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.
.......that would be 16 people at the following link, including their bio’s:
But, firing them won’t solve the problem. Texas must remove (cut out) this “POLITICAL” cancer from Electrical Power by abolishing this board now. We have very capable Power Producers like Pedernales Electric. Let them produce power for their geographic markets and politicians BUTT THE HELL OUT!!!
http://www.ercot.org/about/governance/directors
Pretty soon Texas will be mostly Californians, and Californians are used to rolling blackouts.
I would think that they engineered the toy windmills to handle the worst winter storm. Where most of the windmills are, they get them frequently. This was one of the coldest storms to ever hit Texas. In my town, we set the all-time record low. To most people, -6 is not that big a deal. But the average “cold” day for us would be 20. The system just became overwhelmed. Many gas wells are currently shut-in. Not because it is too cold. The wells would burn your hand if you touched them. They make a lot of salt water and when the tanks fill up at the well site, trucks have to haul it off for disposal. The roads were impassable until this afternoon so the wells had to be shut-in temporarily. Throw in a lot of compressors that have gone down on the pipelines and it is the perfect storm. It will be over in a couple days and back to the 50’s and 60’s.
too bad Texas. Get use to it. You will be a democrat state soon enough.
Most people don’t, That’s a lot of work, for “just in case”. It’s one thing to be prepped for something that happens fairly regularly. Once a decade, if ever, just isn’t in what most folks want to do with their life. I am not now, nor will I ever be, prepped for a multi-day power out. Because it’s NEVER happened in my life. We had one that was about 18 hours about 10 years ago. Although that was just a couple of neighborhoods. If I’d bought that stuff you mention it would have been a 100% waste of my money, and effort to maintain, and move when I moved.
Do you live near a hospital or nursing home? I’m told that those who do, do not have a power problem. Not sure if that’s true or not.
120 year event??? This is the new norm with global cooling. Just wait till next yr.
Do you live near a hospital or nursing home?
No, we’re out in the country, not too close to anything or anyone.
We’re (pleasantly) surprised that we haven’t even had a blip, during this storm. (Saying thanks to Him and knocking on wood.)
We lost power during Harvey, but the generator hummed along, the entire time.
This will be the new norm Texas. Just used to the Global Cooling cycles.
Well, you’re in AZ, but....in Texas there can be hurricanes, tornadoes, wind storms, snow storms....all depends what part of the state.
Our generator has paid for itself, over and again.
Having a gas cooktop, water heater, oven, etc has been handy, as well.
Prepped for stuff that happens frequently is different.
Yes. NG is the way to go.
Well, as I said....storms happen (frequently), in TX.
We prepared when we first heard that China Flu had been released.
That wasn’t (and, hopefully ISN’T) a frequent thing. We’re glad we did, too.
No crazy lines, or out of stock supplies, for us.
If this is what’s happening, it is a construction issue. And longer wires wouldn’t solve it. With CATV it was the metal conductor inside the cable that would shrink.
It only happened during the first year or so in the construction.
I haven’t heard anyone give an explanation of what’s down. And because Texas is a contained grid, they cannot feed from another direction.
It sounds like the risk management groups in Texas power made some bad decisions. It’s been cold in Texas before...but not often. It is likely the people that dealt with brutal cold the last time...are retired.
No, I am talking about trunking, not “drops.” These things happen on the last mile trunks.
I know about wired delivery systems... but not electrical. It sounds like what we used to deal with in NH and rural MA where trunk lines went for a long way. Metal that cold, so fast would contract a foot or so over a mile. And we had a couple thousand miles in a system.
LOL.......what a doof. I don’t want DIVERSITY in my power production.......I want to use the natural resources God gave this great state!! Let the greenies and libs put them in their states......oh wait!
God bless ya honey.......there’s money in it for someone. Follow the money......citizens need to rise up and get this crap stopped!!!
I've been wondering about this because compressors are often powered with natural gas turbines or reciprocating engines. And if electric powered, should have natural gas powered back up generators.
There's also icing in the pipelines that I hadn't thought about until now. But, I'm not a pipeline engineer!
Yeah, I am not sure. All I heard was on a call Monday morning that “multiple” pipeline companies in our area have said they lost compressors and their volumes will be decreased. They may all be back online by now. If water haulers can navigate the roads, then the wells should be coming back as well.
That’s a sure sign we’re in trouble.......saw where IHOP in our area is closed too. We have camping stoves, hot plate to cook thanks to our generator. No range ergo no oven so I have homemade soup in the crock pot. My neighbors have NOTHING.....no electric, no water except for rolling blackouts from time to time. I was a wakened by the generator at 3:45 am this morn and it kept going off and on, off and on.....had to turn off lamps that Alexa turns on and off at command. Hub has been working outside all day to get a water thingy fixed that turns water off to the house so he won’t always have to go to the water meter and turn it off. Been doing that for the past few nights. Got water now.....but seen bigger streams from a baby boy and anyone who has a boy knows what I’m talking about.....you gotta get that diaper on fast.:) We’ll make it.....too old for this crap but blessed that we can still make do. It’s the ones in our community that don’t have the generator or know how to check for leaks when water is back on. I’m rambling.....pray for those who aren’t as blessed.
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