Texas has frozen; Bring on the Green New Deal!!

[Big Blitz]

 

 

 

[US Egg]

Joe B. couldn't find Texas on an old 48 state map of the U.S.

[Motorin']

Texas's natural gas pipelines froze, as did the stockpile of coal. 

 

Morons. 

[Tenhigh]

We should be building nuclear plants all over this country, just away from the fault lines. 

[SoTier]

Maybe Texas should manage its power grid better.  Most of Texas is under the ERCOT grid, which is the only "standalone" state power grid.  All the other states and the Texas Panhandle belong to large multi-state power grids that share power so that when there's a big problem in one area, they can get power and other resources from unaffected areas ... which is why when there's a hurricane in Florida, power companies from New York or Kentucky send crews to help restore the grid in the affected areas.

 

Who's to Blame for Texas Power Outages?

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

I cannot think of a more ironic image than a iced over frozen inoperable wind turbine in Texas. 
 

speaking of ironic, this whole climate change topic in simple terms; we are creating too much CO2, which is resulting in too much sunlight being retained as heat. 
 

so while sitting on a planet which is 70% water, I’m reminded that plants use co2, sunlight and water to create food. 🤔 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[716er]

39 minutes ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I cannot think of a more ironic image than a iced over frozen inoperable wind turbine in Texas.

 

Is there a photo of said ironic image or is the ironic image just in your head?

 

 

Interesting. Why is Texas pretty much by itself? 

Edited February 17, 2021 by 716er

[Tiberius]

Texas has power outage and who get blamed? A congresswomen from NY? 

 

This is is why I would love to be a right wing propagandist. It’s so easy! You can literally say anything and the right wing sheep will lick it up! 

 

 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

20 minutes ago, 716er said:

 

Is there a photo of said ironic image or is the ironic image just in your head?

 

 

Interesting. Why is Texas pretty much by itself? 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/us/power-outages-texas-monday/index.html

 

i guess it’s in my head based on this story and I’ll admit CNN tends to mislead so it’s probably poorly fact checked and unconfirmed. But it still strikes me as ironic. I’m sorry is that not allowed? 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[All_Pro_Bills]

9 hours ago, Big Blitz said:

 

 

 

Back in the days of the Carter administration NASA and the DOE initiated a research and development project called the Solar Power Satellite System (SPSS) designed to build and deploy space-based solar collectors that would constantly beam power down to Earth based collecting stations.  I was envisioned the system would be scalable and would provide uninterrupted and potentially unlimited amounts of electrical energy.  The system consisted of multiple large collectors in geosynchronous orbit beaming down power to one or more collection stations that would connect to the power grid.  But the Reagan administration killed the project when they took power after the 1980 election.  Most likely the desire to continue with the oil based economy and multiple lobbies and special interests hastened its demise too.

 

The biggest technical obstacle was the means of beaming down the power to the Earth based stations.  Microwave, laser, some kind of Earth tethered connection like the space elevator concept.  A physical constraint was the amount of lift capacity needed and the expertise and manpower needed to assemble such large structure in space.  One possible solution would have been a massive expansion of the shuttle program.  Budget and cost constraints also posed issues.   

 

But 40 years ago a group forward thinking "out of the box" scientists and politicians saw a long-term solution that if followed through might have had us in a good position going forward. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

2 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

Back in the days of the Carter administration NASA and the DOE initiated a research and development project called the Solar Power Satellite System (SPSS) designed to build and deploy space-based solar collectors that would constantly beam power down to Earth based collecting stations.  I was envisioned the system would be scalable and would provide uninterrupted and potentially unlimited amounts of electrical energy.  The system consisted of multiple large collectors in geosynchronous orbit beaming down power to one or more collection stations that would connect to the power grid.  But the Reagan administration killed the project when they took power after the 1980 election.  Most likely the desire to continue with the oil based economy and multiple lobbies and special interests hastened its demise too.

 

The biggest technical obstacle was the means of beaming down the power to the Earth based stations.  Microwave, laser, some kind of Earth tethered connection like the space elevator concept.  A physical constraint was the amount of lift capacity needed and the expertise and manpower needed to assemble such large structure in space.  One possible solution would have been a massive expansion of the shuttle program.  Budget and cost constraints also posed issues.   

 

But 40 years ago a group forward thinking "out of the box" scientists and politicians saw a long-term solution that if followed through might have had us in a good position going forward. 

wireless power transmission is sort of like the flying car popular science said I’d have 15 years ago. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

This is why I hate politics. 

 

People aren't that stupid to believe wind and solar are the reason Texas power failed. Politics will make people say and do anything to defend their party. 

[T master]

1 hour ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I cannot think of a more ironic image than a iced over frozen inoperable wind turbine in Texas. 
 

speaking of ironic, this whole climate change topic in simple terms; we are creating too much CO2, which is resulting in too much sunlight being retained as heat. 
 

so while sitting on a planet which is 70% water, I’m reminded that plants use co2, sunlight and water to create food. 🤔 

 

 

But don't stop clearing massive amounts of trees to build new roads & houses that are asphalt based products that draw & contain heat not to mention the pollution it causes was the oil comes out of them and goes into the aquifer . 

[SoTier]

55 minutes ago, 716er said:

 

Is there a photo of said ironic image or is the ironic image just in your head?

 

 

Interesting. Why is Texas pretty much by itself? 

