"What died down Texas way?"

 Source:

https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2021/02/24/what-died-down-texas-way/

" ... neither conventional nor alternative energy facilities in Texas were engineered for Minnesota winters.

... Surely one important reason people did not think Texas could have a big winter storm is that they had convinced themselves, and often others as well, that the planet was overheating.

... It would cost more, of course.

But it would be an investment in security of supply not just immediacy.

And as engineers know, a crucial design question is not whether something is likely to fail but whether it fails well or badly.

... If you create a “capacity market” that rewards dependable backup energy you don’t just spend more, you spend more of it on fossil fuels (and nuclear).

Whereas an “energy market” that pays for power delivered and hopes for the best in time of trouble doesn’t just spend less, it leans more toward spending what it does spend on trendy alternative fuels.

... Steve Goddard warned 12 years ago about wind power that “on the coldest days in winter, the air is still and the turbines don’t generate much (if any) electricity…"

The belief that conventional capacity can be fully replaced by wind or solar is simply mistaken and based on a flawed thought process.  

... Wind and solar can reduce the average load over a year, but they can not reduce the base or peak requirements for conventional electricity.”

As Holman W. Jenkins Jr. admonishes us in the Wall Street Journal, among many other things, making Texas pipeline compressors run on electricity means “blackouts meant to conserve electricity can actually reduce it, by knocking gas-burning generators offline”.

Not a mistake engineers would make.

At least not without help from politicians."