[Letitroll98]

I just read the daily blog of Dr Heather Cox Richardson who stated that in the 1930s most of Texas decided to cut itself off from the national power grid and go its own way with power delivery.  When every single Texas family turned on their electric heaters the grid collapsed causing all the outages.  With no way to draw on the national grid there was no path for recovery leaving millions of citizens without power for days.  El Paso didn't subscribe to that effort and is hooked up to the national grid and its citizens were only without power for a couple of hours.  Texas residents here may be able to verify that?

[Danny Richie]

I just read the daily blog of Dr Heather Cox Richardson who stated that in the 1930s most of Texas decided to cut itself off from the national power grid and go its own way with power delivery.  When every single Texas family turned on their electric heaters the grid collapsed causing all the outages.  With no way to draw on the national grid there was no path for recovery leaving millions of citizens without power for days.  El Paso didn't subscribe to that effort and is hooked up to the national grid and its citizens were only without power for a couple of hours.  Texas residents here may be able to verify that?

Actually we allowed our state to go a little too green. A coal burning plant was shut down just 40 miles from me and now the fields for as far as you can see are covered in wind generators. And all those wind generators are now frozen.

[Danny Richie]

Guys, we just got another 8 to 10 inches of snow around here. And you can't even see where the road stops and the ditches start. The roads, the fields, and everything is covered in snow. So nothing will be getting in or out of here for a few days.

And we are in a rural area in a part of the country where we don't have too many snow plows around. This could take a while.

We'll be at work in the shop packing up orders, but they won't be getting picked up by UPS.

And so far we are one of the lucky ones that still have power.

[Hobbsmeerkat]

Glad you still got power, even if things are stuck at a bit of a standstill for the next few days.

Stay safe & stay warm! 

[77SunsetStrip]

Actually we allowed our state to go a little too green. A coal burning plant was shut down just 40 miles from me and now the fields for as far as you can see are covered in wind generators. And all those wind generators are now frozen.

The problem unsolved to date is no effective storage technology to capture wind or solar energy to tap during peak load conditions.  Much more hard work necessary to develop alternative energy sources that make sense.  Also, not as simple as Texas isolated from the national grid, even if true.  Infrastructure from the power plant to each customer is not sized for long term higher than designed for peak loads.  Same problem when I lived up North.  Cold spells routinely blew transformers serving neighborhoods due to overload.  Any Utility that must ask government for approval of their rate structure is between a rock and hard place. 

The rolling blackouts in Texas should serve as a warning to the rest of the Country.   This is what Nationwide irrationally applied green energy policy will look like.

[VinceT]

Keep an eye on the fuel prices

Already been creeping up, will be interesting to see if the trend continues or is just typical market based price fluctuation vs. Energy policy.

[wushuliu]

I think it's bizarre to blame a set of policies that don't even exist yet for factual decisions made by entities and individuals who are on record about the reasons for Texas' power problems. And now as a thank you, Texans may have to pay even more in rising charges.

I don't really care one way or the other about whether the Texas energy's independent infrastructure was a good idea or not. But a region known for straight talk, tough men, and independence should be able to take responsibility for the bad as well as the good. As is often said in this hobby 'there's no free lunch'.

Thoughts and prayers to all those affected.

[corndog71]

Texas is over 80% fossil fuel driven.  Frozen windmills aren’t the problem.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/02/16/wind-power-isnt-to-blame-for-texas-electricity-crisis/?sh=29f49b6721b3

Switzerland and Denmark have windmills and they figured out how to make them not freeze. 
Also, colder air is more dense and is better at spinning the windmills.

[Danny Richie]

Thanks corndog,

It looks like the frozen wind generators are only part of the problem. I guess we haven't figured out how to keep them from freezing yet.

And good points from you too wushuliu. When we dig our own holes we can't complain about falling down in them.

On a good note, warmer weather Friday and Saturday...

[77SunsetStrip]

Texas is over 80% fossil fuel driven.  Frozen windmills aren’t the problem.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/02/16/wind-power-isnt-to-blame-for-texas-electricity-crisis/?sh=29f49b6721b3

Switzerland and Denmark have windmills and they figured out how to make them not freeze. 
Also, colder air is more dense and is better at spinning the windmills.

the Forbes article accurately points out multiple factors involved in the current power shortage.  However, there are unavoidable facts about wind and solar that politics or belief systems can't change.  No doubt there is tremendous potential energy that can be captured from wind and solar.  Until there is massive energy storage capability that can be distributed on demand, wind and solar usefulness is limited.

