Watch new Shawn Gallaway song: Hands Off – ‘Giving our voice to protecting our children
https://youtu.be/AUTybVQ-m3c
'Outrageous.' Texas grid scare reignites blackout concerns
Texas' main grid operator requested conservation during a scorching heat wave yesterday, spurring calls for electricity reform and rejuvenating political fights over renewables months after devastating blackouts.
The tight grid conditions resulted from an unexpected amount of generation outages and strong demand, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Temperatures were in the upper 90s or higher in much of Texas.
More than 9,000 of 12,178 megawatts of generation outages as of 2:30 p.m. local time came from thermal units such as natural gas, coal and nuclear, ERCOT said. About 3,600 MW would be a typical amount of thermal outages on a hot summer day.
Reaction to the latest Texas grid drama lit up Twitter even as ERCOT avoided rotating outages, with everyone from the Department of Energy's loan office director, Jigar Shah, to the conservative American Energy Alliance offering an opinion. Energy and environmental advocates issued statements with continued concerns about Texas electricity. The tight conditions came after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared earlier this month that state lawmakers had made all necessary grid changes after a February storm hampered the grid for days.
"Summer doesn't even start for another week, yet ERCOT is already worried about having enough juice to keep the lights and air conditioners on across the state," Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said in a statement. "It's outrageous that after February's deadly and disheartening blackout we still haven't taken the necessary steps to build a cleaner, more reliable electric grid."
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063734985
The Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas is pictured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported yesterday that one of the plant's units was offline. Michael Barera/Wikimedia Commons
In notables twice already
Terrifying!
NOW - Biden gets lost reading his notes at the EU-US summit.
"And uh, I've said before and I apologize for the - Oh, I didn't Jake Sullivan from the State Department [inaudible]. I'm leaving out a lot of people here I apologize. I'm going to get in trouble. But, anyway, we'll get back to that. But um we um you know…"
So embarrassing.