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Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

cnn.com

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Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#151

Post by gunapologist99 »

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the constant repairs after a major storm every 10 to 15 years, Houston actually has one of the lowest energy costs in the United States: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...

For some real numbers for Houston specifically in the middle of the hot summer months, input 77002 (a Houston metro zip code) into Texas govt's electricity provider search engine https://powertochoose.org/ ; it will show most plans are around 12-14 cents per kwh, down to 10.9 c/kwh on a variable 12 month 500kWh plan.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#152

Post by toomuchtodo »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #122
hedora wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, and I speak from experience. We've been repeatedly hit by climate-change induced typhoons here (near the SF Bay Area), and hurricane-force gusts hit both of the last two years. Our area looses a lot of roads to mudslides, and of course we have extended power outages. Having said that, the first year, PG&E only delivered one nine of availability last year, and this year, they're closer to two nines. The di…

Houston actually has relatively low population density compared to other metro areas with only 3,842 people per square mile, and across the MSA (Houston is extremely spread out), that number is much lower. (Compare to, for example, Union City, NJ, with 54,138 persons/sq mile.) There are some 7.5 million people spread out across more than 10,000 square miles across the greater Houston area. Also, the water table is ve…

TLDR Texas is hosed as climate change accelerates and there is no will to pay to build resilient infra. Godspeed y’all.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#153

Post by throwup238 »

mym1990 wrote: post #100
blantonl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with it. But it would take lifetimes of money and time to retrofit a city like Houston to move all power infrastructure underground. And there is no way consumers would ever sign up for the cost to do so. It would be akin to building the Hoover Dam today. It would probably be one of the largest public works projects ever attempted.

Lifetimes of money, really? What is that measurement? Someone above said 2.5 million per square miles. Catastrophic damage from larger storms is often in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, so it feel like it would be in the best interest of most parties to embark on this project, even if it happens slowly.

Putting power lines underground wouldn't mitigate very much of that damage though, would it? I was under the impression that the vast majority of those multibillion dollar figures is water damage to buildings, cars, and other equipment.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#154

Post by freen »

spamizbad wrote: post #105

Why is Texas infrastructure so brittle? It’s a wealthy, prosperous state unencumbered by regulation or legacy stuff that tends to cause issues in other states.

Huh, odd that profit seeking behavior doesn’t maximize the public well being in the case of natural monopolies.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#155

Post by galdosdi »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #133
_wire_ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny to think about these costs and the health of the national commons from a point of view of the Federal budget. For example, you point out it would cost 2 billion to migrate Houston's above-ground to storm proof below ground. If we could lop off 1/4 of the DoD and intelligence budget of $1T/yr and dedicate it to infrastructure, we could pay for 125 Huston-scale improvement projects per year. And still have the mo…

> Plus the Federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed It's amusing and a bit scary that someone thinks the federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed.

It's free if you spend it on a durable asset that is as or more valuable than the cash was, which can often be true of infrastructure. Your balance sheet goes up not down after the spend then.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#156

Post by ethagknight »

jwkpiano1 wrote: post #148
ethagknight wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at “climate change induced typhoon”. Comparing an “Bay Area typhoon” (very hilly) to low and flat Houston with a direct hit is disingenuous at best.

The elevation of Houston is _higher_ than the elevation of SF. Yes, there are many hills, and the _max_ elevation is obviously higher, but there are also plenty of low lying areas and areas at sea level.

Hills make a huge difference impeding winds across the land, storm water drains much faster. Has a hurricane ever hit San Francisco? It’s not a real comparison, typhoons in the area, to a direct hurricane.

It’s also extremely expensive to mitigate, maybe it should be done, but the GP was hand waving it all away. Commenter even “disagreed from experience” and then cited a totally different experience.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#157

Post by TulliusCicero »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #11
gigatexal wrote: post #3

Not angry enough to get their elected officials to make the power grid changes needed to make it more robust to such things. I mean how can they when reps like Ted Cruz fly off to Cancun when the weather gets really bad.

> Not angry enough to get their elected officials to make the power grid changes needed Do you have the magic solution that makes them resilient to natural disasters short of burying every single power line underground? Which is not only impractical but insanely expensive. The infrastructure has been physically damaged or destroyed. You fired off a politically charged comment and offered no specifics.

> Do you have the magic solution that makes them resilient to natural disasters short of burying every single power line underground? Which is not only impractical but insanely expensive.

"Do you have any suggestions other than what would actually work??"

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#158

Post by galdosdi »

bluGill wrote: post #103
gmueckl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with below-ground power distribution for metropolitan areas?

Moles, mice, things walking/driving over the top. There is a long list of things that make underground not nearly as reliable as it sounds.

Source? The grid was far more reliable where I've lived with underground than overhead lines. Kind of hard to believe. Sounds like that would only happen if your city cheaped out on the conduit material.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#159

Post by genocidicbunny »

while_true_ wrote: post #149
genocidicbunny wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this was a problem with last mile delivery, which isn't a uniquely Texas problem. Oregon and California have had plenty of major outages due to wind and cold snaps in the last few years as well.

Not true about California. Outages in storms are highly localized. Some rural areas get power turned off but only when fire risk is extreme. There have been no large cities without power for a week like Houston.

Not a week, but just earlier this year there was a storm in the SF Bay Area where there were many people without power for 3-5 days. Most of the damage was due to last mile transmission failures from debris. And I'm sure that had the storm been in the hurricane strengths, the damage would have been even worse.

Portland too had that major cold snap where power was out due to last mile transmission problems. I know at least one city in the metro area that sped up their plans to bury their power transmission because during that storm large parts of that city were without power for days.

Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning

#160

Post by gosub100 »

atmavatar wrote: post #84
gmueckl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with below-ground power distribution for metropolitan areas?

I'm getting strong "'No way to prevent this' says only country where this regularly happens" vibes.

I think "vibes" is a new weasel word that subtly absolves the author from any responsibility to connect cause and effect. There's a whole lot more to writing than announcing what "vibes" you get.
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