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Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#61

Post by dylan604 »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #51
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #4

> Some of these tactics have proven controversial with consumers. One program that pays big power users like cryptocurrency operations millions to conserve, has come under particular scrutiny, as Texans have been asked to conserve voluntarily for months. This is... amazing. Not in a good way.

So... start a "cryptocurrency" business and get paid to not use electricity. I mean, if that's not a good way to funnel money from the lower classes to the rich, I don't know what is.

I want to buy up all of the old readily available GPUs. No need to fight over new latest gen GPUs to actually produce coins. You just need equipment that looks like you can do mining. Then, voluntarily not mine anything so the power company pays you. That is the actual business model to not ever mine anything.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#62

Post by anon____ »

kaibee wrote: post #50
actionfromafar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I have to set up shop in Texas with some space heaters and claim my bitcoin energy credits!

>“His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings…

The quote is from Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#63

Post by nonethewiser »

vel0city wrote: post #59
nonethewiser wrote: post #21

What's stopping power companies from ramping up energy production? They know in advance there will be problems. What stopping them from just producing more? I realize there are some peculiarities of the Texas grid, but this is obviously a problem beyond Texas, as California and east coast has blackouts as well. I'm asking about all these cases. I imagine maybe this requires some additional infrastructure that simply…

When you're already running at full tilt, how are you going to ramp up energy production? You then need to build more. Building and connecting takes time. Texas has added several state's worth of energy to the grid in the past few years. The peak hit at the 2021 winter storm was 76GW, far higher than any normal time historically. This summer, just two years later, Texas is going >85GW of power demand every day . For…

So essentially its high growth in energy demand? And probably it not making sense financially to overbuild.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#64

Post by ForgottenPwd »

detourdog wrote: post #11
outside1234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its newsworthy because of its frequency of occurrence.

I think the news is that they paid bitcoin miners to sit idle. The only other choice was to charge them more for power usage.

Or just cut power to them. It's hardly on the level of critical infrastructure like a hospital, or 50,000 homes in 110+ degree F heat.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

vel0city wrote: post #45
gcr wrote: post #9

The article states that the sharp drop in reserves was being “investigated,” and that it is “suspected” that a large power plant stopped working. Is observability of Texan infrastructure so poor that the _power company_ doesn’t have a comprehensive view of _which power plants are operational_?

ERCOT is not "the power company". They're the marketplace where many power companies exchange. And they probably do know a bit of what happened but aren't going to share preliminary information until deeper analysis is complete.

The power marketplace company should actually have better information on questions like “did a powerplant selling into the market go offline” than anyone except the plant operator, and should have more information about the impact than anyone.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#66

Post by no_wizard »

lukev wrote: post #49
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #4

> Some of these tactics have proven controversial with consumers. One program that pays big power users like cryptocurrency operations millions to conserve, has come under particular scrutiny, as Texans have been asked to conserve voluntarily for months. This is... amazing. Not in a good way.

The original idea behind this is sound. Because production and consumption must net to ~0, from the grid's perspective cutting load is just as valuable as providing generative capacity. Imagine you own a factory that typically runs 24/7 and is part of the system's base load. There is a material cost for you to shut down production. These structures were set up to make it economically viable to have these types of ins…

I have a friend who works in the energy industry specifically targeting power grid management.

It is far easier for power companies to manage power loss for things with consistent power usage (low variance) than high variance / inconsistent power loads.

Businesses tend to be very consistent, even if their power draw is high, like manufacturing or hospitals etc.

Residential power tends to be more variant and harder to fine tune for because it can spike quite suddenly in unexpected ways and tends to add more base load over time.

Therefore, it’d actually make more sense for power companies to buy people homes in other states if lowering base load is a concern, since residential is where all the major issues are for load balancing, no?

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#67

Post by somehnguy »

scientifik wrote: post #17
gcr wrote: post #9

The article states that the sharp drop in reserves was being “investigated,” and that it is “suspected” that a large power plant stopped working. Is observability of Texan infrastructure so poor that the _power company_ doesn’t have a comprehensive view of _which power plants are operational_?

It sounds like they're dancing around what may be a social issue; ERCOT sent an email asking people to "conserve", within 30 minutes they saw a negative impact. Is it possible some recipients saw the email and took the complete opposite action?

I wouldn't doubt that at all. During covid it became clear to me that there is a large part of the population that does the opposite of what any authority figure tells them regardless of how much sense it makes, just to be spiteful & show how 'uncontrolled' they are.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#68

Post by netrus »

dylan604 wrote: post #61
HumblyTossed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... start a "cryptocurrency" business and get paid to not use electricity. I mean, if that's not a good way to funnel money from the lower classes to the rich, I don't know what is.

I want to buy up all of the old readily available GPUs. No need to fight over new latest gen GPUs to actually produce coins. You just need equipment that looks like you can do mining. Then, voluntarily not mine anything so the power company pays you. That is the actual business model to not ever mine anything.

I guess you also need to draw and pay for a lot of electricity most of the time to get that kind of deal.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#69

Post by FrustratedMonky »

Just a few months ago on HN there was a thread discussing the upcoming summer.

Was surprised just how many 'free-market' advocates came out to say how great things were, how the market has created additional supply, and all this was just lib panic.

They are paying 'crypto-miners' to temporarily stop running? That is absurd. So I could make money just by moving a mining operation to Texas, and wait for a shutdown.

How much failure does it take to realize some regulation is good. It benefits everyone.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#70

Post by kaibee »

gyanreyer wrote: post #16
ftxbro wrote: post #5

It would have had blackouts if it didn't build all those bitcoin mines. The bitcoin mines encouraged power infrastructure development, and they can just be taken offline when high heat causes power demand spikes for air conditioning.

I'm not from Texas so genuinely asking, is there hard proof that anyone specifically invested in power infrastructure because of bitcoin mines in a way they wouldn't have otherwise?

> I'm not from Texas so genuinely asking, is there hard proof that anyone specifically invested in power infrastructure because of bitcoin mines in a way they wouldn't have otherwise?

In theory supply and demand still exists in Texas, and Bitcoin miners do demand a lot of energy. Assuming that energy companies are including Bitcoin miners in their demand projections (I don't see why they wouldn't?) then the default assumption is that just based on the market forces at play, capacity should have been built with Bitcoin miner demand included.

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