"Show this to anyone who says renewables are unreliable"...
A good article on the truth about renewables and energy storage in action...
https://heated.world/p/show-this-to-anyone-who-says-renewables
Edited for length...
Renewables are the only reason Texas' power grid hasn't failed during this month's punishing heat wave, a grid expert tells HEATED
Arielle Samuelson
Jun 29, 2023
-snip-
...But this heat wave, something has been different. The Texas power grid is holding, and it’s due in large part to two things: renewable energy and battery storage. This is particularly interesting given the claim Texas politicians often make regarding renewable energy: that it is “unreliable” compared to fossil fuels.
So I spoke with Doug Lewin, an energy expert and president at Stoic Energy, and the author of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, about how battery storage, solar power, and wind energy are the only reason Texans reliably have AC this week. He called me from his car, when the temperature was 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) in the shade.
Here are the 5 most fascinating things I learned:
1. Solar and battery storage have been essential to keep Texas from losing power.
...Giant batteries also stored enough power to stabilize the grid when large gas and coal power plants had power outages. Twice in the past two weeks, battery storage saved the day: once when a nuclear power plant dropped offline, and again when two large coal plants suffered outages.
2. Texas is expanding its renewable energy capacity precisely because of its reliability.
...Texas led the country in new renewable energy projects and wind power in 2022, and doubled its solar capacity this year. That’s especially helpful during long summer days, when solar power can provide energy until the sun sets around 8:30 pm.
3. Texas Republicans are still marketing solar and wind as unreliable, even as they save the day.
...When the power grid fails, Texas Republicans tend to make a habit of scapegoating renewable energy. After Winter Storm Uri, Senator Ted Cruz spread misinformation about “frozen wind turbines” causing the blackouts that left millions of Texans without heat or power. In reality, ERCOT said gas, coal, and nuclear power plants were responsible for twice as many outages as solar and wind combined.
4. Texas’s pro-oil culture is holding lawmakers back from telling the truth.
...Texas is the top oil and gas-producing state in the U.S (it also produced 26 percent of the nation’s wind energy last year). That keeps Republicans repeating the same tired talking points about failing wind turbines, even though wind is the state's second-largest power source.
5. A culture shift in Texas can have benefits across the country.
...As the climate crisis continues to push temperatures to extremes, Texas’ grid may become a testing ground for the rest of the nation. So how Texas handles its power grid isn’t just a local issue—it’s a global one. “I think we're a postcard from the future,” said Lewin. “The stakes are very, very, very high.”
Full article at: https://heated.world/p/show-this-to-anyone-who-says-renewables
= new reply since forum marked as read
Rather than recycle bullshit fantasies, and repeat obviously fraudulent crap, one can directly access the ERCOT data in real time.
ERCOT Real Time Data
As of this moment, the demand for electricity in Texas because of extreme heat resulting from the failure of 50 years of mindless cheering for solar and wind garbage, all of which will be piles of waste in the next twenty years, is 77,688 MW.
The Demand curve downloaded at 21:50 CT is here:
The soon to be electronic waste solar garbage in that State, choking on extreme heat because 50 years of "solar and wind will save us bullshit," has done nothing to address climate change is producing 732 MW as the sun falls, in the fucking "percent talk" antinukes use to excuse their indifference to reality, 100*732/77688 = 0.94%, not even 1% as people's lives are at stake if the air conditioning goes down:
Here's the fucking fuel mix right now:
Now as it happens, the wind is blowing right now, but tomorrow evening, as the power demand peaks in the early evening as it does during episodes of extreme heat, if the wind doesn't blow, Texas will burn gas and dump the waste into the planetary atmosphere as it is doing right at this fucking minute.
As I've been following the real time ERCOT data during this climate disaster, as opposed to recycling propaganda, just as I follow the grids at CAISO and in Europe, I happen to know that there occasions, as there are often in California (CAISO) when all the wind facilities in these States spread of thousands of square miles of wind turbine industrial parks, can't produce as much energy as a few nuclear plants produce on a few acres.
If anyone wants a demonstration that wind and solar cultists do not now, and never have, given a shit about the use of fossil fuels, the use on which the wind and solar garbage depends; that they couldn't care less about climate change, I offer this post.
Personally, I'm aware that "I'm not an antinuke" "wind and solar will save us" antinukes are very poorly read, but even I would have thought that they would be able to look up the word "reliable" in the dictionary.
One cannot rely on the wind blowing, which is the fucking point.
It is unsurprising to find people who couldn't care less about climate change doing a victory dance at a disaster.
