Hey, don't send the check to Dusty send it to me. I brought it up on post #35 and Dusty post # 40. Actually after reading your post again you owe both Dusty and my self your check.
Texas Cold Weather Discussion
- Thread starter jackieschmidt
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joshb
Gold $$ Contributor
FANTASTIC!!!! God to hear!
Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
Fair enough. But you'll both have to accept carbon credits.
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butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
My house is 3300 sq ft, but we do not use the unit upstairs as wife and I are the only people here with our two cats. I got rid of the 2 heatpumps down stairs as they were too expensive to operate with backup heat strips. The upstairs unit is still a heat pump and will remain as we do not use the upstairs unless we have several people staying with us. Natural gas is not available in my area, just high priced propane. My shop has 2 heatpumps and is 1350 sq ft. My year round ave. electricity bill is about $380 a month. My average monthly propane bill is about $175. I do have a lot of machine tools in my shop and I will not sweat or freeze while I working in it.
The nuclear power plant shut down due to a frozen water pipe in the cooling tower . At least it didn’t do a Fukushima melt down, but the question is, is the generator back up cold hardened? The circulation pump certainly wasn’t. How close did it come to turning into a big mushroom cloud?
The Fukushima designers never anticipated a tidal wave would flood their onsite generators, this in an area known for earthquakes and tidal waves.
Texas energy planners apparently can’t seem to wrap their minds around a hard freeze scenario. Probably because when the going gets tough our Senators get going, to Cancun !
The Fukushima designers never anticipated a tidal wave would flood their onsite generators, this in an area known for earthquakes and tidal waves.
Texas energy planners apparently can’t seem to wrap their minds around a hard freeze scenario. Probably because when the going gets tough our Senators get going, to Cancun !
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Sir, That is a cheap shot!
HandgunHTR
Gold $$ Contributor
It is obvious from your post that you don’t know anything about nuclear power. “How close did it come to turning into a big mushroom cloud”... that scenario is impossible when it comes to nuclear power generation.
As for Fukushima, it wasn’t “just a tidal wave”. The entire nation of Japan moved 8 feet! That is like taking the entirety of West Texas and moving it 8 feet. You cannot prepare for that. The fact that the release at Fukushima was as small as it was should say something about how safe it really was.
As far as the Ted Cruz comment, what exactly could he have done to mitigate what was going on last week. Please be specific.
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Yes Sir, Some think he should have been shoveling coal. Nothing Mr. Cruz could have done, but folks are always looking for some one to jump on to ,keep their eyes off what they are doing.
Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
A USC study of the Fukushima disaster published in 2015 concluded:
"Critical backup generators were built in low-lying areas at risk for tsunami damage — despite warnings from scientists."
The designers and operator assumed a maximum tsunami surge of 6.1 meters, but were warned that a surge of 10 meters was possible. The actual surge was 13 meters. Oops.
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"Critical backup generators were built in low-lying areas at risk for tsunami damage — despite warnings from scientists."
The designers and operator assumed a maximum tsunami surge of 6.1 meters, but were warned that a surge of 10 meters was possible. The actual surge was 13 meters. Oops.
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What's the consensus on using a propane space heater inside, in an emergency. I think about the roaring open gas heaters we had as a kid but houses were a lot leakier back then. I'm just talking about keeping the pipes from freezing if the power goes out in an "all electric" house. I've tried to explain to my son that the 6.5 kW portable generator he just bought is probably not enough to do the job. I've suggested he keep a 40 KBTU propane heater and a couple 20 lb cans of propane on hand, just in case.
FNSafari
Gold $$ Contributor
Regarding the generator at 6.5KwH in an all electric house I agree with your opinion.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
I bet ours are 30’ off the ground and on a hump. We also have backups in a garage on top of a hill thats probably 100’ higher with a dedicated haul path to get there. After that disaster it changed every nuclear plant in the usa and how they treat backup and offsite power
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
You can always crack a window. They have low oxygen shutoffs these days. Get a carbon monoxide detector from an airplane parts supplier or a battery one like a smoke alarm to be safest
There is no cooling tower at the Bay City nuclear power facility. None. It's in the lead paragraph of the Wikipedia link I previously posted, last sentence.
"It consists of two Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors and is cooled by a 7,000-acre (2,800 ha) reservoir, which eliminates the need for cooling towers."
I haven't seen any reports of significant seismic activity in the Bay City, TX area last week so any comparison to Fukushima isn't based in reality.
There were issues with the water supply pumps in February 1993, as mentioned in the Wikipedia link I previously posted. If you look, it took a LOT longer for the issues then to be worked through before each of the two nuclear reactions to return to service providing electric power again.
Here's that web link again.
South Texas Nuclear Generating Station - Wikipedia
If there were issues with higher coastal water levels, the storm surge from all the tropical weather systems including Hurricane Harvey as previously mentioned would have revealed that vulnerability quite unmistakably.
