Sokes wrote:

L410Turbolet wrote:

Europe was very close to a major blackout on January 8, avoided only thanks to ideologically defective nuclear and fossil-fuel fired power plants.

https://www.thegwpf.com/8-january-2021- ... -disaster/

tommy1808 wrote:

so.. which " ideologically defective nuclear and fossil-fuel fired power plants" powered up to safe the grid in the 15 seconds the critical occurrence lasted, caused by an overloaded Substation in Croatia, that has nothing to do whatsoever with the method of power generation?

best regards
Thomas

To quote:
"The cause was apparently a power failure in Romania.

the article is a month old, and the apparent reason wasn´t the real reason.The root cause was an overloaded busbar coupling in a substation in Ernestinovo, Croatia.The load redistribution tripped other protections in Serbia, Bosnia and Romania (hence the apparent reason was there).

According to Wien Energie, the electricity grids are exposed to ever greater fluctuations. The number of emergency operations has increased from around 15 to up to 240 per year in recent years.

yes, they are. And they are because the energy market in the EU is so darn liberalized that power companies can not afford more reserves then they can legally just get away with, instead of a few percent extra buffer on top to be safe. That needs updating. Much improved control and faster acting protections also allow riding the grid closer to minima, so much of the more interventions is simply because they can risk going closer to the limit because of those improvements.

says VIK managing director Christian Seyfert.

As a result of the “phasing out of nuclear energy and coal power”, a considerable amount of secured output will be shut down “without replacement” in Germany in the coming years, according to Seyfert. "

VIK is a lobby organisation and their arguments have about as much to do with reality as Star Trek. Dirty little secret: The energy companies want to get rid of more power plants, but they are not allowed to for exactly these stability reasons ... and of course both coal and nuclear plants being amazingly ill suited for this kind of event, only hot stand-by gas turbine plants have any chance whatsoever to ramp up fast enough.

I believe coal plants always have a steam reserve to be able to react to frequency fluctuations..

No one has a steam reserve to cover 6.3 GW This is what load shedding is for, and customers available for disconnect get quite a discount for it. So no reason to complain if they actually get their power turned off from time to time. Load shedding was only 1.7GW, so there was some 4GW instant reserve available, which is ample. This kind of event is usually covered by kinetic energy in rotating masses, which makes wind amazing for this kind of event, since the rotating mass is enormous compared to power output.

In essence, this was operators on the Balkans driving their grid on a knife edge, again, leading to problems in the whole euro grid, again, protections worked as intended, only a fraction of load available to discard was actually shed.

Texas is out of power due to an amazingly short sighted policy regarding grid reliability, which seems to be the guiding principle for US power grids in general and the reason why their power is about as reliable as in plenty of 3rd world nations.

best regards
Thomas

“Don’t mess with Texas!!”

Mother Nature: “Hold my beer.”

Looks like both sides are using this opportunity to forward their agendas. Never waste a crisis.

While it is fun to watch their misery away in warmth, frozen(one theory) oil & gas fields in Texas can bite other states. It appears Michigan gets most from Canada and some from Texas-Oklahoma & Louisiana basins.

dtw2hyd wrote:

It appears Michigan gets most from Canada and some from Texas-Oklahoma & Louisiana basins.

it is however unlikely that any infrastructure in Canada freezes in-op before the day you´d have to do all the things you put on the "when hell freezes over" list.

best regards
Thomas

dtw2hyd wrote:

Looks like both sides are using this opportunity to forward their agendas. Never waste a crisis.

While it is fun to watch their misery away in warmth, frozen(one theory) oil & gas fields in Texas can bite other states. It appears Michigan gets most from Canada and some from Texas-Oklahoma & Louisiana basins.

And if the situation in Texas starts directly impact the supply in other states, how long will it be before Congress intervenes with conditions Texas must abide by in order to participate in interstate commerce?

Seems as if the late Molly Ivins quote on the GOP in Texas still holds more than ever, what was true of the one being described is now true for the lot of them;
"If his IQ slips any lower we'll have to water him twice a day."

Kiwirob wrote:

moo wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Democracy happens, the voters elected representatives who chose cost over winterization. They choose to save money, as winter events are rare in TX, and lost. Pretty simple trade-offs really. No one should bail them out, least of all the clown show we call politics or worse the Congress.

