DOE used an environmental regulation to block Texas from increasing available power!! (Order No. 202-21-1)
TODAY: Dallas Radio caller works at a TX power generation plant. He said they (ERCOT) shuts down fossil fuel plants & keeps wind and solar facilities running because Govt. subsidizes them. Three (3) plants were shut down to convert to ‘clean energy’.
Written by Wes Walker on February 18, 2021ParlerFacebookTwitterFlipboard
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Defenders of green energy and fossil fuels are pointing fingers at each other for the failures that led to dangerous blackouts in Texas — but could both sides be missing the bigger picture?
How big a role did regulations sent from the desk of some faraway bureaucrat play in this catastrophic failure?
Much has already been written about the failure of wind turbines to deliver an adequate load — and whether they should have been winterized. About failures of natural gas delivery, and even sensors in the nuclear power stations.
Not much has been said about the role federal pollution standards has played on Texas failing to get ahead of the problem by ramping up supply.
Yes, Federal pollution standards.
Texas is getting a lot of grief about being a standalone system, and not running on National Standards. The usual green-deal embracing suspects are leading that charge. But national regulations are part of the reason our base-load electrical energy sources, ones that do NOT rely on the ebb and flow of sunlight and wind power, did not ramp up adequate supply. Grief looking like this:
But that’s not really telling the whole story either.
Texas is the only one of the contiguous 48 states with its own stand-alone electricity grid, one of the three main grids in the U.S.: the Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, and Texas Interconnection. The Texas Interconnection, which covers 213 of the 254 Texas counties, is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT. Portions of Texas near the state’s borders are covered by the eastern and western grids.
Texas produces more electricity than it consumes and maintains a buffer referred to as the “state’s reserve margin.” This margin ensures that we should never have to suffer from rolling blackouts like California.
Then why are so millions of Texans without power right now? Why are we dealing with rolling blackouts?
The answer is all-too-familiar: our relationship with the federal government. – TMN
They had the capacity to ramp up power generation but needed a the equivalent of a hall pass from some federal environmental hall monitor. Without permission, no power.
The Department of Energy issued an emergency order allowing several Texas power plants to produce as much electricity as possible, a move expected to violate anti-pollution rules that comes amid a deepening electricity crisis in the state that has cut power to millions of homes.
The Energy Department order, requested by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, authorizes power plants throughout the state to run a maximum output levels, even as such a move is anticipated to result in a violation of limits of pollution. —Bloomberg
Without power? Well, we all saw what happened next. And Texans are the ones getting blamed for it. Here’s the Government response to the crisis, Order No. 202-21-1.
A couple of interesting details from that order. Even while homes are being destroyed from frozen pipes, and people are being killed by the cold, these skinflints still make sure to add all kinds of extra environmental hoops for Texan energy peeps to jump through.
Keep in mind, Governor Abbott declared a State of Disaster for the entire state as of February 12. Blandly-named government order number 202-21-1 concludes with these words: “Issued in Washington, D.C. at 8:51 PM Eastern Standard Time on this 14th day of, February, 2021.”
ERCOT has been alerted that numerous generation units will be unable to operate at full capacity without violating federal air quality or other permit limitations. ERCOT requests that the Secretary issue an order immediately, effective February 14, 2021 through February 19, 2021, authorizing “the provision of additional energy from all generation units subject to emissions or other permit limits” in the ERCOT region. The generating units (Specified Resources) that this Order pertains to are listed on the Order 202-21-1 Resources List, as described below.
Given the emergency nature of the expected load stress, the responsibility of ERCOT to ensure maximum reliability on its system, and the ability of ERCOT to identify and dispatch generation necessary to meet the additional load, I have determined that additional dispatch of the Specified Resources is necessary to best meet the emergency and serve the public interest for purposes of FPA section 202(c). Because the additional generation may result in a conflict with environmental standards and requirements, I am authorizing only the necessary additional generation, with reporting requirements as described below.…In the event ERCOT identifies the need to exceed other relevant environmental permitting levels, ERCOT shall specifically identify such permitting levels and DOE will consider ERCOT’s request in good faith.
C. All entities must comply with environmental requirements to the maximum extent necessary to operate consistent with the emergency conditions. This Order does not provide relief from an entity’s obligations to purchase allowances for emissions that occur during the emergency condition or to use other geographic or temporal flexibilities available to generators.
People’s lives are in a shambles, but rather than prioritizing a nimble and effective response to getting people back to their normal lives, they are prioritizing using favored sources of energy and not ‘overproducing’.
As though the carbon footprint of repairing homes destroyed by water damage from frozen pipes won’t be far worse than whatever they are trying to ‘save the world from’ in the relative comfort of DC.
One of the key conservative values getting lost in all the noise of the endless political circus is the importance of local control of local interests. Massive government programs with a one-size-fits-all solution for all 50 States have a habit of failing to address the particular needs and interests of different regions.
It is the same reason that policies and politicians favored by wealthy coastal cities are often different from blue-collar towns in the interior. Needs. Priorities. Values. Circumstances. In many ways, they are like different smaller countries within the larger whole. That was the point of Federalism.
