Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Answer is Not Blowing in the Wind

According to this Reuters report, Texas had a power grid emergency on Tuesday. What caused the emergency? Well, let's just say it doesn't always blow in Texas:
A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday...

[Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)] said the grid's frequency dropped suddenly when wind production fell from more than 1,700 megawatts, before the event, to 300 MW when the emergency was declared.

In addition, ERCOT said multiple power suppliers fell below the amount of power they were scheduled to produce on Tuesday. That, coupled with the loss of wind generated in West Texas, created problems moving power to the west from North Texas.


Here's an idea. Build a few nuclear power plants.

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