Who's Actually To Blame For the Texas Power Disaster? (cnn.com) 663
With millions of Texans still without power in the wake of a winter storm and frigid temperatures, everyone is looking for someone to blame. From a report, shared by a reader: Many Democrats are blaming Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for failing to adequately prepare for the storm. Many conservatives are blaming the environmental movement -- insisting that frozen wind turbines show the limits of alternative energy sources. (This is a gross exaggeration.) But the primary fall guy is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), an independent organization that operates Texas' power grid. "This was a total failure by ERCOT," said Abbott on Tuesday. "These are the experts. These are engineers in the power industry. These aren't bureaucrats or whatever the case may be. These are specialists, and government has to rely upon on these specialists to be able to deliver in these types of situations." The story, as you might guess, is actually slightly more complicated than that. It's rooted in Texans' views of their state as a quasi-independent country -- and a desire to have as little federal interference in their lives as possible. Yes, there are politics at the root of this. "Texas' secessionist inclinations have at least one modern outlet: the electric grid," wrote the Texas Tribune back in 2011.
To understand what is happening right now in Texas -- and who's to blame -- you have to go back to 1935, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which governed electricity sharing and sales between the states. Basically, it allowed the federal government to regulate states who brought power in from outside their state lines. Texas, never a fan of federal intrusion, set up its own power grid system -- split between northern and southern Texas -- to avoid any federal involvement. That led eventually to the formation of ERCOT in 1970 and this strange fact: There are three power grids in the United States -- the eastern power grid, the western power grid and, well, Texas. Yes, you read that right. Texas has its own power grid. Because it is Texas. And while being independent from the yoke of federal regulation has always been a point of pride for Texas, the limits of that strategy are being realized now. See, because Texas -- or at least 90% of the state -- is controlled by ERCOT, they can't simply borrow power from either the eastern or western power grids. That's never been a problem before because Texas has always been able to generate more power than its citizens need. But the reality is that Texas is an electricity island, which isn't a problem until the lights go out, and you don't have enough power in the state to turn them back on. Now, there's no question that ERCOT bears some blame here, too.
To understand what is happening right now in Texas -- and who's to blame -- you have to go back to 1935, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which governed electricity sharing and sales between the states. Basically, it allowed the federal government to regulate states who brought power in from outside their state lines. Texas, never a fan of federal intrusion, set up its own power grid system -- split between northern and southern Texas -- to avoid any federal involvement. That led eventually to the formation of ERCOT in 1970 and this strange fact: There are three power grids in the United States -- the eastern power grid, the western power grid and, well, Texas. Yes, you read that right. Texas has its own power grid. Because it is Texas. And while being independent from the yoke of federal regulation has always been a point of pride for Texas, the limits of that strategy are being realized now. See, because Texas -- or at least 90% of the state -- is controlled by ERCOT, they can't simply borrow power from either the eastern or western power grids. That's never been a problem before because Texas has always been able to generate more power than its citizens need. But the reality is that Texas is an electricity island, which isn't a problem until the lights go out, and you don't have enough power in the state to turn them back on. Now, there's no question that ERCOT bears some blame here, too.
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, and for once, it wasn't that nodak powdery dry stuff, it was the heavy wet stuff. Inches per hour. The weight on the already ice-encrusted wires and poles....
Every power pole from Bemidji, MN to Devils Lake ND snapped like burnt matches. We lost power for two weeks. April 1997. THat event was the nail in our coffin. The melt from that one jammed up the Red River and well... wasn't pretty.
I was married, then... so me and the wife bugged out to Devil's Lake and stayed at the first motel with power and vacancy.
It really was a sight.. all that snow on the ground, and every pole, snapped.
It was the ice. Guaranteed. What I saw on the radar the other night gave me the creeps.
(wtf lameness filter post looks like ascii art? Then how do you explain the ascii art that gets posted here all the time?!)
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, and they would take adequate steps. They didn't need it as a mandate, because freedom. And the market would choose.
Then after a decade, NONE of the recommendations were implemented.
The regulators tried a gentle "regulation bad, freedom good" approach, now people are dead, maimed, and financially harmed so corporations could save a few bucks.
Re: (Score:3)
I like how the governor is now wanting an "investigation" of the problem. That's not what he really wants, he wants an "investigation" to shift the blame to anyone but himself and his ilk.
