What went wrong with the Texas power grid? • Hacker News Board

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#531

Post by lurquer » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #497

lurquer wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Climate change _is_ a result of global warming. You mean the cold weather is a result of global warming. Yeah. Whatever. As far as the rest of your comment, the warmth of your virtue and sensitivty has raised my room's temperature by a degree and I thank you. I am tearing up as I write this; your comment struck me to the core. Oh, the children... the poor freezing people on covid-ventilators... the 15 who have -- so…

Can you not do ... whatever this is. It's not contributing.

Don't worry.

Only have about ten minutes of charge on the laptop left.

Shut the generator down for the night.

And, my fingers are a bit numb.

But, as I slip into my bed -- made comfortably warm by now by my own personal 98.6f furnace (otherwise known as a wife) -- I'll sleep more soundly knowing that various computer programmers and tech guys are worried about us.

Adios.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#532

Post by bouncycastle » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #520

bouncycastle wrote: post #510

I wonder if this is related to bitcoin mining? ( https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-farms-in-texas-offli... ) Sure, they claimed that they turned it off, but there will always be someone who doesn't turn it off, especially when the bitcoin prices are going up astronomically. Rising electricity price doesn't matter. Also, they hold up the "floor price" for electricity and push it up, meaning that electricity pric…

Even if all of the bitcoin mining in the world happened in TX and 0% of them shut down it'd still just be 1/4 the normal power draw in the state (121 TWh vs 429 TWh), far less than the demand increase due to the cold or current production/demand gap.

Still keeps the floor price of electricity up as some would probably not bother turning off in the case of an astronomical bitcoin price. (Read the article Yahoo, they are in fact keeping some on!)

Also I'm assuming 429 TWh is when it's at full capacity. You have to quote the number for the current crippled capacity for a fair comparison.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#533

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:55 AM UTC

jostmey wrote: post #496

I would say the situation is getting bad. Many of my colleagues don't have heat. Water pipes are bursting everywhere. I never imagined this would happen in Texas, which from my observations was well run compared to other places I've lived

Pipes bursting has absolutely got to suck right now. No power, no water, probably not the greatest of roads still, and getting everything fixed is going to take quite a while.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#534

Post by pault » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

naebother wrote: post #174

Anyone have break down of which areas had their power cut for how long?

About half of Austin has been out for 42 hours now. Source: I’m one of them.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#535

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

dhritzkiv wrote: post #314

goat_whisperer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article clearly states that many natural gas plants were knocked out due to the cold. So why aren't you asking "maybe having more nuclear instead of natural gas would have helped?" Since nuclear uses water, which freezes, the reason why the gas plants were knocked out, maybe the problem isn't the power source itself but the lack of weatherization?!

> Since nuclear uses water, which freezes I suspect that the water involved in the steam generation (heavy water or otherwise) wouldn't freeze since it's inside/near the core, and constantly temperature regulated. The water used for cooling would go through heat exchanging and would also not freeze, especially if it's underground, or deep in a lake somewhere.

[deleted]

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#536

Post by tharkun__ » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #253

ip26 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas furnaces need power for the circuitry & blower. My experience with fireplaces is that the house winds up net-colder, but you can warm yourself with radiant heat while it burns. Freestanding wood stoves on the other hand are very capable of warming a large space.

A tight wood stove in the hands of an experienced user is a remarkable thing. The amount of heat that can be extracted from a large oak log is nothing short of remarkable. Sadly, most wood stoves are not tight, nor are most users experienced.

Cold climate here (Quebec) and we heat with electricity usually. Many people have an electric furnace (forced air) or even baseboard (what I have for example). We also have a heat pump (heats the upstairs very well until about -15C and provides awesome AC for the entire house in summer).

For Power outages and also coz its just awesomely warm: propane fireplace. All the benefits of a wood fireplace with none of the downsides.

What this means is that we don't worry about "oh how about we all go ice skating" just turn the fireplace off without worrying about a fire. No indoor air quality issues. Electricity is out? Sure no fan but who cares. Still warm (and some have battery backup fans). Have to start it up without electricity? No problem, pilot lights w/ piezo starter. Propane delivery isn't that different from having to stockpile the firewood.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#537

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #475

svnpenn wrote: post #20

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".

I'm wondering how rolling outages on the proposed schedules were supposed to work in this situation. If they gave everyone power 50% of the time, everyone would crank everything they have to the max during those periods to get some heat into their buildings. Unless their total ability to consume energy is less than 2x their average consumption, it's not going to help. To have any effect on overall power consumption,…

You are right if they were trying to reduce load 50%, that's basically impossible for the reasons you mention. They were only trying to get it down 20% and it might have worked if they could have effectively rolled the blackouts. A lot of people have natural gas heat. It doesn't work when the power is out (no ignition, no thermostat, and no fan), but doesn't put a huge load on the electric grid when it is on. For a well insulated house, you are probably running the heat for much less than 50% of the day. We run on average 6-8 hours in the winter. A rolling blackout where power was off for 1 hour, on for 2 would have exceeded their target savings, and shouldn't have affected heating or demand.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#538

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:58 AM UTC

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…

>Where would one build them?

Nuclear energy is insanely efficient from a "materials that need to move around" perspective. That's why not having long term storage and just cobbling together short term on-site storage hasn't caused a crisis. The maintenance department at a plant generates more waste by volume.

Finding the space isn't the issue. Anywhere we could fit a couple container ships is fair game if you're looking for a national level solution. Politics is the problem. People are more scared of "magical glowing toxic waste" than normal toxic waste for whatever reason.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#539

Post by gtaylor » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #518

arrosenberg wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote workers just became a resiliency requirement for businesses.

You would think so but there were rolling blackouts during the bay area/socal fire season last year and nobody seemed to change course. I wonder if it’s because a lot of companies in the Bay Area already had remote workers?

Those were fairly short and did not take out the entirety of the Bay at once.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#540

Post by swozey » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #456

justinzollars wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dude, go to the office. Its too cold to sleep in those conditions.

You've never been winter camping?

A texan? I didn't buy anything below a 20* sleeping bag until I started camping in the desert and even 20* was super low for TX, most go with 40. I've got a -30 now but I never knew they went that low until I needed one.