Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott says…

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.”

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott says stupid shit.

The chart below, from the United States Energy Information Administration, shows that in Texas, Natural Gas-Fired electricity generation is BY FAR – by at least TWICE – the SINGLE LARGEST SOURCE of electrical power in Texas.

It is NOT Nonhydroelectric Renewables, which supplies only 8679 thousand MWh while Natural Gas which supplies 19,890 thousand MWh.

Yeah.

But wind turbines are the problem – according to Governor Abbott and other nuts.

What kind of ding-dong dumbass is Greg Abbott?

Governor Abbott had an embarrassing and unannounced public case of verbal diarrhea on The Blame Game show on Tuesday’s edition of Faux Newz with Right Wing Nut Job Extremist Sean Hannity as the talking head show.

But, let’s be fair about this, shall we?

It happened on YOUR watch, Governor Greggy-poo. Therefore, it’s YOUR fault.

It’s YOUR FAULT
because
YOU DID NOTHING
TO
PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING.

Simply put, you did NOT look out for the welfare of your state’s citizens.

You FAILED.

In a series of Tweets, Dan Crenshaw, Texas Republican U.S. Representative for CD2-Houston stated what many agreed is the problem – there’s no insulation in natural gas pipelines in Texas. Thus, they were freezing up, and creating problems.

“Low Supply of Natural Gas: ERCOT planned on

67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we ran out of the ability to get natural gas. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation — so things were freezing.

“Even Nuclear Got Cold: We only have 4 nuclear units in TX, 2 near Houston and 2 near Dallas. At the plant near Houston, one of the two reactors at the plant turned off – due to a precaution because a safety sensor froze.

“Even though the system was stable, the reactor shut off because the sensor couldn’t relay that the system was stable. This is just one of the many mechanisms that makes nuclear energy so safe, even though it interfered with our ability to get backup power.

“We had every natural gas plant—that wasn’t already down for maintenance—online generating power. Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.”

The Texas Tribune also identified Texas’ failure to provide any type of winter protection throughout their energy infrastructure and wrote that, “While wind power skeptics claimed the week’s freeze means wind power can’t be relied upon, wind turbines — like natural gas plants — can be “winterized,” or modified to operate during very low temperatures. Experts say that many of Texas’ power generators have not made those investments necessary to prevent disruptions to equipment since the state does not regularly experience extreme winter storms.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a Republican, and earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

“It’s estimated that of the grid’s total winter capacity, about 80% of it, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power. Only 7% of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.

“Production of natural gas in the state has plunged due to the freezing conditions, making it difficult for power plants to get the fuel necessary to run the plants. Natural gas power plants usually don’t have very much fuel storage on site, experts said. Instead, the plants rely on the constant flow of natural gas from pipelines that run across the state from areas like the oil and natural gas-producing Permian Basin in West Texas to major demand centers like Houston and Dallas.”

Again, because Texas is the ONLY state in the union that relies on their own electrical power grid, they DO NOT have to follow Federal guidelines or regulations on matters concerning electrical power generation. So, they don’t.

And now, they’ve danced so long, it’s time to pay the piper – and they don’t like it.

An analysis published also in the Texas Tribune reminded readers of a similar event which had occurred about a decade ago, and stated in part that,

“A winter storm in 2011 — not as big as the one we’re in now — prompted rolling blackouts that affected 3.2 million electric customers. A federal inquiry done by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. found some familiar-sounding problems in the state’s handling of a multi-day hard freeze.

“Then as now, the utilities and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — the state’s power grid operator — expected to have the electricity supply needed for a surge in demand. “They all had adequate reserve margins, based on anticipated generator availability,” the report said. “But those reserves proved insufficient for the extraordinary amount of capacity that was lost during the event from trips, derates and failures to start.”

“At the worst point, about a third of the generation was unavailable. “These extensive generator failures overwhelmed ERCOT’s reserves, which eventually dropped below the level of safe operation.”

“And look at this part: “Had ERCOT not acted promptly to shed load, it would very likely have suffered widespread, uncontrolled blackouts throughout the entire ERCOT Interconnection.”

“Here we are again. Demand spiked in the face of cold weather, as it was expected to. But the amount of generated electricity fell, too — far short of what was projected and short of what was needed.

“As a result, demand exceeded supply, “rolling blackouts” were ordered, and more than 4 million Texas households lost power, putting people in sometimes hazardous conditions that state elected officials and regulators are supposed to manage.

“What if lawmakers connect the dots between the current emergency and the emergencies that were underway a week ago, when it was 70 degrees outside? What if their inquiries put someone else on the hot seat?

“Texans might turn to the people elected and hired to protect the rest of us in the face of life-threatening disasters, whether from disease or weather or hostile humans. Political strength and popularity comes from competence.”

An irony, if it could be called that, is that earlier, Governor Abbott had on February 15th Tweeted that, “The Texas power grid has not been compromised. The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas & coal generators. They are working to get generation back on line. ERCOT & PUC are prioritizing residential consumers. I have gathered information all day from ERCOT & the Public Utilities Comm. & will provide a detailed update shortly. Many power generation companies facilities froze overnight and shut down their ability to generate power. They are working to get power back on line.”

The Houston Chronicle has similarly identified a lack of regulation as being problematic for Texas electric utility customers, and specifically cited the exact same problem that occurred 11 years ago – freezing temperatures – and the electric utilities failure then, and their ongoing failure to exercise preventive measures.

“Texas’s power grid, run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, occupies a unique distinction in the United States in that it does not cross state lines and thus is not under the oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“That has long been a point of pride with Texas politicians who in the 2000s chose to deregulate the state’s power market and allow power companies, not state regulators, determine when and how to build and maintain power plants.

“That system has fallen under scrutiny in recent days as millions of Texans are left without power following an unusual cold snap. Following a near identical episode a decade ago, federal regulators warned Texas it needed to take steps to better insulate its power plants.

“But there is little indication that happened, prompting criticism of ERCOT from Texas Republicans and Democrats alike.”

Because electric energy producers throughout Texas have failed to insulate their systems, cold temperatures have frozen natural gas wells and wind turbines, and at least one nuclear power plant in the state has closed because of its failure to insulate against the cold weather.