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

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

#271

Post by quitit »

chgs wrote: post #255
standardUser wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is a highly urbanized state and a significant number of families don't have the ability to install home solar, so it cannot be viewed as 'minimum requirement' and some other solution is neccesary.

Maybe people could club together and form some form of group which provides that minimum requirement for the whole area. You could perhaps have an equal say in the group, and have a meeting every few years where you elect some people to run the thing on your behalf.

My guess is it'll meet the same fate as municipal broadband. (i.e. It is explicitly outlawed in Texas.¹)

1. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2005/ut/002.00.000054.00....

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

#272

Post by zacharycohn »

jtolmar wrote: post #190
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Seattle’s Ballard area, but work with people on the east side. Big storms blow down branches all the time on the other side of the lake, causing power outages. We have less trees here in Seattle, comparatively, or maybe Seattle power and light is better at tree maintenance, but ya lots of trees = lots of power outages from what I can infer. Some richer communities on the east side bury their lines so power…

Downtown Ballard had a lot of power outages over the last two years. Apparently they were using a different transformer than everywhere else, all of which are getting old, and some procurement mistake lead to the spare parts being back-ordered by a year. (This is second hand through a neighbor who actually went and bothered them about all the outages, so there are probably mistakes.)

Using different equipment from the rest of Seattle is very Ballard.

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

#273

Post by FredPret »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #252
FredPret wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does physics dictate how you build power lines? Bro. Come up with a plan and a budget for your buried cables and sell it to the people of Texas who will have to pay for it.

They are paying for it. It's either on the front end with regulations on more expensive construction, or on the back end with power outages, damage and repairs.

Put that in your presentation to the Texans!

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

#274

Post by zdragnar »

poikroequ wrote: post #117
RheingoldRiver wrote: post #9

I was there last weekend & for the day of the hurricane. This was just a cat 1 hurricane at the time it passed through Houston, and there was SO much damage. I can't imagine the city is remotely prepared for (god forbid, and idk how likely it is that far inland anyway) a cat 4 or 5. We were staying in a hotel that had a backup generator, but every single other building that was visible from our hotel had lost power d…

It's likely a combination of multiple factors. Texas, being a red state, most certainly has a stronger climate denial sentiment, which is going to affect policies and regulations. Texas may be unprepared because major hurricanes were uncommon in the past. Global warming means hotter temperatures which makes long power outages more unbearable. And probably other reasons I can't think of. I expect things will improve,…

Centerpoint applied for $100 mil in funding from the department of energy in 2023 to make their lines more resilient to wind and storms and were turned down.

It's not nearly as clear cut as "red = head in sand"

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

#275

Post by S_A_P »

I was directly hit by Beryl, and just got power back today. For us, the issue was trees taking out the power lines. We live on acreage with a lot of pecan trees, and lost 4 of them in the storm. 2 of them toppled over on the power line. I personally don't think that Centerpoint has done a bad job here, Houston is a large land mass and there is no way that you can get everyone back online with as much wind damage as we sustained much quicker than what happened. This storm was so much different than Harvey, which was a flood event. We did have some flooding but nowhere near that level with Beryl. Really, its just one of those situations that just sucks, and there isnt a whole lot you can really do about it.

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

#276

Post by jmward01 »

Scoutmaster wrote: post #205

Yesterday I spoke with a Generac (home standby generator) dealership owner in the Houston area, and they are getting swamped with calls (80 a minute at times) and they have 20 people manning the phones. One of the problems I see is that people aren't prepared. I live my life by the motto "Be Prepared" (see username). One of the Merit Badges I teach is Emergency Preparedness, and with camping, my Scouts are okay going…

We live in a society and preparing as a group means that we can efficiently use resources and focus our energy on things that are interesting instead of everyone being overly prepared. Everyone going out and buying a generator is expensive, wasteful and incredibly inefficient. Why isn't it reasonable to just expect reliable infrastructure and quick responses to issues?

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

#277

Post by zdragnar »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #243

Deregulation is a terrible idea for life supporting and necessary utilities, power specifically. By deregulating the market, everyone is forced to compete for a finite amount of transmission ability for low profits, each one trying to undercut the other IMO. It completely destabilized the Texas power market. At this point, it may be worth considering putting the Texas power grid into some type of federal receivership…

Centerpoint applied for $100 mil in funding from the department of energy in 2023 to make their infrastructure more resilient and were denied.

If you want to blame politics, this is a case of national bureaucracy getting it wrong than deregulation.

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

#278

Post by londons_explore »

S_A_P wrote: post #275

I was directly hit by Beryl, and just got power back today. For us, the issue was trees taking out the power lines. We live on acreage with a lot of pecan trees, and lost 4 of them in the storm. 2 of them toppled over on the power line. I personally don't think that Centerpoint has done a bad job here, Houston is a large land mass and there is no way that you can get everyone back online with as much wind damage as w…

One option is multiple feeds to most streets.

Ie. If power lines at one end of the street get felled by a tree, power just comes from the other end of the street instead.

High voltage distribution lines can be done the same - every transformer getting fed from at least 2 places.

Obviously with many lines down, such a system might leave everyone with power, but total power deliverable is still lower. For that, you need smart metering that integrates with consumers distribution boards such that at times of stress on the power network, less important loads are turned off by default (ie. Pool heaters), whilst lighting and fridges stay on.

Nowhere in the US does that for consumers yet I don't think.

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

#279

Post by sdenton4 »

lolinder wrote: post #224
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…

To quantify the winds we're talking about, the record-setting winds in the Bay Area this February peaked at 100mph gusts, with 18 stations recording values between 80mph and 100mph [0] (Pablo Point, out in the middle of the Pacific, recorded gusts of 102mph, but I'd consider that an outlier). Notably, all stations recording values higher than 80mph are on mountain peaks, not anywhere near population centers. In most…

Consider earthquakes. Preparation and infrastructure are what matter. If you don't do the prep, you'll have a hundred thousand dead from a 6.0. But if you do the prep, you'll have relatively trivial damage from a 7.0.

Texas power, thanks to their 'we don't need no regulamazations' attitude, has shown itself to be woefully underreported repeatedly in the last few years.

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

#280

Post by zdragnar »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #141
bequanna wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern "stick built" homes in the US are well insulated and actually quite efficient. Stone walls would be a poor choice in most areas in the US due to extreme conditions. As you mention, once a stone house heats up in the summer, that is an incredible amount of thermal mass to cool. Your AC would run non-stop. Similar issue in the winter, super high heating costs in cold regions.

This is not about insulation but heat capacity.

Heat capacity doesn't mean much unless the walls are several feet thick.

The frost line where I live is around 5 feet deep into the ground- meaning that footings for any building have to be that deep to avoid shifting as the ground freezes and thaws.

Summer months thick stone walls can be nice if you are able to keep humidity out, but if you don't and your walls actually stay cool you're dealing with a lot of mold and mildew since water will be condensating 24/7.

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