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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#451

Post by geoduck14 »

s0rce wrote: post #303
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?

Different choice of lubricants? I have no idea really, I also read they have wind power generation in Antarctica so its not a fundamental problem just a result of certain design/engineering choices.

I hate it when I get the wrong lubricant. It can pit a real damper on my own household activities.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#453

Post by JohnCohorn »

slfnflctd wrote: post #349
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.

Lived in TX all my life. Every residence I’ve seen has had a heat pump for decades. The the thing is though it switches to resistive heat at something like 20F when they are no longer efficient. Rarely a concern in TX, most of the time we’re complaining it’s over 100F!

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#454

Post by qbasic_forever »

pault wrote: post #426
hotsauceror wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had an incident early this AM and of the eight people we paged, only one had power. I’ve been without power, heat, internet, water, or septic more than 90 minutes at a time for two days. My house was 44 degrees this morning when I woke up. Sunday night we were without power or heat for seven and a half hours. Our DR plan didn’t really account for all of our staff being on the same power grid!

I’m in Austin, without power for almost 48 hours now. There’s ice in my roommate’s bedroom. It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’m hearing that we won’t have power until Thursday at the earliest. I’ve gone beyond furious to just horribly depressed.

Good luck, and here's some advice from a midwesterner that has dealt with cold, ice, and snow forever. If it's cold enough to start freezing things inside then make sure you have some water flowing in your pipes. Keep your kitchen sink running on a low (very tiny) dribble. Maybe even keep a shower/bathrub running at a very low rate too. You do NOT want to be dealing with frozen, broken flooding pipes on top of no power. Can find more tips here: https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergen... Good luck (and happy birthday)!

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#455

Post by cromwellian »

cavisne wrote: post #431
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…

It's hilarious to look back on this HN post and the top comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14630650 Exactly the same thing happened in South Australia in 2016 1) Renewables % of generation mix grows (wind + solar) 2) Base generation sources get pushed out by economics and regulation (coal) 3) Peak generation sources get squeezed by the economics of wind + solar over summer (lots of wind, lots of sun) and b…

Sorry, but no. A 2011 FERC report cited problems in Texas gas/coal/nuke plants for failing to weatherize. They didn't fix the problems, and gas and sensing lines froze, taking gas/coal plants offline too.

2/3rds of the power that went offline from the storm was fossil.

Moreover, Texas's independent grid (not connected to the rest of the US) makes it difficult for them to import power from neighboring states.

Stop trying to push political tribalist stories that blame renewables for bog standard failures in traditional systems that could have been avoided.

https://www.powermag.com/ferc-nerc-february-blackouts-in-the...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#456

Post by GavinMcG »

justinzollars wrote: post #436
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston right now, haven't had power, nor water since yesterday. My room is sitting at 20ish degrees and has been all day. I've quite literally been snug under a load of blankets with my wife all day just to stay warm. My office back in Dallas which is not normally open offered to let people stay the night since they happen to be on the same grid as a hospital and I seriously considered trying to make it there today

dude, go to the office. Its too cold to sleep in those conditions.

You've never been winter camping?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#457

Post by zamadatix »

thehappypm wrote: post #166

Texas is so so so overwhelmingly single family homes. How do these folks not have generators? This is supposed to be independent rootin’ tootin’ Texas.

Would take one hell of a generator to heat a home, even then you'd need to get fuel to them - which is what many of the power plants are having trouble with.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#458

Post by newbie789 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #432
newbie789 wrote: post #415

Can somebody explain as if I were a kindergartner why exactly natural gas is down by such a large amount in the state? Did the pipes freeze? Does natural gas not burn efficiently in snowy conditions? How will raising the spot price dramatically help with these physical conditions of the pipelines/other power production/distribution apparatus in such a way that providing power becomes available more quickly (if at all…

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st... > The systems that get gas from the earth aren't properly built for cold weather. Operators in West Texas’ Permian Basin, one of the most productive oil fields in the world, are particularly struggling to bring natural gas to the surface, analysts said, as cold weather and snow close wells or cause power outages that prevent pumping the fossil fuels from…

So, to answer my specific questions

1. So basically, this is the worst winter in the history of Texas to such an extent that nobody could have possibly predicted this?

That sucks.

2. Can you answer my question about the spot price increase? What does that accomplish in immediate terms?

As a sub-question, the article that I'm asking about says that electricity generators haven't been able to make money for over a decade. Why have they been providing this for free (or worse at a loss!) for so long? That sounds like some top-notch philanthropy! Is this an issue of the private company providing electricity at a loss statewide for so long that they can't stand the financial hit of maintaining their systems when strained for more than a couple days?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#459

Post by throwawayboise »

kccqzy wrote: post #400
mythrwy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No electricity = no heat, regardless of natural gas supply." For the furnace yes. The gas fireplace and gas ovens/stoves though probably don't need electricity.

I haven't seen a gas oven that can work without electricity. A gas stove, yes, you can simply turn on the gas and quickly use a kitchen lighter to ignite the gas manually and hope not too much poisonous gas escaped the stove. But ovens? How?

Older gas ovens used a standing pilot light. They would work without electrical power. Really old ones you light with a match.

My kitchen has a gas range, the oven uses electical resistance/incandescent ignitors so it won't work without electrical power. The top burners have spark ignitors but of course I can light them with a match.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#460

Post by wongarsu »

YarickR2 wrote: post #428
wongarsu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting costs on the cold-proofing of wind turbines in Texas is somewhat understandable. But as far as under-investment due to lack of profit goes, nuclear isn't much better off. The economics of building a traditional nuclear plant right now don't work out: they are incredibly expensive to build and tear down, take a decade to plan and another decade to build. In the time until a new nuclear plant is built and has p…

They take a year to build, and can be mobile. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_pow...

With 2 70MW reactors these fall squarely into "small-scale nuclear". A traditional nuclear power plant has reactors with 10-20 times the power output.

I think these kinds of applications have a lot of potential, and are the future of nuclear energy production. But using these kinds of small reactors outside the military (or Russian icebreakers) is an idea that only recently gained traction (at least since it was originally abandoned around the 60s).

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