How Canadians Derailed a Train in 1998 and Drove It to City Hall for Power After a Brutal Ice Storm (thedrive.com) 275
James Gilboy, writing at The Drive: Over the week spanning Jan. 4-10, 1998, a trio of massive ice storms wracked the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. Knocking over transmission towers, the storms deprived up to 1.35 million people of electricity, in some cases for weeks (sound familiar?). Rather than leave town, though, one Canadian mayor stepped up to bring in the biggest mobile power generators they could get their hands on: Diesel-electric freight train locomotives. This unusual solution to a power problem unfolded in Boucherville, a Montreal suburb just northeast of famed Formula 1 racetrack Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Having reportedly heard of locomotives being used to generate electricity during another emergency years prior, Boucherville's Mayor Francine Gadbois asked the Canadian National Railway to lend the city a couple of units. CN obliged, sending over two Montreal Locomotive Works M-420s per the 1998 issue of Trains, as recounted by members of its forum.
Both locomotives were powered by Alco 251C prime movers; 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950 horsepower according to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Rather than power the wheels through hydraulic or mechanical transmissions, these massive motors turned traction generators that could send juice to motors connected to the wheels. In a pinch, however, that power can be routed outside the locomotive for whatever purpose one desires, like keeping municipal buildings operating in times of crisis. And that's exactly what these locomotives did for Boucherville. According to yet another account from a train forum, officials craned M-240 number 3502 off the line down the street from city hall before moving it some 1,000 feet down the street, carving deep ruts in the asphalt. Once at its destination and hooked in, its V12 had to be run at a specific, constant rpm' to generate AC current at 60 hertz, the frequency used by most North American utilities.
Both locomotives were powered by Alco 251C prime movers; 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950 horsepower according to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Rather than power the wheels through hydraulic or mechanical transmissions, these massive motors turned traction generators that could send juice to motors connected to the wheels. In a pinch, however, that power can be routed outside the locomotive for whatever purpose one desires, like keeping municipal buildings operating in times of crisis. And that's exactly what these locomotives did for Boucherville. According to yet another account from a train forum, officials craned M-240 number 3502 off the line down the street from city hall before moving it some 1,000 feet down the street, carving deep ruts in the asphalt. Once at its destination and hooked in, its V12 had to be run at a specific, constant rpm' to generate AC current at 60 hertz, the frequency used by most North American utilities.
1.5 MW (Score:2)
For the units challenged: "powered by Alco 251C prime movers; 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950 horsepower" = 1.45 MW (times two).
Peak (Score:2)
1.45MW peak output. They were probably getting less as they had to run the motors at a lower RPM. Still, even at half output, 1.45MW total output should be plenty to run a decent sized office.
Re:Peak (Score:5, Interesting)
A post in the referenced train forum [trainorders.com] reckoned they would have to run at 720 rpm with an output of about 1400 hp (instead of 2000 hp) to get 60 Hz output. The same thread makes it clear they drove the locomotive down the street under its own power, which I hadn't realized from the summary.
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You mean people actually solving a problem with resources provided by the federal government.
CN was unfortunately privatized in 1998, though just a few years earlier. But if you think federal GOVERNMENT permission wasn't required for local GOVERNMENT to take a train off the rails and use it as a power source, you're out of your fucking late-stage capitalist mind.
And if it hadn't been built for the NATIONALIZED railroad, that locomotive wouldn't have even existed to be taken off the rails, since the loco wa
Re:Peak (Score:5, Informative)
Thank the gods for the government insisting that you build a septic system to certain minimal standards, I've never been a fan of seeing feces floating down the river when I'm fishing. Just think for 30 seconds about the effects of 100,000 people in a watershed all crapping behind their closest tree. I know it's hard for a Libertardian to think more than 30 seconds in the future, but you can do it if you concentrate. I'm truly sorry to be the bearer of bad news but everything you do affects everyone else in the society you live in and we all have the right to **NOT** be damaged by your ignorance, greed, or laziness. "Your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins." - John B. Finch
Nimitz-class carriers (Score:2)
Naval ships have have been parked off the coasts various places to provide disaster relief in the form of electrical generation too.
In addition to nuclear-powered electricity generation, Nimitz-class carriers have four emergency diesels of 10,720hp (8MW) [naval-technology.com]. It's really impressive to see what looks very much like the locomotive engines they are, in a large room in the bowels of the ship.
I'm sure the sound in the room while running must be even more impressive.
Re:Nimitz-class carriers (Score:4, Informative)
And nuclear submarines also have emergency diesels. Which are noisy as hell when you have to run the silly things (hence a lot of rules about hearing protection in the engineering spaces). And have, on occasion been used to supply emergency power to wherever the boat happened to be....
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And this isn't something new. The USS Lexington docked in Tacoma, WA to supply power during a drought back in 1929-30.
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The obvious solution would be to ask a film lighting hire company to provide a Genny truck, which normally do a stable 1.3MW and work in low temperatures. That could just be driven to the site, and much more fuel efficient than a locomotive.
Re:1.5 MW (Score:4, Insightful)
The brutal ice storm may have made just driving anywhere a problem.
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Diesel locomotives are all generators (Score:5, Interesting)
And TFS makes no sense. If you are going to tie a Diesel generator (in this case it just happens to be a locomotive) to an existing grid, you need to run 60Hz and make sure you are perfectly synchronized. But if the grid is down and you are powering a small town, just disconnect from the rest of the grid and run an entirely local grid. Then you don't have to be exactly 60Hz. The need for exact frequency isn't because 59.8Hz will destroy equipment. It's because AC generators need to be phase-synchronized at exactly the same frequency. I imagine that most home generators don't provide a steady 60Hz.
