Freezing in Houston.

[Mike_J]

It doesn’t get better or worse than this depending on your perspective. I am visiting with one of my daughters in Houston. So it is cold here. I started my morning yesterday in south Florida where there was a nice 78 degree tropical breeze flowing through the house and out into the Florida room where I was peacefully enjoying my amp rebuild.


Well, I decided it would be wise to get to Houston before precipitation was expected at about 5pm. Get up this morning and no power.


Apparently the geniuses at the power company thought it would be a good idea to spend a large amount of their recent capital expenditures on wind turbines which you may be in favor of but I get dizzy and nauseous every time I go buy one.


Well the reason I am freezing as I write this is apparently the wind turbines froze up and had to be taken off line and since they eliminated the common sense fossil fuel power plants and replaced them with these monstrosities I am freezing.


The next time you see a tree hugger please beat them with a stick for me. I know I plan to, at least verbally.

[echuta13]

All that free energy stuff is kinda nice (when it works).   

[shooter]

iced over solar arrays are real pretty to look at but do little in "energy".  if you get to see the ice sheets slide off the turbine blades, it's also cool to watch.  N, ya, turbines make me nauseous also when I get close also
Me, I made a $100 bet with the oil guy, leasing up my neighborhood (I was the last hold-out in a 6 mile plot) , told 'em he'd hit big if he aimed the drill head at my barn (1600' away) he laughed, showed me the where the Engineer wants to drill....yup, 4th drill, right at my barn, we negotiated, signed.  then geo-politicking hit, i figure a barrel will be at least $60 by the time they hit, 200 barrels a day, 300 days a year, estimate 4 year well.  double our income per year, call me Jed 

[PRR]

It is colder and darker at my uncle in Texas than here in Maine. He seems to still have power, but a lot of Texans are huddled around the WiFi with all the lights out, hoping the power stays on. For many Texans, it isn't.

Texas figured it had an infinite supply of gas. But most of it is in Oklahoma, so there's pipes, and population out-growing the pipes. The few places beyond the pipes mostly use electric heat. And it hasn't been this cold since 1949, and who remembers that? My nephew lost gas pressure, then he lost electricity. If he had gas, he couldn't run the furnace without electricity. While a plan was rolling outages (hour off, couple hours on), actually they can not manage that plan in the cold and dark. A lot of people have been out for 36+ hours and nobody thinks it will come back soon.

Most places in the US, WalMart never closes. Maybe overnight, but not whole days. About half the WalMarts in DFW are closed and no estimate when they may reopen.

Louisiana and Oklahoma are also in real distress.

[drew]

https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/1361700969545932810?s=20

[PRR]

> https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper..................

Yes, I edited-out some bumph about wind. The knee-jerk reaction is to blame the last new thing forced upon us, but this will probably be a long-term lack of keeping-up, expecting the unexpected (but expectable), and bad luck. It may be one guy after a hellacious drive to work, being slow to react to extreme e-network conditions, on top of old parts and loose connections.

And tons of ignorance among reporters. Did you know transformers "break"? They can but very unusual. In overload, they blow-up and burn. Which is probably kinda routine in some parts of Texas. Can they burn in 4 degree cold? Yes, but not so easy, and it takes time.

However there is a huge political banner on Texas' odd energy policies, so the truth will stay ignored.

[DummyLoad]

Texas figured it had an infinite supply of gas. But most of it is in Oklahoma, so there's pipes, and population out-growing the pipes. The few places beyond the pipes mostly use electric heat.

have no idea where that information came from? texas actually ships most of local production to other states and about 4bnCF daily to mexico. northern mexico is in a dire situation because they are currently receiving only about 3/4 of that capacity, and that is likely to be reduced further.

the population density in central texas over the last 20 years has doubled. that, coupled with nearly all the new infrastructure (residential & commercial) being built without NG distribution - it's a "green thing".  with nearly all the electric energy output for the last few days needed mostly for heat generation, stuff was bound to break. we lost about 6GW of wind production capacity, adding to the calamity of gas and coal plants systematically going off-line due to extreme temperature related equipment malfunctions, with some going off-line as an act of self preservation, that was/is about another 30GW. so much for ERCOT's rolling outages plan. about 1/2 of my colleagues have been without power for over 40hrs as of this writing. some are being rotated now in 20mintues on 20minutes off rolling, but most are still hard down. the good news is - the worst is coming tonight! more snow/sleet expected. viola's a comin' and she's a cold bitch too.   

