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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

#361

Post by lazide »

roenxi wrote: post #359
kolinko wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a simple linear scale of regulations and no regulations. EU is arguably more regulated than California, but the regulations here have more sense to them, and arguably higher benefit to cost ratio.

> EU is arguably more regulated than California, but the regulations here have more sense to them, and arguably higher benefit to cost ratio. The last time I checked the EU appeared to be in a full-blown multi-country energy crisis triggered by some of the most stunning displays of regulatory incompetence so far this century. So I would accept that the EU is more regulated but I don't think that is the sort of point…

The EU also has very high taxes and very high energy costs.

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

#362

Post by binkethy »

roenxi wrote: post #318
sdenton4 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't walk by this comment without noting that their 'we don't need no regulamazations' attitude resulted in a large populous state which people want to migrate to. The other large US state, California, has electricity prices that appear to be 2x higher [0]. And their migratory trends are not encouraging. People underestimate the heavy burden of a strong regulatory state. High standards and high costs. All in it th…

Bass ackwards defensive hot take.

The above comment should not be grayed out, yours should.

You are placing your political fantasies above reality on the ground.

It is absolutely factually correct to describe Texas political and electrical administration as - anthropogenic climate change denialist

- corruptly in thrall to fossil fuel, including 'natural' gas plant expansion where the actual grid is the issue

- averse to integrating with the electrical grid from nearby states, as others do, and averse to standards and standards compliance.

The number of people moving to Texas and your instant deflection towards California bashing are unacceptable in a mature conversation on this topic.

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

#363

Post by jjav »

dehrmann wrote: post #219
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…

> climate-change induced typhoons here (near the SF Bay Area), and hurricane-force gusts What the Bay Area has seen is nothing like actual hurricanes.

> What the Bay Area has seen is nothing like actual hurricanes.

In terms of wind speed, quite similar. A category 1 hurricane is only 74-95mph winds. This is pretty mild, as far as storms go. I've been through many, many category 1 hurricanes and it's not much of a storm. Things only start getting scary around category 3.

I have several friends who live high in the hills in the Santa Cruz mountains and they regularly see wind speeds in the range of cat 1 hurricanes.

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

#365

Post by jjav »

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.

> unencumbered by regulation

There's the answer.

A public utility is a natural monopoly. If given lack of regulation (or, wrong/weak regulation) it will of course seek to maximize profit at all cost, which means very little is spent on grid quality and maintenance (these things eat into profits, thus bad).

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

#366

Post by binkethy »

Thorrez wrote: post #360
KingOfCoders wrote: post #36

Germany has overengineered and expensive utilities, but I'm happy sometimes that all power and telephone lines are underground.

Does Germany get as bad of storms as the US? This article seems to say the US has worse weather than Europe: > the colonists who arrived in the New World from Europe during the seventeenth century and found North American weather to be, in a word, hellish. https://www.neh.gov/article/storm-patrol

What a weird take. Europe has extreme weather to match North America.

Any Texans wanting to talk about their special case can have a look at Iberia and its meteorology, for example.

The notion that North American weather is anomalistic is false.

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

#367

Post by inferiorhuman »

AlbertCory wrote: post #211
jwkpiano1 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

   But storm surge from the ocean? nope, nope.
In the Bay Area there's not much development on the coast. There are fancy cliff top homes, but not much at sea level. Even in SF things go uphill from the ocean pretty quickly. A good chunk of central and southern Marin is below sea level (and yes it floods during big storms) but that's well inland.

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

#368

Post by pennybanks »

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…

its funny people comment and act like they know how strong a hurricane and how much damage it should do like theyre all the same. or that they know how much infrastructure is supposed to break or not break.

if you were there during beryl you know the winds were strong enough to take trees out yes? trust me houston is not a stranger to hurricanes we all went through a cat 4 harvey years back. which well funnily enough didnt have any huge power problems. more so a house and car totally flooded problem. or 10in of water in the house for weeks problem. mold problem.

tropical storm ike before that took out power for weeks causing $30b in damages in the states

wish people would put their energy into helping or something instead of just thinking about their own agenda. or talking crap i dont know i wouldnt wish this on anyone its hell

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

#369

Post by ddoolin »

smelendez wrote: post #81
blantonl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't a "grid issue." It is a last-mile issue. It's specifically an issue with the sheer amount of above ground power lines and population density. There is no easy fix, preparation, or practically anything else that can be done to prevent something like this. Plus, what causes the same amount of power outages (wind damage) isn't going to be different between 90mph winds and 150 mph winds. The effects are going…

Ida in New Orleans was a real mess and exposed a lot of issues in the city besides electricity. Because power was out for so long, everyone threw out a ton of food, but there was no trash pickup in some cases for weeks because of staffing shortages and contract disputes, so there was stinky trash and huge swarms of bright blue flies everywhere. At one point, the mayor suggested people could drive their own trash to t…

I am from central Louisiana (although I mostly have lived outside the state) and have been considering moving to NOLA and this is the kind of thing that gives me pause. Thanks for sharing.

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

#370

Post by dwighttk »

FireBeyond wrote: post #300
dwighttk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people are talking about Houston they are talking about Greater Houston: 7.5M people over 10,000 square miles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston

This is silly. MSAs have near zero to do with a city. They are not talking about Greater Houston. For comparison, let's look at the Seattle metropolitan area ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area ) It includes Mt Rainier, which NO-ONE in the area would say is "in Seattle". It includes Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County, same. Glacier Peak, in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, also defini…

Even Wikipedia doesn’t include College Station
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