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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#611

Post by jimmaswell »

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…

Radiation buried far below the ground in a remote region where it will never impact anybody or anything is not an externality of any magnitude.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#612

Post by HNfriend234 »

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 in Dallas too. What we did was pull out our generator that runs on propane then run an extension cord from the garage to inside the house connected to an electric heater. Close the bedroom door. We were about 75 degrees.

You are crazy to not have a backup generator! It is an essential item to have!

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#614

Post by 8note »

tharkun__ wrote: post #140
svnpenn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be celcius? I made it very clear that I'm in Dallas, and we don't use Celcius. That's not a knock against Celcius, frankly it's just a knock on you for the dumb comment.

While you (and siblings) are all correct, I don't get the down voting of the poor guy trying to make a joke while being considerate-ish and hoping that you guys were actually warmer than you were. That said, I've been out in the hammock in 0F here, including snow and wind chill on top and been warm (oh wait, I'll be down voted too). It's all about insulation, which actually helps in both warm and cold weather. You ca…

Making jokes is for Reddit, not HN

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#615

Post by conk »

ineedasername wrote: post #572
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.

Seems like they should divert a small part of their output to keeping a small battery backup just in case of emergencies. Then in an emergency the battery could reignite the system and run the blowers with the furnace again diverting some output to keeping things charged.

You would need the generator to provide about 100 watts to run the electronics and blower. Something passive like a thermoelectric generator would require a large amount of surface area to get this much power. Something more active like a traditional generator would require significant maintenance. If you’re really concerned your best bet is to get a couple Powerwalls and limit what you run off them. You could go a week running just the furnace and charging cellphones.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#616

Post by snowwindwaves »

tmotwu wrote: post #171
ckemere wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people down the street from me in Houston are currently powering their house with their solar panels, actually. They were able to loan their generator to their neighbor. We had to abandon our house.

Last year, I went on vacation to Alaska. Me and my friends airbnb'd an off-grid home/cabin in Talkeetna, about several hundred miles north of Anchorage. It was powered entirely on solar panels on the roof and right by the house. Water from the rivers. Granted, it had a wood stove, like most cabin/homes are in the north. Just want to chime in and say that renewables are absolutely very prevalent in colder, remote clim…

it isn't that big a deal to run a fridge and some led lights on solar pAnels. As you identified heating and cooling are the big energy users.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#617

Post by _carbyau_ »

treis wrote: post #542
ip26 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, if you think about it almost all of the heat from the fire goes right up the chimney. The brick of the firebox & chimney are generally built outside the building envelope for safety reasons, so any heat in the brick doesn't warm the house. The only heat that actually makes its way into the house is the radiant heat cast from the fire itself, which is small. The smoke is poison, and unlike a furnace, gas firepl…

Even worse, all that exhaust gas that goes up the chimney has to be replaced. And it's replaced by cold air from the outside coming through all the little books and crannies of your house.

I have seen slow combustion fireplaces still drawing in air from the room in front of them, leading to your exact comment.

Seems like it could be fixed with a simple design change.

But I am not a fireplace lawyer so I won't profess to know.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#618

Post by StillBored »

wins32767 wrote: post #480
StillBored wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently its not, there was one in the 1940's that was worse. So its the usual "ignore any outlier we don't like" attitude that seems common in so many things. Plus, its not like this is unusual. The random unexpected heat wave in oct -> rolling blackouts. Unexpected storm during hurricane season -> power goes out for a week due to unmaintained power lines, etc. Its why you need engineers running your grid, not som…

> Its why you need engineers running your grid, not some politically connected organization which seems to prioritize free market theories above delivering power. Why do engineers seem to think that it's possible to do things at scale without politics being involved? A statement that boils down to "trust this group of people that I am affiliated with because we know better" is an inherently political statement, even…

Autistic power dictators?

What I'm trying to say is that electricity is a life/death situation, not only when it freezes but during heat waves too. We go to extremes to engineer airplanes (and we have recently seen how that can fail too). Weighing once in 80 year events as inconsequential and failing to properly design/maintain backup generators (Fukushima), or NG holding tanks/heaters or whatever it takes to secure the supply isn't generally the function of the guy doing the engineering unless he has been given some kind of financial constraint. Same at it was some bean counter who allowed the 737MAX to be sold without redundant sensors or decided to skimp on the training requirements to save some $.

So, who was it, who didn't size heaters on the wind turbines correctly despite turbines being installed in far colder places, or didn't build NG holding tanks sufficient to supply the peaker generators for any length of time? Most of those decisions come back to free market financial pressures that are prioritizing cheap over reliable.

The grid is a giant redundant system, designed to correct for errors on the part of individual actors. Its only when the system is systematicaly undermined does it fail like this.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#619

Post by ecnahc515 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #408
s0rce wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different choice of lubricants? I have no idea really, I also read they have wind power generation in Antarctica so its not a fundamental problem just a result of certain design/engineering choices.

> just a result of certain design/engineering choices I think this is the point. Things are engineered for the environment which they are expected to operate, and to be optimized for those environments[0]. I would not expect a wind turbine that operates (and is designed to operate) in Antartica to not fail (potentially catestrophically) when operating in 100 degree Texas heat, [0] One could (and should) argue that th…

Except Texas has had one of these winter storms roughly every 10 years, so it's not like it's unexpected.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#620

Post by cozzyd »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #55
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".

Hopefully that's 5C and not 5F.

Probably Kelvin
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