And wholesale electricity hit over $9 kWh in Texas.. cut 25000 Megawatts of wind power due to an ice storm and that’s what you get. Rolling blackouts taking out 3 million customers for the next couple days.. He misspoke.. it’s not million cuft. It’s per million BTU. But still a huge move..
We’re going to see a lot more of these energy price increases with our new leadership in the White House and the Green Deal.
I think we are going to continue to see electric prices go up. Without getting too political DM me for more info I’ve found on this.
Well if we see all the coalfired power plants shut down and just depending on natural gas, i can sure understand the big jumps in prices for electric power.
Price of regular gas went up another dime today. $2.59 per gallon. 25% increase since the election in November.
Texas lost more than wind power, both nuclear and coal. Freeze and crack your boiler feed line and coal does not produce any juice. They had these same problems back in 2011 and still do not have the knack of heat tracing and insulating. Meanwhile, we are exporting natural gas to other countries so the shortage of natural gas was caused by operating with too little in inventory. Free markets are at "optimum" only when a product storage (natural gas) empties occasionally because excess in storage cost $$$$$$$. Too many houses relying on cheap installation electric baseboard heat instead of more expensive heat pumps. They have "cold climate" ductless heat pumps that work down to -15 deg F. Texas electric grid is not completely connected to other states to avoid federal regulation, FERC, but that reduces supply options. The Texas Governor even said the mess is a result of Texas company operations.
Our power just came back on about 30 minutes ago, was out for about 3 1/2 hours and was only supposed to be for 30 minutes. The way I understand, it was because of the Texas deal. I had to help the city maintenance guy get the generator going for the wells to keep the water pressure up. When it gets this cold lots of people leave a little trickle of water running to prevent frozen pipes. 11below zero plus what ever the wind chill is and we have to help bail out Texas???
I worked in coal industry for 24 years . Until certain political leaders thought it was good idea to phase us out and bankrupt us. This green energy plan is a joke. It will cost the consumer more . But they don’t mention in there green deal plan. It’s the build back better plan. Makes me sick
I like my own green energy plan to heat my house efficiently and sustainably using wood from my back yard. As for the rest of it, I will comply with forum rules about politics (as we have people on both sides of the fence here) and submit the following statement:
Taking delivery of my new PHEV tomorrow, my PV solar is scheduled to be installed first week in April. The ROI term on both of these drops as gas and electricity go up.
The sun hasn't been out in central Pa more than a few days in the last 2 months. Gonna have a hard time talking me into PHEV. My neighbor has a Mitsubishi.
I think solar is where it’s at. As long as you’re off grid with it. I think they will find a way to screw you if you’re grid tied. I wish I had the funds to set up a system. The construction company I work for is starting a solar division. They have always been pretty clued in on the next big thing.
What are the details of your system? Roof mount or ground mount? Single inverter or micro inverters? What percentage of your use are you planning to cover?
The Outlander PHEV was on my list. Off grid is a holenuther level of investment to pay for the batteries. Roof mount, microinverters, yearly production should cover the house usage and approx 250 "fill ups" for the PHEV battery. I can charge for free at work and the battery could under ideal conditions power the entire commute.
Well, I was curious if what happened to wind turbines in Texas could happen in Iowa and the answer is NO! Iowa uses a "winterized" model of wind turbine and Texas does not because it costs extra for the "winterized" model of wind turbine. Lots of homes with cheap electric baseboard heat and wind turbines/power plants not correctly winterized will result in a mess during the once-a-decade big freeze which is what happened. Actually, the wind turbines performed well since those turbines which did not freeze produced extra power because of the strong winds. The bigger problem was power plants shutting down because of cold weather. Oil refineries got hit hard with many refineries shutdown too.
Insulation is rare in the south is half the problems. The nat gas plant froze because of this. Houses are bleeding heat as fast as they can pump it in. Windmills are frozen and inoperable. It’s a chit show for sure, at some point someone’s got to figure this out.
I was always told that a nuclear power plant has ~3 years of fuel onsite, a coal plant has ~30 days of fuel onsite, and a natural gas plant has ~3 minutes of fuel onsite. Anyone have any idea if that's a saying, or the truth? I do wonder about all these people who depend on natural gas for heat, and lately more & more for their power as they shutter the coal and nuclear, and then buy a generator that sucks from the natural gas grid as well. Seems like you'd be helpless if there was a disruption to the natural gas grid, and how long would your house be livable when it's 20 out. Or zero, or sub-zero. How long before the pipes freeze? I was recently reading about the Berlin Air Lift back in the late 40's. Way back in history class, I learned that we flew a lot of food into Berlin. As an adult, what caught my attention that 2/3 of what we flew into Berlin was coal, something like 1.5 million tons of it. Disruptions and shortages will always be with us, and energy has been rationed before; there is no reason to believe that it will never be rationed again. Makes me glad that I can depend on myself for heat, rather than someone else on down the line.
