butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Lived in Alaska many years and found out there are idiot drivers in bad weather in snow country. Just because you live in the area that has a lot of white stuff, does not make you a decent driver.
Weather? I apologize to all Texans!
- Thread starter joshb
- Start date
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Sir, you are wrong. The coal powerplants were legislated out. Some are still standing, but most are being torn down.
Bug it makes you get used to it more than states that don't get much snow. There are idiot drivers everywhere.
timeout
Silver $$ Contributor
A little late now but maybe an F-150 would have been better than a windmill recently.
"2021 Ford F-150 PowerBoost Is a Life Saver in Texas Freeze, Powers Up Appliances - autoevolution" https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...texas-freeze-powers-up-appliances-156390.html
"2021 Ford F-150 PowerBoost Is a Life Saver in Texas Freeze, Powers Up Appliances - autoevolution" https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...texas-freeze-powers-up-appliances-156390.html
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
From Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian:
WINTER STORM:
• This week, our grid failed us when temperatures reached historic lows and people needed electricity and heat the most.
• There were almost 4.5 million customers without power during the peak of the outage on February 16th. As of today, there are still close to 3 million Texans without power.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, manages about 90% of the state's power for 26 million customers.
• ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.
• ERCOT's recently elected chair and vice chair for the board of directors do not live in Texas and live in Michigan and California respectively.
• ERCOT said there were 45,000 megawatts offline. Of that, 15,000 megawatts were wind and 30,000 were gas and coal.
• On the morning of February 14th, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness warned: “We are experiencing record- breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas. At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units.”
• It is important to note that every natural gas plant online at the start of this crisis stayed online.
• While there have been some issues with natural gas production during this storm, much of that has to do with ERCOT cutting off power to well sites in West Texas. ERCOT assumed the state would have 67GW from thermal sources (gas & coal), but ended up only being able to get 43GW online.
• Many, including myself, have warned for years about the dangers of relying too heavily on unreliable, intermittent forms of electric generation like wind and solar to meet the energy needs for thirty-million Texans.
• This couldn’t have happened a decade ago when “coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed... In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent.”
• ERCOT was notified over a decade ago that Texas power plants had failed to adequately weatherize facilities to protect against cold weather. A federal report that summer recommended steps including installing heating elements around pipes and increasing the amount of reserve power available before storms.
• Instead of spending our resources making our grid more resilient, policy and spending has focused spending on mandating or subsidizing as much wind and solar as possible.
• The takeaway from this storm should not be the failure of fossil fuels, but the failure of leadership at ERCOT and the dangers of relying on intermittent, unreliable forms of energy like wind for a quarter of our energy needs.
• It shows as clear as day that the goal of 100% renewables by 2035 is a pipe dream that will increase suffering and harm Texas families.
• Had Texas been using 100% renewables, we would have had 100% blackouts.
+++
Thank you, Commissioner!
WINTER STORM:
• This week, our grid failed us when temperatures reached historic lows and people needed electricity and heat the most.
• There were almost 4.5 million customers without power during the peak of the outage on February 16th. As of today, there are still close to 3 million Texans without power.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, manages about 90% of the state's power for 26 million customers.
• ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.
• ERCOT's recently elected chair and vice chair for the board of directors do not live in Texas and live in Michigan and California respectively.
• ERCOT said there were 45,000 megawatts offline. Of that, 15,000 megawatts were wind and 30,000 were gas and coal.
• On the morning of February 14th, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness warned: “We are experiencing record- breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas. At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units.”
• It is important to note that every natural gas plant online at the start of this crisis stayed online.
• While there have been some issues with natural gas production during this storm, much of that has to do with ERCOT cutting off power to well sites in West Texas. ERCOT assumed the state would have 67GW from thermal sources (gas & coal), but ended up only being able to get 43GW online.
• Many, including myself, have warned for years about the dangers of relying too heavily on unreliable, intermittent forms of electric generation like wind and solar to meet the energy needs for thirty-million Texans.
• This couldn’t have happened a decade ago when “coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed... In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent.”
• ERCOT was notified over a decade ago that Texas power plants had failed to adequately weatherize facilities to protect against cold weather. A federal report that summer recommended steps including installing heating elements around pipes and increasing the amount of reserve power available before storms.
