Posted by
Catmman on Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:37:21 AM
Ever hear "we'll always have wind" spouted from an enviro-wacko? How about it's an "endless resource"?
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 a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state.
The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a statement.
System operators curtailed power to interruptible customers to shave 1,100 megawatts of demand within 10 minutes, ERCOT said. Interruptible customers are generally large industrial customers who are paid to reduce power use when emergencies occur.
And Texas produces the most wind power of ANY other state. Why aren't we producing more nuclear energy than any other state?
Texas produces the most wind power of any state and the number of wind farms is expected to increase dramatically as new transmission lines are built to transfer power from the western half of the state to more populated areas in the north.
So I guess we could look at the bright side. All of those customers, all of those Americans had to do without basic electricity at the whim of Mother Nature, the enviros beloved Gaia. Think of all the carbon which wasn't emitted during that time frame...