Ever been to west Texas, wind howling, but only 1 in 10 wind turbines actually spinning.  Power grid demand not present and no place to store energy so 9 out of 10 turbines locked down during prime conditions to capture wind energy.  Better energy storage technology will be developed to capture alternative energy resources.  Until then, they are "feel good" measure with very limited benefit.     

 

[jparkhur]

Got wind turbines all over Iowa, MN and WI.  Texas doesn't plan on this weather and they did not install core heaters as well as de icing methods.  Our are running as normal with the winter wind.   -40 yesterday with wind.   Texas and southern states just too cheap to include the cold weather floor mats and mirror heaters..   Also, your nuclear plant runs on water cooling, the is frozen solid, and the refiner in south Texas outside Houston shut down because of the machines not wanting to rotate in the ice.  In the last thirty years, in Austin, there has only been three times there was measurable snow for more than 24 hours.   Now,  my 12.5kw of solar on my garage does not work since it is not warm enough to have the snow slide off and melt.   urrrrr.

[tom739]

...

[timind]

Get ready to call a plumber when things warm up and the busted water pipes start spewing water. It happened to me once, and it makes a mess.

[Toecutter]

It's awful isn't it, as beautiful  the mountains  and forests are in the northeast,  im so done with snow. At least we are prepared for it up here .

How you guys.dealing with the cold when power goes out. Most in our parts have Woodstock, generators or propane backup heat.

[S Clark]

...  Texas and southern states just too cheap to include the cold weather floor mats and mirror heaters..   

Just got power last night.  I had tried to hook up my router and computer to our little generator, but the pulsing fried my primary computer 
Texas has it's own grid, privately managed and overseen by the state. It works well to cut corners- most of the time.  So when our governor says he's going to get to the bottom of the debacle, all he has to do is look in the mirror. 
Living out in the country, I'm used to power outages measured in a few hours, but not days. It's the coldest it's been in my 68 years.  Our wood stove has been going non stop since Sunday, but it didn't save my pump house.  I've got lots of busted pvc to deal with when it finally warms up.  Even my generator won't help if the pipes are gone. 

[Toecutter]

Invest in a battery backup for your pc electronics, a ups power suppy. it will clean the power from the genny. It will also give you time  to save any work if power goes out while using them.

[mflaming]

The reduction in output from wind turbines was actually less than predicted. The real problem was from gas lines freezing up at the well head that feed the gas fired plants. Conservatives are trying to spin this as a failure of green energy, but that is an outright lie. We had a similar storm in 2011 and the producers failed to prepare because of soft regulations. The politicians are pretty busy now blaming everyone in sight. No one taking responsibility.

Texas has 6 GW of winter time wind capacity and 67 GW natural gas. Half the gas plants went down. Demand when the storm hit was 70 GW - near summertime peak. If we lost 3 GW of wind and 30 GW of gas power, not a green energy failure.

Good thing about Texas is forecast temp are in the 70's next week.

[WarmColors]

The reduction in output from wind turbines was actually less than predicted. The real problem was from gas lines freezing up at the well head that feed the gas fired plants. Conservatives are trying to spin this as a failure of green energy, but that is an outright lie. We had a similar storm in 2011 and the producers failed to prepare because of soft regulations. The politicians are pretty busy now blaming everyone in sight. No one taking responsibility.

Texas has 6 GW of winter time wind capacity and 67 GW natural gas. Half the gas plants went down. Demand when the storm hit was 70 GW - near summertime peak. If we lost 3 GW of wind and 30 GW of gas power, not a green energy failure.

Good thing about Texas is forecast temp are in the 70's next week.

I have a buddy who works for Ercot. Him and his team designed the newer infrastructure and had a part in directing the Local who won the bid to install some of the newer wind turbines.

He is a hardcore conservative (unlike me) but he knows it is just politics like always trying to blame someone. (green energy)
He does not like the idea of how fast we are switching energy sources, but he understands that as a nation we need to move forward with the technology.

I believe him when he says it was the gas lines freezing, he saw the reports and pictures that were taken, with his own eyes.

[rotarius]

This is too funny, blame wind turbines for colossal failures in energy planning in the energy capital of the country.  They have a wind farm in Antarctica that does not freeze up.  Figure it out y'all, not rocket surgery. 

[FireGuy]

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