Posted on 02/02/2023 2:42:23 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in their homes Thursday after more than a day without power, including many in the state capital, as an icy winter storm that has been blamed for at least 10 traffic deaths lingered across much of the southern U.S.
Even as temperatures finally pushed above freezing in Austin — and were expected to climb past 50 degrees (10 Celsius) on Friday — the relief will be just in time for an Arctic front to drop from Canada and threaten northern states. New England in particular is forecast to see the coldest weather in decades, with wind chills that could dive lower than minus 50.
Across Texas, 430,000 customers lacked power Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us. But the failures were most widespread in Austin, where frustration mounted among more than 156,000 customers over 24 hours after their electricity went out, which for many also meant their heat. Power failures have affected about 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million at any given time since Wednesday.
Allison Rizzolo, who lost power in Austin, told KEYE-TV that she wished there were more clarity from the city on what to do or expect.
“I get that there’s a fine line between preparedness and panic, but I wish they’d been more aggressive in their communications,” Rizzolo said.
Unlike the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the state’s grid was pushed to the brink of total failure because of a lack of generation, the outages in Austin this time were largely the result of frozen equipment and ice-burdened trees and limbs falling on power lines. The city’s utility warned all power may not be restored until Friday as ice continued causing outages even as repairs were finished elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Texans received several inches of global warming from this storm.
Well now we see inside a liberal mind, they are unable to do anything themselves but keep voting for those who talk a good game but are just as useless in an emergency.
Get used to it or...lose the windmills, solar panels and Austin.
Even areas with all underground lines eventually hook up to above-ground trunks—even if many miles away.
In a severe ice storm the main trunks go down as well.
I've just read a new book called "Shorting the Grid". It's been an eyeopener.
Congress passed laws in the '90s that destroyed the highly-reliable regulated vertical monopoly model of power delivery, and replaced it with something called Regional Transmission Organizations.
Now, RTOs own the grid network, and must buy power from independent generators according to a Byzantine set of "market rules". This scheme, rather than reducing cost to the consumer as claimed, has actually raised it.
The system is being gamed relentlessly, (remember Enron?)
The worst gamers are the solar & wind suppliers, (which BTW could not even exist in the mix were it not for the RTO system).
With the RTO system it seems that "renewables" get only a small fraction of their revenue from actually selling power to the grid. The rest is subsidies. And for all that, what power they DO supply is so unreliable that it is destabilizing the RTOs to the point where rolling blackouts are almost certain to occur this winter.
This matters not to the "green energy" oligarchs who have bought the Democrat party.
A very great man once said: Follow the money.
The generator can be your best friend. 😉
These cold weather power problems have been going on for a few years now. Hasn’t ERCOT implemented any fixes to this, yet?
I’m thinking a good business model for some capital flush investor would be portable fossil fuel based gas turbine generating stations that can be hooked into the grid anywhere they’re needed.
“coldest weather in decades” — how is that even possible?
“PowerOutage.us” will need to change is name to PowerOutagesR.US real soon the way things are going.
Wouldn’t make any difference ... the lines were taken down by ice. Article was so poorly written.
You can’t use that indoors, can you?
I have a couple of Mr Heat propane heaters. They were used in my RV during the winter. They are certified to work inside a home. Those suckers will heat you right up.
Thank God for global warming, just think how cold it would be if we didn’t have that going for us.
Sounds very plausible except why hasn't this stuff been corrected or repealed in the many years since?
I mean, I know why. Because Republicans are mostly useless once in power, but still.
Thanks. I’ll look into Mr. Heat.
Yes, you can.
The Grab and Go.
Produces no carbon monoxide.
Crack a window so you have enough O2.
It will deplete O2 in a sealed room.
Tons of heat.
I’m in Texas. I didn’t lose power or heat. But I do wish my fellow Texans would learn to drive properly in weather like this.
It is an ice storm. Trees limbs on the lines.
And, as always, I blame Canada.
Yep, and one of the more beloved native trees in the state, the Live Oak, which have suffered greatly during the drought periods and very much so in the February 2021 "Storm of the Century", have been obliterated by the ice and cold here in Central Texas this week. Live Oak tree limbs are everywhere. Some trees have split down the middle, while others have simply fallen over after having their root systems fail.
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