Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One can hope that Texas doesn't take any assistance from the fed. Our governor is interested in secession and it would only make sense to operate independently.
P.S. "Governor Greg Abbott announced Sunday that the White House has granted a Federal Emergency Declaration for Texas in response to the severe winter weather throughout the state. According to the governor’s office, the declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide emergency protective measures for mass care and “sheltering and Direct Federal Assistance for all 254 counties in Texas.” https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021...pacting-texas/
The White House, at the request of Governor Abbot, has declared Texas a disaster area so Texas can get FEMA disaster assistance and federal dollars. I was reading a Texas news article (linked below), and there still seems to be debate about whether they should actually pay to winterize these plants - because they've never done it before. I gotta say that as the rest of the nation needs to bail out Texas for this negligence, and for reference, the other states routinely pay to winterize *their* plants, I can't understand how some people in Texas still refuse to properly maintain these systems??? It's not like anything heroic is required, just do what the other states already do! https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/lo...5-b78e7e4fc13a
The turbines generating the electricity are driven by steam. The problems are multi-fold from my experience.
The record colds drives demand for power hungry homes and business and gas used by the power plants is deverted to homes and businesses.
The reason is the steam boilers at the generation plant have a duel fuel system.
So now with gas not available to Boiler operators they can swing over to bunker #6 oil to fire the boilers to create steam to drive the steam turbines.
Problem is Texas hardly ever has this kind of cold weather so all kinds of systems have to be prepared and readied for operation.. Miles of steam tracer lines, Insulation and water lines and steam traps have got to be tested, inspected, and brought on line days before this weather did it's best to shut these steam traps water feed lines and very viscous oil lines down.
The Plants normal operation is probably at 50% of capacity this time of year.
The additional boilers being powered up demanded additional crews and boilers to be fired up to meet the unusual demand. Also a lot preparation as the cold increased lines froze, oil gelled, and crews were over whelmed.
Here is the live map of the Texas plants and their outage status. Electric cars will only make it worse. I did both the hands on part of that job as well as ran crews many years ago. I don't envy the crews or the bosses with this kind of cold working against them..
Here is a live map of outages in Texas. State Outages: 4,295,152
The turbines generating the electricity are driven by steam. The problems are multi-fold from my experience.
The record colds drives demand for power hungry homes and business and gas used by the power plants is deverted to homes and businesses.
The reason is the steam boilers at the generation plant have a duel fuel system.
So now with gas not available to Boiler operators they can swing over to bunker #6 oil to fire the boilers to create steam to drive the steam turbines.
Problem is Texas hardly ever has this kind of cold weather so all kinds of systems have to be prepared and readied for operation.. Miles of steam tracer lines, Insulation and water lines and steam traps have got to be tested, inspected, and brought on line days before this weather did it's best to shut these steam traps water feed lines and very viscous oil lines down.
The Plants normal operation is probably at 50% of capacity this time of year.
The additional boilers being powered up demanded additional crews and boilers to be fired up to meet the unusual demand. Also a lot preparation as the cold increased lines froze, oil gelled, and crews were over whelmed.
Here is the live map of the Texas plants and their outage status. Electric cars will only make it worse. I did both the hands on part of that job as well as ran crews many years ago. I don't envy the crews or the bosses with this kind of cold working against them..