Seriously, is “not giving a toss about your fellow countrypeople” an actual national sport in the US? The levels to which Americans seem to go just to be able to say “sucks to be you” or “told ya so” to another American is simply astonishing.

I'm trying to dredge up an ounce of sympathy for the people hit by these outages, but I just can't, you get the govt you vote for.

One vote win does not represent how all Texans think. But hey lets blame the wind turbines.

Looks like those damn libs persuaded the cowardly traitor Cruz to leave Cancun and go back to those pesky constituents of his. A real drag, all those people do is complain about wanting heat or electricity.

I think if we lived in almost any other time period of human history, the people of Texas would be warming themselves by the same fire they threw Cruz into. He has to be making a solid run for being one of the worst senators to ever hold office.

Deciding how much resilience is in the grid is, in the best sense of the word, 'political'. Texas thought it could get by with minimal resilience. It is now clear that it cannot. It is also 'political', in the worst sense of the word, to unduly blame any particular players, be they governors, regulators, distributors, power producers, or customers. Texas chose the resilience they had because it provided the cheapest power. Just about everybody benefitted. Times and climate change, and it is time to add, and dare I say, pay for stronger resilience. Oddly California has faced some of the same problems, just from different weather conditions. California now cuts off power in times and places of severe fire hazard, as well as very high AC needs. In a sense they have chosen to reduce short term resilience by means of rolling shutdowns. Both Texas and California have the right to choose and pay for whatever resilience they want.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The ERCOT system goes back to WW II and that’s way before Republicans ran Texas. Please stop seeing every event thru “hate Republicans” view.

http://www.ercot.com/about/profile/history/

Jesus Christ why stop there? Electricity was invented in 1879. Democracy was invented centuries earlier so you can absolve republicans of any accountability ever, especially in the energy bloody capital of the world which has been under republican control for decades. And why should anyone blame republicans when Abbott is busy lying on Fox, small town knuckle dragger is telling his voters what he (and the GOP) really thinks of those lazy frozen moochers, Rafael is skedaddling off to Cancun, and I'm sure porno pirate Crenshaw is making some more erotic aryan patriot films. What leadership. Much courage.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Looks like both sides are using this opportunity to forward their agendas. Never waste a crisis.

While it is fun to watch their misery away in warmth, frozen(one theory) oil & gas fields in Texas can bite other states. It appears Michigan gets most from Canada and some from Texas-Oklahoma & Louisiana basins.

This is such a flat out lie. One side is living in reality. The other side is making up lies to fit their worldview, while doing the least possible to actually fix the situation, see: Cruz skipping off to Mexico. Biden is already sending generators and FEMA to help Texas. Trump and the GOP would have just told a blue state to eat dirt and die because it's your fault. If they were lucky Trump would show up for a photo op and throw towels at Texans. Blue cities leadership is doing the best they can with the cards they are dealt, keeping people updated and trying to set up warming centers. Abbott is yapping to Fox with easily refutable lies. This is not a 'both sides' situation. It almost never is these days.

luckyone wrote:

“Don’t mess with Texas!!”

Mother Nature: “Hold my beer.”

Texans: NO STEP ON SNEK

Also Texans: could someone please turn on my water? And my electricity so I can boil it? And also plow my driveway so me and my truck nuts can secede?

FGITD wrote:

Looks like those damn libs persuaded the cowardly traitor Cruz to leave Cancun and go back to those pesky constituents of his. A real drag, all those people do is complain about wanting heat or electricity.

I think if we lived in almost any other time period of human history, the people of Texas would be warming themselves by the same fire they threw Cruz into. He has to be making a solid run for being one of the worst senators to ever hold office.