Re: It was the ice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: It was the ice. (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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.
"Many Democrats . . ." (Score:4, Insightful)
Um ... is this a trick question? (Score:4, Informative)
Who's Actually To Blame For the Texas Power Disaster?
From TFS:
But the primary fall guy is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT),
/thread
Re:Um ... is this a trick question? (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally. One to blame is the grid operator who:
- Didn't ensure proper supply sources.
- Didn't ensure proper supply lines to channel from these sources.
Rest is politics of the day. "it's the evil [political opponent/structure I want to change]".
Re:Um ... is this a trick question? (Score:4, Informative)
Why not blame the contractor who fitted each piece of equipment that failed due to the weather if you're looking for a way to push responsibility down the chain...
From Wikipedia: "ERCOT is governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Texas Legislature." and "The PUC has primary jurisdiction over activities conducted by ERCOT. Three PUC commissioners, including the chair, are appointed by the governor of Texas."
If a politician appoints the people who have jurisdiction then it isn't "politics of the day" to consider that maybe they are responsible to a greater or lesser extent. Can a governor absolve themselves of blame for anything by appointing someone else to make the decisions? If not, which is something I'd hope we can agree on, why should they be absolved of blame without investigation in this case?
Who's Actually To Blame For the Texas Power (Score:3)
Disaster... ? "Cold Weather"
Thank you. Good night.
Re: Who's Actually To Blame For the Texas Power (Score:5, Insightful)
If your system isn't fault tolerant then you can't blame the fault.
Deregulators, mostly (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems pretty obvious that the people to blame are the people who have made deregulation a priority without considering where regulations are useful. Pretending that the free market is going to provide any incentive to power providers to make preparations for rare conditions is naïve. The simple fact is that power generation and distribution involves a lot of natural monopolies. The free market doesn't really apply for most parts of it. There have to be some basic standards.
The politicians who should have been taking care of this and who failed completely at their responsibility to keep the lights on seem to now be scrambling all over themselves to find a scapegoat, but this is on them. It may still turn out that there is more going on though. It might turn out that there is another Enron behind some of this, just like in the California power market, cynically manipulating the deregulated power market and the actual power grid in order to profit. I guess we will find out. At the moment though, it definitely looks like the irresponsible politicians who should have been protecting their populations from the easily foreseeable are one of the root causes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The politicians who should have been taking care of this and who failed completely at their responsibility to keep the lights on seem to now be scrambling all over themselves to find a scapegoat, but this is on them.
The politicians acted perfectly and flawlessly in this case. They did everything right.
When 80% of your constituents make a demand from their government in an official elected manor, it's the job of the politicians to make that happen.
In this case, the demand was ensuring this exact situation would be guaranteed. They did their jobs perfectly and delivered.
That the vast majority of their constituents had no mental connection between their demands and the consequences of them doesn't change this fact, nor
Re:Deregulators, mostly (Score:5, Insightful)
The politicians who should have been taking care of this and who failed completely at their responsibility to keep the lights on seem to now be scrambling all over themselves to find a scapegoat, but this is on them.
The politicians acted perfectly and flawlessly in this case. They did everything right.
When 80% of your constituents make a demand from their government in an official elected manor, it's the job of the politicians to make that happen.
No.
The job of politicians is NOT to to mindlessly do what their constituent demand.
The constituents are uneducated on the vast majority of the subjects. The job of the politicians (and their administration) is exactly to be educated on them and make decisions based upon what their constituents want AND their knowledge on the subjects.
You can't expect constituents to be knowledgeable enough about the power grid to make good decision. If they vote for cheaper energy, it's the job of the politician to deliver that, but more importantly to say "Fuck it, analyzes confirm that cheaper energy would mean less reliability and risk lives, we won't do that".
Re: (Score:3)
I doubt it is as much deregulation as economics. A grid designed for 99.5% availability has over 40 hours of anticipated downtime per year, but provides *much* cheaper energy than a grid designed for 99.9% or 99.95% availability. ERCOT appears to have generally hit less than 20 hours of downtime per customer impacted, and less than 50% of customers impacted... which gets them pretty close to 99.9% due to luck (and with the assumption that there are no more major outages this year).
The entrenched interests
Re: Deregulators, mostly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure about that assumption in this case. The main issue seems to be declining to tie texas into the wider grid - not necessarily having more backups that are almost never used.