Here is a live map of outages in Texas. State Outages: 4,295,152
I am not in the power industry, I'm a chemist, so thanks for sharing your experience. You seem to be implying that there's nothing that can be done to avoid these problems, though. If you'll forgive me, I'm still not understanding - how come OK, AR, MO, and KS aren't having such problems if they can't be avoided? It's colder in OK than in TX, and about 10% of the customers are currently without power (164K/1.7M) in OK, while in TX, it's about 1/3 without power (4.3M/12.5M). In KS, where it's colder yet, only 5% are without power (26K/1.2M). https://poweroutage.us/
In this article out of the Austin ABC affiliate, they note that winterization procedures are not mandated in TX, and they suggest that they have simply been inadequate. They interview a Dr David Tuttle out of the Univ of Texas-Austin Energy Institute. He says it's a matter of deciding what to pay to upgrade the weatherization: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/lo...5-b78e7e4fc13a
The difference is in Texas cold like this is a rare event.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OutdoorLover
I am not in the power industry, I'm a chemist, so thanks for sharing your experience. You seem to be implying that there's nothing that can be done to avoid these problems, though. If you'll forgive me, I'm still not understanding - how come OK, AR, MO, and KS aren't having such problems if they can't be avoided? It's colder in OK than in TX, and about 10% of the customers are currently without power (164K/1.7M) in OK, while in TX, it's about 1/3 without power (4.3M/12.5M). In KS, where it's colder yet, only 5% are without power (26K/1.2M). https://poweroutage.us/
In this article out of the Austin ABC affiliate, they note that winterization procedures are not mandated in TX, and they suggest that they have simply been inadequate. They interview a Dr David Tuttle out of the Univ of Texas-Austin Energy Institute. He says it's a matter of deciding what to pay to upgrade the weatherization: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/lo...5-b78e7e4fc13a
The difference is in Texas cold like this is a rare event. So the experienced middle manager in places like O.k. or K.S. just routinely have a meeting a week before the cold spell. His people have literally hundreds of years of experience dealing with such events in the past.
The plan of action is agreed upon long before the actual unusual cold spell. The seriousness of the coming cold event is understood by all and acted upon as a team.
Overtime and extra parts that are necessary are understood to be unavoidable and upper manage understands this also.
The techs in Texas ended up being unprepared and overwhelmed due to lack of experience thought out the chain of command caused by a very rare event that takes a great deal of effort to prepare for..
Think of their jobs ans being a hybrid tech times ten, inexperience punished the crap out of them.
Millions of Texans were left without electricity Monday as a rare winter storm boosted demand and crimped supplies, demonstrating that California isn’t the only state with a power grid vulnerable to extreme weather conditions.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state’s electricity grid, began calling for rotating outages overnight on Sunday to avoid widespread blackouts that can occur when demand exceeds supply. But the severe power shortages forced companies to curtail power beyond short rolling blackouts, with many customers losing electricity for much of the day.
The imbalance occurred as residents cranked their thermostats amid record-breaking lows in some areas of the state, causing electricity demand to surge amid a precipitous drop in generating capacity. The grid operator said it lost about 34,000 megawatts of supply as freezing temperatures forced natural-gas- and coal-fired power plants offline in quick succession. The weather also reduced natural-gas supplies to power plants and caused wind turbines in West Texas to freeze.
Clearly, the national electric grid will need to become robust and fault-tolerant in an era of mass-deployment of EVs.
edit:
Wholesale power prices also surged, at times exceeding the market price cap of $9,000 per megawatt hour, according to ERCOT data. Prices had hovered below $50 per megawatt hour before the winter storm.
Power shortages show the folly of eliminating natural gas—and coal.
Not only is the US in dire need of more fossil fuel energy, Europe and Asia are also importing more fossil fuels for heat and power this winter. U.S. LNG exports increased 25% year-over-year in December while prices tripled in northern Asian spot markets and doubled in Europe. Germany’s public broadcasting recently reported that “Germany’s green energies strained by winter.” The report noted that power is “currently coming mainly from coal, and the power plants in Lausitz” are now “running at full capacity.”
Coal still accounts for 60% of China’s energy, and imports tripled in December. China has some 250 gigawatts of coal-fired plants under development, enough to power all of Germany. Unlike left-wing Green New Deal proponents in the U.S., Chinese leaders understand that fossil fuels are needed to support intermittent renewables. “Power shortages and incredibly high spot gas prices this winter are reminding governments, businesses and consumers of the importance of coal,” a Wood Mackenzie consultant told Reuters recently.
California progressives long ago banished coal. But a heat wave last summer strained the state’s power grid as wind flagged and solar ebbed in the evenings. After imposing rolling blackouts, grid regulators resorted to importing coal power from Utah and running diesel emergency generators.
Liberals claim that prices of renewables and fossil fuels are now comparable, which may be true due to subsidies, but they are no free lunch, as this week’s energy emergency shows.
