Rolling Blackouts

[rady]

Appreciate your frank inside knowledge. A personal friend of mine worked for the local power plant he made reference to much of what you said years ago. They were being pushed to stop using coal and had to invest heavily in windmills, exc.. it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going to happen.

Well we’re here now, my son has now been without power for about five hours today. It was -14 when he lost power and that’s not wind chill. He tells me people are getting pissed off at>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> you guessed it “the power company”! It’s sad that so many people can’t figure this shit out on there own, they wouldn’t believe the truth even if it slapped them upside the head.

I don't know why so many have been taken in by all of this green crap. I've got no problem with trying to keep the environment clean, but you have to have a reasonable balance. Look at the people pushing electric vehicles, now they can't afford to charge them in Texas.

During public speaking engagements on simple things like road widening's or upgrading distribution/transmission facilities, I was appalled by how rabid people would become when they found out that trees were going to be removed from their property.................They would blame the utilities even though the state had used eminent domain to acquire property. I had a guy pull a gun and threatened to kill me because lines had to be moved on what use to be his property. He was arrested a week later when he did the same thing to a gas utility employee.

When we would try to upgrade infrastructure and replace aging power lines or facilities, there were often lawsuits to prevent such actions. The number of times I've told bitchin' customers that they will have to make up their minds what they want? Is it going to be power or trees?........................ Their answer was usually " put the lines under the ground." Trust me, that would be a nightmare.

 

[BufordTJustice]

Is saying "blackouts" racist? asking for someone who doesn't give a shit.

 

[PatMiles]

Welcome to Socialism 102.

 

[Alpine 338]

Fast forward into the future. You know those Smart Meters they have been installing on houses, the ones the utilities tell you helps reduce costs by not having someone come around once a month to read the meter. Well, they can do much more than you can imagine. I can see them (Govt pulling the strings on the local utility puppet) telling you that you have to limit consumption. If you go over a certain amount, you pay (are taxed) more. They (local governments) have been doing that for years with water usage. Now they will start doing it with electricity.
Gone will be the option to heat your house, watch TV, cook, etc. as you see fit. You will get X-amount of KWh usage per time period, and if you exceed that, your the bad guy, and/or you will pay the penalties. And remember, it's for the children.

The federal powers to be already have the utilities in a chokehold with FERC and NERC rules and regulations, and with mandatory compliance requirements, along with State and local public utilities commissions screwing it to the utilities, the cost to generate and distribute electricity will continue to go up, no matter how much free (green) energy is made available.

I'm glad I bought my equipment. Have everything to build a nice system that will allow me to disconnect, and not worry about what the grid is doing.

I think I'm at 6600 Watts in capacity, just need a bigger battery plant. My goal is to have about 1100 to 1300 Ah battery plant eventually.

Cooking and on-demand hot water system is Propane. Heat will be solar gain with wood burner.

Here I am testing a string of panels.

 

[Alpine 338]

And for those who don't realize it, electricity is a commodity, bought and sold just like other commodities. Generation and Transmission companies have what they call power marketing staff who's job it is to buy and sell electrical power in real time, and also allocated futures. Many utilities (local distribution) have fixed price contracts, but if there's a load increase, shortage, etc., then many are forced to buy at current market pricing.

 

[UKDslayer]

I live in the smallest, cheapest house in a pretty nice gated community. According to Next-door, all the neighborhoods around me have been experiencing the rolling blackouts since early Monday morning, but we haven't had any. I can only assume some pretty important people live in the more expensive enclaves in the back...I'm kind of ashamed to be the recipient of this benefit.

PS - Climate change my *ss. We are 49 degrees below our average for this time of year. This is HARRP created.

 

[Mordamer]

I live in the smallest, cheapest house in a pretty nice gated community. According to Next-door, all the neighborhoods around me have been experiencing the rolling blackouts since early Monday morning, but we haven't had any. I can only assume some pretty important people live in the more expensive enclaves in the back...I'm kind of ashamed to be the recipient of this benefit.

PS - Climate change my *ss. We are 49 degrees below our average for this time of year. This is HARRP created.

I doubt this is correct. The most important people at our utility make sure that if residential meters go off for something like this that their own homes are the first to be off simply to stop stupid rumors about favoritism.