This past week has been a new low for Rafael, which is saying a lot. And he'll win again too. Conservatives will crawl over broken glass to die of an easily curable disease if it means denying a benefit to society that they think includes people who don't deserve that benefit.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Deciding how much resilience is in the grid is, in the best sense of the word, 'political'. Texas thought it could get by with minimal resilience. It is now clear that it cannot. It is also 'political', in the worst sense of the word, to unduly blame any particular players, be they governors, regulators, distributors, power producers, or customers. Texas chose the resilience they had because it provided the cheapest power. Just about everybody benefitted. Times and climate change, and it is time to add, and dare I say, pay for stronger resilience. Oddly California has faced some of the same problems, just from different weather conditions. California now cuts off power in times and places of severe fire hazard, as well as very high AC needs. In a sense they have chosen to reduce short term resilience by means of rolling shutdowns. Both Texas and California have the right to choose and pay for whatever resilience they want.

The issue is that they’re gambling with someone else’s money while saving their own. For both CA and TX

By cheaping out, they saved Texas and Texans money. (I don’t want to go into the whole corporate greed aspect which likely accounts for more of it etc etc) And it allowed them to skip the federal regulations.

Now that their cheaping out has failed, they want federal money to fix their mistakes. And that's where many take issue. Sorry to say, but inevitably they'll get massive federal disaster relief money. They'll fix the problems. Then the governor will go on to brag about the resilience of Texas and how their strong Republican leadership made everything better, while still saying they want to secede. And those idiots will believe it, despite the fact that they're waiting in food lines, boiling water, and living out of their cars right now because of that same leadership. It's tough, but sometimes people need to go through a little hardship to realize that maaaaybe the leadership they have isn't working to their benefit.

If you build your house out of the cheapest materials you can find as a "haha screw you!" to your neighbors, do you expect a kind response when your house falls over and you ask those same neighbors to build you a nicer house with their money?

Disaster relief provides just that, it does not pay for those large costs for resilience. Except for tree limb trimming they are mostly one time costs. Texas and California share something else - they both not only supply huge necessities for the US economy, they also pay more in federal taxes than they get back in services.

So when gas prices suddenly go up because Texas didn't winterize the refineries, Cruz, Rubio, Perry, MAGA, etc. will blame Biden and Pelosi and "The Squad" and BLM and literally every Democrat they can think of. I mean, they believe Texas power grid failed because of a picture of Swedish wind mills with snow on them.

MaverickM11 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The ERCOT system goes back to WW II and that’s way before Republicans ran Texas. Please stop seeing every event thru “hate Republicans” view.

http://www.ercot.com/about/profile/history/

Jesus Christ why stop there?

Well, since Democrats occupied the place in the political spectrum the GOP is sitting in now at the time it would be rather surprising if it had been different.

Best regards
Thomas

Wouldn't expect anything less from haphazardly thrown together infrastructure serving a population where a sizable percentage are helpless and clueless on the best of days.

Why anyone would live in that area and not own a generator is beyond me. Not like a tornado or wind or flooding or ice has ever caused prolonged power interruptions.....

As soon as I saw people trying to blame green energy I immediately knew it was BS. I lived in WI for Ten Years, and if you have ever driven Interstate 41 between Milwaukee and Appleton at about the half way point you see a big WE Energies wind farm. What Texas is going through now weather wise is normal in WI and they never have a problem with the Wind Turbines shutting down. Most of the electrical generation that is offline in Texas is Natural Gas, which is btw a fossil fuel.

What you have here is Big Energy, with their buddies in GOP positions of power, trying to exploit the situation and propagandize this for their own benefit. Two issues with that. One is that this issue proves that Fossil Fuel is itself not entirely reliable. Two is that much of this weather pattern is caused at its roots by Carbon Pollution caused by too much use of fossil fuels. So the solution to problems caused by climate change is basically to double down on those things that caused climate change in the first place. And because peoples partisan nature blinds them to the truth, and all they want to do is stick it to the liberals, these problems never get solved.

If the GOP doubles down on fossil fuels using this as an excuse and if we in Texas have more situations like this, Texas may very well turn Blue in 2022. Abbott is up for Reeelection, and he will be vulnerable and the Dems have the perfect candidate to run against him in Beto O'Rouke.

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

skyservice_330 wrote:

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

LMP737 wrote:

skyservice_330 wrote:

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

Ted Cruz is a nakedly ambitious bad actor.

apodino wrote:

What you have here is Big Energy, with their buddies in GOP positions of power, trying to exploit the situation and propagandize this for their own benefit. .

I think it's also a case of panicked ass covering from guys like Abbott.