 

Because Texas wants to perpetuate the myth of Texas being big enough to be its own country?   I don't know but the areas of the Panhandle and East Texas may have power outages because the ice brought down power lines, not because they're suffering rolling blackouts because their utility companies can't meet the demand for electricity.   The utilities in those two areas simply by extra powers from their grid partners.

 

 

34 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

Back in the days of the Carter administration NASA and the DOE initiated a research and development project called the Solar Power Satellite System (SPSS) designed to build and deploy space-based solar collectors that would constantly beam power down to Earth based collecting stations.  I was envisioned the system would be scalable and would provide uninterrupted and potentially unlimited amounts of electrical energy.  The system consisted of multiple large collectors in geosynchronous orbit beaming down power to one or more collection stations that would connect to the power grid.  But the Reagan administration killed the project when they took power after the 1980 election.  Most likely the desire to continue with the oil based economy and multiple lobbies and special interests hastened its demise too.

 

The biggest technical obstacle was the means of beaming down the power to the Earth based stations.  Microwave, laser, some kind of Earth tethered connection like the space elevator concept.  A physical constraint was the amount of lift capacity needed and the expertise and manpower needed to assemble such large structure in space.  One possible solution would have been a massive expansion of the shuttle program.  Budget and cost constraints also posed issues.   

 

But 40 years ago a group forward thinking "out of the box" scientists and politicians saw a long-term solution that if followed through might have had us in a good position going forward. 

 

Solar energy isn't that complicated.   Solar technology has advanced so much in the last decade that even in cloudy WNY, producing electricity from solar panels is feasible and dependable.

[BillStime]

 

 

Always someone else's fault, right @Big Blitz?

 

 

[All_Pro_Bills]

1 hour ago, SoTier said:

 

Because Texas wants to perpetuate the myth of Texas being big enough to be its own country?   I don't know but the areas of the Panhandle and East Texas may have power outages because the ice brought down power lines, not because they're suffering rolling blackouts because their utility companies can't meet the demand for electricity.   The utilities in those two areas simply by extra powers from their grid partners.

 

 

 

Solar energy isn't that complicated.   Solar technology has advanced so much in the last decade that even in cloudy WNY, producing electricity from solar panels is feasible and dependable.

Based on specs I've seen an average solar panel can produce 1.5Kw per day.  And in Winter the number of panels needed to produce some "base" level of power increases with a lower Sun "angle" and less daylight hours available.  So far its use has been limited to supplementing base power loads or home based systems that benefit from generous subsidies and tax credits to replace a portion of power coming form the grid or even going back into the grid when surplus power is generated form these arrays. 

Plus a few times our power was knocked out by storms the solar panels were useless.  Because they generate DC power and there is a need for an inverter which convert that power to AC.  As the inverter runs off the grid when the power is out the inverter is out. 

 

In my opinion rudimentary solar and wind power is never going to replace the power produced from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants.  There needs to be some big jump in efficiency.  If the decision is to go that route with current technologies then some major downsizing of civilization is going to be required.  Ideas like replacing the entire internal combustion fleet with EV's is a fantasy unless there's an expectation of lower levels of mobility and use.  As 1 gallon of gasoline produces 44Kw of energy and 1 solar panel produces 1.5Kw of energy and we currently consume about 9.3M barrels of gasoline a day the mathematical result of how many solar panels would be needed to replace all that gasoline consumption is staggering.   Along with all that petroleum and petrochemical inputs required for the manufacturing process.  I don't know but do solar panel and wind turbine factories run on solar and wind generated energy or do they run on things like natural gas?  

 

   

Edited February 17, 2021 by All_Pro_Bills

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

3 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

This is why I hate politics. 

 

People aren't that stupid to believe wind and solar are the reason Texas power failed. Politics will make people say and do anything to defend their party. 

Absolutely this will be politicized. If that cnn article is correct though, that 20% of power is from those sources, that kind of incremental loss isn’t handled well by large grids. Of course trees or ice taking out power lines and bat gas pipelines going down will be omitted in the pro oil reporting crowd. Just like the anti oil crowd will go out of their way to call out Texas leadership, because California has been on the other side as the whipping boy for third world power grid issues for some time. 
 

its all a little information with a lot of editorializing. 

4 hours ago, Tiberius said:

Texas has power outage and who get blamed? A congresswomen from NY? 

 

This is is why I would love to be a right wing propagandist. It’s so easy! You can literally say anything and the right wing sheep will lick it up! 

 

 

No one is blaming her.  She’s still hiding under her desk a quater mile from the Capital worried Ted Cruz is trying to get her.  Their just using the freak weather events to take a political shot at green energy because “there’s a narrative to capitalize on.” 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

1 hour ago, T master said:

 

 

But don't stop clearing massive amounts of trees to build new roads & houses that are asphalt based products that draw & contain heat not to mention the pollution it causes was the oil comes out of them and goes into the aquifer . 

seems simple right? Or replace what you remove... or spend research on replicating the process artificially. That seems like something that could be compromised upon.

 

But the issue is democrats want to kill the oil industry because of how significant it is to republican power (if they are environmentalists they wouldn’t consume what they do). The republicans disagree for the same reason. (They don’t hate the environment nearly as much as they would hate losing their power base) 
 

If they actually wanted to solve the problem collaboratively it would have already been figured out. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[frostbitmic]

Those windmills being frozen is a great thing. Just think of all those cases of windmill cancer will be prevented by this.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

3 minutes ago, frostbitmic said:

Those windmills being frozen is a great thing. Just think of all those cases of windmill cancer will be prevented by this.

And the seagulls