We do however have policies on keeping hospitals, first responder stations, and a few other critical infrastructure on as much as possible. It is more likely your good fortune is related to you being on the same electrical circuit as critical infrastructure.

 

[armorpl8chikn]

I'm in the utility industry. We had to implement our "load curtailment" program for the first time in the history of the company today. All utilities in our power pool have to respond within minutes if we receive a call to curtail load. We have a set of breakers that we can open remotely and when we receive the call the dispatcher starts at the top of the list and just keeps clicking until we have turned off as much Megawatts of load as required. They let us know when we can turn it back on.

The whole central united states generally has enough coal and natural gas generation assets on standby to back up renewable generation sources. One of the mains problems today was the extreme cold freezing gas wells and gas lines. Gas turbines can't function once the gas pressure in the gas pipeline drops. This surprisingly happens at a warmer temperature than you would think.

This whole situation is certainly caused by the "green energy" agenda. Real generation capacity is always from stable sources such as coal, natural gas, hydro electric, and nuclear. For every wind generator built a coal or gas asset has to be on standby. The electrical load on the grid is actually much higher in the peak of the summer time than right now, but with the low output of almost all renewables and the gas turbines shut off it is a bad situation for a few days.

None of the local utilities have anything to do with how this system is set up. Your wonderful federal government has their fingers in every single thing that has led to this happening. Green energy mandates, renewable subsidies, energy market regulation, coal industry strangulation, making up new emissions regulations every couple years... The local utilities will certainly bare the blame because they are the face of the electric industry to local consumers. The government will play the blame game and tell all of you that greedy utilities and fossil fuels caused this. They'll claim that if we only had more renewables this could have been avoided. More regulations and legislation will be drafted and we'll spiral further down the nonsense toilet.

Bullshit, yall have that switch thingy, I've seen it.

 

[GUNNER75]

Meanwhile at Mernards.......................

SW Kansas, have several friends at the gas plants and they are having a hell of a time keeping everything thawed out.

 

[JLP83]

I live in the smallest, cheapest house in a pretty nice gated community. According to Next-door, all the neighborhoods around me have been experiencing the rolling blackouts since early Monday morning, but we haven't had any. I can only assume some pretty important people live in the more expensive enclaves in the back...I'm kind of ashamed to be the recipient of this benefit.

PS - Climate change my *ss. We are 49 degrees below our average for this time of year. This is HARRP created.

The only places that are untouchable are critical infrastructure like hospitals so if you’re fortunate enough to live on an important feed then lucky you. For everyone else it’s luck of the draw.

 

[308Gunner]

I work for large gas company, we can’t push gas because our plants are froze and most of the producers have shut their wells in because of ice. Our line pack is down to 800 mmcf which is down over 200 from normal. I just ordered a standby generator for my house as we have been out of electricity since Saturday. Thankfully we have a wood burning stove but living in the country no water.

 

[lightman]

I don't know why so many have been taken in by all of this green crap. I've got no problem with trying to keep the environment clean, but you have to have a reasonable balance. Look at the people pushing electric vehicles, now they can't afford to charge them in Texas.

During public speaking engagements on simple things like road widening's or upgrading distribution/transmission facilities, I was appalled by how rabid people would become when they found out that trees were going to be removed from their property.................They would blame the utilities even though the state had used eminent domain to acquire property. I had a guy pull a gun and threatened to kill me because lines had to be moved on what use to be his property. He was arrested a week later when he did the same thing to a gas utility employee.

When we would try to upgrade infrastructure and replace aging power lines or facilities, there were often lawsuits to prevent such actions. The number of times I've told bitchin' customers that they will have to make up their minds what they want? Is it going to be power or trees?........................ Their answer was usually " put the lines under the ground." Trust me, that would be a nightmare.

I retired after nearly 35 years as an electrical lineman and I can expand on every point that you made. The customer is often their own worst enemy. Trimming trees is one thing that utility companies spend big money on and get lots of resistance on. Government regs, aging distribution and transmission systems and reduction in work force are taking its toll. I'm glad to be out of it.

