Posted on 02/16/2021 10:18:42 AM PST by EyesOfTX
Hey, some of you probably thought I was dead. Well, sorry, Democrats, no such luck. Didn’t have another heart event, didn’t contract the ‘rona, the website isn’t down again. So yay on all of that.
What did happen, though, is we have no power at our home. Haven’t had any since 6:00 a.m. Monday, and it now looks like we won’t have any again until Friday at the earliest. In case you hadn’t heard, the entire state of Texas looks an awful lot like Alaska right now. Ok, well, West Texas looks more like South Dakota, but you get the picture. We’re covered up in snow and ice, the low temperature where I live near Fort Worth was -1 Fahrenheit this morning, we haven’t seen a temperature at my house above freezing since last Wednesday, and won’t see one until Friday. Again, that’s if we’re lucky.
PauseUnmute Fullscreen VDO.AI Guess what? Texas does not do a good job of preparing for this kind of weather event. Which makes sense given that we don’t see this kind of stuff but about once a decade. However, we do see it. The last time we had a similar event was exactly a decade ago, in fact, on February 2-3, 2011.
So, while it is understandable, I suppose, that the folks at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) admit that they simply do not have contingency plans for this kind of severe winter event, I can’t help wondering why not? After all, the rolling blackouts they implemented 10 years ago during that ice event caused a public uproar that resulted in a series of hearings and rulemakings that were supposed to help ensure the grid’s resiliency was fortified to withstand exactly this sort of weather.
Yet, here we are again, and no one at ERCOT or the state’s main infrastructure provider – ONCOR – appears capable of providing a coherent answer why. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t just force ERCOT to take the “R” – for Reliability – out of its name to make it more properly descriptive of what it is the agency actually does. Or rename it “ERSCOT”, with the S standing for “semi-“.
Texans have in recent years made a sport out of making fun of California for its having faded into near-3rd world status where its power grid is concerned. Trust me, that’s a tone of fun. Rolling blackouts and brownouts have become a way of life for Californians as the Democrat policymakers there force their grid to rely far too much on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar at the expense of reliable baseload generation, which must be provided by fossil fuels like natural gas and coal, or by nuclear plants.
Unfortunately, and with little public fanfare, the Republican-led Texas government has also allowed wind power to take a steadily-growing role in the state’s power generation mix over the past decade. Last year, in fact, wind surpassed coal in terms of the percentage of electricity provided to the ERCOT-managed grid, delivering 23% of the total mix, coming in second only to natural gas power plants.
That’s all great so long as you’re willing to pay the price, much of which becomes hidden from ratepayers by ERCOT and the state’s electricity providers, so everybody can pretend to be happy about “going green.” It’s also not so great when well over half the turbines in the state freeze up in near-zero temperatures and 3-12 inches of snowfall.
In the wake of the 2011 event, which was caused mainly by coal-fired plants tripping offline as they froze up and ERCOT’s rolling blackouts including several very large natural gas compressor stations, which caused several natural gas power plants to also go offline, reforms were mandated to prevent ERCOT from denying electricity to those compressor stations. We do not yet know if those reforms worked or not, but several of the state’s natural gas pipeline companies have been experiencing deliverability issues over the last couple of days, so ERCOT’s silence on the matter does make you wonder.
Texas policymakers simply must act in the wake of this event to ensure that the state’s power grid is resilient enough to withstand this kind of severe winter weather event. It is an incredibly dangerous situation when more than 3 million Texans are without power as temperatures remain below freezing for a full week. Texas might look like Alaska and South Dakota right now, but Texans are simply not prepared to deal with this kind of weather for even a couple of days, much less for a week or more.
Californians have been conditioned by their Democrat policymakers to accept this sort of rolling blackout situation as their “new normal” so they can all virtue signal about how “green” they all are. Texans, on the other hand, would rather be warm and safe in their homes than waste time virtue signaling about the environment. Again, trust me on this: Ain’t nobody in Texas ready to happily accept this crap as a “new normal” in their lives.
The state’s policymakers had better take advantage of this disastrous situation to act to really improve the resiliency of the state’s power grid, or there will be hell to pay in next year’s elections.
This situation is simply not acceptable, even if it only happens once a decade. Enough is enough.
