City bans new gas stations

Isn’t ERCOT in Texas run by Texans for Texans. Your blaming every Californian for everything that happens in California, but you don’t apply that to Texas?

 

Sadly, it turns out that five of the board members at ERCOT weren't Texas residents, and one wasn't even a resident of the USA. Hopefully, a correction to the by-laws will be implemented to ensure that only Texas residents can serve.

 

I blame the Russians......

 

I read that. Was quite surprised.

 

Right. Solar panels are ideal for the below type living conditions. Advanced societies... not so much.

That sly smile... wonder what he's watching?

 

Desertification is the cause of climate change in my opinion, not fossil fuel emissions. Disclaimer, my opinion. Solar farms just continue further desertification

 

Certain cities should be banned......by gas stations

 

The real cause of climate change is overpopulation, not fossil fuel emissions. Already proven by the dinosaurs who perished, and had no private jets. Another ice age is coming and completely predictable based on ancient history.

These dumb mfers are going to have to live through their folly, and drag the rest of us with them if the electorate doesn't get smart quickly. They'll begin to figure it out once they realize the water bottles that hold the spring water for their jog are made of plastic...which is derived from petroleum. Shut down another pipeline, you dumb mfers...we need to get you relegated to the ash heap of history, AND SOON.

 

Couldn’t be further from the truth. One of the top 5 live in, get ready,





California!
As the other guy said, none of the top 5 even live in Texas.

 

Texas doesn’t trust the federal government on anything, yet they had a group of non-Texans running their power grid!

Probably should have paid more attention to that.

 

It wouldn't have mattered if the board were Texans or not. Texas businessmen can be just as greedy and dishonest as anyone else when they are warm and comfortable themselves.

Texas is unique in having it's own state grid. A common government mistake is to allow industries to be self-regulating on policy areas of public interest, such as environmental or pricing. When an industry is facing regulation by government, the usual response is for the industry to "get out in front of it", and form a self-regulating body that hopefully heads off firm government intervention. ERCOT represents such an organization IMO, but it is more about protection after deregulation. Texans have suffered for their neglect. I've seen their neglect in two winter storms and every summer...this time they managed to get everyone's attention.

Decades past, Texas government deregulated the electric power industry to make it more competitive, with the idea of providing lowest possible pricing to customers. This was, and is, a noble laissez faire objective, but it created an entirely new network of power middlemen that sell electric power to customers without owning a single generating or distribution asset.

These power middlemen are much like the commodity traders that cause fluctuation in the price of your gasoline by their trading activity. They "buy" electric power from the generating entities, and sell to individual customers at much lower than local market price. They then use others' distribution network to deliver that power to the customer's meter, regardless of where the customer is located geographically in Texas. The smaller ones are literally store-front or home office entrepreneurs with only office expenses. They sell cheap power, everyone's happy, right?

In order for generators to price their capacity to sell to middleman buyers during the good times, there is incredible pressure on them to reduce costs to bare bone wherever possible. They know what needs to be done to increase capacity for summer heat, but they defer that huge capital investment. They know what needs to be done to protect their capacity from a historic freeze, but they figure it'll never happen.

It's time for government to get back involved in setting the pricing of electric power in Texas. This is anathema to a free enterprise economy...it's communism. A free market is the most efficient pricing mechanism. BUT...the generators and distribution networks need to make a reasonable profit, and to be compelled to do whatever is necessary to completely meet public demand in the worst of times.

I hope the legislature and the PUC gets it done.

 

And don't forget the fossil fuels they're gonna burn to make that electricity!

 

Your jealousy for Texas is shining big and bright. Deep in the heart of Texas!

 

I'd love to be a current gas station owner there. Their property just skyrocketed in value.

The locals chose this. Let them live with it. Others better get out before you can't fuel up your moving van.

 

This, just proves 1 thing. We don't have the infrastructure set up for EV cars. This isn't Europe!!

 

Would be interesting to see all the gas stations in Petaluma shut down for a week.......

 

The only good thing coming out of Petaluma is Lagunitas...

 

They should make it a month and include Washington .

 

Common sense says you have reliable EV infrastructure in place first before doing anything with fossil fuels including the production and distribution. But......that requires a common sense approach.

 

I don't understand why they call it common sense, when so many people don't have it.....

 

China is a far more populous country than ours. They are also building more coal power plants every year than anyone else. If America went 100% renewable energy overnight right now there would be zero effect on the global climate. Zero

 

Human nature is to resist forced change especially if you love ribeyes but are forced to eat hummus sammies instead. Freedom of choice is my preferred method. Ribeyes always reliable. Hummus not so much.......

 

^^ This

Paris Accord is about lowering America's competitiveness, not lowering global CO2 emissions.

As far as coal-fired plants... the below link provides an excellent animation of the number of coal plants every year from 1927 to 2019. While the number in the US has plummeted, you'll notice the total number of coal plants increases every year on a global scale.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/every-coal-power-plant-1927-2019/

 

Hummus = KaKa

 

hummus is a good dip for making veggies edible while grilling the steaks.