 

[lightman]

Fast forward into the future. You know those Smart Meters they have been installing on houses, the ones the utilities tell you helps reduce costs by not having someone come around once a month to read the meter. Well, they can do much more than you can imagine. I can see them (Govt pulling the strings on the local utility puppet) telling you that you have to limit consumption. If you go over a certain amount, you pay (are taxed) more. They (local governments) have been doing that for years with water usage. Now they will start doing it with electricity.
Gone will be the option to heat your house, watch TV, cook, etc. as you see fit. You will get X-amount of KWh usage per time period, and if you exceed that, your the bad guy, and/or you will pay the penalties. And remember, it's for the children.

The federal powers to be already have the utilities in a chokehold with FERC and NERC rules and regulations, and with mandatory compliance requirements, along with State and local public utilities commissions screwing it to the utilities, the cost to generate and distribute electricity will continue to go up, no matter how much free (green) energy is made available.

I'm glad I bought my equipment. Have everything to build a nice system that will allow me to disconnect, and not worry about what the grid is doing.

I think I'm at 6600 Watts in capacity, just need a bigger battery plant. My goal is to have about 1100 to 1300 Ah battery plant eventually.

Cooking and on-demand hot water system is Propane. Heat will be solar gain with wood burner.

Here I am testing a string of panels.

View attachment 7558761

Smart Meters can be used to turn service on and off remotely among other things. The good thing is that they or their parts are probably made in China and probably won't work right!

 

[GrantB]

A few years ago we retrofitted 3 of our coal plants with new required environmental controls. The total cost (that is 100% passed down to the customer) was 140 million and put an additional 45mw auxiliary load on the plants. Does the costumer blame the government for this, of course not it’s the utility’s fault

 

[GrantB]

I can tell you when Obama went in the regulations started coming, trump froze most of them when he got in but I can bet you one thing, all the alphabets are making out there Christmas list and Santa Biden will say

 

[Davidu]

I doubt this is correct. The most important people at our utility make sure that if residential meters go off for something like this that their own homes are the first to be off simply to stop stupid rumors about favoritism.

We do however have policies on keeping hospitals, first responder stations, and a few other critical infrastructure on as much as possible. It is more likely your good fortune is related to you being on the same electrical circuit as critical infrastructure

 

[mcfred]

For all the complaints, I'm curious what people's actual electricity use here is. My electricity statement says that, locally, average is more than 400kwhr a month. My use is about half that, but I don't heat 4000 sqft In Canada with electricity.

All I know is that my beer is still cold, so no complaints here.

 

[Davidu]

I’m not in the utility business, but did notice a pattern while monitoring the rolling blackout outage maps in North Texas. Most areas have been on an approximate 25 minute on / 35 minute off cycle except for some poor Oncor users that haven’t had power for over 36 hours. What I noticed was certain areas that have not lost power at all. These areas are where concentrations of hospital complexes exist.

 

[JLP83]

I’m not in the utility business, but did notice a pattern while monitoring the rolling blackout outage maps in North Texas. Most areas have been on an approximate 25 minute on / 35 minute off cycle except for some poor Oncor users that haven’t had power for over 36 hours. What I noticed was certain areas that have not lost power at all. These areas are where concentrations of hospital complexes exist.

Correct. They will not intentionally shut power off to a hospital or any other critical infrastructure. The high population residential areas in the suburbs tend to have less critical infrastructure so they are taking it on the chin.

 

[jinxx4ever]

For all the complaints, I'm curious what people's actual electricity use here is. My electricity statement says that, locally, average is more than 400kwhr a month. My use is about half that, but I don't heat 4000 sqft In Canada with electricity.

All I know is that my beer is still cold, so no complaints here.

believe it or not, all the liquor store compressors quit yesterday as it was to cold. -28 So by this morning, my cooler was over 50degrees. Had a company come over and they did something with my pressure switch so the compressor would start running agian. Supposed to be in the 30's by this weekend, so they said they will come back and redo the pressure switch again, but cold beer my customers demand and cold beer they will get by God

 

[armorpl8chikn]

believe it or not, all the liquor store compressors quit yesterday as it was to cold. -28 So by this morning, my cooler was over 50degrees. Had a company come over and they did something with my pressure switch so the compressor would start running agian. Supposed to be in the 30's by this weekend, so they said they will come back and redo the pressure switch again, but cold beer my customers demand and cold beer they will get by God

Just open the damn door, don't even have to leave it open at -28.