LMP737 wrote:

apodino wrote:

What you have here is Big Energy, with their buddies in GOP positions of power, trying to exploit the situation and propagandize this for their own benefit. .

I think it's also a case of panicked ass covering from guys like Abbott.

I think it's a party that is confident that no matter what they do, there will never, ever be any accountability. We had endless sturm und drang from the right because Pelosi's freezer had the audacity to contain...ice cream, and Rafael fleeing his disaster zone of a state to sit on the beach in Cancun will be swept under the rug by sundown.

luckyone wrote:

LMP737 wrote:

skyservice_330 wrote:

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

Ted Cruz is a nakedly ambitious bad actor.

I think it was once said by Cruz's Senate colleagues (Lindsay Graham in fact) that if you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.

MaverickM11 wrote:

I think it's a party that is confident that no matter what they do, there will never, ever be any accountability. We had endless sturm und drang from the right because Pelosi's freezer had the audacity to contain...ice cream, and Rafael fleeing his disaster zone of a state to sit on the beach in Cancun will be swept under the rug by sundown.

I'm quite sure if he runs for re-election he would win. And he probably knows that so why should he care?

tommy1808 wrote:

Texas is out of power due to an amazingly short sighted policy regarding grid reliability, which seems to be the guiding principle for US power grids in general and the reason why their power is about as reliable as in plenty of 3rd world nations.

best regards
Thomas

Correct I me if I’m wrong, but I thought this kind of event (cold weather & snow) happens very rarely in Texas and the issue is mainly that power plants (be it clean or dirty) as well as well as some parts of the infrastructure (such as gas pipelines, which feed power plant) are not winter proof.
Couldn’t one just argue that the costs of making the whole energy infrastructure winter proof outweigh the costs of a few days with blackouts every 20 or so years? It seems that warmer weather is coming soon and the situation is normalizing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing is forgotten in a few weeks...

DTVG wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Texas is out of power due to an amazingly short sighted policy regarding grid reliability, which seems to be the guiding principle for US power grids in general and the reason why their power is about as reliable as in plenty of 3rd world nations.

best regards
Thomas

Correct I me if I’m wrong, but I thought this kind of event (cold weather & snow) happens very rarely in Texas and the issue is mainly that power plants (be it clean or dirty) as well as well as some parts of the infrastructure (such as gas pipelines, which feed power plant) are not winter proof.
Couldn’t one just argue that the costs of making the whole energy infrastructure winter proof outweigh the costs of a few days with blackouts every 20 or so years? It seems that warmer weather is coming soon and the situation is normalizing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing is forgotten in a few weeks...

Texas has had two instances within the past 30 years of similar deep freezes and accompanying power failures. There were also a series of smaller mini-freezes that have caused some outages within the past decade as well.

Fair enough, I’m still wondering If that justifies winter proofing energy infrastructure (costwise).

DTVG wrote:

Fair enough, I’m still wondering If that justifies winter proofing energy infrastructure (costwise).

It is getting more common, with increased likelihood of extreme weather due to climate change, so yes, Texas should be looking at mandating stronger winter proofing of their electrical infrastructure considering that they aren't connected to the national power grids.

casinterest wrote:

Texas is close to becoming purple/blue, and this failure of leadership may push people closer to that era.

If Beto runs for governor, I hope he hammers away with this. Not to enact a Green New Deal (that's likely not a selling point in an oil extracting state), but to modernize the energy grid and make it reliable for all kinds of climate. To think that if the wind turbines had been properly weatherized, the blackout wouldn't be as severe as it is now...

Has anyone noticed that winter is getting shorter later in the year? Like when I was a kid, winter was from mid-November to like the middle of February. Now, it seems winter is like late January to March.

@ tommy:
good answer.
I believe the problem in Texas is malfunction of equipment because of cold, not missing backup.

I know some power plants in Germany (Europe?) have to be kept in standby.
I still was wondering how so many plants can shut down.
I found a PDF from Deloitte. It says between 2000 and 2010 175 GW of Combined Cycle Gas Turbines were installed in Europe. I guess that explains it. I wonder which countries fixed so much of it and why?