• Instead of spending our resources making our grid more resilient, policy and spending has focused spending on mandating or subsidizing as much wind and solar as possible.
• The takeaway from this storm should not be the failure of fossil fuels, but the failure of leadership at ERCOT and the dangers of relying on intermittent, unreliable forms of energy like wind for a quarter of our energy needs.
• It shows as clear as day that the goal of 100% renewables by 2035 is a pipe dream that will increase suffering and harm Texas families.
• Had Texas been using 100% renewables, we would have had 100% blackouts.
+++
Thank you, Commissioner!
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Gov Abbott was just on the tube. Before the weather the ERCOT said that Texas had plenty of capacity, plants were winterized, and all were in top shape.
Remember ERCOT shut the power to our West Texas gas producing wells. Now, How do you run gas powered generation units without natural gas?
Remember ERCOT shut the power to our West Texas gas producing wells. Now, How do you run gas powered generation units without natural gas?
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Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
And thank you, butchlambert.
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Geronimo Jim
Gold $$ Contributor
China is building coal fired power plants by the dozens.
Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
"As of Dec 2020, 350 coal-fired power plants are under construction. They include seven in South Korea, 13 in Japan, 52 in India, and 184 in China with the rest underway in other parts of the world." CanadianEnergyCentre.ca
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Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
Cutting to the chase: How did the various sources of electricity in TX hold up as a percentage of their potential capacity? (Larger is better.)
The labels are tiny (sorry) but the big winner is [drum roll] ... Nuclear.
I'm surprised coal didn't fare better. I would think there's a pile of coal sitting next to the generator, so why any disruption? Unlike natural gas, coal doesn't rely on a frozen pipeline to feed the generator. Maybe the coal is delivered "just in time" and they got caught with a low supply before transportation slowed. I need to dig deeper into this.
Finally, another graphic showing which sources kept TX from an unimaginable catastrophe:
-
The labels are tiny (sorry) but the big winner is [drum roll] ... Nuclear.
I'm surprised coal didn't fare better. I would think there's a pile of coal sitting next to the generator, so why any disruption? Unlike natural gas, coal doesn't rely on a frozen pipeline to feed the generator. Maybe the coal is delivered "just in time" and they got caught with a low supply before transportation slowed. I need to dig deeper into this.
Finally, another graphic showing which sources kept TX from an unimaginable catastrophe:
-
outasite`08
Gold $$ Contributor
Hey joshb, that looks like my backyard in LSD.Sure is pretty. It will go soon.43 on Monday. Later JeffOver the past couple weeks, I was “boasting”about the beautiful weather we were having in Texas. I should have kept my big mouth shut! God is punishing me. I apologize to all my fellow Texans for bringing God’s wrath upon me.
We’re covered in ice, with more to come!View attachment 1234468View attachment 1234470View attachment 1234473
Retired Grunt
F Open Shooter
Sorry Texas
outasite`08
Gold $$ Contributor
Hey Dave, Why don`t you slip over to Punxie and shoot that groundhog before he does something else stupid. It would take the heat off joshb. Jeff
Am I only only guy who had to reread this post 2-3 times before being able to stop grinning and get past the first 7 words. This is comic gold...thanks for the laughs!!! I also have bought something pink and it wasn't a snow shovel... It was a 10/22 for my daughter.
We have been enjoying Urban camping around the useless gas fireplace. My toddler is more upset about the internet being "broke" then the lack of power or heat. Next house I am going with a nice high-end wood stove that looks good 365 days and guaranteed to put off real heat the 10 days a year that I might be tempted to use it in Houston. I've had some down time over the past week that allowed me to contemplate the order/priority of "which furniture to burn".
rwj
Gold $$ Contributor
Taking a slightly different tack regarding the TX power woes... how many think that deregulation/competitive business model played a major role? The reason for asking is that a good friend who worked for over 30 years for a major producer told me reliability used to be their #1 priority. It took a backseat when deregulation was implemented and was replaced by maximizing profit. Low cost is great... no power sucks!
With the cold gone, the media, aka the "Chicken Littles", are now spewing about every exceedingly-rare instance they can find/create to emphasize tragedy and blame Republicans and the business (aka private) sector. Kids dying of hypothermia? If true, have these parents not heard of blankets?
