I've seen a whole bunch of misinformation both in the "news" and on this forum. The following is a list of FACTS that address several of these misconceptions.

1. Texas does NOT rely on "green" energy, solar and wind power. In aggregate for the entire country, solar and wind combine for around 10% of all electricity produced. Now it should be noted that Texas does have a very large proportion of all of the wind farms in the US, however it still doesn't make a significant impact on the total power generated.

2. It is correct to point out that wind turbines have about a 0% production rate in snow or icy conditions. But as stated above, that has very little effect on the problem of the past week. I have no love at all for wind turbines, but to say they are causing the problems now is just laughable.

3. This is not really so much of a grid failure, as it is a 100 year weather event overcoming all the design factors for equipment operating in the southern United States. Equipment used here is not designed to operate for sustained periods at sub-zero temperatures. Instruments and gauges freeze up. Valves get frozen. Gas lines are buried shallow or even run above ground, and the condensation inside freezes solid. Automated valves at wellheads and gas plants are designed to close in the event of electric failure. Their backup is solar powered. Electric goes off, then solar panel covered with snow, then you have a closed valve.

Here is the electric generation process in really quick simple terms. Natural gas is produced from wells. That gas travels via pipeline to a gas plant where it is processed and separated into individual components (methane, butane, propane, etc.). These products are piped downstream to refineries that further process into final products (diesel, gasoline etc.) or directly to an end user such as generation plants or municipalities (methane is the natural gas you burn in your home). This weather has caused blockages at every stage of the supply. Many wells are shut in because their safety valves are closed due to the loss of power. So there is a shortage of supply Many gas plants and refineries are shut in or operating at reduced capacity because of frozen equipment, and the same goes for electric generation plants. Even if the plants are operating at full capacity, there is still a shortage of natural gas for them to burn as fuel for the generators.

So why not winterize all of our equipment? The answer is money, and lots of it. A typical oil or gas well in most of the country has roughly $55,000 worth of above ground processing equipment to keep it producing. This would include a separator, a heater treater and a freewater knockout. It can vary greatly, but that is pretty average. Wells in the northern regions have to have all the same equipment, but it is all winterized. It is insulated, put inside buildings, and built to withstand the cold. The average cost for this same equipment can be over $400,000. And that is the just the equipment cost. You also have to have bigger well pads, and there is additional maintenance required to keep it running.

So we are looking at over $300,000 cost per well to winterize the equipment. Per well. Gas plants would be even more because the use a lot more processing equipment. There are HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of producing wells in Texas. There are THOUSANDS of gas plants, and there are DOZENS of refineries.

We would be looking at a cost that could easily get into the $ trillions to winterize all of the infrastructure that would prevent us from a weather event that we are unlikely to see happen again in our lifetime.

Not sure of you're source but it's 20% on wind and solar, that's a lot to lose when we needed it.

Is that 20% on the average or just specific times. Looking at some data the other day they had posted that during the winter months they depend on less from the solar and wind farms because they know the weather will prevent their production.

This and I thought it said 40% NG and I know it was 20% coal.

In aggregate for the US, it is around 10%. According to ERCOT, it is about 16% 20% in Texas. If Texas had zero wind turbines, it would have no effect on the outages this week whatsoever.

EDIT: I was looking at a wikipedia chart attributed to ERCOT. No telling if it was accurate, or how old the data was. I'll accept the 20% number, but still ascertain that has little effect on how these power outages played out.

Average I believe, number comes from ERCOT

20% is quoted in many sources

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

Of course if they didn't have them it would have zero effect. Other sources of power would have been built.

Noticed in the last 24 hour news cycle there have been several 'news' stories skewing facts to defend wind power. Imagine that.

What I mean is that many people are blaming the current power failures on Texas' use of wind farms. That is just not the case.

Also, note my edited post above.

Yep. Very stupid indeed. Wind farms are idiotic. Justified only as a way to profit off government subsidies.

So does all this mean they will make top priority to reassembly of the dismantled Monti plant and burn some coal so I can catch some big winter bass next year?

That's the only way they roll out...massive government subsidies. Tesla still makes no profit from cars. They sell carbon credits to make money.

Short answer is they could built excess power generation plants to use in emergency situations like we have today.

Add it to your electric Bill each month for the next 20-30 years and listen to Us complain about the cost. If Texas did not have a closed grid system to avoid complying with Federal regulations we would have been past this day one.

Do you know why we don’t take any Bass home when we fish Welsh? Why is it such a great winter time fishery?

Because they contain Mercury from the coal used to fire the Welsh Plant, it’s a by product that goes out of the smoke stack with the steam.

ERCOT graphs explain it very well leading up to the weather event. Generation capacity included wind and solar, those sources dropped as the storm hit and demand shot up. A couple of other plants fell offline causing more of a shortfall.
I guess you could point the finger at the few plants that had problems and ignore the 20% wind power loss but how accurate is that for the whole picture? It's not likely fossil fuel power generation is going to be built for 100% capacity when wind was built with subsidies. Wind is simply a fair weather power source not to counted on when needed the most.