More On Texas' Blackouts

There's some revisionism afoot on the internet.

Wind power supporters are saying that the blackouts were because of gas power plants going offline when needed the most. 

They are right. 

But they're also selectively interpreting the data to make themselves look good.

The natural gas cheerleaders are saying that the whole thing started with windmills being shut down.

They are right too.

But their position also happens to be correct. Here's why.

Let's repost the two charts from last week. Here's power production during the worst of the crisis.

 

The big drop off in gas is clearly visible in the top right. When the going got tough, power from gas dropped by about 15,000 MW. That's a big deal, and far larger than the perhaps 7,000 MW drop from wind at the same time.

But, lets look at the other graph showing a more normal period:

 

Wind power fluctuates a lot, but it stays in the 10-20,000MW range. So it was down about 10,000 MW when the graph at the top starts. The gas burning plants stepped in, and ramped up their production from the 10-20,000 MW range, by about 25,000MW! And then they had shutdowns.

So yeah, gas failed, but only after saving the day for several days in a row. Using the same day the previous year as a baseline, power from natural gas was 91% higher this year, while power from wind was 72% lower.

In fairness, let's make clear that gas was always the backup plan for a failure of wind. And the backup plan failed. But, you get to the backup plan because the plan failed first.

Blaming the gas companies is like an army retreating, and blaming the rearguard for being overwhelmed. It may be correct, but call it what it is: cowardly.