Re:Deregulators, mostly (Score:4, Interesting)
The politicians who should have been taking care of this and who failed completely at their responsibility to keep the lights on seem to now be scrambling all over themselves to find a scapegoat, but this is on them.
Not the now former mayor of Colorado City, TX Tim Boyd who shared a (now deleted) post on Facebook, before he resigned due to the backlash. Excerpt from a screen shot of his post displayed on a TX news site [bigcountryhomepage.com]: (or simply Google "tim boyd resigns")
No one owes you are [sic] your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it's your choice. The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!
It gets much worse from there.
Frozen wind turbines, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
The North Sea is lousy with wind turbines, from Scotland to Scandinavia. But guess what? They're not frozen over; even though Stockholm, for example, is colder than Dallas right now and will remain so even when this storm has passed. When you don't tolerate corruption, when you let the government actually do its job, and when you don't half-ass it on your construction and engineering standards to save a few bucks on the next quarter's spreadsheet; wind turbines work fine in cold weather. And no, they don't cause cancer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sc... [dailymail.co.uk]
https://www.nordicenergy.org/f... [nordicenergy.org]
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/2... [cnbc.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Frozen wind turbines, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Though you're right, every discussion of the turbine problems needs to start with the fact that the turbines weren't the problem. There were far more megawatts of other sources out than the wind turbines that were out. In fact, the wind turbines produced more energy than predicted throughout the crisis.
It sounds as if the biggest problem when they are rated by kilowatts lost was frozen natural gas pipelines. I guess they don't dehumidify the gas with equipment located at the wellhead like I've seen in northern states.
Re:Frozen wind turbines, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yah, I know. And I actually do know and freely admit that renewables and nuclear have their own issues. But when they ignore (and by doing so act as an impediment to solving) the real issues with zero-carbon power and make up specious ones from whole cloth it... irks me.
And the natural gas pipeline issue does speak to my point of corruption allowing half-assed engineering and shoddy construction. We pipe oil from the arctic circle across all of Alaska FFS. Insulating and, if necessary, heating the things is a solved problem. This failure is inexcusable and there should be hell to pay.
Re: Frozen wind turbines, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
everyone who depends on the system (Score:5, Informative)
Texas's system has had problems like this before. I think the applicable saying is "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
IMO, the most awesome aspect of this time of change in the power grid is the rising availability of options to go off grid. Solar + battery is near competitive now. If you factor in the true cost of grid failures, perhaps it is more than competitive.
We have the same issue in Florida. Here, hurricanes have taken out power to large regions for as long as a week at least twice in the last decade. The power companies whine that it would cost billions to put the lines underground while not caring that not putting them underground costs us billions in economic activity on a fairly regular basis. Regrettably, those same power companies have also stifled solar on homes. The sunshine state has one of the lowest home-based solar deployments in the nation. Sigh.
Re: (Score:3)
When you can’t put underground lines above sea level (preferrably above mean high tide), you don’t end up magically improving availability, as time to repair is higher and failure rates are not dramatically lower.
If the poles and insulators can withstand the winds and other hazards it is actually a pretty good solution.
Re: (Score:3)
When you can’t put underground lines above sea level (preferrably above mean high tide)
Why, are they somehow not waterresistant ? I don't think denmark/the netherlands/belgum/... has that problem
Re: (Score:3)
Texas's system has had problems like this before. I think the applicable saying is "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Texas is going to have to come up with a "fool me three times" thing. Because the same grid collapse due to cold happened in 2011 and 1989.
The governor. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The governor. (Score:4, Insightful)
It really is the voters - left and right (Score:4, Interesting)
*2 Actual example : Scottish home energy display devices, the subsidy was for the utility buying the devices not for actually deploying them. So they were purchased and stored in a warehouse.
I was laughed at for pointing out that the devices mandated to be provided in homes where the power has been shut off require the household power to run (UK electric meter prepay top up devices). After delaying ratification of the standard I was physically threatened because some companies already had the contract to build these prepay top up devices that were never going to work.
Re:It really is the voters - left and right (Score:5, Informative)
ERCOT in Texas is no better and no worse than the rest.
The Eastern and Western US grids actually supplying power demonstrate otherwise. Especially since the storm that is crippling Texas is also hitting all of the states North of Texas and not causing widespread outages.