The media creates crisis, revels in tragedy, and celebrates misery. In our neighborhood, we all called each other or walked over to see how everybody was holding up. We shared water, food, heaters, and power. Not because we had to, but because that's what decent people do. In comparison, the Post Office did not deliver mail for a week. (So much for their creed*.)
The media and leftists want you to believe that decent people are rare, that you can only trust an overwhelmingly huge government to take care of you and remove the burden of personal responsibility (i.e. using your brain) from your atrophied shoulders atop which your atrophied brain sits. It is pathetic. Nobody owes you anything. If you borrow, then pay it back, as you agreed when you borrowed.
Want socialism? Move to N. Korea, China, Venezuela, and Cuba. Bastions of liberty and achievement.
* Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. (Maybe the definition of "swift" has become "whenever they feel like it, if ever".)
The media creates crisis, revels in tragedy, and celebrates misery. In our neighborhood, we all called each other or walked over to see how everybody was holding up. We shared water, food, heaters, and power. Not because we had to, but because that's what decent people do. In comparison, the Post Office did not deliver mail for a week. (So much for their creed*.)
The media and leftists want you to believe that decent people are rare, that you can only trust an overwhelmingly huge government to take care of you and remove the burden of personal responsibility (i.e. using your brain) from your atrophied shoulders atop which your atrophied brain sits. It is pathetic. Nobody owes you anything. If you borrow, then pay it back, as you agreed when you borrowed.
Want socialism? Move to N. Korea, China, Venezuela, and Cuba. Bastions of liberty and achievement.
* Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. (Maybe the definition of "swift" has become "whenever they feel like it, if ever".)
FNSafari
Gold $$ Contributor
Butch, the absolute worst time in Maine once the snow flies is the first storm or two. It seems people have to re-educate themselves on how to drive on slippery roads, like first of all, slow the ell down!!
Secondly, did you remember to put your snow tires or all season tires on?
FNSafari
Gold $$ Contributor
Reminds me of a situation years ago when we moved out of our longtime home into another but still owned the original. Rented it to a Maine Game Warden. He left his Ford 150 PU parked in the yard. I went up to plow one day and had to move his truck. When I opened the door I was greeted with a sweet smell and a situation just like this but more so....from two 2-liter bottles of Coke he had left in the PU and they had frozen and gone off like a bomb. Geesh....a Maine Game Warden with no anticipation of danger?? He also spilled something on our rug and trashed that. He was, to say it mildly, common sense challenged!!Speaking of pavement, it won't just be plumbers (and electricians installing generators) who could make a fortune in TX in the next 6 months; roads in our neck of the woods (between Austin and San Antonio) are cracking/heaving/crumbling/buckling in spots because of the freeze. Have a paving company that is looking for work? Come on down.
And if you're going to repair/replace your in-ground irrigation in Texas, demand that your installers trench at least 12" down, not the typical 3"-6" as is way too common here. (In NH, trenching was commonly 48" below grade.) And don't settle for the typical 0.125" PVC lots of these CONtractors will tell you is good enough. Spend a little more on materials and get Schedule 40 (way thicker, stronger, better) PVC.
If you're going to do it, then do it right. Insulate your exposed pipes coming into the house, the hose bibbs, and the well house if you have one. Want the job done right? Well son, you just may have to do it yourself.
At least one Forum member here had a plumber quote the repair of her broken pipes in Austin, TX at 4-5 weeks out. And that interval will only get longer as more people get back home, and/or get their water back on, and find out whether their plumbing system has problems.
And if you're going to repair/replace your in-ground irrigation in Texas, demand that your installers trench at least 12" down, not the typical 3"-6" as is way too common here. (In NH, trenching was commonly 48" below grade.) And don't settle for the typical 0.125" PVC lots of these CONtractors will tell you is good enough. Spend a little more on materials and get Schedule 40 (way thicker, stronger, better) PVC.
If you're going to do it, then do it right. Insulate your exposed pipes coming into the house, the hose bibbs, and the well house if you have one. Want the job done right? Well son, you just may have to do it yourself.
At least one Forum member here had a plumber quote the repair of her broken pipes in Austin, TX at 4-5 weeks out. And that interval will only get longer as more people get back home, and/or get their water back on, and find out whether their plumbing system has problems.
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