 

[jinxx4ever]

Just open the damn door, don't even have to leave it open at -28.

LOL, yea i wished it was that easy

 

[lightman]

Well, they just started doing the rolling blackouts here in Arkansas. My Wife says its all over Facebook! It looks like random customers will be off for an hour at a time. They are doing it through the smart meter. So there are no circuits or substations off. Yet!!!

 

[chevy_man]

We have a bunch of wind in Montana. Too far north for solar (NWE built a solar field to appease the greenies, after 1 year of output they determined it will never pay for itself and will be carbon positive by end of life) and we sell our "green" wind power to California.

I'd be interested to know how they weathproof them, and why someone thought it was a good idea to not setup the entire US for the possibility of snow and ice.


I would guess all my natural gas comes from the wasteland of North Dakota. If they can keep the gas flowing, and compressor stations operating there, they can do it anywhere. If that damn place isn't hell on earth, I'd guess you can at least see it from the top of the rig.

 

[GordonFreeman]

NE KS Suburbs

Power was out from 7:30am to 3:30pm

I was counting the minutes until afternoon when it was an acceptable time to begin consuming whiskey. Hope I saved everyone else some energy by freezing my dick off. My English labs loved it...finally their kind of weather

 

[hic28]

 

[DarnYankeeUSMC]

You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning.
And NO that doesn't make you an alcoholic.

NE KS Suburbs

Power was out from 7:30am to 3:30pm

I was counting the minutes until afternoon when it was an acceptable time to begin consuming whiskey. Hope I saved everyone else some energy by freezing my dick off. My English labs loved it...finally their kind of weather

 

[Rocketvapor]

For you guys with working heaters, how much does it cost to stay warm?

Natural Gas

Average Residential Price

www.eia.gov

Electricity

Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

 

[GrantB]

The thing with any industry is the hardware is designed to meet certain environmental requirements and it really is cost prohibitive to design, build and maintain to extreme conditions. The major problems with almost every company is they let the maintenance slide on stuff like freeze protection because it’s 100 degrees in august and there are more important things to work on. I don’t know how many times I have contacted power plants telling them to expect wet gas in the next few days because the supplier is pulling hard and the driers can’t keeping up. Wet gas means pilot valves and instrumentation freeze up and down goes the plant. It’s just human nature to put off what you can, to get done what you need to. It’s fun for northerners to say you should be prepared for the cold. Let’s turn the tables, would Montana be ready for eeeks and weeks of 110 degree temps in august?

 

[rady]

I retired after nearly 35 years as an electrical lineman and I can expand on every point that you made. The customer is often their own worst enemy. Trimming trees is one thing that utility companies spend big money on and get lots of resistance on. Government regs, aging distribution and transmission systems and reduction in work force are taking its toll. I'm glad to be out of it.

Hat's off to you Sir. Few realize what a tough and dangerous job that is.

My last story.............I promise.

Major storm came thru and customers were out for 4-5 days. I got called out to escort an outside contractor crew to a residential location on day 5. Sure enough an irate customer comes out screaming at me and the crew, calling us M.F.'s. and the like. Demanded my name and my supervisors phone #. He wanted to have us all fired. Unfortunately, the repair for that line section took about 6 hours and he persisted on several occasions to continue the tirade.

We were about 45 min. from restoring power and he came out to me and wanted to know if he needed to get a hotel room. Told him it might be a good idea, but I couldn't advise him on what to do. Got to see him load up the bags and family. Power was restored about a half hour later.......................This turn out to be one of the best storms I ever worked.

I guess the moral of the story is don't blame the crews. In almost 99.9999% of the cases it is not their fault for outages. Do you really want to call a 200 lb lineman and M.F? Some of them are not so understanding as the above crew I was with.

 

[theLBC]

 

[rady]

They say that time heals all wounds................For this one, stupid is forever and infinite.

