BC SOCIETY
Saved by @jay_millerjay

Much misinformation out there about #Texaspoweroutage, @ERCOT_ISO, wind and solar power, and thermal generators (gas and coal). Let's review what we think we know right now. @TPPF @Life_Powered_ 1/10

 Two problems in #Texas, one short term and exacerbated by the long term issue, and one long term. 2/10
The short term failure came at about 1 AM Monday when #ERCOT should have seen the loads soaring due to plummeting temperatures and arranged for more generation. 3/10
Texas came very close to having a system-wide outage for the whole state (ERCOT area, about 85% of the state) due to not arranging for more generation. 4/10
This tripped the grid, knocking some reliable thermal plants (gas and coal) offline. This was a failure of the grid operator (ERCOT) not the power plants. 5/10
In the last 4-5 years, Texas lost a net of 3,000 megawatts of thermal out of a total installed capacity 73,000 megawatts today. We lost the thermal power because operators couldn’t see a return on investment due to be undercut by wind and solar... 6/10
...which is cheap for two reasons – it’s subsidized and it doesn’t have to pay for the costs of grid reliability by purchasing battery farms or contracting with gas peaker plants to produce power when needed, not when they can. 7/10
Meanwhile, Texas has seen a growth of 20,000 megawatts of wind and solar over the same period to 34,000 megawatts of installed capacity (they rarely perform anywhere close to capacity). This subsidized (state and federal) wind and solar have pushed... 8/10
...reliable thermal operators out of business or prevented new generation from being built as operators can’t make money off of the market. This reduced the capacity margin – grids must have excess capacity to ensure stability. 9/10
Texas is experiencing what California has – with California affecting the entire Western Interconnection due to its policies. Blackouts are a feature of the push to have more unreliable renewables on the grid. Must pay $$ for reliable backup w/ renewables 10/10

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Today is also death anniversary of P.V.Narasimha Rao, the man who liberalized the Indian economy, and opened it up. And more than anything else, provided the much needed stability for India in the turbulent 90s. One of the best PMs IMO. #PVNarasimhaRao


The man who dismantled India's Licence Raj, opened up relations with Israel, adopted a Look East Policy. P.V.Narasimha Rao took over as PM, when India was faced with multiple challenges both on political and economic front in 1991.

Assasination of Rajiv Gandhi, Economic crisis, India was facing a bleak scenario, in 1991 when PVNR became the PM. It is to PVNR's credit that when he stepped down as PM in 1996,more people in India were optimistic about their future, more confident. #PVNarasimhaRao

I was one of those who grew up during the PVNR era, experienced the initial changes he bought along. He introduced far sweeping reforms( forced or otherwise) , when he was just running a minority Govt dependent on allies support. #PVNarasimhaRao

Heading a minority Govt,PVNR managed to pass through crucial bills on economy, not a mean feat at all. He had to deal with the Nehruvian-Socialist lobby in his own party, apart from the Left, but managed to push through the economic reforms. #PVNarsimhaRao
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Wow! Rare moment of truth at the UN as Miss Iraq Sarah Idan calls out Hamas terrorism, antisemitism taught in Muslim countries, and biased media.

THREAD: "Two years ago, I represented Iraq at Miss Universe. I posted a photo with Miss Israel on social media..."


"I was told to remove it and forced to denounce Israeli policies. I received death threats. Since then I can no longer return to my homeland.

Why did the Iraqi government fail to condemn the threats, or allow my freedom of speech?"

"The issue between Arabs and Israelis goes beyond policy disagreements. It’s deeply rooted in the belief systems taught in Muslim countries, which are anti-Semitic."

"Sadly, hatred & intolerance are reinforced by biased media. When I watched the news last month, why did they never report that the Hamas terrorist organization fired nearly 700 rockets at Israeli civilians in one weekend or that Hamas used Palestinians in Gaza as human shields?"

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s. e. smith
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Oh are we talking about Sheryl Sandberg again? Well, your reminder that disabled feminists, LGBQT feminists, and feminists of color criticised her ‘lean in’ deal from day one. Don’t let anyone retcon that out of existence.

Like, a pretty narrow slice of feminists actually endorse and support corporate feminism, they’re just white, nondisabled, straight, cis, and noisy so their voices have a bigger reach.