Until they came along and nationalized everything.
Reference:
- U.S. Department of Energy, Feb. 14, Order No. 202-21-1
- U.S. Department of Energy, Feb. 14, ERCOT’s Request for Emergency Order
- U.S. Department of Energy, accessed Feb. 23, List of documents associated with emergency order
- Bloomberg, Feb. 15, Texas power plants get emergency clearance to crank up output
- Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Feb. 14, Notice of U.S. Department of Energy Section 202(c) Order affecting the ERCOT Region
What Role Did Federal Regulations Play In Texans Freezing In The Dark? (clashdaily.com)
Want to get that point across, in a way it can’t be canceled? Now you can wear it across your chest:
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The U.S. Department of Energy blocked the Electric Reliability Council of Texas from allowing electricity generators to operate at maximum capacity in violation of federal permits
What Role Did Federal Regulations Play In Texans Freezing In The Dark? (clashdaily.com)
Rick RouanUSA TODAY0:370:55https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.443.0_en.html#goog_267328316
As a winter storm blanketed Texas in snow and a deep freeze last week, the state’s main electricity provider instituted rolling blackouts as it struggled to generate enough power to handle the increased load.
Posts circulating on social media falsely claim, though, that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas didn’t have all of the resources it needed because the U.S. Department of Energy denied ERCOT’s request for electricity generators to exceed emissions limits under federal permits.
The claim, posted Feb. 20 by InfoWars and by multiple Facebook users, places the blame squarely on President Joe Biden and acting DOE Secretary David Huizenga who, it says, “blocked Texas from increasing power ahead of a killer storm.”
More:Texas politicians saw electricity deregulation as a better future. Years later, millions lost power.
The order included on those posts, however, shows Huizenga granted ERCOT’s request just before 9 p.m. on Feb. 14.
InfoWars did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What did ERCOT ask for?
ERCOT’s Feb. 14 letter to DOE described an historic winter storm that would bring with it record winter electricity demand. Its own meteorologist had warned “this period will go down in Texas weather history as one of the most extreme events to ever impact the state.”
For that reason, ERCOT asked the department for authorization for “all electric generating units” that are part of its network “to operate up to their maximum generation output levels under the limited circumstances described in this letter, notwithstanding air quality of other permit limitations.”
Three power agencies told ERCOT that operating for maximum output would push them over limits set in federal permits for emissions of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury along with release of wastewater, according to the letter.Get the Checking the Facts newsletter in your inbox.
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ERCOT asked for leeway on those limits during its energy emergency, which expired on Feb. 19. It described its request as “narrowly tailored to allow only the exceedances that are necessary to ensure reliability over the next few days” and noted that power generated under the request would be the last used to fill its needs.
More:Family suing Texas utility companies for $100M after 11-year-old boy died amid power failure
“ERCOT does not lightly request this authorization. It understands the importance of the environmental permit limits that are at issue. However, in ERCOT’s judgment, the loss of power to homes and local businesses in the areas affected by curtailments presents a far greater risk to public health and safety than the temporary exceedances of those permit limits that would be allowed under the requested order,” ERCOT wrote in its request.
Fact check:Posts falsely claim Biden gave China control of U.S. power grid
What did U.S. Department of Energy grant?
DOE’s order acknowledges that Texas’ shortage of electricity generation was an emergency that it was seeking to remedy.
Huizenga wrote in the order that the department was granting the request because of that emergency and that it was limiting operation above the permitted level “to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes” to “minimize adverse environmental impacts.”
A list of power-generating units that the order applied to also was included and updated nine times while it was in effect.
ERCOT acknowledged that the request had been granted, too. In a “market notice” sent late in the afternoon on Feb. 14, ERCOT wrote that Huizenga “granted ERCOT’s request” in the order.
More:As some Texans see electric bills skyrocket, most should be spared pricing spikes
The order required ERCOT to “exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability,” before allowing operators to exceed permit levels and operate at maximum capacity.
That is consistent with ERCOT’s request, which noted that electricity generated from those operations would be the last resource tapped to address the shortage.
In its order, DOE also required ERCOT to notify the department about additional facilities that would have to exceed environmental permit limits to generate enough power for the state. ERCOT also must write a report about the environmental impact of the emergency.
“On February 14, ERCOT formally requested the Department of Energy (DOE) issue an emergency order to address electric generation shortages in Texas caused by unprecedented cold weather conditions. Later that day, DOE approved a Section 202(c) emergency order that allowed specified power plants to generate up to their maximum capacity in order to manage the expected increase in electricity demand,” said Kevin Liao, DOE press secretary, in an email.
Our fact-check sources:
- U.S. Department of Energy, Feb. 14, Order No. 202-21-1
- U.S. Department of Energy, Feb. 14, ERCOT’s Request for Emergency Order
- U.S. Department of Energy, accessed Feb. 23, List of documents associated with emergency order
- Bloomberg, Feb. 15, Texas power plants get emergency clearance to crank up output
- Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Feb. 14, Notice of U.S. Department of Energy Section 202(c) Order affecting the ERCOT Region
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