Quote Originally Posted by Overhazard View Post
They tried to blame it on wind farms, but they're wind farms in the midwest and we get nailed by snow and below freezing temps all the time.
It is a little bit more complicated than that, Texas produces more megawatt hours by wind than any other state, it produces almost 3 times as as the number 2 state (Oklahoma). Take away Oklahoma and Illinois and Texas almost produces more energy through wind than all the other states combined. In the US there are 3 electrical grids; the Eastern, the Western, and Texas (of course Alaska and Hawaii have their own) and it has been like this since the 1930s almost 100 years and this isolation is one of the things that really hurt the state. Also during the winter Texas reduces it's natural gas energy output because unlike the north the people of the state actually use less energy in the winter then they do running the AC in the summer, top of that the natural gas plants and lines were not winterized so... If you want to say Texas neglected one source (natural gas) to focused on the another (wind) causing a failure with both you can. I've worked with the Texas power grid and it is a complicated mess with the people that run it living in different states and hopefully after this debacle there will be moves to correct it.