911–920 of 1001 posts
Lots of folks in these comments seem to want to use this event to litigate wind vs. solar vs. gas vs. nuclear vs. coal, but it seems like, across the board, power generation facilities in Texas were simply unprepared to operate in such low temperatures. All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates.
The problem is simple really. Green energy can’t handle bad weather. Texas has made a huge green energy investment and fossil fuel energy sources have been on the decline since...2008. Atomic energy has also been demonized. While the article states that ‘Most of the power knocked offline came from thermal sources’ that is a number based on total wattage output, not total production sources, and those outages were cau…
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> I still can’t comprehend why someone like Fauci who said in no uncertain terms not to wear a mask, it won’t help never faced any repercussions May I ask what exactly you were hoping for here?
Being fired or resigning in disgrace. If my bad advice cost thousands of lives, I would at least retire from public life.
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This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid does have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importing power from both the East and West interconnections. The problem is that this is a truly regional event and not just isolated to Texas. The entire central US is struggling right now. The SPP (which manages electricity for Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, and oth…
This is a two day old account repeating exactly one trope FWIW.
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dude, go to the office. Its too cold to sleep in those conditions.
> Its too cold to sleep in those conditions. I don't understand - how do you think people camp in cold parts of the world? Of course you can sleep in those conditions.
I think the chances of random families in TX having 0 degree cold weather camping gear are low.
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> I still can’t comprehend why someone like Fauci who said in no uncertain terms not to wear a mask, it won’t help never faced any repercussions May I ask what exactly you were hoping for here?
Being fired or resigning in disgrace. If my bad advice cost thousands of lives, I would at least retire from public life.
The two people with the power to fire Dr Fauci are the NIH director, and the president (via his power over the NIH director). In fact by summer 2020 Dr Fauci had earned the ire of the White House, but for essentially the opposite reason (this was when the White House was still trying to underplay the pandemic as not-that-bad, going-away-soon, it'll be an Easter miracle, etc). As such the NIH director aligned with Dr Fauci against the White house, and Fauci was seen as the "defender of wearing masks" or somesuch. For example, consider the following article:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/16/francis-collins-defends-...
I don't think it's impossible to have seen Fauci fired if that's how Trump played it politically. But it's not.
Consider the following:
> Trump, in particular, has openly disagreed with Fauci’s guidance on whether fans should attend professional football games in the fall [...]
> In recent weeks, as the U.S. outbreak has spiraled out of control, Fauci has urged Americans to wear masks and to practice social distancing. The White House, however, has refused to amplify his advice, and instead has escalated its attacks on him.
The white house was trying to stimulate the economy by reassuring people it's okay to go out and spend money. Attacking Dr. Fauci for not being serious enough about masks sends the opposite signal. Hence, Fauci became the "wear a mask" guy (as viewed in opposition to the White House). Thus, everyone forgot / didn't care that early on he was wrong about masks.
Hope that cleared things up.
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This is meta/tangent, but I've had similar conversations a few times recently. Seems to be in the zeitgeist. Re: everyone starts deciding what they believe to be truth within 48 hours of the outage. Maybe, hopefully... the epidemic is humbling us. It's been significant and long lasting enough to rub our noses in whatever opinions we so brashly got behind too early. Professors and peasants alike. We're more likely to…
I have yet to see any of my friends and definitely not politicians (of any stripe) humbled about anything pandemic. If anything there’s a doubling down and mental gymnastics to explain away inconsistencies or hide lack of knowledge. I’d love to share your optimism- seriously- do you have an example in mind?
I'm not predicting any kind of revolution, and this is all at the margin. I don't expect TV takestars or politicians to be the vanguard. That said, I have noticed people pondering the unknowability of it all. More interest in margin or error equivalents. Stuff like that.
Example: Covid conversations (the one I have in mind was with my aunt) 6 months ago were along the lines of "the government did X, Y happened." Now, it's wondering whether X impacted Y... counterfactual thinking.
I have yet to encounter this in my work/corporate life though, and honestly, that's where it's most needed.
Because of what happened in Texas, the higher demand of gas affected electricity generation in Northern Mexico which has been without electricity too. As as I understand it, not only the price of Gas wet up 5,000% but also there were shortages. The federal government has started doing electricity cuts in most Mexico to control the gas reserves and distribute energy to the Northern states. Edit: Here is an article abo…
Mexico is smart though because they have LNG import terminals. There is an incoming LNG carrier coming in less than 24 hours which will restore their power.
Apparently one of the issues in Texas is that they use just-in-time gas delivery from their wells .... which just froze.
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There are absolutely countless iron fireplaces here in Norway, they been the most popular installations for decades. The modern ones with afterburn contour are also quite efficient in energy output per unit fuel burned.
Jøtul [1], one of the the largest manufacturers of fireplaces in Norway has been around since 1853, manufacturing mostly cast iron fireplaces. The considerations are different, though. Cast iron is great if you want to radiate as much heat as possible as fast as possible or need to heat a small area (e.g. single room per heater). There's a reason small cast-iron Jøtul fireplaces used to be the stereotypical heater fo…