Texas was 'seconds and minutes' away from 'monthslong' power outages Bill Magness, pictured, the CEO of ERCOT said Thursday as he defended the grid's rolling blackouts
* A week of freezing temperatures knocked about a third of the state's generating capacity offline, resulting in the greatest forced blackout in U.S. history
* The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, operates the power grid that covers most of the state and was behind the decision to have rolling blackouts
* That left up to 4 million people enduring outages in subfreezing temperatures
* CEO Bill Magness said Thursday that if operators had not acted 'immediately' the state would have faced an 'indeterminately long' electricity crisis
* He said: 'It was seconds and minutes [from possible failure]'
Texas was 'seconds and minutes' away from 'months-long' power outages the embattled CEO of ERCOT said Thursday as he defended the grid's rolling blackouts.
A week of below-freezing temperatures knocked about a third of the state's generating capacity offline, resulting in the greatest forced blackout in U.S. history and exposing weaknesses of Texas' unique approach to power grid management.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, operates the power grid that covers most of the state and was behind the decision to have rolling blackouts which left up to 4 million people enduring outages in subfreezing temperatures.
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Update: Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say (Texas Tribune)
WNU Editor: I was living in Montreal, Quebec when we had an ice-storm that knocked out our grid for a few weeks in January, 1998 (see here). What brought down the grid was structural damage. Our major transmission lines collapsed from the weight of the ice. In my case we had no power for 10 days, and the temperature in our house went down to 5 degrees Celsius (it was minus 20 Celsius outside).
There are many who are calling for Texas to adopt a "green-climate" strategy to their power needs. That is not the lesson that Quebec learned or adopted from our grid collapse. In Quebec the transmission lines were reinforced for a worse case scenario, and the grid within our cities are now underground. For Texas, they have many options to make sure this does not happen again, and winterizing their grid should be at the top of the list.
There are many in Texas who are also now pushing to heavily regulate the operators. That will not solve the crisis nor prevent the next one. In Quebec our grid is run and owned by the government, and it is as heavily regulated. That did not stop the disaster that occurred in 1998, and it will not prevent the next one when it happens. Weather by its nature is unpredictable. The only thing that we can do is adjust, and be prepared to repair the damage when it does occur.
10 comments:
Talk about the garden of eden
Well now u know how the eskimos feels
Ur better off living in hell
Nice and hot
Houston had not seen snow since 1949. This looks like a once in a century storm.
Funny, but stats books always have the levee problem. The word problem comes down to:
What is the chance for a one in hundred year event?
What is the chance for a one in a thousand year event?
What can or do you budget for.
Economics is the science of scarcity. That is there are never enough resources for needs or wants. If there was not scarcity, then there would be countries that no matter what mother nature did, there would not be a problem. I see flooding problems every so many years in England and Germany. Some how the economic engine of Europe, Germany, cannot spend enough to prevent billions in losses from flooding.
Heat is a problem for Texas. When it gets hot it gets harder for air conditioning to dump heat outside a structure. Delta T gets smaller. It is a problem. In the tropics it means you sweat your ass off although you have AC, because the AC cannot keep up.
So the AC runs more or less continuously and the grid has to keep up. Except the power generators for the grid have a problem when delta T decreases also. The hotter it gets the more the cooling system for power generation tends to fail or not keep up and your generators fritz.
I bet that some of the generators that FEMA under Joe "Where am I" Biden sends will fritz due to cold and/or heat or something (VEHF).
But why should the fritz? Didn't Joe spend enough money to weatherize them or otherwise fix them?
THE GOP IS GOING TO TAKE A BIG HIT WHEN THE HEARINGS TAKE PLACE
Misfit above now badmouths Biden and generators when stupid Gov and Gang of GOP_ overlords fucked the entire things up! Proof? check nearby states and those small areas not on the Texas grid
Sure, Biden got into the office a month ago and made sure to wreck generators? you are an ass
This is NOT the first time the grid failed. This mess was warned against a number of years ago and NOTHING was done. Nothing. Nada.
Two parents provided a copy of the written school policy for students not to return to classrooms for seven days after international travel, or to take a Covid test three to five days after returning, which would keep the Cruz children out of school for the following week.
Just an incredible performance from Cruz from every angle. He even finally admitted that he was planning on spending the weekend in Cancun which means he lied in a statement and in interviews.
Sometimes you can’t fight the lie:
“Hours after telling NBC he planned on dropping his children off in Cancun and returning to Texas, Senator @tedcruz now says he was planning on spending the weekend in Mexico.”
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 19, 2021
Maybe the power company should have bought heaters for the wind turbine blades instead of cheaping it out. No problems in NM and we get cold all the time
Dave,
You should have provided a link.
I found this,=.
https://www.windpowerengineering.com/the-cold-hard-truth-about-ice-on-turbine-blades/
I assume they use a carbon filament to save on weight. Too much weight and the bearings would have to be upgunned.
There still is a loss in overall cost and efficiency.
Ice storms are not that bad for road clearance or turbines if they pass through quickly or change to snow quickly.
Some of the energy captured by the windmill is lost to the heating elements. The cost of the blade increases. What happens when the heating element(s) fails before the end of life of the turbine blade and there is a storm?
Heating element on 1 blade fails, the turbine is off balance.
I got to assume something works, because there are turbines in Canada, northern tier of the US, and northern Europe. One of those at least has to have icing problems.
I got to guess because you doi not link.
NM quite a bit higher in elevation than Texas. So icing events might be fewer and less sever than in Texas?
Snows more in the Rockies and from what I see it does not stay as long in the Piedmont than in the lower elevations.
12:40 and 12:44 are Clerky or a copycat. It has his ID all over the post, if you know how to read the stitches on a fast ball. Clerky is a notoriously dumb imbecile.
Texas was also short of snowplows and salt trucks. Should the state keep such equipment in inventory in Southern Texas just in case for a hundred year event.
Holding inventory incurs costs. Maybe even you a complete moron have heard of inventory or holding costs.
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