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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#701

Post by andbberger »

8note wrote: post #654
ranrotx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is the thing no one is talking about. Dallas has easily added 10k apartment units in the past 5 years. Almost all of them are all electric (no gas heating). Considering it’s more energy efficient to cool with Air Conditioning on the hottest summer days than it is to heat with electricity in the winter, it’s no wonder the grid collapsed when the region was below freezing for several days and some generating…

Resistive electricity will be close to 100% efficient, and heat pumps even higher depending on the outdoor temperature. What kinda of air conditioners beat that for efficiency? I don't think we covered those in heat engines

Air conditioners are heat pumps. Resistive heating is inefficient compared to burning something, and very inefficient compared to heat pumps

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#702

Post by kevinmchugh »

kelnos wrote: post #502
gregw2 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: All 7 developers in my Houston team (semi-geographically scattered in the city) lost power; half for >24 hrs (it's 10-25 degrees F here for the last 2-3 days). Most lost water for some stretch of time and some still don't have it. I don't think any completely lost heat (most have gas) but at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work t…

In 1996 (or thereabouts), I lived in Maryland, and my family lost power for 6 days due to a snow/ice storm that took out a ton of power lines (water froze on them and the added weight pulled them down). We had no natural gas service, and our running water was provided by a well in the backyard that had an electric pump. So no electricity, heat, or running water for 6 days in ~20-30°F weather. (Fortunately we'd prepar…

Interior or central chimneys make more sense to me than ones against an exterior wall, and they seem common enough in houses of a certain vintage at least. If your chimney is on an outer wall, doesn't it radiate heat to the outdoors?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#703

Post by confidantlake »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #332
gregw2 wrote: post #117

What went wrong is that the Texas legislature which owns Texas-specific grid process to avoid interference from the Feds didn't figure out how to also ensure Texas generator companies got compensated for weatherizing (and ensuring it was done). How many of the 24+6 recommendations from the NERC/FERC review of last time this happened in Texas (hint:2011) were taken up by the legislature or those at ERCOT they delegate…

Yes I agree state's legislatures did not prepare. But maybe that shows why a body of politicians is not prepped for engineering nuances. Maybe they should have adequately applied leverage to the power companies to "push" them to better practices rather than trying to fine and inspect and regulate which is an inherently "pulling" option which the companies will always try to weasel out of. This argument to incentivize…

Under 10 ppm you get a carrot. Then drinking water will still be 9.99. How is it any different?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#704

Post by malandrew »

gorgoiler wrote: post #658
throwanem wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a good place to learn the art, do you know? I'm not in Texas, but I have two woodstoves now, and my one experiment with them thus far has taught me only that I have a lot to learn.

Wood stoves are charcoal breeder reactors powered by their own vaporized wood gas. The re-radiated heat from the ironwork is what gives them their extreme warmth. They are like many other fuel burners — stage one vaporizes the fuel and stage two burns the vapor — it’s just that both stages are in the same iron firebox. When you start a fire you want to quickly get the stove up to temperature. Use small split logs and…

> It looks like a cross between Aurora borealis and a Backdraft (1991) slo-mo sequence — a deep red wraith that flaps around slowly, completely unlike the sooty yellow flames you began with. You get a real feeling for how it’s the gas not the wood that’s burning. (Having a stove with a glass viewing window really opened my eyes to their operation.)

Would love a video if you can find one to see exactly what you're talking about.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#705

Post by cbmuser »

The blame doesn’t lie on the power grid but on the power sources.

Texas has only four nuclear reactors, it should have many more as only nuclear is able to deliver power under virtually all weather conditions (yes, I know that South Texas 1 tripped but that was due to a false alarm).

It’s because of renewables and gas power plants that electricity became scarse. Many wind turbines in particular froze because of the low temperatures.

