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Rolling Blackouts

Devildog

Devildog

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Minuteman
    • Aug 24, 2013
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    13,817
    The Land of Oz
    What’s your thoughts? Never in my 56 yrs have we had rolling power blackouts due to weather here where I live. I’m trying to figure out what’s changed. I’m thinking this whole green energy agenda plays a role, wind mills are frozen and won’t spin, solar panels covered in snow and ice, they don’t want to expand gas or coal usage. Is this the new norm? Glad I have land, wood and a wood burning stove. Others aren’t so lucky! Stay warm and stay safe!
     
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    This was brought on by deregulation and government subsidies to wind and solar generation. When wind and solar have grid priority and get set subsidized price no matter what it fucks the entire system. Due to cheap natural gas which is the driving force of the electric price in the state, so cheap power has caused many power plants to decommission plants that were not good producers or needed large capital upgrades.

    Bottom line is wind and solar is NOT base load power no matter how bad people think they want it.

    On top of all the above mother nature is just screwing us. The design basis of many of these plants in north Texas is 12 degrees.

    Many plants are not designed nor equipped to handle this, especially for the long period of time at this temperature level or the fact that it was cold before the real cold arrived. Having instrument lines freezing causing control problems can lead to plant trips. Recovering tripped plants in this weather as equipment cools off makes things even harder.

    On top of all that transmission and distribution systems are designed under certain design basis also. Which is typically based on summer demand. Your AC/heat pump that draws 3kw in AC/heat pump is now in strip heater mode pulling 8-12kw of electric heat.

    So now increased demand is stressing the entire system, along with power plants having hell staying running. Limited natural gas supply, transmission and distribution challenges. The grid capacity is not there like it used to be.
     
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    If you wanna get a submission, a choke hold is a good place to be. You think this is not planned? Who controls electric power generation & distribution? Yeah, nature is a cruel bitch. Nothing new there.

    Watch who/where the money goes.
     
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    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.
     
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    I'll also add that this isn't the first time the system has struggled with generation capacity issues. There were times in the past where simultaneous and unrelated loss of generation assets caused brownouts or blackouts. There was once when the generation capacity was critically low in the heat of the summer and a insulator cleaning crew caused a phase to phase fault on a large power line that resulted in an under frequency situation for a large part of the grid.

    Now we are just morons who shut off our reliable power plants in favor of something that only generates power when you don't need it.
     
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    Please allow me to predict the future:
    Same-same with your credit/debit/checking account. Choke/disable/disrupt your financials, because you (insert whatever reason the controllers wanna use here). What's it take to stop your debit card from working? Do you control that? Do you control the electricity?

    Can't buy anything? Can't sell anything in the normal way? Your shit stops RFN. Better hope you have water, food, layers of security, and a BUNCH of family/friends cuz when the zombies come looking for food, water & somebody to tell them what to do... It might get a bit knackered. If you can feed, house, clothe & lead these people, you might be on to something.

    When the electric stops, it's only the beginning. Three days later, it gets interesting. Three WEEKS later, it gets creative.
     
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    Mordamer said:
    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.
    Click to expand...
    I also work in utility industry on the distribution end. You are 100% spot on. It’s a total shit show.
     
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    Devildog said:
    What’s your thoughts? Never in my 56 yrs have we had rolling power blackouts due to weather here where I live. I’m trying to figure out what’s changed. I’m thinking this whole green energy agenda plays a role, wind mills are frozen and won’t spin, solar panels covered in snow and ice, they don’t want to expand gas or coal usage. Is this the new norm? Glad I have land, wood and a wood burning stove. Others aren’t so lucky! Stay warm and stay safe!
    Click to expand...
    Not to make light of your current conditions but the lack of energy that your experiencing is exactly what they want. Mind you as the rest of the world is warm from coal,oil and gas we in America must freeze to save the planet , we only have 8 years left before the end of the world.
     
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    At least Oklahoma is still a regulated market. That helps somewhat. Us down on the deregulated ERCOT market it's a bit tighter down here. I'm in the electric utility industry also.

    I remember a day at the ERCOT command center, watching a storm coming in that was just knocking all the wind generation off the grid like dominos. Go from 5000mWe reserves to less than 2000mWe in 30 minutes.
     
    The solar companies up here ( bunch of fruit bats) put out a call for generators for their clients... guess a month without a sunny day and last week at -25 has put the hurt on the little wokies. Wahhhhh.

    Meanwhile, my little wood stove has the house at 75 on 10 logs a day.

    gotta love carbon!

    Sirhr
     
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    candyx said:
    Not to make light of your current conditions but the lack of energy that your experiencing is exactly what they want. Mind you as the rest of the world is warm from coal,oil and gas we in America must freeze to save the planet , we only have 8 years left before the end of the world.
    Click to expand...
    According to the Deagel report we only have 4 years. I’ve watched the deagel report for years. They predict a loss of 230 million Americans by 2025. Hmmm, that would be by the end of China Joe’s 1st term. Weird! https://www.deagel.com/forecast
     
    Devildog said:
    According to the Deagel report we only have 4 years. I’ve watched the deagel report for years. They predict a loss of 230 million Americans by 2025. Hmmm, that would be by the end of China Joe’s 1st term. Weird! https://www.deagel.com/forecast
    Click to expand...

