state’s power grid, hoping it will hold up as the triple-digit days wear on. Under the blazing sun, the state has produced significant amounts of electricity from solar panels to help avoid shortfalls.

The heat pushed demand to a new record — topping 81,000 megawatts on Tuesday — but the state’s grid operator has only requested that residents lower their power use one day during the heat wave, when electricity from wind and power plants that use coal, nuclear or natural gas fell short of their past output.

Solar power provided nearly 20% of the Texas grid’s power needs on Tuesday before demand reached a new high.

A so-called “heat dome” has settled over the state, meaning an area of high pressure sits above while the area bakes, Houston-based meteorologist Matt Lanza said. This means June hasn’t been very windy.

The heat has been punishing. Local officials have opened cooling centers while people working outside struggle to avoid heat-related illness. A postal worker died in Dallas last week as the heat index reached 115 degrees, and a teenager died while hiking in Big Bend National Park on a day when the temperature hit 119 degrees, according to news reports.

Experts credit the state’s diversity of energy sources for keeping the lights on. The significant increase in solar power generation in recent years has helped meet the growing demand for electricity in Texas, which operates its grid largely independently of the rest of the country.

Some 16,800 megawatts of solar power could be produced on the state grid as of the end of May, compared with 2,600 in 2019, according to data from the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

“The solar we’ve added in the last year has been tremendously beneficial, and the solar we will continue to add will also be beneficial,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “Solar is such a boon for us, for grid reliability.”........

Well it looks like Texas maybe getting somewhere finally (for summer anyway).

The advantage of Texas is its low latitude of 30°15'N (ie. Austin TX). Solar is supposedly also quite useful during the winter.

In Germany we're extending solar extremely too. Works well during daily peak loads (8-16). We've got ~70 GW solar already, extension to ~400 GW is planned until 2045. But we place these panels at ~52°30'N (ie. Berlin) which is roughly the latitude of Labrador City, NL, Canada. Solar ist almost useless for us in December and January, not talking about the typical weather (overcast, rainy). It's very rarely sunny then.

location; latitude; date; max. sun elevation; daylight hours
Austin, TX; 30.25N; Dec 21; 36° ; 10:12 hrs
Berlin, DE; 52.50N; Dec 21; 14° ; 07:39 hrs

Maybe Texas wants to add some HVDC links (n * 2GW) to neighbouring grids? We have many from Scandinavia and the UK to the continent. They aren't cheap; but eventually HVDC overhead lines are not as expensive as our subsea cables.

...Solar is supposedly also quite useful during the winter....

The 32 panels on my roof are certainly doing very here during this current winter down under. ;-)

...Solar is supposedly also quite useful during the winter....

The 32 panels on my roof are certainly doing very here during this current winter down under. ;-)

The land masses of the southern hemisphere are at a very favorable latitude for solar. Okay, I admit, in the summer, when sun is almost at its zenith, it's not that "cool" anymore. (Tool: https://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php?lang=en )

loc; latitude; date, max. elevation; daylight hrs
Sydney NSW; 33.87 S; Jun 21; 33° ; 09:54 hrs

I'm a lot further north and much higher than Sydney at 29° S with an elevation of 968m at this place. ;-)

The best summertime sunny day out from this system of mine last summer was a 58.3km/hr day while that dropped down to a 38.9kw/hr day during winter though the worst cloudy day (a week or so before the winter solaces) it only produced just over a 15kw/hr day (and that was 1 extremely dull day).

I've only had it since last spring, but the price was worth it, though I'm presently hobbled to a 5kw/hr input to the grid while the system itself can do 10kw/hr so once this lot is paid off a cheaper and better battery setup (than now available) can then be attached to make use of that extra output (or a fast car charger) and that would turn the system into 1 big UPS (and you have the right car).

The best summertime sunny day out from this system of mine last summer was a 58.3km/hr day while that dropped down to a 38.9kw/hr day during winter though the worst cloudy day (a week or so before the winter solaces) it only produced just over a 15kw/hr day (and that was 1 extremely dull day).

58 kWh a day.... 39 in the cold winter 8-O Wow, you could supply the consumption of my whole five-storey appartment house with such "power plant", not evening peak of course... I begin to understand how many people in sunny U.S. states or Australia can afford electricity consumption of high performance BOINC crunchers.

There was one s@h big cruncher back in the day who had a compute farm that was entirely fed from solar panels on his shed roof (big shed). His RAC was balanced against the solar power available.

But... On quite a big scale.

Impressive and ahead of his time.


Happy green crunchin'!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

In Germany on windy and sunny summer days, there's already today a large overproduction of electricity. Then we're exporting up to 15 gigawatts (which exceeds peak consumption by 20%) to neighbouring countries. Sometimes, especially on weekends with less load, prices at electricity exchanges (spot market) drop to large negative values in peak hours. We pay Austrians to fill up their pumped storage hydros, Norwegians to stop their own hydros... the French then stop most gas turbines... [I don't mention our cold&dark winter months, we pretend they don't exist].

Considering Texas' ambitious expansion targets at Solar (see Wiggo's article), there will be very soon an urgent problem to find consumers for excess solar energy somewhere during the peak hours. I suspect very soon they will want to connect the Texas power grid via many high-capacity interconnects to the rest of the US to make money instead of cut off solar farms to balance grid frequency.

Solar power proves its worth as heat wave grips the state.

This growth could catapult Texas closer to challenging California’s rank as the nation’s top solar producer. Texas is currently second.

Ever more Texans will be going off-grid. It's easy enough to do and cheaper than getting stung badly with ridiculous prices during a freeze...

See:

The 8-Bit Guy - I'm ready for the next power outage!



Texas: An example where freely liberal monopolies (corruptly) run wild!

Enjoy!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I think you are talking about Keith Myers - he's still around and crunching on other projects.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Ever more Texans will be going off-grid. It's easy enough to do and cheaper than getting stung badly with ridiculous prices during a freeze...

Maybe this works for Texans, because of southern latitude. It doesn't in our dark winter months (up to ~17 night hours) in central Europe (latitude 50° ... 55°N). Then even in Texas, there are certainly multi-storey residential buildings, apartment buildings where the majority of the city's population lives (where to place a dozen panels for each resident)? Companies without enough roof space or which need electricity 24/7? Industry?

When reading "going off-grid" I get a gut feeling that human development takes a big step back here to the 19th century. Transmission grids are a technical achievement and have provided increasingly cheaper electricity for 110 years. (In my hometown there is still a pylon from Europe's first 110 kV high-voltage line built in 1912, now a technical monument).

The reasons for ridiculous prices are different. Maybe it's (corruptly) wild running monopolies in Texas. In Europe it is not, markets are liberalized, grids and suppliers unbundled. Grid (natural monopoly) fees are strictly regulated. But governments develop astronomically expensive plans (hundreds of billion Euros) for grid reinforcements and expansion. Economic principles of supply and demand, effectiveness and cost efficiency: politicians ignore them. They pursue ideological fantasies about saving the world. Economics can save the climate, politicians cannot.