EV charging prices in Europe increase 500%

Renewable energy is not to blame for the Texas energy crisis
"About 56 percent of Texas' energy comes from natural gas, just under 24 percent comes from wind, 19 percent from coal, and almost 9 percent from nuclear energy....

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Well, i see the NBC are dilligent at fact checking ! :lol:
56+24+19+9 =108% ?
...and that doesnt include any Solar ?...utility or Roof Top !
There are numerous explanations as to what caused the blackouts, ..depending on who’s version you prefer.!
Of couse the primary cause was human stupidity...not responding after the previous winter blackouts in ‘89 and 2011, and “winterising” the facilities......
But simplisticly,... you could consider that the increase in Wind and Solar (25+%) has been coincidental with a similar reduction in coal generation .....which MAY have performed more reliably in cold weather !....
....but that is also a human decision, so all self inflicted !

It seems like our criticisms or cynicism are shifting from big oil to other entities. This is quite foreseeable.

It is a side effect of our imperfect under regulated capitalistic system. Works well in many ways but not for long term vision and progress and certainly not for a coherent energy plan. It has come, unfortunately, to mostly be about how to maximize profits in the moment. Is it any surprise that petro companies want to pump and sell as much as they possibly can as fast as they possibly can? And pump and sell it all until every drop and CF is gone? Like here in the US with abundant fracking NG being liquified and exported... hurts our own energy independence and costs citizens a lot of $$ in increased prices and increased environmental damage. But hey, sure helps those petro company profits, right? No big surprise that privatized electric and other utilities, whether they use petro or green sources, behave the same way.

To think where we could be today if we had the common sense to begin a small but escalating carbon tax 30 years ago to give a small nudge to our capitalist system in a smarter direction. Would have crushed OPEC, created far more efficiency, better technology, more high tech jobs, and maybe a small chance to avoid climate disaster. But alas, in many ways we are a defective species.

RTLSHIP said:

It seems like our criticisms or cynicism are shifting from big oil to other entities. This is quite foreseeable.

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raylo32 said:

It is a side effect of our imperfect under regulated capitalistic system. Works well in many ways but not for long term vision and progress and certainly not for a coherent energy plan.

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All stupid animals will reproduce until hardships limit their numbers. Humans generally conform to this practice.

Capitalism is the economic system for stupid animals. Grow until something breaks catastrophically, don't clean up the mess, then repeat.

I often wish there were more of us who had the "enough is enough" gene.

RTLSHIP said:

It seems like our criticisms or cynicism are shifting from big oil to other entities. This is quite foreseeable.

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Of course. The #1 entity to blame for any problem in people's lives is "them." The bigger, the better.

I'm with you Chalo. Looks like the only progress that has been made is they don't deny it anymore. Does not mean they are going to do anything about it. I'm with that girl bla, bla, bla.

Hillhater is trying to drag politics into this thread too. If you want to know what real issues Texas ask one of us. Reading news captions does not dive in very deep. Texas doe not want to do power sharing with the other states. That is why we have issues. Blame who every and spin and twist the facts all you want. It's politics and don't want to go there.

Hillhater said:

Texas wont be free of blackouts whilst it relies on Wind as a main generator.

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Given that the blackouts last time were caused primarily by fossil fuel plants failing - it won't be free of blackouts while it relies on fossil fuels, either.

This is a little basic and brutal but I agree that is indeed where we are headed... maybe in a generation or two. Hard to tell which man-made "natural" disaster will get us first or if we will even more stupidly preempt even that with another real war or three, perhaps caused by the coming and eventual shortages... that we refuse to conserve for, plan for, and adequately develop and implement alternatives for. But by god we still have the freedumb where 16 year olds in Texas can get their very own Ford Super Duty pickup truck that gets 7 mpg and then run down a bunch of bicyclists. God bless America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/09/texas-teen-driver-bicyclists-truck-charges/

Chalo said:

All stupid animals will reproduce until hardships limit their numbers. Humans generally conform to this practice.

Capitalism is the economic system for stupid animals. Grow until something breaks catastrophically, don't clean up the mess, then repeat.

I often wish there were more of us who had the "enough is enough" gene.

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ZeroEm said:

Hillhater is trying to drag politics into this thread too.

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.?? I did not mention politics !.....
My comments are purely related to the technical/ strategy decisions that have led to the fiasco of Wind and Solar as primary generation sources.
It seems all sides of politics are sold on this madness.

I believe you did not try to. When you are talking about what is going on in Texas you need to hunt for the facts not the Rhetoric of our politicians, which you did!

Here are the facts not the blaming. First we do not have much solar and short days and over cast skies they would not produce much anyway. They did not winterize the wind turbines and had power loss from them. Nuclear and Coal remained steady. Backup systems and independent power producers (peek systems) run on Natural Gas that if not dried is very wet and it freezes. Most states they run short buy from other states. Our politicians will not allow that.

As soon as we started going into a state wide black out. The Politicians blamed renewables and singled out wind and you repeated it in this tread. As soon as the Power came back on they reported yes wind generation was down and the main loss of power was from Natural Gas freezing in pipes and the fact we were not allowed to buy from other States.

by Hillhater » Nov 12 2021 6:32am

ZeroEm wrote: ↑Nov 10 2021 1:10pm
Hillhater is trying to drag politics into this thread too.

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.?? I did not mention politics !.....
My comments are purely related to the technical/ strategy decisions that have led to the fiasco of Wind and Solar as primary generation sources.
It seems all sides of politics are sold on this madness.

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I was not quoting political retoric, it was quite clear from official reports what the basic problem was, ..
....and as i stated.

the primary cause was human stupidity...not responding after the previous winter blackouts in ‘89 and 2011, and “winterising” the facilities......

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My comment regarding never being able to avoid blackouts whilst relying on Wind and Solar, are also not political but pretty obvious to anyone with a modicum of practicality .
If you put your faith in systems that are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and wholely weather dependent, then you have no hope of preventing “unusual events” in the future.
Texas has consistently shut down coal generation ( 6 GW since 2016) , and replaced it with unreliable Wind and Solar (10 GW since 2019)

The people in power who are politicians are controlling the technical and strategic decisions of our state. They did nothing before and this last time they still have not done anything except replace the people that took off fearing back lash from the public.
The Politicians quickly blamed Wind and Solar. This is not

I was not quoting political retoric, it was quite clear from official reports what the basic problem was, ..
....and as i stated.

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official reports, they are called sound bites. Show me one official report that Wind and Solar is the primary generation source of Texas Power?

Part of this is correct and part is not.

My comments are purely related to the technical/ strategy decisions that have led to the fiasco of Wind and Solar as primary generation sources.

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Technical, strategy does not have much to do with it. Kick backs from the oil companies plays the biggest part.