It's Official: Texas has achieved Third-World Status
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I brought my Ariens Deluxe 28 to the shop and had him change the drive and auger belts. It's going into it's 10th winter and I didn't want any surprises.
bigwheelzip
Absent Comrade
We've done it before. The FFTF site in the 400 area at Hanford.
Saw an article about the type of wind-turbines with heaters and ice mitigation systems that allow operation to -22°F. The features can add about 5 percent to the cost.
This article states, as others here have already mentioned, the failure of the unregulated Texas gas distribution network is responsible for the lions share of power generation failure in this event.
What went wrong with the Texas power grid?
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LVSteve
Member
ERCOT to change Texas energy prices to meet high demand amid winter storm | kvue.com
Emergency meeting yesterday took place, where ERCOT argued vociferously the need to spike prices during these times of 'unprecedented demand.'
Rolling blackouts aren't a sign of supply failure to them. They're a sign that they need to be charging more.
That's an energy control model I've seen exercised on the West Coast in past years. It might still be the norm but I don't know anybody that lives in that area any more.
They just need some big peaker generators to run during energy demand spikes like these. We have a number of them around Puget Sound. My drinking buddy was manager of 2 of them. One a massive diesel IC, the other a GE frame 7 derivative turbine running either diesel or Nat Gas.
Heck, the Grant Co PUD in Eastern Washington had a whole station on their network hooked up to @20 smallish turbines in ConEx box type enclosures for emergencies.
Heck, the Grant Co PUD in Eastern Washington had a whole station on their network hooked up to @20 smallish turbines in ConEx box type enclosures for emergencies.
LVSteve
Member
Everybody around the world has been looking for fusion to happen, but it hasn't. This has led to a stagnation in interest in fission reactors. Given that fusion appears to be a ways off, I think the time has come to suck it up and build some of these low pressure reactors. The sodium reactor looks great until you read more about sodium. Bad stuff on the loose. The molten salt reactors may be a better bet.
Molten salt reactor - Wikipedia
Wife's sister is down in Texas and getting shut off regularly and she only has electric heat. Some are pointing at the frozen windmills and snow covered solar panels, but during a big storm in 2011 it was the coal fire generators that froze up and went down. Same thing happened in 1989
It is very easy too freeze up a coal burner, poor operations and poor maintenance practices. The company I work for went into cold weather coverage for maintenance to quickly address any freezing operations last week. The plant I work at had a trip a little over a week or two ago due to a faulty signal to a fan, while the unit was down we had freezing in a coal silo. I spent 16 hours on the clock at the plant, then another 8 hours sleeping in a chair waiting for the next day due to the bad weather. The power companies want to get rid of the coal burners due to the high costs of maintaining them, they all cut corners on maintenance (think run to failure) because the lower cost plants are the ones that get to run. Can't waite to see what kind of mess I get to into tomorrow, it's been a long weekend.
That's nothing. There's enough depleted uranium sitting at Savannah River to power the entire US electrical grid for the next 700.
Fast spectrum using chloride salts for the win. Burn DU, warhead plutonium, everything.
Little pitch as I know Ed Phiel.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ou_xswB2b0[/ame]
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HardToHandle
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February 2011 - Texas caused regional blackouts when their faulty practices came home to roost.
https://www.nerc.com/pa/rrm/ea/February%202011%20Southwest%20Cold%20Weather%20Event/SW_Cold_Weather_Event_Final.pdf
A google search does not bring up these results but a very quick bing search does.
Germany still constructing new coal power stations | Airclim
Energy in Germany - Wikipedia
There are many others but time constraints prevent me from posting them. The upshot is that Germany will be building coal/lignite fired power stations while closing nuclear and older coal fired plants.
If I was a cynic I'd think google was trying to hide these results.
bigwheelzip
Absent Comrade
Your reference is for the single new plant that came on line.
Seems the German parliament passed the legislation in June last year, to quit coal by 2038.
Germany agrees plan to phase out coal power by 2038 - BBC News
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That's right. I'm a Texan. Most of our statistics are third world.
Unionization
Wages
Health
Teenage pregnancy
Poverty
Education
Vaccination
Prenatal care
Infant mortality
Worker safety
Consumer rights and remedies
If it weren't for Mississippi, Alabama or West Virginia, we'd be at the bottom of the heap.
Unionization
Wages
Health
Teenage pregnancy
Poverty
Education
Vaccination
Prenatal care
Infant mortality
Worker safety
Consumer rights and remedies
If it weren't for Mississippi, Alabama or West Virginia, we'd be at the bottom of the heap.
I liked your post of the fact, not the facts themselves. Sad for such a rich state.
Protected One
Member
.....and your power generation facilities are winterized, like ours here in Michigan.
That's nothing. There's enough depleted uranium sitting at Savannah River to power the entire US electrical grid for the next 700.
I firmly believe we can built safe nuke plants. First they all need to be built on the same design. Then you will end up with a huge pool of knowledge on that design, If a problem is discovered in one plant you can check or upgrade it in all the others. Has worked for the US navy for a long time now. I don't care if it is coal, nuke, gas, solar, wind or a pixie dust machine the key to continuous SAFE operation is good maintenance and inspections.
Sistema1927
US Veteran
Many people in Texas are realizing this morning that they should have replaced their car battery last fall.
I wonder what T Boone Pickens would say about this.
I'm sure glad that were connected to Hydro Quebec.
I'm sure glad that were connected to Hydro Quebec.