    My reference was from AOC , I know other elected asshats years before her have made the same claim. Scaring the straights with farting cows is cruel for the sheep know no better.
     
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    The green hasn’t been coming from the feds at least in the last few years anyway, it’s coming from the woke companies and local municipal power providers. Large consumers of power like Amazon, Walmart, and other doo good companies are putting pressure on producers to supply them with green alternatives. These companies will say I’ll build or expand my business in your area but I want a certain percentage of my power to be green, Local munies do the same. So the generator will go out and purchase green power or build green power plants to satisfy the customer knowing that it’s not the most reliable or cheapest. Up until about 10 years ago the summer was our peak days in Louisiana but now it’s winter, all new houses have electric heat now not wood or gas.
     
    candyx said:
    My reference was from AOC , I know other elected asshats years before her have made the same claim. Scaring the straights with farting cows is cruel for the sheep know no better.
    Click to expand...
    I hear yeah, there’s all kinds of conspiracy theories out there. My brains always trying to connect the dots!
     
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    And they want everyone driving Electric cars in 10 - 15 years. Yeah, Right!

    www.forbes.com

    This Blizzard Exposes The Perils Of Attempting To ‘Electrify Everything’

    The massive blast of Siberia-like cold that is wreaking havoc across North America is proving that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas, and lots of it, for many years to come.
    www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
     
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    I have been in the electrical utility industry for 30 years and if they think we can depend on solar and wind for base power they are badly mistaken. It’s supplemental at best. The only usable green power is hydroelectric and pumped storage which has rotating mass with its generators.
     
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    I am also in the industry and to be careful I will just say it doesn't help that Texas is basically on an island on it's own. It isolates the rolling curtailment and any concern for any cascading failures but it also means it can't be helped either.
     
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    Dehumidifiers built in the windmills to remove water from the atmosphere would remove clouds so solar panels would be 100% efficient not to mention no more storms and flooding. Nobel Prize awarding to say the lease..... The plants and trees will not die because of the drip irrigation system from the dehumidifiers....
     
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    Basically an island, it is an island with a few dc ties for oh shit moments.
    BigPrince said:
    I am also in the industry and to be careful I will just say it doesn't help that Texas is basically on an island on it's own. It isolates the rolling curtailment and any concern for any cascading failures but it also means it can't be helped either.
    Click to expand...
     
    Our power went out as we had a huge ice storm here in Oregon and knocked out power. I have a wood stove and a generator and I sat back and looked at my kids thinking these spoiled brats don’t know how good they have it. Power out and everyone is freezing and can’t drive on the roads yet my kids are playing supper Mario on the TV in their underwear🤷🏼On the bright side they did help bring in the wood
     
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    Alpine 338 said:
    It just shows how critical the critical infrastructure is.
    Click to expand...
    About 10-15 years ago the Mississippi River was flooding and that prevented trains from crossing it because of added side stresses on the bridges and barges couldn’t operate or unload at ports. Guess how all the eastern coal power plants get their coal, Either across or down the mighty Mississippi River. Long story short if the River had stayed up a week longer there would have been major blackouts all up and down the eastern parts of the country because the coal plants were within days of running out and guess what, nobody outside the power industry cared or knew about it
     
    That's how you can tell there is
    Safetyoff700 said:
    View attachment 7558167
    All the turbines near Abilene Texas are covered with oil and look like this. Does that still qualify as clean energy?
    Click to expand...
    That's how you tell if there is still oil in it. If it's leaking it's still got oil in it. Don't worry about it till it stops leaking. One of my buddies is in the wind turbine industry. Kinda funny the garbage they plant in the ground. All the money is in getting them up. They don't really give a fuck after that.
     
    GrantB said:
    About 10-15 years ago the Mississippi River was flooding and that prevented trains from crossing it because of added side stresses on the bridges and barges couldn’t operate or unload at ports. Guess how all the eastern coal power plants get their coal, Either across or down the mighty Mississippi River. Long story short if the River had stayed up a week longer there would have been major blackouts all up and down the eastern parts of the country because the coal plants were within days of running out and guess what, nobody outside the power industry cared or knew about it
    Click to expand...

    A couple weeks ago I drove by our local coal fired plant, and noticed the reserve pile was huge. It was almost as tall as the main plant building. Never seen it that big before.

    It's slated to close in less than 10 years.
     
    We would normally keep 30-40 days worth of coal at the plant for our reserve. To give you a perspective on the amount of coal it takes we burn a 110 car train of coal every 3 days on one 550 mw unit. And that’s a yearly average not peak times like this. When we were running out during that time we ran the numbers to truck some lignite from another plant about 50 miles away and it was going to take 1 truck every 5 minutes 24/7 just to keep up.
     