I’ll post more when I can.
That is all.
Hint:
The best way to start fixing the problem is by firing _everyone_ who was responsible for causing it....
If that does not happen, it will be the “new normal”.
Failure _must_ have consequences.
What?
Whenever Democrats control things, we start talking about the “new normal.”
Can’t you just plug your windmill into your solar panels or something?
The Polar Vortex Is Proving Exactly Why Green Energy Is a Disaster for America’s Power Grid
Shut down the domestic energy pipeline.
Instead, depend on energy from nations that despise us.
Gee, what can possibly go wrong ?
Sorry to hear of your plight. I’ll save this thread for the next time some self-righteous Texan pokes me in the eye for being a Commiefornian.
Global warming.
Build more windmills and solar panels. Wonder how much did taxpayers help the frat boy from Maine, culturally appropriated Texan, to build all those ‘new age’ green energy flops?
Texans are not stupidest will Prepare in advance for emergencies...Generator and a barrel of gas/diesel. A propane tank with a propane heat source. The best for long term is the wall/floor type with a pilot light and no blower. It will stay running without power, unlike forced air furnaces. At least, a portable one with 5 gallon propane tanks will get you through.
Ok. The weather has taken over. Houstonians get it. They get hurricanes. Panhandle and northern texans get it.
San Antonias...I cant.
Boss asking why no one is in office. No one spoke with her earlier b/c she is not ‘there’ yet.
Stay off the roads to get and to many others does not include her workers. Of course she is home
Stay off the roads
Saw 10 day weather Last week. Freezing temps sat through thurs. it’s never been below 20 or so here. It’s into single digits. No power means crank up the fireplace shut all doors drip faucets
The roads are ice on the overpasses in the beginning. After three nights of single digits everything is frozen. All roads, driveways everything. If you drive and manage to slide your toboggan/car in the right direction some fedex truck doing sixty can get you very stuck. Then you’re stranded in 17 degrees. Your core temp is at 90 in the time it takes the toboggan EMS vehicle to get to you. They too have families and don’t want to be going out scooping up Your ass not it’s way to non essential job where you’re going to be stranded til. Friday
Or to the supermarket. By the way, HEB is closed. Now that I have never seen
Responsible. What?
It’s weather.
My next $1400 stimulus will go to to a GENRAC style generator to run Frig, Sump Pump, Hot Water, Furnace, and a couple of lamps. 8KW should do it w/ 5 outlets and run extension cords.
Yeah, I kinda of had my fill of hot aired Texans ... who gave US, LBJ and the frat boy from Maine. Why, some out of Texas seem to think their dumps do not stink. Seriously now, Cornpole as a Senator, and Cruz a Canadian .... seriously folks.
Correct. If heads don’t roll, my voter preference will change again. We must have some dumb people working for big bucks in Texas. Abbott better check this out real good. It’s his problem too. No excuses.
Texans need to replace all those sissy wind turbines with drilling rigs.
That’s just scratching the surface. You’d have to scrape the stuff at the bottom of the barrel to come up with Austin, Beto and Cuban.
Fortunately we also have natural gas in our neighborhood and most of the generators have been made capable of using it. This costs about a third of what it casts to keep them going with gasoline especially with 50 cents a gallon in taxes going to the state and 18.4% or 55 cents going to the federal government on every gallon.
y generator conversion cost about $100 because I printed the adapter that is bolted to the intake of its carburetor out of fuel resistant nylon on my 3D Printer and use a regulator purchased a regulator from Amazon. We already had our Natural Gas plumbed with an outlet for our smoker and BBQ with flexible tubing that we hook to the generator with a quick connect. It costs about twice as much per KWH to generate electricity with a generator around here rather than purchasing it. But that depends because the generator is most efficient when it is running between 50% and 100% of its capacity. If it is just idling away it still burns almost at much fuel. This can be corrected by purchasing a much more expensive generator that has an inverter and can idle down when there is not much load.
I imagine a lot of these issues have to do with the conductors in the wires shrinking and pulling out of connectors.
We had this in the cable business. We called them suck outs. Imagine trying to explain 7th grade physics to a bunch of morons who cannot live with the Real Housewives.
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