Why Is Texas Experiencing Power Outages?

Wall Street Journal ^ | 2/15/21 | Russell Gold

[Meatspace]

Plunging temperatures in Texas caused several power plants to go offline in rapid succession Sunday, shortly before midnight. This triggered an emergency on the Texas power grid and led about two million homes to lose electricity.

The unusual cold is expected to stick around until at least Tuesday. This means it could take a while to get the grid back to normal operations.

......

Industry officials were scrambling to restore power at dozens of natural gas and coal plants, which tripped offline on Sunday evening and Monday morning. They asked residents to conserve electricity.

[BuffaloJack]

“They asked residents to conserve electricity.”

Smoke’em if you’ve got’em.

[Steven Tyler]

....and we NEED those National Guard troops in DC

[George from New England]

The general population wants their heat and likely wont do whats necessary to get everyone back up.
Unless we have 90% of the houses, turn off their heat WHEN THE POWER IS OUT, nobody is going to get heat anytime soon.

Right now with power out, every heater in every home is calling for heat and will suck the maximum in through their electric meter as soon as power comes back. That’s like expecting to run everything in your house off a small generator in the garage, won’t happen.

Everyone needs to be assigned an hour on the clock, that when their power comes back, they will willing wait until to start their heat. With a me-first mentality, that won’t happen.

[George from New England]

What’s worse is nobody can do this by setting their thermostat to the lowest temperature — their homes are below this right now.

People have to slide the switch from heat/cool to OFF on a thermostat. Or throw off the double pole breakers in the electric panel.

[JimRed]

Too many windmills. They froze up, and the wind died.

[DanZ]

Even the natural gas and coal plants went offline.

Why?, in the real world, in the past in Chicago, the COAL fired plants NEVER went Down

People really are way too stupid as they believe the BS on Coal or nuclear.

LNG is cooled to -250 Deg. F - to be shipped. Pipelines caring Natural Gas have methods to deal with cold weather, CHOOSING not to implement these Engineering solutions to basic and known issues is done by IDIOTS and the local G'ments bureaucrats who allow this to happen

[SamAdams76]

You can have your own power grid and still have it taken down due to weather and other events. Having your own power grid does not make you invulnerable.

[Revel]

The fuel treatments won’t do much good unless the vehicle was run for a while after it was added. Because the treatment has to get into the entire fuel system. In the north country they only sell winterized diesel this time of year.

[Revel]

And don’t leave Biden out.

[Texan]

Right!! Not “rolling” here. No electricity and no water. Thank God for the fireplace.

[Pontiac]

Why Is Texas Experiencing Power Outages?

Because the United States is ruled by idiots and thieves, at all levels.

[The Great RJ]

Temperatures in the upper Midwest have been in the minus teens to more than 20 below zero. The high pressure that is bringing the polar vortex is producing only negligible winds... certainly not enough to support even a fraction of our electric needs. Solar farms generate nothing at night when temperatures are coldest. However the Green New Dealers would have us heat our homes and fuel our cars with electricity from these unreliable sources and meet the current demands for power for our businesses, homes, hospitals, schools, offices and factories. The effect of widespread blackouts in these temperatures would be catastrophic. People would literally freeze to death in their homes or be killed trying to use makeshift heating. Imagine the chaos when electric cars and buses are stalled for lack of charge while trying to evacuate people to heated shelters.

[Slyfox]

I don't think it has anything to do with the green crap. In Texas we generally don't see weather this cold and sustaining for over a week, so the power grid for some reason has lost its juice or froze up.

The week previous to this freeze it got close to 70 and I actually saw people walking around in flip flops.

The last time we had plunging temps hovering around 0 degrees for more than a week was over 40 years ago.

Usually our winters consist of one day may dip to 19 and then go back up to the 40s. We may get snow but it is usually gone by that afternoon or the next day.

Our power grid can't rely on wind and solar because if it did we would have no power in the summer to run our air conditioning.

The dealeo is our power stations need better insulation from the sustained freezing temperatures.

[thescourged1]

Same in Missouri. I’ll take an honest-to-goodness snowstorm over an ice storm any day. The damage from heavy ice can easily outstrip what a foot or two of snow can do.

[jpsb]

There is a nuke plant close to where I live and it did not go down. Two days of freezing in the dark has made me a fan of nuclear energy. As long as it is a safe modern design. By which I mean it can shut it self down and does not require cooling once shut down.

[rxsid]

This is the new ice age. We are all Minnesotans now.

Indeed it is, and we sure are...at least for a while.

Part of River Thames freezes amid sub-zero temperatures (Fri 12 Feb 2021)

In this 1677 painting by Abraham Hondius, "The Frozen Thames, looking Eastwards towards Old London Bridge," people are shown enjoying themselves on the ice. Credit: Museum of London

 

Plenty of articles out there, for several years now, have indicated we are due for a New Ice Age

Melting icebergs key to sequence of an ice age (January 13, 2021) - Melting polar ice is present during the onset of every ice age for the last 1.6 million years.

[Meatspace]

Your assessment is correct.

Even the coal and gas plants in Texas are not built for this.

[Jrabbit]

My son and his family had no power for 12 hours....rolling my ass! He’s just north of Dallas.

[texas_mrs]

Thanks for the information, Davidb56. I’ll definitely pass that on to my husband. We had cattle and goats to feed and no way to get the hay to them. I’m thinking this may also be why I couldn’t start my Cat skid steer.

[Osagegirl]

Great possibility. On another point I wonder why of the 3 cities he is dumping illegals he didn’t choose where President Trump lives