The same grid collapse due to cold happened in 1989, and 2011. The post-mortem report on the 2011 incident listed the things ERCOT needed to require the power generators to do, and they did exactly none of them. ERCOT could have made those changes a requirement for being connected to the grid, and didn't. The Texas legislature could have passed a law requiring it, and they didn't. The executive branch in Texas could have written a regulation to require it, and they didn't.
This is absolutely not a "both sides" thing. People are dying because of one side's anti-regulatory fervor.
Re:It really is the voters - left and right (Score:4, Informative)
The Eastern and Western US grids have had other equally spectacular wide-scale failures whilst the Texas grid remained up - they just happened at different times (and from somewhat different causes, including ones tied directly to the extra complexity of running a large, heavily interconnected grid). Someone could just as easily point to those failures in isolation as proof the Texas grid is better. Also, as far as I can tell there was no grid collapse due to cold in 1989 and 2011, just rolling blackouts comparable to the ones California had last summer.
So Texas is the lower 49 equivalent... (Score:4, Funny)
...of Puerto Rico?
Voters who vote for empty promises (Score:4, Insightful)
3rd world country (Score:5, Funny)
So 3rd world country has a 3rd world country's power grid? What a surprise.
Is Tesla really going to land in Austin? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wonder if Elon Musk and Tesla is going to reconsider putting so many eggs in the basket that is Texas. This ideology induced power fragility is just like an inverse-styled California situation. I would not be so confident in Texas if I had to make such a major industrial manufacturing investment.
Quebec (Score:5, Interesting)
There used to be 4 grids: Quebec had a separate system as well, with a different frequency control system from the rest of North America (and the rest of the world really - are you surprised?). But that has been integrated into the Eastern Interconnection over the last 30 years.
You could also count eastern Mexico and the Pacific coast region of Mexico as 2 additional systems, although it is only in the last 20 years they have started building bulk interties to the US/Canada grids.
Trump? (Score:4, Funny)
Was this a trick question? I was under the impression from CNN that Trump was the cause of all bad things in the world.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Insightful)
The cold, while destructive, is far more manageable as compared to tornadoes and hurricanes. The conditions on the ground here in Texas are only abnormal for the region. They are not out of the realm for the ordinary for the types of electric generation or the modes of transmission employed here. I don't think you really grasp the situation.
The historical average temperature in Texas ( as a state ) in February is 61 degree F.
I'm guess they started using a LOT more power to heat their homes. Given the "normal" climate in the region I go out on a limb and say a majority of the state uses heat pumps run on electricity for their home heating needs.
Mystery solved.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Hmm, the roads must be really bad then, those trips are about 1300-1400km which easily can be driven in 12 hours.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Google maps says Fort Bliss, TX to Port Arthur, TX is a 12h 5m drive in(ranges from 11:20 to 13:40 depending on traffic), and Brownsville, TX to Texline, TX is a 13h 18m drive (ranges from 12:30 to 14:50 depending on traffic).
Of course, that's not to say that's an unprecedented size. Montana is similar east to west. Michigan is almost as big southeast to northwest. And California is actually a few hours drive longer north to south. And then there's Alaska, and most of the Canadian provinces also dwarf it for size. And that's just North America. But strictly speaking, his claim is accurate.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Funny)
"Yep," said the second. "I used to have a truck like that."
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a pretty small entity to me. In Oz we have a name for something of that size with a fence around it and a few cattle here and there - the back paddock.
The Texan comes to the Australian outback (Score:3)
Gets talking to a local at the bar. Local says, yeh, I've got a "ranch". How big is it? Oh about 3 acres.
Tx: Only three acres? With all this country? Why, on my ranch back home I can get on a horse at dawn, ride all day in a straight line, and still be on my property!
Oz: Yeah. I used to have a horse like that.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
For our European readers, Texas is slightly larger than France.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
And a lot, lot smaller than Queensland.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
You can basically drive 12 hours north to south or east to west in TX from one border and still not reach the other border. That's how large the state is. It doesn't contain just one single climate. But this was not a 1 in a 100 years event even for CenTex. And you can expect it to continue more frequently due to the weakened jetstream that normally keeps the polar vortexes bound further north of most of Texas.