--pete

[Mike_J]

iced over solar arrays are real pretty to look at but do little in "energy".  if you get to see the ice sheets slide off the turbine blades, it's also cool to watch.  N, ya, turbines make me nauseous also when I get close also
Me, I made a $100 bet with the oil guy, leasing up my neighborhood (I was the last hold-out in a 6 mile plot) , told 'em he'd hit big if he aimed the drill head at my barn (1600' away) he laughed, showed me the where the Engineer wants to drill....yup, 4th drill, right at my barn, we negotiated, signed.  then geo-politicking hit, i figure a barrel will be at least $60 by the time they hit, 200 barrels a day, 300 days a year, estimate 4 year well.  double our income per year, call me Jed 

I wish you the best of luck Jed. I was in the oil business for over 20 years. Favorite experience was in Karen’s County, Kansas. This field hadbeen discovered four years earlier and we were buying his 55 wells. He was 84 and never believed his wealth was going to hold out from the discovery of the oil so he was still farming and his pickup truck was at least 15 years old. He had bib overalls on with two checks he received that day for royalty payments in the amount of $68K and $95K and he was afraid to buy a new pickup or quit planting his fields. As I recall we settled on a purchase price of $35 million for his wells. Still wonder if he bought a new pickup truck with any of it.

[PRR]

......no idea where that information came from? texas actually ships most of local production to other states ....

Yes, and here we see it stamped "OK". Which is I guess just a round-up point. Yes, there is a lot of confused misinformation going around. Sorry to add to it.

I was startled to read (is it true?) that 1 of 4 nuclear plants shut down. Allegedly cuz their cooling water froze up? I grew up near Salem NJ, which gets cold, and just never burbled (ah, not much, for a nuke) except scheduled cleanings/refills. Maine Yankee was not far south of here, shut down for slack safety not ice. Not to mention Three Mile Island. But of course up here we think about winter ice, and put piping down deep.

As of midnight-ish it looks like another long cold dark night for many Texans.

[shooter]

Allegedly cuz their cooling water froze up?

we Got a couple in MI - maybe, sounds more like a - ah shit, forgot......
hopefully the switch gear folk can "rob from Peter..." and get power up
lost power in Jan once for 5 days, wasn't fun

Still wonder if he bought a new pickup truck

I'll hang on to my red-neck '03 dodge, maybe pay a mechanic instead of laying on the ground!!

[DummyLoad]

we have 2 operating nukes that provide about 10% of the total power to the ERCOT grid. one was shutdown due to freezing. i have no idea what the individual contribution to the grid each has, but as of now, the last report is there is about a 30GW shortage of power. take the ERCOT graphing with a grain of salt.

http://www.ercot.com/

at the bottom of the page, down bar on "View Current System Conditions" for photovoltaic, wind, and overall system status'.

http://www.ercot.com/glossary/

link to a glossary of terms used by ERCOT.

[Greenwichpaul]

"So when critics pointed to a loss of nearly half of Texas's wind-energy capacity as a result of frozen turbines, they failed to point out double that amount was being lost from gas and other non-renewable supplies such as coal and nuclear."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56085733

But, hey, I like trees.

[shooter]

But, hey, I like trees.

me too, otherwise I woulda froze 

[Mike_J]

I am as happy as a pig in slop. Just returned to my daughter’s home after two days with friends. They had intermittent power and a fireplace with wood. My daughter now has power and water. How good is life.

[shooter]

Life is good.  I started using wood heat in '84.  bought a "state of the art electric home" 50's built.  House payment in the $300's, electric bill in the $500's
bought a Vermont soapstone with a catalytic convertor, 2 "computer" controlled dampers and a blower ~ $1200  We had the windows open most winters     the downside, max log was 4" X 14", upside, that's what the real woodburning folk left behind