Maggie's Farm

Re: Wind Power I've been studying the mess in Texas and it's a lot more complicated than frozen wind generators. In the first place, "green" energy sources like wind and solar are, by nature, intermittent and unreliable. In order to keep the grid itself stable, traditional sources like coal/nuclear/natural gas are needed to ramp up when the wind (or sunlight) goes away. But the subsidies for wind and solar are absolutely killing the traditional sources. Wind gets paid a premium rate whether the power is required or not. In times where there's an excess of wind power, it drives the "free" market rate to low or even negative values. How can a coal plant compete with that? But the subsidies are just one part of the problem. Even worse is the system that ERCOT has set up. In Texas, power plants don't get paid for just "being there" if power is needed; They only get paid for the Kilowatt-Hours they pump into the grid. As a result, there's no incentive for a plant to be on standby to save the grid in an emergency. Also, in Texas is that there's no financial incentive to winterize their plants. That's on the PUC. The PUC is a political organization and they want to appease the mob with lower rates. Even a nuclear plant in the South Texas Project tripped because a sense line on a Feedwater Pump froze up. The equipment was out in the weather for property tax reasons. If the equipment had been enclosed, the line wouldn't have frozen but the plant would have been taxed at a higher rate as a "structure". So the utility chose not to enclose it. Unbelievable, but the bottom line is that the federal and state governments have dis-incentivized the utilities from being prudent. The first thing that needs to be done is for the feds to terminate the market-distorting Production Tax Credits for wind power...but that's only a start. The population needs to understand that if they want reliable electric power, they need to pay for it.