A friend lives in Houston. During the event I looked at the radar and o.O FZRA.... freezing rain and just below him, just south of his house, pinned on my radar by gps by being there a whole buncha times in the past 15 years, snow.
I lived the exact scenario in Grand Forks ND in 1997, when I was a wx guy there.
Rain, ice, rain, ice, rain.. only I didn't know about the ice. "Airman, where did you chip that piece of clear ice from?" "From the flagpole." *gulp*
Close. It was the decision to not winterize the equipment.
While this freeze is bad, a freeze like this is not "once in a lifetime", but easily seen as about every few years. 2021. 2011. 2008. 2006. 2003. 1989. 1983. This is a fairly common occurrence.
After 2011 there was a commission that identified a bunch of winterizing steps that should be required. The companies agreed to take them as recommendations... And then they ignored them. They claimed that they were the experts, they knew what they were doing,
2021. 2011. 2008. 2006. 2003. 1989. 1983. This is a fairly common occurrence.
Huh. Had a texan (forget what town, ebay vendor i bought from) told me today this is a '100 year event')
If it truly as frequent as you say that Texas gets clobbered by blizzards... then yeah, they need to armor it against that.
But... I swapped DRT for RDR. In English, that means when I was given a forecasting job in school, I was given Del Rio. When I saw the high temps, and the fact that officer parking had awnings, I'm like "too hot for me." So I swapped some poor soul for RDR... Grand Forks AFB. OMG worst mistake ever.
Now, I was also caught in the 1993 "Storm of the Century," this time I was a wet-behind-the-ears observer in Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL. 3 inches fell (and thundersnow, I've only seen that twice in my life). Life came to a halt. I'm in my FWD Mitsubishi, at a light, and I see this lady does a slow slide at about 1.5 mph, sideways, through the intersection in her Caddy. Montytown had no plows, nothing.
Point is, you prepare for the mean, and suck it up in the extremes. I think this is what happened in TX. It's same that happened in Montgomery. But in NoDak, this was just life.
I'm not sure snow is as common as the numbers you showed, but i'm too into my brandy to do the homework right now;o)
Texas climates are a bit more diverse than you may expect. This is one thing I like to point out to folks - you can drive 12 hours west on I-10 from Beaumont for 12 hours straight and still be a bit shy of El Paso. Or leave Armarillo and head southerly for 11 1/2 hours and still be a bit shy of Brownsville. There are lots of countries in the world with less geographic area. So it's really hard to generalize for the state. But, case in point: El Paso is not on the Texas grid nor under control of ERCOT. They are a part of the National grid, and they did winterize. It seems that they suffered very very minor outages. I, on the other hand, had 7 hours of no electricity last night, and at least 8 hours of no electricity in the 24 hours prior to that. All because the grid did not have enough capacity/supply.
There is no "National grid." El Paso is part of the Western Interconnect. The dividing line between Eastern and Western runs roughly down the middle of the Great Plains. There are a handful of AC-DC-AC interties between east and west with a total transfer capacity less than 2GW -- that is, about the capacity of a single large generating station. No one's ever made a viable economic case for increasing that capacity.
Both the Eastern and the Western were established by the Power Act, were they not? Thus I'd say that distinction you make, while accurate, isn't very important for the point being made, which is that El Paso plays ball according to the regulations of the Federal gov't. Almost the entirety of the state of Texas, otherwise, has staunchly refused that because "Federal gubmint bad, mkay?" Also, they're always rattling their sabers about secession, but more than happy to take assistance from the Fed gov't.
The difference is that it covers all of Texas; the 2011 events were more localized IIRC. Ice kills a number of things, and the lack of diversity (by being part of a larger grid) makes a number of small failures have much larger impact.
I thought Texas had several interconnects with neigboring states, but it is possible they are just DC links. Interconnections add complexity (DC reduces that complexity some), but for a major event like this they can be a huge benefit.
e belongs in the citizens for not having enough generators and fuel properly stockpiled on their property. A more liberal bias might suggest that insufficient work was done for the common good.
May I suggest all those right leaning folks use their own roads from now on ?
Why is it always leftists that try to legitimize genocide against others, all the while holding themselves in some obviously false semblance of superiority that gives them the license to decide who should live and die?