The Biden Administration’s plan to banish fossil fuels is a greater existential threat to Americans than climate change.
not if we embrace the Green New Deal and other progressive policies of only building the renewable and drop the only reliable ones: coal, gas & nuclear
Why are there fewer people without power in Oklahoma versus Texas? Texas has a far higher population spread out over a much larger land area. Look at the size of Oklahoma then look at the size of Texas. Texas is easily 3 times the size of Oklahoma.
The White House, at the request of Governor Abbot, has declared Texas a disaster area so Texas can get FEMA disaster assistance and federal dollars. I was reading a Texas news article (linked below), and there still seems to be debate about whether they should actually pay to winterize these plants - because they've never done it before. I gotta say that as the rest of the nation needs to bail out Texas for this negligence, and for reference, the other states routinely pay to winterize *their* plants, I can't understand how some people in Texas still refuse to properly maintain these systems??? It's not like anything heroic is required, just do what the other states already do! https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/lo...5-b78e7e4fc13a
There will be a bunch of inquisitions, with the executives of the power companies and ERCOT, the grid operator, in front of legislators and others, explaining what happened. The unregulated power generators have no incentive to winterize their plants, since it cuts into profits. Regulated generators can make their case to the Public Utilities Commission to get the costs put in the rate base. However, that does nothing to resolve the issues where natural gas is unavailable due to gas plants shutting down or wells getting shut in due to freezing of lines and other issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by corolla5speed
The turbines generating the electricity are driven by steam. The problems are multi-fold from my experience.
The record colds drives demand for power hungry homes and business and gas used by the power plants is deverted to homes and businesses.
The reason is the steam boilers at the generation plant have a duel fuel system.
So now with gas not available to Boiler operators they can swing over to bunker #6 oil to fire the boilers to create steam to drive the steam turbines.
Problem is Texas hardly ever has this kind of cold weather so all kinds of systems have to be prepared and readied for operation.. Miles of steam tracer lines, Insulation and water lines and steam traps have got to be tested, inspected, and brought on line days before this weather did it's best to shut these steam traps water feed lines and very viscous oil lines down.
The Plants normal operation is probably at 50% of capacity this time of year.
The additional boilers being powered up demanded additional crews and boilers to be fired up to meet the unusual demand. Also a lot preparation as the cold increased lines froze, oil gelled, and crews were over whelmed.
Here is the live map of the Texas plants and their outage status. Electric cars will only make it worse. I did both the hands on part of that job as well as ran crews many years ago. I don't envy the crews or the bosses with this kind of cold working against them..
Here is a live map of outages in Texas. State Outages: 4,295,152
As far as I know, none of the NG plants can use bunker crude. Their emissions permits won't allow it, and they don't have storage for the oil.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OutdoorLover
I am not in the power industry, I'm a chemist, so thanks for sharing your experience. You seem to be implying that there's nothing that can be done to avoid these problems, though. If you'll forgive me, I'm still not understanding - how come OK, AR, MO, and KS aren't having such problems if they can't be avoided? It's colder in OK than in TX, and about 10% of the customers are currently without power (164K/1.7M) in OK, while in TX, it's about 1/3 without power (4.3M/12.5M). In KS, where it's colder yet, only 5% are without power (26K/1.2M). https://poweroutage.us/
In this article out of the Austin ABC affiliate, they note that winterization procedures are not mandated in TX, and they suggest that they have simply been inadequate. They interview a Dr David Tuttle out of the Univ of Texas-Austin Energy Institute. He says it's a matter of deciding what to pay to upgrade the weatherization: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/lo...5-b78e7e4fc13a
The issues can be avoided, but the Legislature or the PUC will have to start using their big sticks to get hte generators in line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
Why are there fewer people without power in Oklahoma versus Texas? Texas has a far higher population spread out over a much larger land area. Look at the size of Oklahoma then look at the size of Texas. Texas is easily 3 times the size of Oklahoma.
Texas is 3.8 times bigger than Oklahoma in size, and over 7 times larger in population. That all makes the issues harder to deal with, but there's no good reason for the power to be out to 4 million people.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Here is a live map of outages.
