Opus 2021-088: Green Peace: Learning Curves

Have you talked about the weather lately?  It seems to be one of those topics that is used to break the ice or comfort those who can’t abide silence.  

I am a bit disappointed in the Texas weather.  I expected the hot.  I don’t necessarily like it but it was part of the package.  I did not expect the cold.  This is our fourth winter in Texas and the second one that has been “unusually” cold.  The previous exception it got down to 18 degrees and we found out that our geothermal system was not up to the challenge.  We learned that there is something called “auxiliary heating” that is supposed to kick in but the previous owner did not install it.  I would assume that in the years he lived here he never needed it.

This year we got down to 8 degrees.  Since we learn from our mistakes we had installed the auxiliary system so we were good to go.  I left faucets running and was ready for the worst, I thought but we still have one pipe that is not passing water.  Time will tell if it has burst somewhere in the foundation.  What we could not plan for is the reality that Texas was bitten by the green bug.  We are having “rolling black outs” because there is not enough electricity to heat the state at this arctic level.  My son mentioned that the power plants were not designed to operate in this cold.  What he missed was that it was “renewables” that were failing the test of reality.  The solar panels were covered with snow and the wind-mills were frozen.  Even a refugee from California knows that it is hard to generate electricity in those conditions.  

We learned and installed the auxiliary system.  The big question will be whether Texas will learn and reopen their coal powered plants.  It will be an uphill climb with the Biden administration but we need to remember that we were sold out during previous years.  We can’t blame this on Biden or OAC even though they are good with it.

homo unius libri