Thread by @KarlSpookbuster

So here are the facts about the Texas (ERCOT) blackout situation :

1) Interconnections would not have change anything as all the majors grids close to Texas where struggling too (SPP did rolling blackouts, MISO without reserve capacity to spare ect.).

2) Wind and Solar are completely unreliable, even worst than expected :

Solar go away with snow and night (no shit Sherlock) and produced 0 MWe when electricity was the most needed. But ERCOT was expecting only 0,7 GWe.

ERCOT expected than 6 GWe on its 30 GWe wind capacity would produced. In fact it felt at 0,6 GWe.
As expected by serious european grid managers, wind assured disponibility factor is less than 2% not 20%.

Thankfully, wind was just 30 GWe. It would have been worst in a few years.

Basically it validates this assertion : "Intermittent sources are just fuel saver duplicates and need 100% backup"

3) Gas can be unreliable, as less than 50% of the 56 GWe installed were able to produce. This unreliability comes from the fact that the fuel source is external : it has to come from the "outside" and it's not stored on plant.

4) Nuclear is by far the most reliable energy source. Only one of the four Texan reactors tripped and was online just for a few hours. And it's because the drastic safety protocols, which maybe should be bypass in such situation where production is vital :

5) Texas' ERCOT, and in fact every grid operators, will have to assess the reliability from these practical failures and stop betting everything on ideologically motivated modelisations.

People which defend ideologically solar, wind gas mix have blood on their hands. No excuses.

6) Texas will have to increase quickly its nuclear capacity. There are issued COL for four more units in the state, but it's not enough, and the reactors design are not possible to build now. It has to be AP1000 / NuScale / BWRX-300 / Holtec SMR-160 / Terrestrial IMSR.

7) Nuclear / Hydro / Geothermal (but the last two are geographically dependant and not available in Texas) mix are definitely the only way to have a low cost, low emissions and reliable grid.

The debate is closed. People died this week for the wind / solar / gas mix foolishness.

8) For Wind, people have to understand than the Great Plains and Texas are one if not the most suitable place for wind power. It was normally one of the only place where wind should have an assured capacity. It has not. Nowhere. End of the story.

9) Reminder : Texas invested more than 75 G$ in solar and wind (20 years average lifespan) for 600 MWe of capacity when electricity was needed the most.
That's 125 000 $/kWe of assured capacity ...

"But nuclear is expensive"

People died for fuck sake.

10) Interesting calculation to show than operators have a huge incentive to get back online asap :
The electricity price is 9000 $/MWh during the outages.
With 1 GWe of available capacity, you can make 216 M$ each day.
If the situation is 5 days long, you make a billion dollars.

To be perfectly honest, there is no building on the top of the turbines, which is kind of dumb as a basic building or heating would have been far cheaper than the economic loss for the STP shareholders : 9 M$/hour

11) And the worst take from a well known pathetic liar come from :

12) Some addendum for wind : the problem is not only than half the wind turbines froze, because there is basically no wind.
The disponibility factor since the beginning of the blackouts oscillate between 2% and 18% with an average of 12%.

Just to have an idea, here are the ratio between real disponibility and expected disponibility :
Nuclear : 0,75
Coal : 0,57
Gas : 0,54
Wind : 0,51 (average) to 0,10 (minimal disponibility on the period)

Expectations were low for wind (24% disponibility) It's 2 to 10 times worst.

In other words, wind is on average almost as reliable as gas with the freezing. At its worst it's 5 times worst.

But in fact the random variability makes it harder for ERCOT to manage the grid.

For people who want some details :

COL for 2 ABWR (GE-Hitachi don't produce the parts anymore from what I know, last construction start was in 2006) on South Texas.

COL for 2 APWR (design never built, Mitsubishi will not produce the parts for sure) on Comanche Peak.

More on this : it means that wind and solar are economically interesting for the grid only if their total cost (total LCOE) is less than the savings you earn by decreasing your dispatchable source output.
- decrease nuclear and you loose money. It's dumb to force load following

- geothermal and hydro will never be displaced as they are never the most expensive baseload source
- for gas and coal, total cost of solar and wind (around 40 $/MWh at best) has to be basically less than the fuel cost + carbon cost

Gas fuel cost in Texas is far less than this

As expected, STP 1 is back online and is pretty much the only power source to do so :

https://twitter.com/nuclearkatie/status/1362064440074534915?s=19

I will update these numbers every day, as some sources have variability (wind and solar) and others came back online (nuclear reactor STP 1).

Btw it means that the average real disponibility of nuclear during this crisis will be more than 75%, unless an other trip happens.

Confirmation from NRC that STP 1 is back online :

https://twitter.com/NRCgov/status/1362156143813009413?s=19

Pretty much the only source back online : Nuclear Reactor STP 1.

Nuclear going from 75% to 100% disponibility. Reliability !

https://twitter.com/NRCgov/status/1362156143813009413?s=19