Personally I wouldn't want any politician futzing around at any industrial facility, especially one other people depend on the output from. As a younger engineer I had my fill of being delegated to tour guide duty to executives from HQ through petroleum refineries I worked at, I didn't particularly relish those assignments but I'll be the first to say I'm not much of a politician. I did much better with being the intetface with consultants and other technical folks but an ambassador can't always pick & choose.
FNSafari
Gold $$ Contributor
I bought a new Honda 5K generator for a rental this year. It has a "COMINDER" as in CO. It is very sensitive and shuts the whole unit down at the slightest buildup of CO. I've tried it in a garage with the genie near the open door and she quits. Thank you all you zombies that have run generators in your basement or closed attached garage and killed one or more of your household!
Never mentioned Ted Cruz by name, in fact both our Senators were out of state during the freeze. Cornyn isn't saying where he was. Ted was busted boarding a flight to Mexico with family. The AG was in Utah.
What could they have done? Well for starters, both Senators have been in office in Texas for many years, Cornyn I think is on his 4th 6 year term. I can't recall if Ted is second or third. But it is a fact that no one paid serious attention to all the recommendations to harden the infrastructure after the 2011 freeze, and so nothing was done about it. That falls on the shoulders of all our leadership who could have done something but chose not to. The Nuke plant that shut down was due to a frozen water pipe. Reports seem to vary as to where that pipe was and why it triggered a shut down. Someday we'll have a definitive answer but the issue still remains, lack of winter hardening. Whether is was a cooling tower, or a cooling pond really makes no difference. The shut down is evidence that continued operation would be hazardous to the plant in the least, perhaps to health of public too if it all went sideways. Like TMI, perhaps we'll know the true extent of the emergency some day, but not soon I suspect.
Will anything change? If past history is a predictor, the answer is likely not. A lot of profit was made during the shortage, so where's the economic incentive to add winterizing? Unless the grid is restructured to add economic incentive to winterize, there will be no capital made available.
FWIW: my comparison to Fukushima was that predictable natural events are always graded on a scale of likelihood. Japan engineers and planners, certainly no stranger to earthquakes or tsunamis, weighed the odds vs cost and made a decision will turn out to be very costly, in lives and property for decades to come. Unfortunately, the evidence that the decision was bad only comes after the fact, as it has now for Texas who failed yet again to upgrade the electric grid. Time after time they simply hoped for the best. But hope is not a plan.
Quoting from the linked article:
On February 15, 2021 during a major power outage that impacted much of the state of Texas, an automatic reactor trip shut South Texas Nuclear Generation Station Unit 1 due to low steam generator levels. According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, the low steam generator levels were due to loss of Feedwater pumps 11 and 13. However, Unit 2 and both units at the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant remained online during the power outage.
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Still trying to figure out what 2 federal senators can do to the State government of Texas. The Federal government had nothing to do with Texas”s problems. Texas opted out of the national grid. The problem is with the decisions and lack of oversight of State government over many years.
Do you really think US Senators have nothing to do with State politics? REALLY?!
So for starters, they could be getting Federal money to upgrade the grid, or establish a method of buying power when the state supply is short. But here in Texas the grid was set up specifically to avoid Federal regulation like things that would have required winterizing. And as ex governor Perry said recently, Texans will gladly endure a little economic catastrophe in order to avoid Federal Regulation ( I'm paraphrasing).
Here's a direct quote: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,”
I can't find any reference as to what, if any hardships Perry endured as millions of Texans went without power and water, food, and in some cases froze to death. Anyone who can, please feel free to update. Accurate information is always best.
FWIW, some Texas refineries will have extended periods of repair before restarting, at least for some refinery units. Coastal refineries with port access to large tankers have some additional flexibility to buy & sell intermediate streams to keep parts of their refineries up and running. Here's one example, Shell Deer Park along the Houston Ship Channel.
www.bicmagazine.com
Most are in the "so far, so good" stage in restart. One example of a refinery with similar capacity to the Shell Deer Park facility is the ExxonMobil Beaumont facility, which continued operating its cogeneration unit during the shutdowns last week.
www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com
Shell Deer Park, Texas, refinery cold weather repairs to take until April
Repairs to Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 318,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Deer Park, Texas, refinery damaged by severe cold weather are planned to last until April.
www.bicmagazine.com
Most are in the "so far, so good" stage in restart. One example of a refinery with similar capacity to the Shell Deer Park facility is the ExxonMobil Beaumont facility, which continued operating its cogeneration unit during the shutdowns last week.
Exxon kicks off restart of refinery in Beaumont, Texas
ExxonMobil Corp has begun restarting its 369,024-bpd Beaumont, Texas, refinery and adjoining chemical plant.
www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com
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