The situation in Texas reminds me of the situation during a blizzard in East Germany 1978/79 where all lignite-fired power plants came to a hold due to the lignite freezing while the two nuclear power plants delivered electricity without any problems.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#706

Post by anonfornoreason »

throwanem wrote: post #446
bdamm wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's a good place to learn the art, do you know? I'm not in Texas, but I have two woodstoves now, and my one experiment with them thus far has taught me only that I have a lot to learn.

Other poster covered it well, but one thing to add. There are the kinds of wood burning stove. Old simple, pre EPA mandated high efficiency stove, efficient stoves with a catalyst to provide the clean burn, and efficient stoves that use secondary air injection to provide a clean burn. The new efficient stoves are a bit more forgiving for throttling them down for long burns without producing too much creosote they can cause chimney fires.

I just replaced the old stove in my house with a new catalyst model and I burn 30% less wood while providing more steady even heat. I am heating 4000 sqft 2 story with only wood heat, one load every 12 hours, house between 80 and 64 degrees depending on location.

Wood heat is great!

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#707

Post by blihp »

Animats wrote: post #484
qbasic_forever wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck, and here's some advice from a midwesterner that has dealt with cold, ice, and snow forever. If it's cold enough to start freezing things inside then make sure you have some water flowing in your pipes. Keep your kitchen sink running on a low (very tiny) dribble. Maybe even keep a shower/bathrub running at a very low rate too. You do NOT want to be dealing with frozen, broken flooding pipes on top of no pow…

That's not recommended for some areas of Texas. There's low water pressure and water has to be conserved.[1] (Edit: Houston only.) [1] https://www.wfaa.com/article/weather/if-dripping-faucets-sav...

For those in that situation, turn off the water to your home and drain the pipes. Bursting pipes can do massive damage to your home and make it uninhabitable during the rehab.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#708

Post by cbmuser »

rodgerd wrote: post #549
mikesabbagh wrote: post #270

It is surprising that windfarms are freezing. Here in Quebec, we have windfarms that have more than 6 months a year of snow and temperatures much below the freezing point. How can they freeze? they dont use water or gaz or oil. It is only a fan and dynamo. Did water seep inside and freeze it?

A nuclear plant stopped generating because the turbine froze; components were exposed to open air because Texas doesn't normally get that cold. People built to a certain set of assumptions, with an implicit risk, and the risks came due. The only way to avoid another event like this would be to make the generation more resilient to extreme cold, which will cost more.

> A nuclear plant stopped generating because the turbine froze; components were exposed to open air because Texas doesn't normally get that cold.

That’s not true. The plant tripped because of a false alarm. The operators said the reactor would be back online shortly after safety checks.

A whole turbine doesn’t freeze. The turbines are in buildings, not outside.

Edit: Apparently, South Texas has its turbines outside. But these didn’t freeze but pressure-sensing lines failed. Source: https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-trippe...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#709

Post by gego »

I am always amazed how well the "market" regulates resilience... when, for example, regulators used the Wienerberger winter-proof brick with much better isolation as standard for building regulations in some regions of Europe with cold seasons, businesses and builders sued. Two years later, the same regulation helped people come through a cold winter... I fear it needs regulations for infrastructure resilience...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#710

Post by JamesBarney »

beerandt wrote: post #696
kelnos wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1996 (or thereabouts), I lived in Maryland, and my family lost power for 6 days due to a snow/ice storm that took out a ton of power lines (water froze on them and the added weight pulled them down). We had no natural gas service, and our running water was provided by a well in the backyard that had an electric pump. So no electricity, heat, or running water for 6 days in ~20-30°F weather. (Fortunately we'd prepar…

>Granted, the reason for that outage was very different from what happened in Texas There are actually a lot of ice/ freezing-rain downed powerlines happening simultaneously with the rolling blackouts, and that's a huge part of the problem. The grid/supply is being blamed for both. Of course if the lines weren't down, it would increase demand and there wouldn't magically be any more supply to feed them... but it does…

The grid supply issue is orders of magnitude worst than the downed powerlines.

I don't know anyone who is affected by a downed powerline and I know 12 people without power.

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