Comment Yep, all sources of electricity failed in Texas (Score 2) 178
Natural gas is still our biggest source of electricity* and heat in Texas, and it's production dropped nearly in half during the freeze:
Regional natural gas production (January 2020-February 2021)
A large portion of the decrease in natural gas production was from declines in Texas, which fell over 10 Bcf/d during the February 8–17 period. Unlike natural gas production infrastructure in northern areas of the country where below-freezing temperatures are more common and infrastructure is generally winterized, wellheads, gathering lines, and even processing facilities in Texas are more susceptible to freeze-offs during periods of extremely cold weather.
The nuclear plant south of me lost half its output:
How and why a nuclear reactor shut down in Texas cold snap when energy was needed most
One of two reactors shut down at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station an hour southwest of Houston, knocking out about half of its 2,700 megawatts of generating capacity.
Interestingly enough, even with all the frozen turbines wind was generating more power than expected when the grid collapsed:
Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold
Since wind in Texas generally tends to produce less during winter, there's no way that the grid operators would have planned for getting 30GW from wind generation; in fact, a chart at ERCOT indicates that wind is producing significantly more than forecast. [see chart, green line is what was generated, blue and red lines below it are what was forecasted]
...
An ERCOT director told Bloomberg that problems were widespread across generating sources, including coal, natural gas, and even nuclear plants.
My understanding is it was windier at the coast than expected and those turbines more than compensated for the frozen inland turbines.
* from ERCOT's Fuel Mix report for 2024
- 35% Gas-CC
- 24% Wind
- 13% Coal
- 10% Solar
- 9% Gas (not CC)
- 8% Nuclear
- 1% other