Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 1001 posts

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#11

Post by stevenwoo »

vondur wrote: post #4

Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.

Where would one build them? Since the USA has no long term nuclear waste storage plan, the current plan is to store at the plants for the most part which is a huge NIMBY issue. IIRC Texas went mostly in on gas/wind because of prevailing prices for the different fuel/plant options. This article gives a bit more data about current generation sources in Texas. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/tex... Also, the alternative coal plants had pretty big waste/cleanup issues with existing plants in addition to costing more based on projections last time I remember reading about this.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#12

Post by da_big_ghey »

masklinn wrote: post #9
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which confuses me, as it follows a statement about how energy has been deregulated. Of course, deregulation would also reduce some of the incentives for maintaining preparation for "100 year winter" storms. Much like how hospitals reduced the number of beds based on their average case loads, not the uncommon-but-not-unheard-of peaks.

> "100 year winter" storms It’s like the third time in 30 years.

This is the first time since the eighties that we have had weather this cold.

Edit: why u booing me? I'm right!

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#13

Post by [deleted] »

kbar13 wrote: post #10

is this the wakeup call that texans need to acknowledge that climate change isn't a coastal elite type thing, and that it affects us all and requires investment from all of us? imo texas is in a great spot to capitalize on the shift to green tech. they have strong engineering talent, large investments from the energy sector. car manufacturers are already clamoring to be the next to go fully electric. get your leaders…

[deleted]

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#14

Post by the_duke »

This whole episode also reminds us how far we are from going 100% renewable.

In winter all renewables are inhibited and at risk. Wind: frozen/disabled turbines. Water: low water levels, small hydro plants often have to shut down. Solar is obvious.

I'm not a fan of nuclear - externalities that last thousands of years are horrible. But until fusion arrives (if ever), nuclear and gas sadly are the baseline providers we have to rely on for the foreseeable future.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#15

Post by brohoolio »

Did the utility companies ask for voluntary reduction in power consumption ahead of time?

We had a situation here where extreme weather and a natural gas pumping station that exploded caused real problems in our natural gas supply. The utility asked everyone to lower their consumption by turning their heat down to 65.

Luckily, that was the extent of the rationing.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#16

Post by epistasis »

stevenwoo wrote: post #11
vondur wrote: post #4

Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.

Where would one build them? Since the USA has no long term nuclear waste storage plan, the current plan is to store at the plants for the most part which is a huge NIMBY issue. IIRC Texas went mostly in on gas/wind because of prevailing prices for the different fuel/plant options. This article gives a bit more data about current generation sources in Texas. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/tex…

NIMBYs are not an impediment to building nuclear. The first impediment is finding a funding for a project of a class that has a huge chance of being a multi-billion dollar economic disaster. If you can find the money, the problem is actually completing it, and continuing to find new funding as build times go to 2-3x initial estimates, and costs balloon to 2-5x initial estimates.

There are plenty of sites that welcome new nuclear, usually any existing nuclear site would welcome more as its an economic engine for towns. The issue is it's just really poor and overly complicated technology, requiring miles of precision welds, the failure of any of which could cause big problems, and which must last for 50 years. It shouldn't be a surprise that this is hard to do well.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#17

Post by sokoloff »

masklinn wrote: post #8
vondur wrote: post #4

Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.

> Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? No. Most of the missing production was not wind, and several nukes went out (unclear whether that was because the grid was dying though). What would have helped was proper standards (avoiding emergency being much of the reason why Texas still has its own grid) and properly winterising. The wind thing is just a bullshit excuse, the vast majori…

What is "proper winterizing" for a state where the 99th percentile design temperature is mostly 25-30ºF? Properly sized heating systems should run 24 hours a day when the temps are well below the design temp.

If almost all of those systems are electric (because they are simple and cheap to install and don't get a ton of use), you get a lot of constant demand for electricity. Smart load-shedding (to dump large 240VAC loads in rotation) would allow the grid to survive these periods, while keeping houses livable but chilly.

I agree the wind excuse is (almost entirely) BS. Some amount of production is offline all the time, at least enough that you have to design for that.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#18

Post by magnawave »

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry."

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-...

Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q

Running your own grid seems cool Texas style, until you have a regional problem and have no where to turn.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#19

Post by gambiting »

the_duke wrote: post #14

This whole episode also reminds us how far we are from going 100% renewable. In winter all renewables are inhibited and at risk. Wind: frozen/disabled turbines. Water: low water levels, small hydro plants often have to shut down. Solar is obvious. I'm not a fan of nuclear - externalities that last thousands of years are horrible. But until fusion arrives (if ever), nuclear and gas sadly are the baseline providers we…

How exactly does it show that? From my understanding Texas has an awful(below 20%) percentage of renewable sources.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#20

Post by svnpenn »

Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment.

Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".

Post reply on HN