Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#971

Post by axaxs »

kingnothing wrote: post #957
axaxs wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, due to ventilation. Even an indoor fireplace for example is -always- vented, so the gasses can escape via the chimney. If you close the damper with a fire blazing, you'll not have a good time. Outdoor fires well, are outdoors, so there's plenty of oxygen. People die nearly every year in the brutal cold from getting desperate and bringing grills and such indoors to light, which is a big no no.

Downvoting because this isn't the case in the US at least. It's still legal to install internally vented gas burning fireplaces.

AFAIK it's not illegal to run your grill indoors, either. Being legal isn't the same as being a good idea. Ventless fireplaces are also not legal in a lot of places in the US, for good reason.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#972

Post by fuzzfactor »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #201
WorkingDead wrote: post #82

What a horrible article. First, Texas has its own independent grid as a matter of physics. Electricty travels at the speed of light so a continuous grid from coast to coast would get out of sync on phases just by travel distance. Texas just happens to be physically in the middle and large enough to have trouble by being supplied by either east or west grid. Second, ERCOT manages when utilizes can take assets out of c…

Just about every sentence in your comment is wrong: > First, Texas has its own independent grid as a matter of physics. Except that every state directly north of Texas is either on the East or West interconnects. ERCOT having its own grid is solely a matter of political desire. > One top of that reduced capacity, not all equipment is prepared for ice storms because it doesn't really happen here. Except a very similar…

It hasn't been that many years since Texas was connected to other grids.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#973

Post by fuzzfactor »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #948
fuzzfactor wrote: post #938

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0. Houston Lighting & Power Local monopoly. 1. Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company... Limited the profits of a utility holding company, spurring the formation of additional shell companies to each get the maximum allowed. Overturned in 2005, when today's highly increased risk was cemented. 2. Houston Industries, Inc. https://www.referenceforbusiness.…

Forgot to mention the 27-story Houston Public Works building downtown which was built in the 1960's by HL&P still has the nicely air-conditioned parking garage. No garage doors to keep the cold air in since it didn't really matter to the power company. No mayor has ever wanted citizens to be very aware of that since the city took over the building in 1999.

Also HL&P changed to numerous versions of "Reliant" as it was heading toward "spinning off" Centerpoint:

>Reliant Energy Inc.--formerly Houston Industries Inc.--operates among the top five power and natural gas marketers in the United States. With over $32 billion in assets, the company serves nearly four million customers in the southern United States and Minnesota. After the Texas Electric Choice Act was passed in 1999, Reliant Energy rolled its non-regulated operations into Reliant Resources, a majority owned subsidiary with power plants it the United States as well as the Netherlands. Reliant Resources also markets and trades energy in Germany, the United Kingdom, and in the United States. Reliant Energy Communications, an Internet-related division, provides Texans with Internet, data, voice, and other telecommunications services.

https://investors.centerpointenergy.com/corporate-transactio...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#974

Post by sixothree »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #956
sixothree wrote: post #943

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still can’t comprehend why someone like Fauci who said in no uncertain terms not to wear a mask I thought the general assumption was they were afraid of dramatically affecting supply for the people who were risking their lives taking care of sick patients.

And in the process lost a significant portion of trust in public health measures. Saying the don't work is very different than saying they are short in supply and blocking sales temporarily or something. Second one is much easier to reverse without teaching public to second guess every public health directive from there on.

Did they say they don't work or did they say they weren't recommending people wear them?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#975

Post by booi »

cat199 wrote: post #517
magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

> Running your own grid seems cool Texas style, until you have a regional problem and have no where to turn. This cuts both ways, and most of the rest country is often a benefactor - many US/NA companies (and I'm assuming govt/military) have a 3rd DR location on the TX grid precisely because it provides an additional point of redundancy. TX also wasn't impacted by CA mismanagement of it's grid, for example..

Right, TX is just impacted by its own mismanagement of its grid.