Here's der Evangelical Fuhrer's dumber son (or is he the smart one?) opining that it's cancel culture to go after Cruz, when Texans should really go after their democrat governor.

"The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling. My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake."

https://mobile.twitter.com/DonaldJTrump ... bLaWqXtSlA

MaverickM11 wrote:

Here's der Evangelical Fuhrer's dumber son (or is he the smart one?) opining that it's cancel culture to go after Cruz, when Texans should really go after their democrat governor.

"The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling. My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake."

https://mobile.twitter.com/DonaldJTrump ... bLaWqXtSlA

Aww. He has time to have thoughts when he’s not suckling from daddy. That’s so cute.

MaverickM11 wrote:

Here's der Evangelical Fuhrer's dumber son (or is he the smart one?) opining that it's cancel culture to go after Cruz, when Texans should really go after their democrat governor.

"The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling. My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake."

https://mobile.twitter.com/DonaldJTrump ... bLaWqXtSlA

If Donny Jr does any more coke, his heart's gonna explode. Man, does that guy have a problem or what? He's railed like nobody's business in every appearance on TV.

Texas is a mess. Not surprised with their awful leadership.

DTVG wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Texas is out of power due to an amazingly short sighted policy regarding grid reliability, which seems to be the guiding principle for US power grids in general and the reason why their power is about as reliable as in plenty of 3rd world nations.

best regards
Thomas

Correct I me if I’m wrong, but I thought this kind of event (cold weather & snow) happens very rarely in Texas and the issue is mainly that power plants (be it clean or dirty) as well as well as some parts of the infrastructure (such as gas pipelines, which feed power plant) are not winter proof.
Couldn’t one just argue that the costs of making the whole energy infrastructure winter proof outweigh the costs of a few days with blackouts every 20 or so years? It seems that warmer weather is coming soon and the situation is normalizing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing is forgotten in a few weeks...

Forgotten? Perhaps you haven't seen the footage of apartment and facility flooding. Wait till this weekend when it's warmer and people find lots of surprises when they return home. Some folks who didn't turn things off may get electrocuted when they step in hot water. There will be tons of insurance claims - it's going to take months upon months to sort out.

Aaron747 wrote:

Forgotten? Perhaps you haven't seen the footage of apartment and facility flooding. Wait till this weekend when it's warmer and people find lots of surprises when they return home. Some folks who didn't turn things off may get electrocuted when they step in hot water. There will be tons of insurance claims - it's going to take months upon months to sort out.

It will not be pretty. But in a state that has entire seasons dedicated to Tornados & Hurricanes, I think there is the very real possibility of people moving on to other problems in due course.

I will say though. . . It is likely that whoever runs next against Cruz will be sure to be gathering footage for their campaign. Ted's timing could not be more opportune for that if he posed in his own attack adds.

ThePointblank wrote:

DTVG wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Texas is out of power due to an amazingly short sighted policy regarding grid reliability, which seems to be the guiding principle for US power grids in general and the reason why their power is about as reliable as in plenty of 3rd world nations.

best regards
Thomas

Correct I me if I’m wrong, but I thought this kind of event (cold weather & snow) happens very rarely in Texas and the issue is mainly that power plants (be it clean or dirty) as well as well as some parts of the infrastructure (such as gas pipelines, which feed power plant) are not winter proof.
Couldn’t one just argue that the costs of making the whole energy infrastructure winter proof outweigh the costs of a few days with blackouts every 20 or so years? It seems that warmer weather is coming soon and the situation is normalizing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing is forgotten in a few weeks...

Texas has had two instances within the past 30 years of similar deep freezes and accompanying power failures. There were also a series of smaller mini-freezes that have caused some outages within the past decade as well.

Power grids are critical infrastructure, with significant risk to life and economy if they fail. This is the kind of stuff that is usually prepared for events with a 1% annual chance of occurring, the so called once in 100 year events. And cold proving is fairly cheap compared to for example flood prevention.

best regards
Thomas

AOC raised over $1 million in barely 4 hours for a Texas relief fund. A rep from a different state, who is most likely hated by a good number of the citizens who may benefit from some of that money. And in due time, they'll blame her ideas for the disaster in the first place

You get the representation you deserve. Thankfully some areas of the country have more than 2 brain cells to rub together

Sokes wrote:

I believe coal plants always have a steam reserve to be able to react to frequency fluctuations. I don't know how to compensate this. Spinning wheel, batteries and pumped storage comes to mind. But I believe even pumped storage takes several seconds to react.

