Award Winning Blog

Friday, February 19, 2021

Fun With Math: How the Wall Street Journal Doubles Down on Vilifying Green Power Generation

            Just about everyone, with some complicity in the Texas power shortage, persist in blaming green power sources for failing at the worst possible time.  The Wall Street Journal has doubled down with more math purporting to prove wind power failures caused all ills.  See https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698.

            The Journal Editorial Board reports that while wind power represents a lot less than 42% of the total electricity generating capacity in Texas, during the calamity, its share of currently online and used capacity rose to 42% of the total.  Then its share declined severely to 8%.  It appears that the Board wants everyone to conclude that wind power generation failures caused the power shortfall in light of the difference between 42% and 8%.

            Shamelessly the Wall Street Journal and ever other oil and gas boosters are blowing smoke.

            How could a niche power player end up delivering 42% of current production capacity in Texas?  Might other sources of power have failed miserably to operate at peak demand?  Put another way, how could wind power become such a major source of electricity without the usual producers suffering extraordinary outages?  Wind power market penetration rising from about 10% to 42% occurs only if other generation technologies cannot maintain their market share by generating electricity commensurate with current demand.

            The Journal conveniently ignores the fact that oil and gas generation of power failed so substantially that a minor alternative source became essential.  Additionally, all the blame shifters cannot seem to wrap their brains around the concept of making power generation of all sorts resilient in both hot and cold weather extremes.  Both legacy and new power generators can operate in these environments had producers made the necessary investment. 

            In Texas, investing for extremely rainy and cold days apparently is not worth the cost, until it is. 

            Penny wise and pound foolish.

             

           

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Did the Wall Street Journal Deliberately Lie to Vilify Reliance on Wind Power?

             Today, the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal reports that wind power represents 42% of the currently generated power in Texas and that freezing weather reduced output to 8%: “The problem is Texas’s overreliance on wind power that has left the grid more vulnerable to bad weather. Half of wind turbines froze last week, causing wind’s share of electricity to plunge to 8% from 42%.” See https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-making-of-a-texas-power-outage-11613518653.

            Does 42% strike you as an overestimate?  Multiple sources report that the current generating capacity from wind power in Texas actually represents about 17.4-25%.  See https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php; https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/Wind-overtook-coal-as-a-power-source-in-Texas-15875284.php; https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/14/historic-winter-storm-freezes-texas-wind-turbines-hampering-electric-generation/4483230001/.

            The Journal and Texas Governor  Greg Abbott (see https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/what-gov-greg-abbott-gets-wrong-about-texas-power-failures.html) appear hellbent on blaming green power generation for the outages in the state.  Such a convenient and false target.  Might the lack of regulations requiring back up power have played a role?  How about the creation of an independent power grid manager with virtually no interconnection with backup power sources?  Who needs consumer safeguards-even for an unquestioned public necessity—when the marketplace can solve any and all problems?

            Yet another example where rather than try to determine the truth, people who know better see the advantage in creating false statistics to “prove” a point.

            Lies, damn lies and statistics.  Maybe the the authors wrote 24% and the numbers got reversed.  Of course, the Wall Street Journal would never lie to make a point.