Concerning the power grid failures and mismanagement, I don't know what y'all are bellyaching about. I read an article this morning, and Beto says he and the democrats will fix everything wrong at the moment in the state when they get power...power...pun intended. He states this is all to blame on republicans and their dirty environment and climate change denial. I'm just glad to have our heroes standing in the wings to save us.

But on a serious note, we'd probably have twice as many frozen wind turbines and blanketed solar panels if they had been in charge. You gotta love it. When the state is in a bind, people need help, people need to pull together...you can always count on politicians to prioritize their agenda over the welfare of the people.

On the power outages discussed here, I'm going to give Taylor Electric a big thumbs up in my area. Most AEP folks in the area and even right across the highway had no power for days. Somehow Taylor was able to implement fairly predictable rolling blackouts of 2 hours off and 3-4 hours on with their line system throughout the outages. I only ran the genny very occasionally. Sure, most of the electricity comes from the same place, but with Taylor's infrastructure they were able to provide at least marginal service in some/most of their areas. Apparently AEP had huge gaping holes in their system. Nothing's perfect, but in my area Taylor did better than the big guy.

I also got an email this morning from Taylor that rolling blackout were ending today barring some other large failure in the grid. I've had continuous power since 6PM yesterday. Refreshing.

Fuck Robert O'Rourke and his entire criminal family...

Cross dressing shitbag....

I mean, one guy is setting up calls to see if the elderly and disabled are ok or need transportation to a warming center and the other guy took his family to Cancun yesterday, so... not a real good look for the other guy.

I find this whole Cruz thing typical of liberal bullshit....exactly what was Cruz supposed to do? Last I checked Cruz doesn't run the state, and has nothing to do with the Texas power grid, ERCOT or any of the power supply companies...he represents Texas in the Federal Gov, which has no oversight of Texas power by design (why Texas has its own grid).

Seriously, If I could have flown my family to Cancun during this bullshit, I would've too...

Just like all these idiots screaming about Abbot talking about the New Green Deal...come on, he is not saying the new green deal is at fault, he is saying if we follow the new green deal, this event will be looked at fondly as the good ol' days. Now Abbot has plenty to answer for, but bitching about the stupidity of the new green deal ain't one of them. How about answering why the TEXAS ERCOT has any non Texans sitting on its board! A non-Texan is certainly not going to look after the best interests of Texans, only their best interests...

Fuck Bob the Fake Mexican and all his lying bullshit. How come the media did not cover guys like ‘Mattress Mac’ opening his stores as warming centers?
What does the morons in the media expect Ted Cruz to do? Pass out none existent generators? Cruz can do more making a couple phone calls compared to anything else.

The ‘green new deal’ needs to end now in Texas, windmills that are not weather proof are stupid. Texas needs to take care of of it’s our energy needs. That means drilling, fracking and keep natural gas power plants open.

No...if true, I agree the optics are lousy...though in this fake news environment I want some more detail on how that went down.  My local state rep was at our city hall in Abilene standing should-to-shoulder with city officials answering questions and advising on actions being taken.  He's a state rep, and this is clearly a state issue.

My bitch about Beto and other state democrats is that they would have made matters worse, as I'd bet my last dollar that we'd have twice as many frozen wind turbines not supplying energy while many other fossil fuel systems would have been removed.  Sitting on the sidelines crowing about how well they would have handled things is bullshit, but I realize it's the bread and butter of politicians.

I'm in the heart of wind, solar, and oil based energy production.  I've never really had much heartburn over the wind generation.  I'm against the sole reliance of energy production based on one or two mediums that have clear Achilles heels.  And let's be honest, all form of energy production have some weakness or fail point.

I did see one story today on the news about Minnesota and some other wind generating locations stating that those windmills have heating systems that prevent what happened to our system.  No wind turbine engineer here at all, but that sounds logical.  On the other hand this event is clearly record breaking, so I'm not sure where you realistically draw the line armoring all infrastructure where cost is no object.  Yes, money has something to do with it both from the greed aspect and also not burdening tax payers with extreme costs.  Perfection is a hard target.

Beto cut & ran from Texas two years ago to play with the Important Democrats.  Cruz was working to get the state disaster relief from the feds not two days ago.

Everyone knows it, so stop peddling this dumb "Cruz doesn't carez" narrative.  It's pathetic.

"But Beto called an old lady!"

Who gives a shit; did he feed her, clothe her, or house her?  Again, who cares?

The lefties think we should care more about token gestures than practical reality.

Lime they do.

De icing systems won't survive Texas summers very well; they're made of rubber on the leading edge of the wing/blade, just like aircraft.  They'd need constant service, cost a lot, and would rarely be used.

Put that same money toward coal or oil fired standby power backups.  At least they'd get used.

Well, there you go.  I can't imagine what it would cost to refit already inservice windmills, disregarding the issues you mention even if they were built with it.  But you know there would probably be that..."even if it saves just one life"...outcry on the issue of delivering energy at all costs.  Like I said in another post...perfection is a hard target.

F Bob.

On the more important question, what were the deicing or thermal protections El Paso put into their generating systems?

El Paso isn't on ERCOT, so their power systems are irrelevant.

Great a big government shit bag telling us that the government will come to save us.  “I am from the government and I am here to help” is the scariest damn thing you hear.

Beto is a dumbass. Can't run a business. Can't get a job. Soooooooo he goes into politics. I've seen this movie before.

I do look forward to the day when Robert Francis is irrelevant.  I hope that day comes sooner than later.  Better, I hope it's already here.

He's a stain on Texas history.  Please, Bob, go tend to your family and leave the citizens of Texas alone.

Beto scratches his own asshole and sniffs his finger.

Well here's the thing, El Paso had this exact same thing happen in 2011 when Bob the Fake Mexican was our congressman. We lost power and had rolling blackouts because our local power plants froze as temps went into the teens and single digits for an entire week. Being on the Western Grid didn't matter as some of those connections went down as well. Gas pressure was reduced due to demand coupled with low temperatures and some areas lost service. Pipes froze all over town, and we lost water pressure and service all over the city.

Do you know what Bob the Fake Mexican did during all of this? Fuckall! That's what he did.

Here is the final report from El Paso Electric on what happened. It gives you an idea of what is going on inside the power generation system when these events happen, and what went wrong. https://www.epelectric.com/files/html/Storm_2011/EPE_Response_with_Exhibits_A_-_D.pdf


ETA: I had forgotten this, but reading an article about this reminded me. Our Democrat Mayor left town during the storm too and when asked about it said, "I'm not a plumber. Do they want me to fix their pipes?"

Bob the Fake Mexican never did shit while in Congress. There are a lot of Congress critters that never do anything good or bad to stand out while in Congress. I had never even heard of Bob the Fake Mexican until he ran against Cruz.

Can any of you over in El Paso tell us anything he did in 3 terms in Congress?

"I'm not a plumber. Do they want me to fix their pipes?"

See, now THAT is "bad optics."  He's not wrong...but as mayor disaster response kinda is his responsibility, even if he's been superceded by state/FEMA, unlike a US senator (or state senator, even)

Beto can bend over in the middle and suck his ownself’s dick.