Like they say, the sun has risen and the sun has set, and you ain't out of Texas yet. Having lived in Houston I can attest to that. As for grid issues, this isn't a sudden new phenomena. February 2011, gas shortages and low temperatures led to 30 GW of capacity being unavailable and caused load shedding. There were prior severe cold weather events in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2010 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is anecdotal but I'm a native Texan and have lived here for 50+ years. The first time I ever saw a heat pump for residential heating was in a new house built in 2018. Every other house I've lived in or noticed the type of central heat, it was natural gas. My house here is relatively new at 20 years old and is installed with natural gas central heat. Maybe the new houses are being built with heat pumps but the vast majority of older ones are gas heated. The new house I saw the heat pump in was all-electric with no gas service, so it may not even be typical of new construction. I doubt that heat pumps brought down the Texas grid. Might have been a lot of electric space heaters turned on when it got cold. One thing which was mentioned in some reporting here is that residential heating was competing with the gas fired power plants for gas in the distribution system. One of the suburbs north of here lost gas pressure in their lines early in the weather event.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the loss of gas pressure is also due to TX compressor stations using electric motors vs, feed gas of the lines for operating (like is common up north) mainly because electric motors are cheaper to operate and maintain... So when you have increased demand and a lack of power it's a crippling situation. And if they had back up generators, they would not have been spec'ed for this length of event, and rather temp outage from the grid....
Re: (Score:3)
So that was what I often wondered when I watched This Old House or something like that and people had backup generators installed that would run on their natural gas pipes. I suppose that a local power outage would not affect the supply of gas but how about a state wide.
Re: (Score:3)
So that was what I often wondered when I watched This Old House or something like that and people had backup generators installed that would run on their natural gas pipes. I suppose that a local power outage would not affect the supply of gas but how about a state wide.
I considered this right before I installed our natural gas fired generator. In a nutshell: https://www.gti.energy/wp-cont... [www.gti.energy]
Averaged across the United States, NG service is the most reliable public utility. We lost power 3-4 times a year in the 15 years I was in that home in the New Jersey (USA) suburbs. We lost gas service once, and it was such an edge case as to be impossible to predict. Even with that, it was a small outage of ~400 homes. So, yes, for a backup generator for home use, NG is a great way to
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Informative)
https://ota.dc.gov/release/dan... [dc.gov]
https://allairsystemsnj.com/us... [allairsystemsnj.com]
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Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:3)
Ovens don't have exhaust vents.
I'd wager that every gas fired oven in residential USA is the same -- no vent.
You might be confusing fume exhaust hoods, but those are intended for smell/smoke, and many of them are installed in a recirculating mode that doesn't even go outside. They have zero to do with CO mitigation.
CO detectors should be installed and battery-backed, they're extremely imp
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
More to the point, the mean of the annual extreme is 22F in Houston, 20F in Austin, 19F in San Antonio, 14F in Dallas/Fort Worth, 4F in Lubbock, -and 1F in Amirillo.
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are missing the point. They have had weather like this before, so they did expect it. They just put profits ahead of human lives.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Our political climate is toxic. Its like watching two parents try to manage a divorce, and saying the blame is squarely on one party. Sometimes it is, but in todays world, Both sides are fucktards. Both.
If there's one thing we don't need more of, it's "both sides" BS. The blame is squarely on the leadership of Texas. That leadership is squarely Republican. Fuck this "both sides" crap.
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Mayor of Austin
Has zero regulatory power over ERCOT
Mayor of Dallas
Has zero regulatory power over ERCOT
Mayor of Houston
Has zero regulatory power over ERCOT
Mayor of San Antonio
Has zero regulatory power over ERCOT
Democrat Senators in Texas: 13/31
This actually has regulatory power over ERCOT, but the 13 votes from Democrats can not override the 18 votes from Republicans.
Democrat Representatives in Texas: 67/82
My, what a "convenient" typo. 67 is the actual number of Democrats in the lower house, but 82 is not the total size of the lower house. That's 150 [wikipedia.org]. 82 is the number of Republicans in the lower house.
And while they too have regulatory power over ERCOT, the 67 votes can not override the 82 votes from the Republicans.
Your lies are the "toxic political climate".
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, when California had blackouts it was someone else's problem
Funny, when those blackouts were investigated, it turns out it actually was someone else's problem. And thus Enron executives went to jail and the company imploded.
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I guess the "we're turning Texas blue" crowd hasn't had any effect on Texas?
rule 1: if the democrats are in power it's their fault.
rule 2:if the democrats are not in power it's their fault for not being in power.