There was a proposal a few years ago, not much more then a thought experiment really, to turn the IJsselmeer into a massive power storage.

The idea was to build a water storage tank several KMs across and several metres above waterlevel, and to put it in the middle of the IJsselmeer lake. During periods of low power consumption the storage tank would be filled using electric pumps powered by a steady power source running at best economical power. Nuclear was one of the proposals.

During periods of high power consumption the storage would be drained back into the IJsselmeer, and this would create power same as a hydro-dam does.

At the time the economics where unfeasible, as well as environmental concerns. Maybe this proposal should get another look. With the number of electric vehicles steadily growing, we'll need more and more electricy.

tommy1808 wrote:

Power grids are critical infrastructure, with significant risk to life and economy if they fail. This is the kind of stuff that is usually prepared for events with a 1% annual chance of occurring, the so called once in 100 year events. And cold proving is fairly cheap compared to for example flood prevention.

best regards
Thomas

I watched a few minutes of ERCOT brief. It was surreal. They are one slick bunch, slithered away from every question.

Bottom line, the system worked as designed, nobody is at fault except weather.

No national standards on infrastructure weatherization, it is up to some national agency, ERCOT is not the enforcer, can't penalize producers.
Consumers may get higher bills. Again ERCOT is not involved in commercial aspects.

Notice a pattern.

dtw2hyd wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Power grids are critical infrastructure, with significant risk to life and economy if they fail. This is the kind of stuff that is usually prepared for events with a 1% annual chance of occurring, the so called once in 100 year events. And cold proving is fairly cheap compared to for example flood prevention.

best regards
Thomas

I watched a few minutes of ERCOT brief. It was surreal. They are one slick bunch, slithered away from every question.

Bottom line, the system worked as designed, nobody is at fault except weather.

No national standards on infrastructure weatherization, it is up to some national agency, ERCOT is not the enforcer, can't penalize producers.
Consumers may get higher bills. Again ERCOT is not involved in commercial aspects.

Notice a pattern.

Yeah it's almost as if the liability lawyers that set everything up for them know what they're doing. The consumer loses.

Aaron747 wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Power grids are critical infrastructure, with significant risk to life and economy if they fail. This is the kind of stuff that is usually prepared for events with a 1% annual chance of occurring, the so called once in 100 year events. And cold proving is fairly cheap compared to for example flood prevention.

best regards
Thomas

I watched a few minutes of ERCOT brief. It was surreal. They are one slick bunch, slithered away from every question.

Bottom line, the system worked as designed, nobody is at fault except weather.

No national standards on infrastructure weatherization, it is up to some national agency, ERCOT is not the enforcer, can't penalize producers.
Consumers may get higher bills. Again ERCOT is not involved in commercial aspects.

Notice a pattern.

Yeah it's almost as if the liability lawyers that set everything up for them know what they're doing. The consumer loses.

and seems like someone got a lot of br.... campaign donations to have a set up like this.

best regards
Thomas

Aaron747 wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

No national standards on infrastructure weatherization, it is up to some national agency, ERCOT is not the enforcer, can't penalize producers.
Consumers may get higher bills. Again ERCOT is not involved in commercial aspects.

Notice a pattern.

Yeah it's almost as if the liability lawyers that set everything up for them know what they're doing. The consumer loses.

Absolutely.

It appears power plants are buying NG from cheapest Mom-and-Pop fields who cannot afford additional infrastructure investment at the rates they are getting paid.

petertenthije wrote:

Sokes wrote:

I believe coal plants always have a steam reserve to be able to react to frequency fluctuations. I don't know how to compensate this. Spinning wheel, batteries and pumped storage comes to mind. But I believe even pumped storage takes several seconds to react.

There was a proposal a few years ago, not much more then a thought experiment really, to turn the IJsselmeer into a massive power storage.