Most companies that have and need DR put them in locations with independent power, not based on which grid they are in.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#976

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #972
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just about every sentence in your comment is wrong: > First, Texas has its own independent grid as a matter of physics. Except that every state directly north of Texas is either on the East or West interconnects. ERCOT having its own grid is solely a matter of political desire. > One top of that reduced capacity, not all equipment is prepared for ice storms because it doesn't really happen here. Except a very similar…

It hasn't been that many years since Texas was connected to other grids.

Why do you say that? Texas has had its own grid basically forever. There are, and have been, some small connections to the other grids, but nothing that substantial.

https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#977

Post by lazide »

silexia wrote: post #955
gregw2 wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an engineering standpoint, I agree that you want a true RCA and this event's RCA will be a bit different than 2011's. And this RCA (and its political consequences) will take time, doesn't need to be done right this minute, etc etc. However, this problem is not at its root an engineering one; it is political. While the public attention is on this, we should point attention as close as possible to the most likely…

Is this power outage truly such a bad thing? It seems like a decision that the elected representatives of Texas have chosen to make. They basically said we would rather have much lower utility costs on a regular basis and have a risk that we lose our power every 9 or 10 years in a big storm. Everything is cost vs benefit trade off, and this just seems to be a different decision than most make.

This outage is undoubtably causing 10's of billions of dollars of property damage as we speak (the internet is being flooded with pictures of burst pipes, not to mention rather stark conditions for everyday people that will almost certain result in many deaths in outlier populations).

If the utility company had a disclaimer on their bills, or a billing option to pay more or less depending on if you wanted to run this type of risk - maybe it would be a tradeoff people could make?

Instead this seems to be a complete failure of the regulated utility and it's governing political apparatus resulting in an entirely preventable 'major hurricane' level crisis.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#978

Post by Larx-3 »

HNfriend234 wrote: post #612
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!

Not sure by your comment where exactly you've located your generator, but as a PSA:

Do not run a propane generator in or near your garage if it's attached to your home, since there's a serious risk of CO poisoning. It should be located as far away from the house as possible and away from windows and doors.

Prefarably at least 20 meters, especially if it is a gas-powered generator (OP mentioned theirs is propane, which is not quite as dangerous as gasoline).

Edit: I hope you have battery powered CO detectors on each floor and near the bedroom.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#979

Post by lazide »

sixothree wrote: post #943
cactus2093 wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it’s very easy to selectively forget what you ended up being wrong about and remember what you got right (or close enough to pretend it was right). I was wearing an n95 mask in the grocery store starting March 1st last year, there was no reason at that point to think it wouldn’t help and 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 a…

> I still can’t comprehend why someone like Fauci who said in no uncertain terms not to wear a mask I thought the general assumption was they were afraid of dramatically affecting supply for the people who were risking their lives taking care of sick patients.

The hard part for me, was in the same breath of saying that, they said 'All health care workers need to wear a N95 or better rated mask.'. It was a clear lie to mislead the public, and so transparent it could not possibly accomplish the task of avoiding hoarding, while also torpedoing any trust anyone paying attention might have had in the CDC.

That set of statements probably cost almost as many (or more) lives as the (very misleading) 'no such thing as asymptomatic spread' comments from WHO.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#980

Post by VintageCool »

29083011397778 wrote: post #764
fastball wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that extreme. Texas is huge. Having it's own grid is not some support of excessively-local craziness.

You're describing why Texas having its own grid isn't localized insanity, but for the uninitiated, it still seems like insanity. Why not connect (and be able to draw from) other grids?

If Texas were more connected to other grids and transmitting above a certain threshold of electricity across state lines, they'd become subject to federal regulations. They might have to ensure that their electrical system was built to handle a 10-year cold weather event, and that would cost money.

This way, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can write a report after the 2011 Texas cold snap that took down the Texas power grid. FERC can recommend that companies which generate or distribute power be required to verify that their systems are weather-proofed before every winter and before every forecasted cold snap. And Texas can simply ignore it.

Post reply on HN