So if your impression is that ‘feminism’ gave her a ‘free pass’ maybe you should question your overall impression of feminism rather than continuing to centre a handful of people as ‘thought leaders’ or whatever.

Critics within feminism have been doing this work for a long time and have been getting shat on it for about as long and I'm tired of seeing them erased. But what do I know — I am, after all, not a feminist.

But I WILL say, from my not-a-feminist perspective, that people who aren’t feminists who are criticising feminism should maybe understand the movement more deeply beyond a handful of high profile celebrity feminists.
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Thread: Rush Limbaugh and the conservative Id

On the day of his passing, it's worth doing a brief retrospective on how Rush Limbaugh's personal life almost perfectly paralleled American conservatism...

One thing that's not commonly known about Rush Limbaugh is that he began his career in sports, doing sales for the Kansas City Royals baseball team. That's significant because much of the tribalism and dumbed-down rhetoric in American TV news directly came from sports media.

Television journalism in its earliest days was a fantastic product with real investigative reporting, no filibustering live interviews, and no soundbites. This began changing in the 1970s when ABC Sports president Roone Arledge was put in charge of ABC News.

Limbaugh tried to be a conventional FM deejay but kept getting fired because his personality was too abrasive. After working with the Royals, he began a small political talk show for a Sacremento station. The Reagan repeal of the Fairness Doctrine made his show possible.

Rush Limbaugh's Sacramento show started in 1984 (he replaced Morton Downey Jr) and after 5 years, he was picked up by ABC Radio which was trying to copy some of the sensationalism that ABC News television had started. It was a perfect fit.
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Paul P.H. Wilson\u269b
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@gonuke
It is simply not correct to point fingers at wind & solar energy as we try to understand the situation in TX. The system (almost) had a plan for weather (almost) like this. 1/x


It relied on very little wind energy - that was the plan. It relied on a lot of natural gas - that was the plan. It relied on all of its nuclear energy - that was the plan. 2/x

There was enough natural gas, coal and nuclear capacity installed to survive this event - it was NOT "forced out" by the wind energy expansion. It was there. 3/x

Wind, natural gas, coal and nuclear plants all failed to deliver on their expectations for long periods of time. The biggest gap was in natural gas! The generators were there, but they were not able to deliver. 4/x

It may be fair to ask why there is so much wind energy in ERCOT if we do NOT expect it to deliver during weather events like this, but that is an entirely different question - and one with a lot of great answers!! 5/x
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WHO ARE VALAKHILYAS?

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Tamil literature says that the main task of Valakhilyas is to prevent human beings from being scorched. They absorb the excess heat from the sun by travelling in front of him. They, in turn, get energy from Skanda and Ma Durga. The food of Valakhilyas is only wind.
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Once, Rishi Kashyap performed a yagna and invited all the Devas and Rishis to help him. Indra brought a whole mountain of trees for firewood. The Valakhilyas were hardly able to lift anything but leaves. Even when they were moving leaves, they fell into rain water puddles.


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Neo-nazi group #PatriotFront held a photo op in #Chicago last weekend & is currently marching around #DC so it's as good time as any to compile a list of their identified members for folks to watch for

Who are these chuds?

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THE LAST PRINCESS OF LAHORE - BAMBA DULEEP SINGH (1869 - 1957)

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Post partition, every morning a weak old woman would board the Model Town bus service headed to the city. The conductor never asked her for money or he would invite anger of the last Queen of Punjab.

1/n


Princess Bamba Sutherland, the eldest daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and grand-daughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was born on Sep 29, 1869, in London.

Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Punjab was taken away to England by British after annexing Punjab.

2/n


Since he was still a child he was forcibly converted to Christianity and made to adopt British values in order to prevent him from ever thinking about regaining Punjab.

He was also kept away from his mother Maharani Jindan.
When he finally met his mother years later...

3/n

...he was told about his lost kingdom and religion after which he decided to reclaim it from British treachery.
During his struggle he married and had six children, 3 sons & 3 daughters from the 1st marriage.

Bamba was the most colorful character among 6 and was a rebel...
4/n

...like her father and daring like her Grandfather Ranjit Singh. She married Col Sutherland who later became principal of King Edward Medical College.

When she got permission to bring her grandmother Maharani Jindan's ashes to Lahore in 1924, she saw a huge crowd gathered...
5/n
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