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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#541

Post by pier25 »

Because of what happened in Texas, the higher demand of gas affected electricity generation in Northern Mexico which has been without electricity too. As as I understand it, not only the price of Gas wet up 5,000% but also there were shortages.

The federal government has started doing electricity cuts in most Mexico to control the gas reserves and distribute energy to the Northern states.

Edit:

Here is an article about this in English:

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/international/mexico-suffers-a...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#542

Post by treis »

ip26 wrote: post #285
dwohnitmok wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience with fireplaces is that the house winds up net-colder Why is that? EDIT: Oh are you saying that the rate of heating provided by the fire is less than the overall rate of heat leaving the entire house?

Right, if you think about it almost all of the heat from the fire goes right up the chimney. The brick of the firebox & chimney are generally built outside the building envelope for safety reasons, so any heat in the brick doesn't warm the house. The only heat that actually makes its way into the house is the radiant heat cast from the fire itself, which is small. The smoke is poison, and unlike a furnace, gas firepl…

Even worse, all that exhaust gas that goes up the chimney has to be replaced. And it's replaced by cold air from the outside coming through all the little books and crannies of your house.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#543

Post by ashtonkem »

newbie789 wrote: post #458
ceejayoz wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deca…

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

It's a bad winter, but not "nobody could have possibly predicted this" bad. Some cities are breaking records, but quite a few haven't. For example Austin's Tuesday low of 7F is cold, but not quite as low as the record from December 23rd 1989 (6F). San Antonio recently tied their all time low from December 22nd 1990. Obviously "coldest winter in 30 years" is quite the statement, but it's still well within living memory and not the distant past. Chances are most of the policy makers and system designers for the TX energy system personally remember the winters of 1989 and 1990.

There's also a 2011 report recommending that TX winterize its power systems in case this exact thing happened. So at least back in 2011 energy experts saw this as a distinct possibility.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#544

Post by oasisbob »

s0rce wrote: post #313
tpmx wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, the way abnormal situations like these are handled in northern Europe is that the grid suppliers have agreements with the very large industrial consumers (think aluminium smelters) who agree to shut down immediately when the grid frequency goes below a certain trigger level. The way I understand it, this is useful both in time-critical emergencies (like keeping the grid at 50 Hz when a nuclear plant suddenly g…

Isn't it immensely difficult to restart an aluminum smelter? Also, my vague memory of these is that in North America most of them are in areas with abundant hydro power.

You can refresh your vague memories - all of Alcoa's west-coast aluminum industry is long-gone.

The waves of Enron took out most of them decades ago when its destruction rolled through the energy markets. IIRC, the last NW aluminum smelter closed a few years ago.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#545

Post by tharkun__ »

ip26 wrote: post #285
dwohnitmok wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience with fireplaces is that the house winds up net-colder Why is that? EDIT: Oh are you saying that the rate of heating provided by the fire is less than the overall rate of heat leaving the entire house?

Right, if you think about it almost all of the heat from the fire goes right up the chimney. The brick of the firebox & chimney are generally built outside the building envelope for safety reasons, so any heat in the brick doesn't warm the house. The only heat that actually makes its way into the house is the radiant heat cast from the fire itself, which is small. The smoke is poison, and unlike a furnace, gas firepl…

https://www.offgridquest.com/fload/homes-dwellings/heating-c...

Almost without comment. All I will say is that we have some friends in Germany living in the 'countryside' (as much as that's still a thing in densely populated Germany) that heat their main living area with one of these (way less elaborate design lol). My grandma had one of these sitting in the wall between kitchen (right next to the eating area) and the living room.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#546

Post by Animats »

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…

Would customers be willing to pay 20% more for electric power to prevent a once a decade event?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#547

Post by sunflowerfly »

teachrdan wrote: post #342
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This is exactly why old farmhouses here in the Midwest were T shaped. There was a chimney in the center of each long arm of the T. Then vents through the floor right above the heaters to warm the second story. With good placement they did not need to blow the heat around.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#548

Post by chasd00 »

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?

Quebec has the “winter package” on the wind turbines Texas does not. Keep in mind, these conditions are almost unheard of in Texas and the infrastructure just isn’t designed for it. Like when it’s 95F in Chicago for a week and all hell breaks loose. Different regions are geared for the norms of their climate.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#549

Post by rodgerd »

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?

A nuclear plant stopped generating because the turbine froze; components were exposed to open air because Texas doesn't normally get that cold.

People built to a certain set of assumptions, with an implicit risk, and the risks came due. The only way to avoid another event like this would be to make the generation more resilient to extreme cold, which will cost more.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#550

Post by texasbigdata »

pier25 wrote: post #541

Because of what happened in Texas, the higher demand of gas affected electricity generation in Northern Mexico which has been without electricity too. As as I understand it, not only the price of Gas wet up 5,000% but also there were shortages. The federal government has started doing electricity cuts in most Mexico to control the gas reserves and distribute energy to the Northern states. Edit: Here is an article abo…

One of my smartest Austin friends predicted the outages by watching nat gas spot prices as early as last friday. Weird world
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