Saturday, February 20, 2021

Did EPA Shut Off TX Power?

Bloomberg reports on another piece of the Power Puzzle in Texas.

When the Texas power grid was on the brink of collapse and its operator plunged thousands into darkness, it didn’t make an exception for the oil and gas field.

Power was, unsurprisingly, diverted to hospitals and nursing homes. Ercot, as the grid manager is known, was staving off utter catastrophe, its chief executive later said.

But leaving shale fields like the Permian Basin dark had an unintended consequence. Producers who depend on electricity to power their operations were left with no way to pump natural gas. And that gas was needed more than ever to generate electricity....

The pumps are driven by electric motors--so they didn't pump.

That is of particular interest here because Waukesha Engine made the large diesel- or natural gas-fired engines which powered those pumps for years.  But a few decades ago those engines were deemed "polluters" by EPA and were no longer allowed to be sold in the US.  (At the time, "clean diesel"/DEF engines did not exist.)

So the engines were sold to Red China which doesn't give a rat's ass about "pollution."  And they were replaced with electric motors in the US because "clean."

Don't expect EPA to grovel and apologize like Ted Cruz.  Fake News won't hound them to the ends of the Earth about that.

But yes, EPA had a hand in it.  

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