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    WTF kind of ass backward places do you all live?
     
    sirhrmechanic said:
    The solar companies up here ( bunch of fruit bats) put out a call for generators for their clients... guess a month without a sunny day and last week at -25 has put the hurt on the little wokies. Wahhhhh.

    Meanwhile, my little wood stove has the house at 75 on 10 logs a day.

    gotta love carbon!

    Sirhr
    Click to expand...

    TEAM CARBON!

     
    Having been an engineer for a power company many years ago, it was rather easy to see this coming. The political pressure at the top and leading to the corporate board room to shift to alternate energy sources was increasing. At meetings, lobbyists would threaten us with ya'all better listen to me ( "donate") so that the legislation remains friendly to you. This was happening over 20 years ago. In the long run, they still screw you no matter how much you pay the pricks.

    Since that time, I've seen the company buckle under and build solar/wind farms in order to keep the state and the district of crooks happy. It cost lots of jobs where the highly skilled line supervisors/engineers/staff were either let go early, or forced to retire. They did this with a time study that was highly corrupt and flawed. Young and dumb was usually brought in to try and fill the void. Combine this with the green movement, poor infrastructure, and heavy government regulation, and it is no wonder we are in the state that we are in.

    Having worked in 12KV to 765KV station yards, hydroelectric, coal, and nuclear plants. I came to the conclusion that nuclear was the way to go...................But it will never happen. When you have to get environmental permits for just about everything in a public utility, it really adds to costs and delays. What always amazed me was how ignorant the public was in these matters. It was always the utilities fault for the price increases, yet they never put 2+2 together to see it was their favorite fair haired politicians that had the hands in their pockets.

    Don't look for any of this to get any better as the assholes in government could care less how many of you unwashed die from these policies. They'll always have their piece of the pie.
     
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    rady said:
    Having been an engineer for a power company many years ago, it was rather easy to see this coming. The political pressure at the top and leading to the corporate board room to shift to alternate energy sources was increasing. At meetings, lobbyists would threaten us with ya'all better listen to me ( "donate") so that the legislation remains friendly to you. This was happening over 20 years ago. In the long run, they still screw you no matter how much you pay the pricks.

    Since that time, I've seen the company buckle under and build solar/wind farms in order to keep the state and the district of crooks happy. It cost lots of jobs where the highly skilled line supervisors/engineers/staff were either let go early, or forced to retire. They did this with a time study that was highly corrupt and flawed. Young and dumb was usually brought in to try and fill the void. Combine this with the green movement, poor infrastructure, and heavy government regulation, and it is no wonder we are in the state that we are in.

    Having worked in 12KV to 760KV station yards, hydroelectric, coal, and nuclear plants. I came to the conclusion that nuclear was the way to go...................But it will never happen. When you have to get environmental permits for just about everything in a public utility, it really adds to costs and delays. What always amazed me was how ignorant the public was in these matters. It was always the utilities fault for the price increases, yet they never put 2+2 together to see it was their favorite fair haired politicians that had the hands in their pockets.

    Don't look for any of this to get any better as the assholes in government could care less how many of you unwashed die from these policies. They'll always have their pie of the pie.
    Click to expand...
    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.
     
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    Devildog said:
    What’s your thoughts? Never in my 56 yrs have we had rolling power blackouts due to weather here where I live. I’m trying to figure out what’s changed. I’m thinking this whole green energy agenda plays a role, wind mills are frozen and won’t spin, solar panels covered in snow and ice, they don’t want to expand gas or coal usage. Is this the new norm? Glad I have land, wood and a wood burning stove. Others aren’t so lucky! Stay warm and stay safe!
    Click to expand...
    I looked at Northwest Arkansas weather (relatives in Arkansas). -20 at Drake "international" - ROVING BLACKOUTS!!!!!!!!!! NEVER, in all my years, have I heard of roving blackouts in Arkansas or anywhere else in The South. So, let's take a quick look at the bullshit being rammed down our throats. Supposed buildings getting "GREEN" awards like LEED buildings, Super high efficiency heat pumps (though I go straight to resistance heat when it's below 15...I think my compressor is like 12 SEER new....14 years old...it's like 8 now), modern day code says one has to buy 15 to meet code, LED lighting everywhere (granted, people forget light bulbs gave off more heat) - we should be using LESS electricity, not more. I don't buy this whole "demand" thing.

    Right now, the only thing running in my house is a 1500 watt heater by my feet, 2 humidifiers. I may have 3000 watts going...maybe.
     
    Here in IL, we're shutting down two of our six nuclear plants next summer.
     
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    BytorJr said:
    Geniuses....lemme guess....solar panels as replacement.
    Click to expand...
    Basically it wasn't economical to run the Byron and Dresden plants. Low energy prices, high property taxes don't help.

    www.exeloncorp.com

    Exelon Generation to Retire Illinois’ Byron and Dresden Nuclear Plants in 2021

    Early retirements are the result of market rules that favor polluting power plants over carbon-free nuclear energy
    www.exeloncorp.com

    Business decision. I have my opinions on the political climate and whether shutting down the plants is a good thing for IL, but they are irrelevant.
     
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