 

[theLBC]

 

[chevy_man]

The thing with any industry is the hardware is designed to meet certain environmental requirements and it really is cost prohibitive to design, build and maintain to extreme conditions. The major problems with almost every company is they let the maintenance slide on stuff like freeze protection because it’s 100 degrees in august and there are more important things to work on. I don’t know how many times I have contacted power plants telling them to expect wet gas in the next few days because the supplier is pulling hard and the driers can’t keeping up. Wet gas means pilot valves and instrumentation freeze up and down goes the plant. It’s just human nature to put off what you can, to get done what you need to. It’s fun for northerners to say you should be prepared for the cold. Let’s turn the tables, would Montana be ready for eeeks and weeks of 110 degree temps in august?

Yes. Stuff works fine in the heat. We have seen 110* for a week.

Other than the fact that I could drink 2 gallons of water before I needed a piss, everything worked fine.

 

[tiNdvenTFHwMdqKW]

I'm sure there are a lot of people with "prepper" tendencies that are feeling very vindicated at the moment.

Whenever my wife starts asking "do we have water|generator|heat", I just kick back and smugly state how it's all covered. The only non-redundant survival thing is the knowledge I have to run everything ... and if I'm gone then I don't have to hear the lamentations. I've told her how to do everything but it's all in one ear and out the other.

 

[lightman]

Hat's off to you Sir. Few realize what a tough and dangerous job that is.

My last story.............I promise.

Major storm came thru and customers were out for 4-5 days. I got called out to escort an outside contractor crew to a residential location on day 5. Sure enough an irate customer comes out screaming at me and the crew, calling us M.F.'s. and the like. Demanded my name and my supervisors phone #. He wanted to have us all fired. Unfortunately, the repair for that line section took about 6 hours and he persisted on several occasions to continue the tirade.

We were about 45 min. from restoring power and he came out to me and wanted to know if he needed to get a hotel room. Told him it might be a good idea, but I couldn't advise him on what to do. Got to see him load up the bags and family. Power was restored about a half hour later.......................This turn out to be one of the best storms I ever worked.

I guess the moral of the story is don't blame the crews. In almost 99.9999% of the cases it is not their fault for outages. Do you really want to call a 200 lb lineman and M.F? Some of them are not so understanding as the above crew I was with.

Yeah, I could tell some stories. I've been praised and I've been cussed out. If we have a big storm I usually end up leading contract crews around and then go scouting for the next job. I had one guy that was so bad that we packed up and left the area with the crew and didn't go back until the next day. The guy came out again and was about to start his shit again and I just told him I had a lot of other places to work that didn't have a guy like him there. He looked at me like he wanted to say something and then realized that I wasn't kidding! Asshole!

Another storm and another time me and several crews worked all day in a subdivision and about an hour after dark we were winding down and I took the crew foreman up to the switch. As we were waiting on the crews to check in a nice looking lady drove up and came over to talk with us. She thanked us and pointed off down the hill at her house and ask if they would be back on that night. I told her yes and just to watch for a minute. The forman closed the switch and lights all up and down the street came on and she let out a squeal and jumped up in my arms and kissed all over my neck then she jumped on that forman and started kissing all over him. It kind of made that hard day more worthwhile! Those stories also kind of temper the experiences with the assholes!

Well, I could tell stories for hours but I'll quit for now. And yeah, I kind of miss it at times! I hope all of you guys that are off come back on soon.

 

[RGStory]

I'd be interested to know how they weathproof them, and why someone thought it was a good idea to not setup the entire US for the possibility of snow and ice.

For turbines in colder climates, they install heaters in the nacelles and use a different viscosity lubricants. In warmer climates, they forego installing the heaters. Admittedly this explanation is a bit of an oversimplification. "Wind turbine lubrication exists at the very extremes of industrial gear applications in terms of temperature, load weights, bearing wear, maintenance, accessibility and basic lubricant performance."

The thing with any industry is the hardware is designed to meet certain environmental requirements and it really is cost prohibitive to design, build and maintain to extreme conditions. The major problems with almost every company is they let the maintenance slide on stuff like freeze protection because it’s 100 degrees in august and there are more important things to work on.

Utilizing wind and weather modeling going back over 50 years, the cost vs risk was probably high. I suspect it does not seem worthwhile to install the heaters in Texas. Same goes for the natural gas well heads. No need to install heaters designed for artic temps in the south.

