Comment by richwater
8 hours ago
> regulation that would have prevented the large ass blackout a few years ago in the winter.
They also produce the most renewable power in the country. If you account for externalities prevented by this (fossil fuel induced damage and deaths), who is looking good now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewab...
It got so cold that the oil in the wind turbines froze. If Texas was connected to the rest of the country it would be subject to federal regulations that require winterization and even if the wind turbines weren't frozen it would have been able to import power from other places that weren't frozen over.
Frozen wind turbines was a microscopic part of the problem compared to almost half of the fossil fuel natural gas plants being offline due to severe cold and freeze.
That too. Coal piles froze. Cooling pumps froze. Water vapor in the natural gas production pipelines froze because it's all fracked.
But if they were connected to the East and West interconnections they probably could have rode it out.
So... what? Install heating equipment around the pipes. It would have been avoidable, it just would have cost money.
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