Pratt on Texas

The news of Texas covered today includes:

Our Lone Star story of the day: Conservative Republican Liz Case joins us for three segments to discuss her run to unseat sleepy RINO state Rep. Stan “for the lobby” Lambert in Texas House District 71. We cover many of the policy positions of Case and there is much more at her website: https://liz4texas.org/

Our Lone Star story of the day is sponsored by Allied Compliance Services providing the best service in DOT, business and personal drug and alcohol testing since 1995.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrongly blocks the Texas Reader Act, HB900. Library standards adopted by the SBOE remain in effect.

Attorney General Paxton does what many of us have had to do to get on with our business: He has agreed to end litigation with the former employees who claim to be whistleblowers.

For now, Texas gets to keep border buoys floating in the Rio Grande. And, Texas authorities double down with razor wire in Eagle Pass after Biden admin ‘cease and desist’ order.

Listen on the radio, or station stream, at 5pm Central. Click for our radio and streaming affiliates.
www.PrattonTexas.com

The news of Texas covered today includes:

Our Lone Star story of the day: Electrical engineer Ross Aten, engineering manager for a Texas electric cooperative that works on both the ERCOT and Southwest Power Pool grids, explains that the fundamental weakness of the ERCOT grid (and others) still exists and as long as it does, a very bad "new normal" for Texas will be conservation calls from ERCOT and real worry of being pushed into load shedding (where your power is turned off to preserve generation and the grid.)

Aten explains why such such rolling load shedding is absolutely necessary to preserve the grid and generation facilities as well as why we are in the position of being very close to having to engage in such on a somewhat regular basis.

Beyond argument is the fact that unreliable generation resources make up too much of a percentage of ERCOT grid capacity and that these subsidized resources are driving away private investment in building reliable, dispatchable power generation facility such as those powered by natural gas. [See ERCOT grid fact sheet here.]

All one need do is see what happened during the danger hours on Monday and Tuesday morning, 15 and 16 January 2024. While wind generation was 28.6 percent of grid capacity it was only able to generate around 6.9 and 12.06 percent Monday and Tuesday respectively at 7:30 a.m. (much lower later in the day.) Solar was 0.00 and 0.05 percent respectively.

The chart shows* clearly that reliable generation from fuels that can be turned up and down, on and off, when needed pulled all the weight in keeping the electric grid up and operating. 
*https://prattontexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ercot-1-15-2024-0730.png

Natural gas was fueling 67.22 percent of what was on the grid when its percentage of grid capacity, from the fact sheet, is only 41.8 percent of the ERCOT grid!

To learn much more about how all operates with Ross Aten, visit:

• 2/18/2021 – In-Depth on the Texas rolling blackouts

Our Lone Star story of the day is sponsored by Allied Compliance Services providing the best service in DOT, business and personal drug and alcohol testing since 1995.

Listen on the radio, or station stream, at 5pm Central. Click for our radio and streaming affiliates.
www.PrattonTexas.com

The news of Texas covered today includes:

Our Lone Star story of the day: As predicted by me, many Texas public universities are simply are simply name and description changing in order to avoid the ban on D.E.I. Both Sherry Sylvester and Bob Zimmerman have excellent coverage out on the matter:

This is good but we don’t need consideration, we need actual budget cuts: State Sen. Brandon Creighton says if universities fail to adhere to the new law, the Texas Senate may consider university funding clawbacks.

Our Lone Star story of the day is sponsored by Allied Compliance Services providing the best service in DOT, business and personal drug and alcohol testing since 1995.

Biden Administration admits Rio Grande drownings occurred well before Border Patrol alerted Texas officials.

Much campaign and political news including an interview with Lubbock County Precinct 1 commissioner hopeful Mike Dalby.

Listen on the radio, or station stream, at 5pm Central. Click for our radio and streaming affiliates. www.PrattonTexas.com