A CleanTechnica writer reveals the cognitive dissonance that clouds a supporters' logic when presented with direct evidence of the shortcomings of renewables:

"Frozen wind turbines in Texas are causing a huge dip in the state’s power generation capability, reducing available power by almost half. This comes during a record blast of arctic air, which is causing record electrical demand, resulting in rolling blackouts...In reality, though, the rolling blackouts were caused by economics and not renewables."

If A = B, and B = C, then A = Q. Got it!

Another example of these economics is snow tires in Phoenix, Arizona. Sure, there is some rare snow and ice in a city that’s comparable to Baghdad in climate, but it’s so rare that you wouldn’t go spend $600-1000 for snow tires. Your typical 3-season tires in Salt Lake City or Denver are, in reality, all-season tires in Phoenix. The economics of buying snow tires just doesn’t add up in Phoenix.

The reverse is also true. The person living in a cold climate would definitely want the snow tires, and the guy living in Phoenix would definitely want air conditioning. Being prepared for a problem that happens all the time makes great economic sense. It’s money well spent for comfort and safety.

Interesting analogy-- obviously there are certain times where economics need to be thrown out the window, as the safety and necessity of keeping power on reliably outweighs strictly looking at homo economicus, but your point on it being an art as well as a science is fair

Given the reference to John Lennon's song, "Imagine"  (Lennon Legend), the discussion of this cold spell (living in north rural Minnesota), and other familiar things, I'll try briefly make a clear point regarding the "science or economics" debate.

First, "affordable housing" consisting of trailer house parks in tornado alley might fit this debate, too.

More important, rush out and rent or buy the DVDs of the great movie of a great event, "Woodstock." Hundreds of thousands of beautiful, half dressed young people, loving life and each other, 52 years ago. You will have proof positive we are currently living in an insane age of collapse.

The point that is being missed is the market design in Texas is one of the primary causes of the lack of reliability under these extreme conditions.  There is not a "supplier of last resort" that is paid to have the reserves/capacity to cover demand outside of the energy bid market.  Also, the market cannot support the long run investment costs associated with the construction, operation and maintenance including fuel storage, procurement and transportation, if applicable, for these reliability based resources.  In addition, we need to investigate the type of operational and near, middle and long term planning used for reserve margin decision making.  Was the analyses based on EUE, LOLP, LOLH, one hour in five, ten or fifteen year events and what cost/benefit ratio was the determining factor?  Did ERCOT or any or state agency have the authority to require the the build/procurement and payment for these reserve resources?  These are the questions to ask in addition to the other items being debated here.

Richard - your point is valid.  What many people do not realize is that the longer term economics drive the ability to make these changes.  With the large and growing amount of renewable energy generation with effectively zero variable operating costs the market price in ERCOT drops to below $25/MWH a lot.  Even two days after ERCOT generation recovered, we had negative generation pricing for most of several days this weekend!  Not an issue if you are collecting a PTC or working off an ITC - but if the facility has real variable costs such as fuel and maintenance - difficult to run.  Many will call for capacity markets to solve for this but first we need to understand the base issue.  Also we need to look at where generation actually came from during the worst parts of the storm - 95%+ was traditional sources and it is unlikely that there is a near term economic model for 40 GW of storage in any market.