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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

#321

Post by ianburrell »

bdcravens wrote: post #63
gmueckl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nothing, but migrating to it is very expensive. Centerpoint, the physical electricity provider in Houston, has said it would cost $2.5M per square mile. Houston is 640 square miles. Regulations allow them to claw back costs on the bills. (For example, repairs from past storms are often paid for over the course of several years in the form of a bond that is applied to customers as surcharges) https://www.houstonchroni…

It is $2.5 million per mile. That is order of magnitude more expensive. Houston has 6200 miles of road compared to 640 square miles.

I think $2.5 million is the high estimate, my city is estimating $1 million per mile.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/ar...

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

#322

Post by throwaway4220 »

jmward01 wrote: post #276
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?

Sadly we do not live in such a society in most of the country. It’s every man/woman and family for themselves. Covid laid that bare where I live.

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

#323

Post by analog31 »

hedora wrote: post #78
bdcravens wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, but migrating to it is very expensive. Centerpoint, the physical electricity provider in Houston, has said it would cost $2.5M per square mile. Houston is 640 square miles. Regulations allow them to claw back costs on the bills. (For example, repairs from past storms are often paid for over the course of several years in the form of a bond that is applied to customers as surcharges) https://www.houstonchroni…

There are about 3844 people per square mile in Houston, so that's $650 per person, amortized over at least 20 years, which would increase the monthly power bill by about $2.70 per person (~ $10 / subscriber?) I'd guess that's less expensive than throwing out everything in the fridge / freezer every few years.

Also less expensive than everybody going out and buying a generator, plus putting out fires from improperly stored gasoline.

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

#325

Post by arp242 »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #194
laweijfmvo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does it matter how cheap it is if it’s not available?

That's something you could decide for yourself and vote by moving there or away. Many residents of Houston would gladly tolerate an occasional outage to not see prices go up, and critical services like emergency services, hospitals, and datacenters all have generators, so it seems to be something that can be worked around with a bit of effort and expense.

> Many residents of Houston would gladly tolerate an occasional outage to not see prices go up

Source on that?

Also, when did people vote for this issue specifically? Was there a referendum about this?

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

#326

Post by thehappypm »

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…

I can’t imagine having no plan for backup power in a hurricane corridor

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

#327

Post by tstrimple »

ianburrell wrote: post #321
bdcravens wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, but migrating to it is very expensive. Centerpoint, the physical electricity provider in Houston, has said it would cost $2.5M per square mile. Houston is 640 square miles. Regulations allow them to claw back costs on the bills. (For example, repairs from past storms are often paid for over the course of several years in the form of a bond that is applied to customers as surcharges) https://www.houstonchroni…

It is $2.5 million per mile. That is order of magnitude more expensive. Houston has 6200 miles of road compared to 640 square miles. I think $2.5 million is the high estimate, my city is estimating $1 million per mile. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/ar...

There is no scenario where every mile of road is outfitted with buried power lines, especially considering not every mile of road has elevated power lines. What a nonsensical comment.

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

#328

Post by Dylan16807 »

alexk307 wrote: post #308
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wondered this. How do you tell the difference between a climate change induced typhoon and the alternative? Maybe its obvious to the down voters, but you have at least two people here you could potentially teach something to.

You don't - that's the point.

You use statistics.

Demanding the answer for specific storms is like demanding to know whether a smoker's lung cancer was caused by smoking. Maybe?? But we know in aggregate smoking caused an enormous amount of deaths. We can measure the number of smoking-induced deaths, and the number of climate-changed-induced storms.

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

#329

Post by tstrimple »

Symbiote wrote: post #254
Teknomancer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin, Germany is inland, with an elevation average around 34 meters above sea level. The ground soil composition in Berlin is primarily sandy, draining easily and lending itself exceptionally well to underground infrastructure development. Houston, Texas, is coastal and has an elevation that averages around 13 meters above sea level. The ground composition in Houston is primarily made up of clay. Houston soil is no…

How about Amsterdam, or London (outer London if you want a lower density).

There always seems to be an excuse as to why America is exceptional and things accomplished routinely in other countries couldn't possibly work here. It's true to a degree. They absolutely cannot work here. But that's more about our political dysfunction than anything meaningful about our geographical situations.

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

#330

Post by AlbertCory »

sdenton4 wrote: post #281
AlbertCory wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonetheless, there are no recorded instances of large storm-induced floods in the SFBay area that I'm aware of. Do you know of any? Fires, earthquakes, heavy rains causing mudslides that have actually killed people: yes. Some very localized flooding around the Russian River happens all the time. The Guadalupe River in San Jose flooded a few years ago. But storm surge from the ocean? nope, nope.

There was a pretty bad flooding event portrayed in the documentary movie San Andreas. https://youtu.be/jvIGFhqbe0c?si=ZCaVjWjw-oi84HgD&t=1m39s

You're calling it a "documentary movie"?
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