How convoluted does your internal morality need to be for you to declare your own virtue while calling for the deaths of anyone that dares to think differently than you?
You are correct, they are DC links. There are theoretically five (East, Laredo, North, Railroad, Eagle Pass). Two of them are showing flow, both negative, and the sum of that flow is a little over 1% of system capacity. Under normal conditions Wind and PV provide up to 25% of supply. At present Wind and PV are providing about 11% of supply.
Correct. TX occasionally has ice storms that do significant local damage. This is nothing like that.
"If I take a Texas mindset, the blame belongs in the citizens for not having enough generators and fuel properly stockpiled on their property."
Indeed, although that is only one TX mindset. You could expand on that to include "those citizens need to hurry up and freeze to death, problem solved."
100 year events happen more often than every 100 years. In part this is due to human changes (both climate change and more local changes - although local changes do not apply in this case) that the model does not account for. Partially, it is because people use the term loosely to mean rare. Partly because given how many places there are in the US , the usual locality of events, and how many different events there could be, it is very likely that some 100 year event happens at any given time. See also,
Huh. Had a texan (forget what town, ebay vendor i bought from) told me today this is a '100 year event')
They are setting low temperature records that lasted ~100 years. But: 1. Those records are often for that particular day, 2. If you set a new record at 12F, the power generation problem isn't all that different from when it was 15F last time, even though 15F was above the record.
Point is, you prepare for the mean, and suck it up in the extremes
No, you build your power generation to handle 100-year events. At least, you do if you're in either of the federally-regulated power grids. Yes, there can still be distribution problems, but the generators could produce power.
Funny how there are so many "storms of the century". I remember as a little kid at my grandmother's in D.C. and they had the "worst blizzard since the Knickerbocker" whenever that was. People skiing down Connecticut Ave. Seems like extreme weather is guaranteed once in a while but people tend to forget there will be a next time.
Point is, you prepare for the mean, and suck it up in the extremes.
No, you don't prepare for the mean, that would be just stupid. You prepare for what could reasonably be expected, and, ideally, calculate the tradeoffs in odds and costs between preparing for something worse and dealing with it if it happens.
For example, in Chicago the frost line is 42" below grade. That is, foundations and sewers have to be buried under 42" of cover so you won't get freezing damage. But, by code, water pipes have to be buried 60" below grade, because the frost line occasionally drops below 42" during unusually extended, unusually cold weather. That won't really hurt sewers, which typically run less than half full, and won't be enough to cause serious frost heave on most foundations, but it can and does burst water pipes not buried deep enough. So you take the extra step and bury the water pipes deeper. And still, some water pipes freeze, but not so many, so you can deal with it.
It was the ice. (Score:5, Interesting)
It was ice.
A friend lives in Houston. During the event I looked at the radar and o.O FZRA.... freezing rain and just below him, just south of his house, pinned on my radar by gps by being there a whole buncha times in the past 15 years, snow.
I lived the exact scenario in Grand Forks ND in 1997, when I was a wx guy there.
Rain, ice, rain, ice, rain.. only I didn't know about the ice. "Airman, where did you chip that piece of clear ice from?" "From the flagpole." *gulp*
THen it snowed. Oh man it snowed, an
Re: It was the ice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Close. It was the decision to not winterize the equipment.
While this freeze is bad, a freeze like this is not "once in a lifetime", but easily seen as about every few years. 2021. 2011. 2008. 2006. 2003. 1989. 1983. This is a fairly common occurrence.
After 2011 there was a commission that identified a bunch of winterizing steps that should be required. The companies agreed to take them as recommendations... And then they ignored them. They claimed that they were the experts, they knew what they were doing,
Re: It was the ice. (Score:2)
2021. 2011. 2008. 2006. 2003. 1989. 1983. This is a fairly common occurrence.
Huh. Had a texan (forget what town, ebay vendor i bought from) told me today this is a '100 year event')
If it truly as frequent as you say that Texas gets clobbered by blizzards... then yeah, they need to armor it against that.
But ... I swapped DRT for RDR. In English, that means when I was given a forecasting job in school, I was given Del Rio. When I saw the high temps, and the fact that officer parking had awnings, I'm like "too hot for me." So I swapped some poor soul for RDR... Grand Forks AFB. OMG worst mistake ever.
