From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   A loser.....  and liar...... and incompetent.   
      
   I suppose that saying:   
   "Every State has the government it deserves" is as also true.   
      
   Abbott ignored the recommendations made after the LAST Texas freeze:   
      
   The 2011 Freeze   
      
   In 2011, a winter storm pushed temperatures in Dallas down into the teens for   
   five consecutive mornings. Just like today’s freeze, in 2011, roads clogged   
   with ice, sleet and snow, the temperature dropped, and some power facilities   
   went offline. We    
   received the same advice: lower heaters to 68 degrees, close shades, unplug   
   non-essential appliances, and do your part to conserve energy.   
      
   Between February 1-4, 2011, 210 ERCOT generators suffered either an outage or   
   a failure to start. In total, the event affected 4.4 million households in   
   Texas.   
      
   Six months later, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North   
   American Electric Reliability Corporation issued a report and offered   
   recommendations for winterizing. These were non-mandatory, but they hoped to   
   prevent exactly what is happening    
   now.   
   - snip -   
      
   They also noted that another bad freeze had been in 1989. At that time,   
   generators failed. Following an investigation, officials offered non-mandatory   
   recommendations on winterizing generators.   
      
   “Over the course of time implementation lapsed. Many of the generators that   
   experienced outages in 1989 failed again in 2011,” the report stated.   
      
   Those generators failed again ten years later.   
   ===============   
   This is how Governor Greg Abbott tried to shift the blame after THIS most   
   recent debacle; luckily an expert and professor from Rice University weighed   
   in with the truth:   
                                                  =============   
      
   In extreme Texas cold, Green New Deal turns into hot potato   
      
   Democrats blame climate change for the historic freeze, but Republicans say   
   clean energy worsened the crisis.   
      
   “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United   
   States of America,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Fox News host Sean   
   Hannity during an interview earlier this week.   
      
   “Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and   
   nuclear, as well as solar and wind,” the Republican governor continued,   
   blasting the idea of the federal government coordinating a national transition   
   to low-carbon fuels.   
      
   Abbott faulted renewable energy sources for Texas’s “situation where it   
   was lacking power on a statewide basis”. But climate scientists and   
   environmental policy experts say this read on current events could not be   
   further from the truth, as a large    
   swath of the United States copes with a massive cold snap that brought snow,   
   ice and wind to communities unprepared for the freezing conditions.   
      
   Democrats, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the top   
   proponents of the landmark climate resolution, clapped back against Abbott’s   
   assessment of the situation.   
      
   Infrastructure weaknesses in the Lone Star State are “quite literally what   
   happens when you don’t pursue a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez responded   
   on Twitter.   
      
   As millions of Americans across Texas and a dozen other states slowly find   
   their electricity turning back on, the debate continues about how best to   
   prevent another such disaster from affecting the electric grid so severely.   
      
   “The Green New Deal has nothing to do with our problems in Texas,” said   
   Daniel Cohan, associate professor of engineering at Rice University. “Wind   
   and solar power came up just a couple of gigawatts short of expectations for a   
   peak winter day.”   
      
   He told Al Jazeera that the state had 25 gigawatts of outages at natural gas   
   plants – more than double what grid operators thought possible – along   
   with a few gigawatts of outages from coal and nuclear plants.   
      
   Energy infrastructure should be built to withstand a full range of extreme   
   events, added Cohan, suggesting that moving to clean sources could help   
   provide affordable and reliable power throughout the year.   
   ‘Core to the Texas ethos’   
      
   Some Texans have been confused about why their governor lashed out against the   
   precursor to national legislation that has yet to pass through Congress in   
   Washington, DC, or in Austin, the state capital.   
      
   “There is no Green New Deal in Texas, nor has there ever been,” said   
   Joshua Rhodes, an energy research associate at the University of Texas at   
   Austin. “Any investment in renewables has been because private companies   
   have seen the opportunity to    
   make money, which is core to the Texas ethos.”   
   - snip -   
                                         =====================   
      
   Ouch! 'The Texas ethos is to make money' ?! Could we have a State coat of arms   
   made up with that as the motto on it? Next freeze we could use the shields for   
   covers from the weather.   
      
                                               ===================   
   Wiki's recap of the past week:   
      
   February 2021 North American ice storm   
      
   On February 16, during the February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm,   
   power plants across Texas broke down leaving 4 million households in Texas   
   without power. Abbott called for reform of the Electric Reliability Council of   
   Texas (ERCOT), the    
   electric grid operator for Texas.[174]   
      
   On February 16, as a guest on Sean Hannity show, Abbott stated, "This shows   
   how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America   
   ... Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than   
   10 percent of our    
   power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power   
   on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary." There   
   was an immediate response from the energy department of the state of Texas,   
   clarifying that "most    
   of Texas's energy losses came from failures to winterize the power-generating   
   systems, including fossil fuel pipelines."[175][174] Most power plants in   
   Texas are gas-fired, with wind generators providing about 10% during the   
   winter months.[174]   
   =============   
   Let's add some more pain to the injury, shall we, Governor Abbott?   
      
   Texas (Governor Abbott) allows ERCOT to ‘modify pricing’ as electricity   
   demands increase   
      
   ERCOT declared its highest state of emergency on Tuesday due to the demand for   
   electricity. In the order, the PUC listed “exceptionally high natural gas   
   prices” as one of the factors that prompted the action, which affects the   
   cost of electric    
   generation.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)