The idea was to build a water storage tank several KMs across and several metres above waterlevel, and to put it in the middle of the IJsselmeer lake. During periods of low power consumption the storage tank would be filled using electric pumps powered by a steady power source running at best economical power. Nuclear was one of the proposals.

During periods of high power consumption the storage would be drained back into the IJsselmeer, and this would create power same as a hydro-dam does.

At the time the economics where unfeasible, as well as environmental concerns. Maybe this proposal should get another look. With the number of electric vehicles steadily growing, we'll need more and more electricy.

It is jus a giant battery that you are discussing. With Power Walls, and other storage items, we have the abilities to modernize grids. What if homes could take power evenly and smoothly , and keep reserves for when the grid is overworked?

With the new solar technologies and electric vehicles, we are getting much more efficient batteries that can be located at the point of use.

Aaron747 wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Power grids are critical infrastructure, with significant risk to life and economy if they fail. This is the kind of stuff that is usually prepared for events with a 1% annual chance of occurring, the so called once in 100 year events. And cold proving is fairly cheap compared to for example flood prevention.

best regards
Thomas

I watched a few minutes of ERCOT brief. It was surreal. They are one slick bunch, slithered away from every question.

Bottom line, the system worked as designed, nobody is at fault except weather.

No national standards on infrastructure weatherization, it is up to some national agency, ERCOT is not the enforcer, can't penalize producers.
Consumers may get higher bills. Again ERCOT is not involved in commercial aspects.

Notice a pattern.

Yeah it's almost as if the liability lawyers that set everything up for them know what they're doing. The consumer loses.

It was the same playbook for covid for those of the same feather as Abbott/Cruz/Perry: kneecap local officials that were making progress against the spread, and focus all the attention on limiting liability of businesses. Voters are an absolute afterthought.

LMP737 wrote:

skyservice_330 wrote:

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

I'll go with the second option........he's a real piece of work, I'll tell ya

ER757 wrote:

LMP737 wrote:

skyservice_330 wrote:

Just saw this and it made me LOL -

Q: How far will Ted Cruz go to prove he’s an asshole?
A: About 1,800 miles.

Cancun Cruz!
Ted does Tulum!

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

I'll go with the second option........he's a real piece of work, I'll tell ya

Several people have said he was simply crossing the border with his family in search of a better life

LMP737 wrote:

This deserves it's own thread. While I might think that Ted Cruz is morally bankrupt he is a very sharp guy. Which makes you wonder. Is the guy that tone deaf or is it a case that he really does not give a F?

Senator Cruz surprisingly is getting a lot of supporters defending his actions ("He has a right to go on vacation!" "There's nothing Ted could have done!" "Ted good looking out! Family First!" "Where's Sleepy Joe to help out Texas?")

I suspect that it's:

1) Texas GOP campaign went quite nasty towards Biden and it supporters want to double-down.
2) Texas and it's leaders actions' following this storm are looking really bad in the nation's eyes and its supporters want to show not to "mess with Texas" (though CNN flipped it around to "Texas is a mess" - good one by CNN).
3) If these supporters are from Texas, I bet they're scared of Beto's counteractions that will likely be mentioned in the 2024 Senate race campaign.

Wow customers get $17,000 a month electricity bills with Green New Energy in Texas.

Looks like digging coal is going to be the new pastime.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/19/homeowner ... ter-storm/

edit: That is $9.00 per kilowatt


Okie

Okie wrote:

Wow customers get $17,000 a month electricity bills with Green New Energy in Texas.

Looks like digging coal is going to be the new pastime.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/19/homeowner ... ter-storm/

edit: That is $9.00 per kilowatt


Okie

That’s quite the logical leap you’ve made there. So please elaborate considering 1. That article says nothing about Green New Energy, 2. there is no Green New anything policies passed at this time by Congress, and 3. Supply and demand. More demand for less supply. People love the free, unregulated market until it works against them. Please enlighten us as to how coal would somehow get frozen generators running again. Go ahead. I’m waiting.

Meanwhile...” The families who saw their bills spike were reportedly on variable-rate plans with Griddy, an electricity provider in the state.” So much like
someone who takes out an ARM mortgage, they have only their short sightedness to thank.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... igh-as-17k

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/202 ... -in-texas/