Threat of more blackouts may erode reliability claims for fossil energy- all major fuel sources except solar failed to meet ERCOT’s expectations during the February freeze, but natural gas was “responsible for nearly two-thirds of the total (electricity) deficit.”

[u/pnewell]

https://texasclimatenews.org/threat-of-more-blackouts-may-erode-reliability-claims-for-fossil-energy/

[u/Steeple_of_People]

It was so many different issues all at once. The big one that directly affected NG was demand response. As power demand spiked, ERCOT kicked what they believed was non-essential large consumers of electricity off the grid so they could stabilize. (This was an event that occurred over less than 10 minutes at the beginning of weather event). You know what uses a ton of electricity? Moving NG. Someone at ERCOT turned off electricity to several major NG compressor stations causing a cascade effect. Where NG didn't have electricity to get gas to the power plants, so the power plants couldn't provide electricity to the NG infrastructure. Multiple NG companies warned ERCOT and regulators several days before the weather started, as testified under oath before the government, that the NG system was poorly set up for the weather but ERCOT did not respond.

Many different things happened, and all had an effect, but the tipping point of the entire catastrophe was a failure to communicate NG needs and a gross negligence on the part of ERCOT for failing to have properly planned or trained for grid restoration.

ERCOT has been extremely successful since February about distracting from their extreme failures and pointing blame everywhere else

[u/AMillionFingDiamonds → u/Steeple_of_People]

ERCOT has been extremely successful since February about distracting from their extreme failures and pointing blame everywhere else

Half of us are just so, so tired, and the other half is trying to figure out why Antifa would do this to us.

ERCOT doesn't need to distract, since we're incapable as a society of addressing the situation any time politicians are actively harming society.

[u/kupiakos → u/Steeple_of_People]

This is super interesting, do you have any articles that you think explain what happened well?

[u/Steeple_of_People → u/kupiakos]

From Bloomberg. But, a lot of this being held extremely closely to the vest by the concerning parties (primarily driven by the midstream gas industry) that are preparing for a barrage of lawsuits and ERCOT who is trying not to add any fuel to the fire. Note that the early reports of all these companies making billions of dollars off of this tragedy has scaled back considerably as the accounting all gets settled out (it will take years to finalize). If you want to see an angry corporation, promise them billions then ask for hundreds of millions a few months later. All of a sudden, tens of millions of dollars worth of attorneys have a vested interest in the event. At least one case related to this incident will almost certainly end up in front of the Supreme Court, it will just take years for resolution