Texas hasn't turned blue, they're trying *to* turn it blue. Because you know, it's solidly red and has been for ages. It only makes sense to blame the blue crowd once they (a) have power and (b) have long enough to undo some of the mess.
Politicians don't set electrical generation standards, just as they don't design highways, or bridges, medical practices - do you really think the random person you elect to office is an expert in all those areas? Would you drive over a bridge designed by Biden?
Yeah those things happen all by themselves. By magic and faries. There's no way legislation plays any role.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people would have struggled to pay for power if the grid was made to withstand every 1 in 100 year possibility?
Did ERCOT pay you to shill like this? Because if not, you should definitely be getting paid for it.
This is not a 1 in 100 year possibility. If you're absolutely generous, it's a 1 in 30 year possibility at worst. But in the last 10 years there have been at least two other cold snaps where Texas was well below freezing.
This is 100% ERCOT greed. They could have built for freezing temps, but they didn't. Not because it was unheard of - 3 years ago it was 18F in Houston! This is knowing what's possible, and ignoring it.
Re: (Score:3)
This is 100% ERCOT greed. They could have built for freezing temps, but they didn't. Not because it was unheard of - 3 years ago it was 18F in Houston! This is knowing what's possible, and ignoring it.
ERCOT, a non-profit corporation, manages the grid and settles the financial transaction for its members, it does not own it. ERCOT balances the supply and demand to keep the grid stable; which means if demand is too high they interrupt service to match it to avoid a much larger blackout. Ifa plant goes off line, tehy either have to get another to ramp up or shed load.
There was little financial incentives, because of how Texas regulates the industry, to increase capacity to build reserves or winterize. Tex
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it hit 120 in Alaska, you'd have the same issues
The highest recorded temperature in Alaska is 100F in Ft. Yukon, in 1915. [wikipedia.org]
This same power grid collapse due to cold happened in Texas in 2011. And 1989.
The odds of Alaska hitting 120 are extremely remote...and lack of air conditioning means they wouldn't have a huge increase in power demand anyway.
Texas gets this cold about every 10-20 years. It's utterly and completely foreseeable. Because it's happened in the recent past.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
No. It isn't. Hurricanes typically produce winds that you can design for, and are of regular occurrence. Tornados are worse in one area, but that area is typically small, and support comes from outside the disaster area.... 1 in 100 year possibility?
Actually, according to the 2011 review after the massive 2/2/2011 freeze, it's about one in five years. In no way is this a "once in a century" freeze. While the specific numbers were pushing against the limits, hitting similar cold numbers is relatively common.
There were a bunch of recommendations back after the 2011 freeze, mostly around properly winterizing the equipment. Here is the federal report [ferc.gov] but there were more. Check page 169 of the report: "The Southwest experienced other cold weather events in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2010. In fact, two of those years, 1983 and 1989, had lower temperatures than 2011. But only in 1989 were the severity, geographical expanse, and duration of cold temperatures and high winds comparable to the February 2011 event." While this year's was slightly colder, several other events had similar overall severity.
Among the recommendations were to properly winterize the equipment, and to begin a pre-operational warming period so they don't need a cold start. But because all the recommendations were in the form of "should", and none of the governing bodies were willing to apply the word "must", none of the recommendations were implemented. Now people are dead, and billions of dollars damage has followed.
100% This (Score:5, Insightful)
There were a bunch of recommendations back after the 2011 freeze, mostly around properly winterizing the equipment...But because all the recommendations were in the form of "should", and none of the governing bodies were willing to apply the word "must", none of the recommendations were implemented. Now people are dead, and billions of dollars damage has followed.
And the economy is going to suffer. Don't forget that one. Samsung has no power for its fabs [tomshardware.com]. There's going to be a shortage of beef. [drovers.com] Gas prices are going to go up. [foxbusiness.com] All because Texas thought it was better at managing its own power grid than the feds. "Let's vertically integrate energy production with consumption," Texas said. "Let's keep it all in the state to avoid regulation," Texas said. "And let's ignore winterizing our equipment to save money and keep costs low," Texas said. Their "efficiencies" never planed for a winter day, and now their selfish hubris is going to make the entire country suffer.
Oh, and were they the only ones to experience this latest Polar Vortex? Hell no. News to Texas: There's dozens of states north of you, in case you didn't notice. They were cold too, colder in fact. I wonder how North Dakota ever managed to keep their lights on in all this mess. Oh yea...they know how to plan for winter!
