Winterizing power plants and fuel delivery systems is expensive. It’s obvious that those operating power plants and systems in Texas didn’t think that a 1 in 10 years event is worth spending the money necessary to prepare for. Some wind power went offline, which seems unnecessary given that wind power systems operate year around in northern Sweden, Antarctica, Canada and Iowa! Much more natural gas and coal power went offline simply because operators chose not to prepare for severe cold weather. They are talking about changing this, but I lived in Texas for twenty years, and I don’t expect that much will actually change. They’ll put some lipstick on the pig, but the same thing will happen again.
I have permitted a dozen or so environmental facilities in my career and our storm water permits normally required at a min 100 yr flood capacity. The running joke was a 100 yr flood happened every 10 yrs. Proven true several times.
Winterizing power plants and fuel delivery systems is expensive. It’s obvious that those operating power plants and systems in Texas didn’t think that a 1 in 10 years event is worth spending the money necessary to prepare for. Some wind power went offline, which seems unnecessary given that wind power systems operate year around in northern Sweden, Antarctica, Canada and Iowa! Much more natural gas and coal power went offline simply because operators chose not to prepare for severe cold weather. They are talking about changing this, but I lived in Texas for twenty years, and I don’t expect that much will actually change. They’ll put some lipstick on the pig, but the same thing will happen again.
The question is WHY did they have such lax contingency plans?
It has been suggest that this is because that gives intermittent generators a benefit.
See https://judithcurry.com/2021/02/18/assigning-blame-for-the-blackouts-in-texas
I have permitted a dozen or so environmental facilities in my career and our storm water permits normally required at a min 100 yr flood capacity. The running joke was a 100 yr flood happened every 10 yrs. Proven true several times.