Now, I was also caught in the 1993 "Storm of the Century," this time I was a wet-behind-the-ears observer in Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL. 3 inches fell (and thundersnow, I've only seen that twice in my life). Life came to a halt. I'm in my FWD Mitsubishi, at a light, and I see this lady does a slow slide at about 1.5 mph, sideways, through the intersection in her Caddy. Montytown had no plows, nothing.
Point is, you prepare for the mean, and suck it up in the extremes. I think this is what happened in TX. It's same that happened in Montgomery. But in NoDak, this was just life.
I'm not sure snow is as common as the numbers you showed, but i'm too into my brandy to do the homework right now ;o)
Re: It was the ice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no "National grid." El Paso is part of the Western Interconnect. The dividing line between Eastern and Western runs roughly down the middle of the Great Plains. There are a handful of AC-DC-AC interties between east and west with a total transfer capacity less than 2GW -- that is, about the capacity of a single large generating station. No one's ever made a viable economic case for increasing that capacity.
Re: It was the ice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that it covers all of Texas; the 2011 events were more localized IIRC. Ice kills a number of things, and the lack of diversity (by being part of a larger grid) makes a number of small failures have much larger impact.
I thought Texas had several interconnects with neigboring states, but it is possible they are just DC links. Interconnections add complexity (DC reduces that complexity some), but for a major event like this they can be a huge benefit.
The thing that should be investigated is
Re: (Score:1)
e belongs in the citizens for not having enough generators and fuel properly stockpiled on their property. A more liberal bias might suggest that insufficient work was done for the common good.
May I suggest all those right leaning folks use their own roads from now on ?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it always leftists that try to legitimize genocide against others, all the while holding themselves in some obviously false semblance of superiority that gives them the license to decide who should live and die?
How convoluted does your internal morality need to be for you to declare your own virtue while calling for the deaths of anyone that dares to think differently than you?
Re: (Score:3)
I thought Texas had several interconnects with neigboring states, but it is possible they are just DC links.
They have 3 links. The capacity of those links are a drop in the bucket of this problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. TX occasionally has ice storms that do significant local damage. This is nothing like that.
"If I take a Texas mindset, the blame belongs in the citizens for not having enough generators and fuel properly stockpiled on their property."
Indeed, although that is only one TX mindset. You could expand on that to include "those citizens need to hurry up and freeze to death, problem solved."
Re: It was the ice. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Huh. Had a texan (forget what town, ebay vendor i bought from) told me today this is a '100 year event')
They are setting low temperature records that lasted ~100 years. But:
1. Those records are often for that particular day,
2. If you set a new record at 12F, the power generation problem isn't all that different from when it was 15F last time, even though 15F was above the record.
Point is, you prepare for the mean, and suck it up in the extremes
No, you build your power generation to handle 100-year events. At least, you do if you're in either of the federally-regulated power grids. Yes, there can still be distribution problems, but the generators could produce power.
Re: (Score:3)
Funny how there are so many "storms of the century". I remember as a little kid at my grandmother's in D.C. and they had the "worst blizzard since the Knickerbocker" whenever that was. People skiing down Connecticut Ave. Seems like extreme weather is guaranteed once in a while but people tend to forget there will be a next time.
Re: It was the ice. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you don't prepare for the mean, that would be just stupid. You prepare for what could reasonably be expected, and, ideally, calculate the tradeoffs in odds and costs between preparing for something worse and dealing with it if it happens.
For example, in Chicago the frost line is 42" below grade. That is, foundations and sewers have to be buried under 42" of cover so you won't get freezing damage. But, by code, water pipes have to be buried 60" below grade, because the frost line occasionally drops below 42" during unusually extended, unusually cold weather. That won't really hurt sewers, which typically run less than half full, and won't be enough to cause serious frost heave on most foundations, but it can and does burst water pipes not buried deep enough. So you take the extra step and bury the water pipes deeper. And still, some water pipes freeze, but not so many, so you can deal with it.
Re: (Score:2)
2021. 2011. 2008. 2006. 2003. 1989. 1983. This is a fairly common occurrence.
Huh. Had a texan (forget what town, ebay vendor i bought from) told me today this is a '100 year event')
Maybe 2011 feels already like a century ago. ;)