Page 35 - Michael Webber News Today

More from my terrific conversation with Michael Webber at the University of Texas. Michael is well known for having thought deeply about how the grid works and where it’s going. I’m pairing his insights with a long analysis from E&E News, which I excerpt here, but by all means go to the link and give it a scan. Nearly a month after an arctic blast crippled Texas’ main power grid, questions continue to fly about how to prevent a similar disaster from occurring again. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ...

March 10, 2021 Michael Webber is the Josey Centennial Professor in Energy Resources, Author, and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE, a global energy & infrastructure services company.  This is like a replay of a movie we’ve watched before. And as everyone knows, the sequel is usually worse than the original. The most energy-abundant state in the nation suffered a catastrophic energy shortage...

Oil and gas interests left to “self-regulate” in aftermath of winter storm as Texas politicians pile on to ERCOT Texas Tribune Tags:  A gas flare burns bright on a production site northeast of Andrews, Texas. From the natural gas wellheads in West Texas to the power plants that burn gas to generate electricity, multiple energy systems failed during the February 2021 storm in Texas that left millions without power for days. Credit: Jerod Foster for The Texas Tribune After being batt...

For Veal, this experience was all too familiar. He was just 23 in 2005 when he and his family fled New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina made its way toward the city. He expected to be gone several days, at most. What he didn’t expect was that he’d never live in New Orleans again. Months after the storm, Veal returned to survey the damage and found an empty shell where his home used to be. “My entire life was washed away by the floods and it has never been the same, man,” he says. Now approa...

Politically powerful natural gas production and transportation companies, along with their regulators, appear to have so far escaped the wrath of the governor and the Legislature in the aftermath of the Texas power outages.

As a record winter storm wreaked havoc on the states power system, with relays and valves freezing up, it quickly became clear that all sorts of key infrastructure operators had not sufficiently protected their equipment from the brutal cold.   In declaring weatherization an emergency item for this year’s legislative session, Gov. Greg Abbott directed lawmakers to mandate the winterization of the state’s power system and “ensure the necessary funding for winterization.” But lawmake...

Oil and gas interests left to "self-regulate" in aftermath of winter storm ERIN DOUGLAS, The Texas Tribune March 5, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail After being battered by withering criticism of its management of the power grid during last month’s winter storm, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas saw several of its board members resign and fired its CEO. The chair of the Public Utility Commission, which oversees the grid operator, was forced to resign. The political fallout from the long-las...

Lessons from Texas: Co-ordinate and Relax Rules Mar 4, 2021 3:05:pm Summary by: William Powell/Dale Lunan Posted in: Lessons from Texas: Co-ordinate and Relax Rules Environmental restrictions on liquid fuel consumption and feeble incentives to draw investment in newbuild capacity were among the causes of the mid-February power crisis in Texas, a CERAWeek by IHS Markit panel agreed at a March 4 session. In a state with a growing amount of renewable energy, power prices were not high enough to ju...

Texas should winterize its electric generation plants or consider connecting its grid with other parts of the country to help avoid another deadly blackout like the one last month that left people without heat, power or water for days, experts at a top energy conference...

For a period of time, fossil fuel producers would be able to earn partial credits under the standard by lowering their carbon intensity, but this would eventually be phased out.  The legislation also aims to tackle emissions from the transportation sector through measures including authorizing $500 million to deploy electric vehicle equipment such as charging stations and authorizing $2.5 billion annually to transition the country’s school bus fleet to zero-emission vehicles.  It would addi...