It is safe to say that no one was prepared for a black swan weather event.

 

[Sgtsideways]

 

[Mr.BR]

How about investing in electrical grids, and plants that actually work in the winter.Nuclear plant went into a shutdown and bunch of gas and coal plants went of line as well . Where the fuck do Texans even find these fair-weather-only plants? China !!
But at least anyone who has any gas to sell is making a killing now as prices skyrocket.

''The electricity shortage in Texas amid the cold snap has sent spot electricity prices soaring so much that the surge in power prices equals a cost of $900 for charging a Tesla.'' No wonder Musk is keeping his mouth shut


''The South Texas Project nuclear plant has restarted the unit 1 reactor, which has been down since Monday.
The 1.35-gigawatt reactor is currently running at 5%, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The facility went offline early Monday because the extreme cold affected the feedwater pumps. ''



“Electricity market incentives are currently structured in such a way that Texas’ power companies receive more money if they don’t weatherize all their plants and shut down some of them during cold weather.”

 

[GrantB]

I laugh at all the misinformation coming from people that have no knowledge or experience in this area. To people that really know it’s glaringly obvious that they have no clue at all.

 

[Rocketvapor]

Just love the $900 to charge a Tesla comment
lololololololol

 

[E. Bryant]

For turbines in colder climates, they install heaters in the nacelles and use a different viscosity lubricants. In warmer climates, they forego installing the heaters. Admittedly this explanation is a bit of an oversimplification. "Wind turbine lubrication exists at the very extremes of industrial gear applications in terms of temperature, load weights, bearing wear, maintenance, accessibility and basic lubricant performance."



Utilizing wind and weather modeling going back over 50 years, the cost vs risk was probably high. I suspect it does not seem worthwhile to install the heaters in Texas. Same goes for the natural gas well heads. No need to install heaters designed for artic temps in the south.

It is safe to say that no one was prepared for a black swan weather event.

There are a few common themes when looking at disastrous interaction between man and nature:

1) One-in-a-hundred/thousand/million year events occur more frequently than estimated.

2) The cost of freaking with those "rare" or "impossible" events far outweighs the cost of avoidance.

We see this play out regardless of party, political system, geographical location, or culture, because humans are hard-wired to overestimate near-term risk (it costs too much to harden southern energy systems against extreme cold), and we underestimate or completely ignore long-term risk. Hence, 70% of the world's population lives within 5km of water and then we're completely shocked when flooding wipes out complete cities every year.

If I were a utility regulator or operator in Texas or California or Japan or anywhere on earth, I'd lose my job in the blink of an eye if I tried to charge the actual cost of doing business properly (that is, charge for the actual cost of maintaining transmission lines, properly building a power plant that has an effective operating life of a half-century, and so on). Instead, we transfer these costs to insurers and taxpayers. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there are plenty of opportunities to play hide the weenie.

Please don't take this as shit-talking the power business, or Texas in general.

 

[HeavyAssault]

They had all those windmills blowing warm air North. Is anyone surprised that Canada finally turned on their windmills blowing cold air South??

It's science.

 

[W54/XM-388]

During public speaking engagements on simple things like road widening's or upgrading distribution/transmission facilities, I was appalled by how rabid people would become when they found out that trees were going to be removed from their property.................They would blame the utilities even though the state had used eminent domain to acquire property. I had a guy pull a gun and threatened to kill me because lines had to be moved on what use to be his property. He was arrested a week later when he did the same thing to a gas utility employee.

If the state had "acquired" the property with imminent domain, it pretty much meant the "King's Men" with guns "Just followed orders" and told the owner they were taking it like it or not and maybe some day somebody would toss them a few peanuts (probably less than the tax value they were charging) if or when they ever felt like getting around to it out of the tax bill they just paid themselves...

So you can't really blame the owner for figuring well 2 can play at the take what you want at gunpoint game....

 

[missed]

How about investing in electrical grids, and plants that actually work in the winter.Nuclear plant went into a shutdown and bunch of gas and coal plants went of line as well . Where the fuck do Texans even find these fair-weather-only plants? China !!
But at least anyone who has any gas to sell is making a killing now as prices skyrocket.

