What went wrong with the Texas power grid? • Hacker News Board

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#341

Post by Waterluvian » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

mikesabbagh wrote: post #270

It is surprising that windfarms are freezing. Here in Quebec, we have windfarms that have more than 6 months a year of snow and temperatures much below the freezing point. How can they freeze? they dont use water or gaz or oil. It is only a fan and dynamo. Did water seep inside and freeze it?

-15C the other night, watching the wind turbines in Southern Ontario spinning away.

It's probably that theirs are cheaper because why pay for more hardened tech if the typical range isn't this?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#342

Post by teachrdan » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #175

gregimba wrote: post #48

Currently in ATX we haven't had power for over 24 hours, wood fireplace is saving the house from completely freezing but the whole city of Austin needs to evaluate how they setup their critical infrastructure to allow for rolling blackouts instead of having parts of the city with power and parts without for the entirety of an outage.

I had my wood fireplace going for the first time this weekend when the daytime temperatures were around -12F. It can easily raise the temperature of my living room, dining room & kitchen (one open space) to 80+ but that's with electricity to power the circulation fan. How are you keeping the whole house warm if you can't circulate the air? I'm genuinely curious.

There's some old school technology to solve that problem. For example, I stayed in a friend's ancient family home in Maine that simply had a bedroom over the living room wood stove, and an open vent between the two floors to let the heat through. There are also non-electric fans to help distribute heat from a wood stove.

https://www.amazon.com/PYBBO-Improved-Fireplace-Magnetic-The...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#343

Post by redisman » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #274

JonathonW wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue isn't just the control board-- most forced-air furnaces (at least, of the type used in the southern US) use an electric blower to actually distribute hot air to the rest of the house. End result's the same, though-- no electricity = no heat, regardless of natural gas supply. (But, at least in this case, a relatively small generator can provide enough power to get the furnace up and running and heat the…

This is one reason why a gas fireplace is a great thing - even without electricity, you can at least heat half a room.

My gas fireplace still requires electricity to run. I know I can start it with a match if needed (and it has a pilot of course) but I'm not 100% sure if I can manually override the gas valve to open. It opens when I flip an electric switch.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#344

Post by s0rce » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #329

s0rce wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that surprised me. Current demand is 45GW in Texas vs. 24GW in California. Over double per capita.

Well, yeah, the populated areas of Texas happen to be insanely cold right now at this moment we've cherry-picked, and the populated areas of California happen to be.. checks thermometer between 55-65f right now. (Bay Area, Sacramento, LA, San Diego). Also, Texas heating is HEAVILY reliant on electricity (heat pumps), since they're used as air conditioners in the summer. Presumably this means CA has a lot more forced…

I didn't think about heat pumps that makes sense. I had electric heat pump for heat when I lived in WA state. Worked well with cheap hydro power.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#345

Post by Bud » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

hahahahe wrote: post #245

Can someone explain how the ninth largest economy in the world where it is dominated by the largest energy companies in the world failed so miserably? This is all self-inflicted.

In a word: greed.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#346

Post by tw04 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

ebilgenius wrote: post #298

tw04 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyway seems like this storm is so bad Texas would be in trouble no matter what, but letting utilities under-invest in winterizing and not joining either of the major grid corridors just made a bad situation 100x worse. The weather in Texas is in the single digits. The weather in Minnesota is in the double digit negatives. Texas would not be in trouble "no matter what" if they had bothered to spend the money on wint…

From what I understand the average low temperature in Texas around this time usually doesn't go below 30-35 degrees. Meanwhile the average high temperature around this time doesn't get above 20-35 degrees in Minnesota. To demand every state spend the same resources that Minnesota does to winterize their infrastructure is completely unrealistic. >This type of weather isn't some 1,000 year storm. Not according to this…

>From what I understand the average low temperature in Texas around this time usually doesn't go below 30-35 degrees. Meanwhile the average high temperature around this time doesn't get above 20-35 degrees in Minnesota. To demand every state spend the same resources that Minnesota does to winterize their infrastructure is completely unrealistic.

I don't recall saying every state, I said Texas. Because this type of weather happens on a somewhat regular basis.

>Not according to this professor of meteorology:

I guess finding a soundbite from one individual isn't very interesting to me. The entire state of Texas was told in a report in 2011 after a similar storm that they needed to winterize their power plants and chose not to. If by "historic" you mean "first time in 10 years" - I guess? I don't really consider that "historic".

>Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#347

Post by nogbit » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

bjacobt wrote: post #100

UncleOxidant wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully that's 5C and not 5F.

We were at 0 F today morning north of Dallas.

That’s rough. I’ve bundled up without power with little ones for 4 day, but it was mid 20’s. Keep warm however you can, safely...and good luck, don’t wait and cross fingers, take action.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#348

Post by mjevans » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

gregw2 wrote: post #117

What went wrong is that the Texas legislature which owns Texas-specific grid process to avoid interference from the Feds didn't figure out how to also ensure Texas generator companies got compensated for weatherizing (and ensuring it was done). How many of the 24+6 recommendations from the NERC/FERC review of last time this happened in Texas (hint:2011) were taken up by the legislature or those at ERCOT they delegate…

Parts 15 and 16 of that PDF are, in polished up polite speak, particularly scathing in terms of what's being recommended.

The summary is: Regularly inspect and maintain your equipment, here are the obvious things that must be done. (Unstated: We feel a need to say this, because obviously it didn't happen in at least one place...)

Probably got cut by the bean counters and a cut-throat market that didn't require safety and availability as considerations.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#349

Post by slfnflctd » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #156

Not much discussion here of the fundamental problem: why is Texas so energy intensive? In the last decade ERCOT energy generation has expanded 20%, which is much faster than the population of Texas has grown. Why? Just gigantic, detached houses for everybody? I think this is why people say the California housing crisis is such a calamity for the environment. A person in Texas consumes 150% more energy.

I don't know why power demand is up in TX generally, but I do know that right now a big reason for the demand is because a lot of residences have electric resistance heat only-- which is great for electric blankets, but not so much for heating all the air in your home when it's extremely cold.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#350

Post by falcolas » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

Gwypaas wrote: post #267

com2kid wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your house is 25f, put on a couple sweaters and a coat and have a beer. It’s not the end of the world. Houses were designed very differently 150 years ago. Lower roofs, fewer windows, huge thick drapes or tapestries on the walls, animal skins or carpets on the floors. 9 ft windows (double pane or not) on all walls is going to leak out a lot of heat. Most importantly, fireplaces. Houses had fireplaces, and rooms…

Nope, simply bad housing standards leading to no isolation. Passive houses work in the Scandinavia. This is coming from a Swede who lived for a while in Texan suburbia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

You can definitely get a passive house in the US; but it's fairly expensive and takes quite a bit of time to pay off.

It also requires somewhat specialized (read: niche and expensive) heating and cooling equipment, since there is so little air movement into and out of the house, and requires so little energy.

Oh, and ironically, when the power's out in a passive house, you need to open a window to ensure you don't over-humidify the house with your breath.