I hope the feds lay down an energy tax on any state in the union that doesn't comply with federal energy regulations. Since there's only one state in the union not in compliance, Texas can then make the choice to either meet federal energy standards and winterize their equipment, or pay back the costs for the federal rescue of Texas's massive clusterfuck.
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Among the recommendations were to properly winterize the equipment, and to begin a pre-operational warming period so they don't need a cold start. But because all the recommendations were in the form of "should", and none of the governing bodies were willing to apply the word "must", none of the recommendations were implemented. Now people are dead, and billions of dollars damage has followed.
Well, since Texas is not part of the national grid the feds can't say "must." Now they are finding out that independence has a cost.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't "design for" 130+ MPH winds
Yes you do.
Especially if the building is valuable or human lives depend on it, most of the time it is both anyway.
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
So talk me through the cold weather contingencies planned for in Florida... surely their wind turbines all have the Arctic de-ice features like you do up north, right?
It is perfectly ok to plan with a known risk. As long as you have a contingency plan, that is. Florida - being part of a national grid can import power from out of state. Contingency plan: Import power.
Texas: Instruments, gas valves, generators not insulated against freezing over. Nuclear plants not secured against iced-over cooling water. Contingency plan: none, Texas is on it's own grid.
Failure root cause: Lack of planning for extreme weather, no contingency plans.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Informative)
El Paso Electric has also been able to avoid rolling blackout thanks to lessons learned during a historic freeze the essentially shut down the city 10 years ago, officials said. El Paso Electric officials say that includes having more crews on-hand, better protection for freezing conditions and new power-generating options.
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cold catches people off guard, just like hurricanes and tornadoes.
This happened in TX back in 2011 so they had 11 years to add winterizing to their equipment and facilities. Their gas, coal and nuclear plants are actually suffering more than their windmills -- which could easily have been winterized (Denmark actually exports [wikipedia.org] electricity from their wind farms in the winter). In addition, if TX hooked their grid to the national grid, they could get emergency power from other states. This is a self-inflicted situation brought on by greed and shortsightedness.
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to blame people for not preparing for unprecedented conditions that happen every decade or century is stupidity.
Okay, I might give you century. But decade? Like ten years? No, I think they can do better than that.
Cold catches people off guard, just like hurricanes and tornadoes.
Yeah. I mean, if only there were people who predicted the weather...
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a limited view. Of course, it explains why New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, etc., are all totally blacked out right now.
Oh wait-- they're not. They have outages, but not on the scale of Texas.
I live in Florida-- our electrical grid gets physically destroyed every time a major hurricane comes through-- and it appears our grid is more reliable than Texas right now.
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I live in Florida-- our electrical grid gets physically destroyed every time a major hurricane comes through-- and it appears our grid is more reliable than Texas right now.
Texas needs to destroy their power grid as often as Florida. Interesting lesson.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
Every state directly North of Texas is currently in the same air mass that is causing Texas to be so cold. And because those states are North of Texas, they are colder than Texas is right now.
All of them have power, with only spotty interruptions by things like downed tree limbs. None of them are having widescale outages.
This is not a "Oh, can't fight mother nature" thing. Minnesota successfully fights mother nature on this every year. Canada successfully fights mother nature on this every year. Alaska successfully fights mother nature on this every year.
Also, this is not unprecedented in Texas. The same thing happened in 2011 and 1989. Post-mortems of both incidents told Texas they needed to require power generators to winterize their equipment.
This is the anti-regulatory zeal of Texas freezing people to death.
Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're talking like this is the first time it's happened. This is the third time they've had a major disruption since 2000. "No one could have predicted this would happen!" was their excuse the first time. And the second time. And this time.
The first one we'll give you for free. The second one is questionable, but ok maybe you needed more proof that what you're currently doing isn't enough. But NOW.... now there's just no excuse anymore. You can't cry surprise, because it's not a surprise.
Things as important as your electrical grid require higher levels of preparedness, because when you have a wide, extended outage, lots of people can DIE. You don't design your systems to survive a "typical winter:", just like you don't design your dams to survive a "typical rainfall". You need a good safety margin because of how high the price is if you get topped. You need a proper margin, and you need a plan in place for when (not IF) your margin isn't enough. You have neither.