''The electricity shortage in Texas amid the cold snap has sent spot electricity prices soaring so much that the surge in power prices equals a cost of $900 for charging a Tesla.'' No wonder Musk is keeping his mouth shut


''The South Texas Project nuclear plant has restarted the unit 1 reactor, which has been down since Monday.
The 1.35-gigawatt reactor is currently running at 5%, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The facility went offline early Monday because the extreme cold affected the feedwater pumps. ''



“Electricity market incentives are currently structured in such a way that Texas’ power companies receive more money if they don’t weatherize all their plants and shut down some of them during cold weather.”

Every plant is designed with a minimum operating temperature. Like others have said this has been an event that is extremely rare. STP's feed water heaters and turbine are all outside. Just like Comanche peaks. Frozen level transmitters on feed water heaters will cause a plant transient. Instrumentation lines are insulated and heat traced. The insulation and heat trace is designed for the plants minimum operating temperature. So at what point do you over design? Where do you finally draw the line? In nuclear you operate on the conservative side. If this was at a dirt burner or gas fired plant, could they have made decisions to more aggressively recover from the transient? More than likely. They could have bypassed the feed water heater with the frozen level transmitter, ran the turbine back to account for the loss in efficiency and reduced feed water flow.

The fossil guys don't have the NRC standing over them interrogating them for a non conservative decision that was made. They have to follow procedures. Some operators can navigate the procedures really fast, some are more methodical and not as fast. Automatic control system is going to react, operators must react to what the control system is doing and telling you. Depending on how the affected transmitter reacted, the operator has to confirm conditions, your doing this while the control system is doing what it's supposed to do. Over riding automatic functions is only done when it's still within the procedural bounds.

This weather event has been a fucker from every direction.

 

[GrantB]

I worked at a dirt burner for many years and one winter we had a freezing spell and it caused the coal to freeze in the silos and feeders. Operations fought it for a couple days but it was useless in the end. Sometimes shit just happens. Let me ask you this question. Would you like to pay 3 times the cost your paying now for power and have that golden power system or would you take that money and invest it in your own house to become self sufficient if needed

 

[rbutcher]

I’ve also never had this happen to me during weather. Feel bad for people who didn’t prepare

 

[W54/XM-388]

I worked at a dirt burner for many years and one winter we had a freezing spell and it caused the coal to freeze in the silos and feeders. Operations fought it for a couple days but it was useless in the end. Sometimes shit just happens. Let me ask you this question. Would you like to pay 3 times the cost your paying now for power and have that golden power system or would you take that money and invest it in your own house to become self sufficient if needed

1 in maybe 1000 would use the cheaper power to invest in making their house self sufficient.
999 out of 1000 will be screaming to the politicians to blame somebody, anybody, when the trouble comes.

Apparently here in Texas now folks are being all angry that not everybody lost power......
Talk about dog in the manger.....

The best bet is probably to charge everyone higher prices, get it nice and stable and those who don't want to pay the high prices, can take out a loan and get their energy stuff in order and then use it instead of paying higher prices.

 

[GrantB]

What I was trying to say was you have relatively cheap power now, the electrical system isn’t going to get any better so save up a few dollars and get prepared for these types of events. Today it’s electric tomorrow it may be another luxury you can’t live without. I can get myself prepared better than any utility or government can. I have alternate sources for power and water but this event has exposed a couple weaknesses in my systems that will get addressed in the near future.

 

[missed]

1 in maybe 1000 would use the cheaper power to invest in making their house self sufficient.
999 out of 1000 will be screaming to the politicians to blame somebody, anybody, when the trouble comes.

Apparently here in Texas now folks are being all angry that not everybody lost power......
Talk about dog in the manger.....

The best bet is probably to charge everyone higher prices, get it nice and stable and those who don't want to pay the high prices, can take out a loan and get their energy stuff in order and then use it instead of paying higher prices.

Exactly,

When we built our house, I put no pipes in the exterior walls, or piping in unconditioned spaces. Generator connection provisions, wood insert, propane heat, all piping and well are heat traced and insulated. Plenty of diesel, propane, and firewood to be self sufficient. It is not like this was a surprise.