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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?

#851

Post by lmilcin »

ants_a wrote: post #847
lmilcin wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point. Here this is the fireplace. You will find western style "fireplaces" in some new homes which are nothing more than show pieces to have cosy atmosphere but are utterly impractical for the task of heating the home. Now, what what we would call "heater" is usually placed in the basement for practical purposes. The ones I showed above are placed directly in living area and are way more efficient…

There are plenty of manufacturers making glass fireplace inserts that are designed to be combined with a heat accumulating flue systems. Romotop or Hoxter are examples of fancier ones. The finished stoves typically are specced to retain 50% peak heat output after 12h, 25% after 24h. Combined with automated dampers you just load the firewood, light it and can then basically forget about it as the automation takes care…

Anyway, just as you mentioned, this requires enclosing the fireplace (even if with glass) and it requires that the heat is routed somewhere else rather than directly to chimney.

This is 101 of building a functional fireplace designed to heat the house.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#852

Post by moooo99 »

dgellow wrote: post #831
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

Note to readers: If you're not from the US and confused about the 20 degrees (I was), note that it is Farhenheit and not Celsius! So around -6°C, which is of course very cold! (edit: when you're on the internet, better to specify which unit you use, your audience is international)

I mean -6°C isn't very cold either. Its not every year you see temperatures like that, but its also not exactly uncommon. We had -17°C (1.4 °F) and lower here in Germany. We had some problems here and there, especially the railway, but afaik there were no major problems regarding power outages and heating.

But obviously we're much more prepared for temperatures like this here.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#853

Post by dalbasal »

roenxi wrote: post #782
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 is annoying when this sort of event happens and everyone starts deciding what they believe to be truth within 48 hours of the outage. It makes more sense to be talking about the 2011 outages in terms of what went wrong than the 2021 ones - because we have actual information on 2011 instead of "things went wrong!" now. I want to thank you personally for injecting a PDF into the discussion, but also positively asser…

This is meta/tangent, but I've had similar conversations a few times recently. Seems to be in the zeitgeist.

Re: everyone starts deciding what they believe to be truth within 48 hours of the outage.

Maybe, hopefully... the epidemic is humbling us. It's been significant and long lasting enough to rub our noses in whatever opinions we so brashly got behind too early. Professors and peasants alike. We're more likely to stop and say "I don't know."

The classic example of this is governments taking credit/blame for economic stuff. Low unemployment, high gdp, etc. Current government decisions are really unlikely to be affecting these, because stuff takes time. Meanwhile, short term data about the economy is both uncertain and fairly useless even if it wasn't. The whole thing is so disingenuous, yet I doubt there has ever been an democratic election where this wasn't a major factor.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#854

Post by throwaway0a5e »

wins32767 wrote: post #480
StillBored wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently its not, there was one in the 1940's that was worse. So its the usual "ignore any outlier we don't like" attitude that seems common in so many things. Plus, its not like this is unusual. The random unexpected heat wave in oct -> rolling blackouts. Unexpected storm during hurricane season -> power goes out for a week due to unmaintained power lines, etc. Its why you need engineers running your grid, not som…

> Its why you need engineers running your grid, not some politically connected organization which seems to prioritize free market theories above delivering power. Why do engineers seem to think that it's possible to do things at scale without politics being involved? A statement that boils down to "trust this group of people that I am affiliated with because we know better" is an inherently political statement, even…

>Why do engineers seem to think that it's possible to do things at scale without politics being involved?

Because they're only a stone throw away from physicists in when it comes to the "I know X therefore I know everything higher level than X" flavor of hubris.

It'll be interesting to see how the damage stacks up to a California wildfire season or an active hurricane season.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#855

Post by putzdown »

Please help me understand this. Why is deregulation causing suppliers to be unable to charge enough to cover their costs? I should think that would be the opposite. “ 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... ‘For more than a decade, generators have not been able to charge what it costs them to produce electricity.’” How could that be correct?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#856

Post by vultour »

moooo99 wrote: post #852
dgellow wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note to readers: If you're not from the US and confused about the 20 degrees (I was), note that it is Farhenheit and not Celsius! So around -6°C, which is of course very cold! (edit: when you're on the internet, better to specify which unit you use, your audience is international)

I mean -6°C isn't very cold either. Its not every year you see temperatures like that, but its also not exactly uncommon. We had -17°C (1.4 °F) and lower here in Germany. We had some problems here and there, especially the railway, but afaik there were no major problems regarding power outages and heating. But obviously we're much more prepared for temperatures like this here.

I'm quite certain it's never -6 in your bedroom.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#857

Post by throwaway0a5e »

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.

Because "muh hyper efficient heat pump system" that a huge fraction of Texas uses for heat during their typically mild winters has an electric heating system cobbled on to provide heat when the temperature is lower than what the heat pump likes running at.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#858

Post by arcosdev »

moooo99 wrote: post #852
dgellow wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note to readers: If you're not from the US and confused about the 20 degrees (I was), note that it is Farhenheit and not Celsius! So around -6°C, which is of course very cold! (edit: when you're on the internet, better to specify which unit you use, your audience is international)

I mean -6°C isn't very cold either. Its not every year you see temperatures like that, but its also not exactly uncommon. We had -17°C (1.4 °F) and lower here in Germany. We had some problems here and there, especially the railway, but afaik there were no major problems regarding power outages and heating. But obviously we're much more prepared for temperatures like this here.

-6°C is pretty damn cold _inside_ a house.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#859

Post by todd8 »

Cederfjard wrote: post #833
theshrike79 wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much anything actually built to heat stuff is better than the all-looks-no-function "fireplaces" the Americans seem to be in love with. The ones they like to mount their TVs over, despite the neck pain.

You have a slightly condescending tone here that I'm not sure is necessary. Perhaps they're "all-looks-no-function" because they're mostly meant to be decorative rather than functional?

Here, in Central Texas, my home has three fireplaces. Each designed to accommodate wood, but all have gas feeds that make it possible to run them without the smoke of wood fires. We don't run them for heat nor decorative effect. The are just architectural features of the house that some people might choose to utilize for the mood that a fire can convey.

They are a bit like windows: not energy efficient but nice to look at/through.

During the historic cold weather going on this week, I have no confidence that they would help if the power went off.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#860

Post by konjin »

WorkingDead wrote: post #82

What a horrible article. First, Texas has its own independent grid as a matter of physics. Electricty travels at the speed of light so a continuous grid from coast to coast would get out of sync on phases just by travel distance. Texas just happens to be physically in the middle and large enough to have trouble by being supplied by either east or west grid. Second, ERCOT manages when utilizes can take assets out of c…

>Electricty travels at the speed of light so a continuous grid from coast to coast would get out of sync on phases just by travel distance.

You just need to be in sync with whatever the phase is in your local grid. For a real world example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS/UPS

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