Texas wants to express their independence by having an independent grid, one that can't easily share or borrow power. OK fine, but that's an easy safety net that the rest of the country's citizens enjoy. You can have it your way, as long as you have your own plan. But Texas does not.
You're like a young adult wanting to be financially independent, and then not saving money for when the unexpected happens. That's not being independent, that's being irresponsible
LEARN from your mistakes, or you're doomed to repeat them.
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Re:Human hubris is to blame... (Score:4, Informative)
Define "similar." They have turned off power to most sectors, but left it on in sectors with a critical load, such as a hospital. So if you happen to live close enough to a hospital, congratulations, your lights stay on.
If what you wanted is fine-grained control, or consumers having automated controls that are responsive to variable pricing and stuff, well that's the "smart grid" thingy we've been talking about building for the last couple decades.
Re:Central air doesn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't mock heat pumps, they are one of the most efficient sources of home heating (being that that move it from outside to inside) and recent tech advances make them viable in cold climates. Their primary downside is the "fuel" is more expensive then straight burning natural gas.
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But ground source heat pumps work like a gem in this type of situation. Drilling holes in Texas is pretty well understood work too, so you can easily have 3,000BTu/h of heat pump that will perform better through all environmental conditions, and can even be better secured in a hurricane.
Re: as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are natural gas, coal and nuclear plants are down in Texas right now. The "renewable" parts are about 1/10th of the power generation that's down. The vast majority of the generators that are offline are natural gas. Followed by coal. Nuclear is down less than wind, due to the low number of nuclear plants.
Re:Who is to blame for what non-solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many times has the Texas grid collapsed? Maybe I'm not looking in the right place or using the right keywords, but I can't find any record of a grid collapse.
Try looking in 2011 and 1989. When the same grid collapse due to cold happened in Texas.
So what should they have done? Connect to the more-unreliable and federally controlled East or West system?
The East and West systems are up. The same cold weather is affecting every state North of Texas, with no widespread outages. Heck, the small parts of Texas that are in the West system are fine.
So, what was that bullshit about reliability?
Sure--maybe ERCOT was stupid and though "This storm won't be that bad, we don't need to bring more generation online."
They do not have any generation to bring online. The lack of winterizing means they can't pump natural gas to the natural gas power plants. The wells are frozen, and they were not required to store enough gas at the power plants to weather a storm like this.
The lack of winterizing has also shut down coal and nuclear plants as their cooling systems froze.
Also, despite your valiant efforts at characterizing this as a surprise, they knew it was a problem after the 1989 incident. And the 2011 incident. There are reports that ERCOT knew this was going to happen a week ago when the weather report started looking bad. But I haven't found a reliable source on that yet.
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Gas-powered electric generating stations "store" gas by putting in an advance request to the natural gas wholesale pipeline which raises the pressure in the line, thus packing more gas into the line up to the pressure limits of the pipe. If every gas powerplant puts in a request for more gas storage at the same time, or tries to draw from "their" stored gas at the same time, while the pipelines are following procedure to prioritize delivery to residential distribution companies, then the power plants don't
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That doesn't fly when the same grid collapse due to cold happened in 2011. And 1989.
When the same thing happens every 10-20 years, you don't get to pretend you couldn't see it coming.
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Shit happens.
And sane people prepare for shit.
This wasn't anybody's fault. It's just fucking awful bad luck.
It's not bad luck if you fail to prepare for a well known recurring problem, it's stupidity.
There isn't anyone that you can blame for the weather.
If it's raining and you go outside without an umbrella or coat, would you blame the weather?
I sympathize for people in the circumstance of freezing cold temperatures in their own homes, and I do hope that things will turn around soon for them.
But going a
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So you're saying we shouldn't figure out who's at fault because teh mediuh? What's your angle here.
Re:"This is a gross exaggeration" (Score:5, Funny)
It's literally in the linked article, you tool.
As suspected, allegations that the Slashdot editors actually did anything are unfounded.
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Florida and Maine is a stretch, but if there is a 766kV transmission line route between the two there will be some power flow (my national transmission line map is pretty old so I can't check). Russia and China use 1000kV lines and transmit power over greater distances than that. Basically though Florida buys power at its connection points; Quebec Hydro puts it in at an interconnection in Maine, the power flows balance out, and Florida pays Quebec.
Oklahoma is in the Eastern Interconnection and Oregon is i