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I was here in 2000, when an ice storm knocked out all the power in the Ark-la-tex. You don't have blackouts, when everyone is blacked out. The only lights in houses were the ones who had generators or oil lamps. No heat unless you had a firplace, or gas stoves and heaters. No TV, computers, cell phone service was out. My office was dark and cold,but I had a non electric land line phone that worked the whole time. The power was out for nearly a week, and a lot longer for lots of people. This one ain't squat for us, but further south where lots of ice is, I feel for them. This isn't up north, and we'll get by. Just like the northern folks get by when it's 100 degrees up there and there's no A/C. Imagine the load on the grid, if everyone drove a Tesla!
Agreed. Standardization is key. The Russians leaned that with the VVER series and the Koreans as well. Building 100 "one-off" plants is not cost efficient.
That said, Light Water Reactors(LWR) are not the best choice for powerplants. They're great on boats, which is why Rickover settled on that design, but they don't scale well. The reason they took off with the utility companies was really due to Rickover with the Shippingport build.
Interestingly, the first nuclear generated electricity wasn't from a LWR, but a fast reactor. EBR I.
Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I) - INL
I saw on television this morning that 93% of the power in Texas is from fossil fuel. Oh well, probably fake news! On a side note, I remember some snarky comments from some Texas members this past summer when I was working My wood pile. Tell you what, it feels pretty good right now!
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I am no fan of wind power, but wind turbines in Minnesota are working just fine at lows of -35F for almost 3 weeks now. It is possible to outfit wind turbines with the equipment and lubricants capable of working at those temperatures. I guess that Texas did not anticipate low temperature operating conditions would happen.
I read a bit of an article on this today which said that the problem is caused by Texas making cheap price a priority over reliability.
...When it gets really cold, it can be hard to produce electricity, as customers in Texas and neighboring states are finding out. But it's not impossible. Operators in Alaska, Canada, Maine, Norway and Siberia do it all the time. What has sent Texas reeling is not an engineering problem, nor is it the frozen wind turbines blamed by prominent Republicans. It is a financial structure for power generation that offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. In the name of deregulation and free markets, critics say, Texas has created an electric grid that puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service. It's a "Wild West market design based only on short-run prices," said Matt Breidert, a portfolio manager at a firm called TortoiseEcofin. And yet the temporary train wreck of that market Monday and Tuesday has seen the wholesale price of electricity in Houston go from $22 a megawatt-hour to about $9,000. Meanwhile, 4 million Texas households have been without power....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/ercot-texas-electric-grid-failure/
One of my sons, who worked for a while for a company whose business involved predicting the electric power market 24 hours in the future, told me that Texas was by far the worst grid operator for forecasting.
...When it gets really cold, it can be hard to produce electricity, as customers in Texas and neighboring states are finding out. But it's not impossible. Operators in Alaska, Canada, Maine, Norway and Siberia do it all the time. What has sent Texas reeling is not an engineering problem, nor is it the frozen wind turbines blamed by prominent Republicans. It is a financial structure for power generation that offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. In the name of deregulation and free markets, critics say, Texas has created an electric grid that puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service. It's a "Wild West market design based only on short-run prices," said Matt Breidert, a portfolio manager at a firm called TortoiseEcofin. And yet the temporary train wreck of that market Monday and Tuesday has seen the wholesale price of electricity in Houston go from $22 a megawatt-hour to about $9,000. Meanwhile, 4 million Texas households have been without power....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/ercot-texas-electric-grid-failure/
One of my sons, who worked for a while for a company whose business involved predicting the electric power market 24 hours in the future, told me that Texas was by far the worst grid operator for forecasting.
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Wind and solar are the energy sources of the future ................ and always will be.
Right off Martha's Vineyard is a great place to put windmills.
The UK Douneray (spelling) is a fast breeder reactor that has been functioning for many years without major problems. However there is one centralized nuclear regulatory commission in the UK as there is in other European states. The US as mentioned earlier, wanted to use "one-off" designs and the US NRC has little teeth, hence the problems as lessons from one reactor design could not be applied to others. Dave_n
Your taxes aren't at the bottom...no income tax = high everything else taxes.
Not quite. Depending on who you believe, there's about a dozen worse.
Some people going to get butt hurt. Of course they'll say how great their state is, but it just isn't so.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...in/40544227/&usg=AOvVaw2MTj7sO3KZdwHH-sadA6mw
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...tes/rankings&usg=AOvVaw3IcJbB7TJ3F07GySfFepHg
Alton
Member
Power plants schedule shutdowns for repairs in the winter which in Texas is normally much slower in usage as compared to summers. And as in the past they got caught with their pants down. In the past power companies had to keep a plant for spare capacity. At one time CPS our local utility company owned by the city of San Antonio actually not only took care of the county, they actually placed power on the grid for sale to the state of Texas grid. Then things started happening. They started investing in wind and solar. No place for wind turbines here so they had to use the grid system. As since so much of their money went to the new green deal they cut down usage of their coal plant and lost their spare capacity while at the same time did not build another natural gas plant. Add to the fact the state is growing, the city started this come one, come all Data Centers to San Antonio for cheap electricity. I pay 10 cents in the winter, 12 in the summer per KWH. Data centers pay 3 cents. So all our spare capacity went out the window. Can't wait for all those new electric cars to start hitting our failing grid. If you have nothing better to do check out how much FB uses in energy every day, and the amount of backup generators to make sure they don't go down. I bet if the utility company shutdown FB the rest of the users in Dallas-Ft. Worth wouldn't need to have a black out?
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