Not sure why they had to move the locomotives to downtown. Electricity travels over wires! I didn't read TFA because TFS is so bad but maybe I should.
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Well losses in wiring, plus they may not have had enough of the right kind of wiring to run a long distance. Anyway the modern solution would be a diesel genset on a flat bed truck.
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Some clocks will count too fast / too slow if you don't have a perfect 60 Hz, but I guess this is acceptable in case of an emergency
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Most modern clocks and electronics do not rely on the Grid AC Hertz. Because a lot of this power is not that accurate anyways, especially with most computers and even your clock running at a kilohertz - gigahertz speed. Being that most electrical power is from a mechanical process of spinning a magnet around some wires. (or wires around a magnet) This mechanical process often will create a lot of variation for people along the grid. Just as long as it is in the correct range, it normally doesn't mess up
Re:Diesel locomotives are all generators (Score:5, Informative)
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They actually took more than one locomotive. From the article:
"Both locomotives were powered by Alco 251C prime movers; 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950 horsepower according to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. "
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Re:Diesel locomotives are all generators (Score:4, Informative)
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The same page lists the power output as 2000 HP.
Though at the RPM they were running it to get 60 Hz it was only producing 1400 HP.
The second engine was originally intended to power a shelter in a school but for some reason (article didn't mention why) there weren't able to do that. So they parked it up the street from the first one to use as a backup if the first one went down.
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At any moment a single home might be using 10 kW, but there's no way they'd all be using 10 kW each simultaneously. I've noticed that 3 MW would usually be cited as enough to power 3,000 homes. (Not really realistic, especially if they're using electric resistance heat in cold weather.) That 1 kW per home is a very averaged number, not a peak - using it to design local distribution would lead to insufficient infrastructure.
The company I wor
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If they had wires, they wouldn't have needed the generators.
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If they had wires, they wouldn't have needed the generators.
Some do: They have trollies or the like to run on electrified track segments. They use the electrified line's power when running where it's available, their own diesel when off it (or if the grid is down B-b ).
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Very few small towns have a quarter mile of cable just laying around capable of carrying a couple of megawatts of current.
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You should try to be as close to 60hz as possible because some cheap electronics use a capacitor dropper to reduce the mains voltage to the voltage required for that electronic device.
The resistance of that capacitor is dependent on the frequency of the supply and is called capacitance reactance and calculated by 1 / (2 x pi x f x c) where f = frequency and c = value of the capacitor.
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Those engines and generators also frequently provide power for sh
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Germany had a shitload of Diesel-hydraulic locomotives until maybe 20 years ago. Some of them are still in use to this day.
DMUs, even modern ones, are also often diesel hydraulic by the way.
Mechanically coupled Diesel locomotives also exist and are still in use, but this kind of transmission is only used for shunters because high power motors would require very heavy gearboxes.
Canada vs. Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
Sincere question: why would the Texan authorities get skewered over their situation when a country that gets ice/wind/snow/awfulweather all the time suffer from the same situation?
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Sincere question: why would the Texan authorities get skewered over their situation when a country that gets ice/wind/snow/awfulweather all the time suffer from the same situation?
Because people who get something "all the time" are used to it.
Buildings are designed for the types of weather to be expected throughout their lifetime (with some variances built in for extremes); so too with utilities and infrastructure.
Buildings and infrastructure in California have a lot stricter codes as related to earthquakes than inland states or provinces. Buildings and infrastructure in Canada have to be rated to withstand -40C (even though most parts of Canada don't get that very often, if at all)
E
Re:Canada vs. Texas (Score:4, Informative)
"due to environmental factors executives did not foresee ever having to deal with" during their time with that company.
FTFY. Texas has had weather like this before, however infrequently. They have always known that it would happen again, but spending the money to prepare even minimally would have reduced shareholder dividends for a few quarters and lowered the value of their executives' stock options so it was never spent. They know it's going to happen again, but unless they're forced to prepare for it by either state or federal regulators the Texas grid is going back to its original configuration and no improvements are in the cards.
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Re:Canada vs. Texas (Score:5, Informative)
OK, you win. That's the dumbest thing I've seen on SlashDot all week, and I browse at -1. There's no competing with someone so proud to raise the stupid flag.
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exas's climate isn't one where ice/snow/subzero temperatures are the rule
Gotta call bs on this. Freezes are a cyclic event in Texas. If it happens around once a decade, it is not a surprise nor an anomaly. We don't consider El Niño an anomaly, so why do we consider this freeze as one?
Re:Canada vs. Texas (Score:4, Insightful)
Sincere question: why would the Texan authorities get skewered over their situation when a country that gets ice/wind/snow/awfulweather all the time suffer from the same situation?
For one thing there are many countries that suffer ice/wind/snow/awful-weather have outages but thanks to weather proofing and common sense they are never anything like the scale of what is happening in Texas. Secondly the Texas electrical grid was purposefully disconnected from the two other US nation wide grid interconnections so that Texas could deregulate the hell out of Texas grid even more completely than was done in the rest of the USA thanks to dingbats like this: https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com], I'm betting he made that comment and doomed Texans to freezing their nuts off from his well heated abode that has lots of clean water. This had the delightful side effect of ensuring that when the badly weather proofed Texas electrical grid collapsed under ice/wind/snow/awful-weather and they could not obtain energy from other parts of the US where the grid had not collapsed despite ice/wind/snow/awful-weather. This is what right wingers and Trumpkins in particular don't seem to understand, just because the grid is under-performing in one place there is usually always spare capacity somewhere else and thanks to the magic of high voltage long distance power transmission lines those non affected areas could provide at least some relief ... if there was an interconnection. The reason begin that because, unlike Texas, in those places energy companies and grid operators spent some of their sweet, sweet profits on weatherproofing their energy infrastructure instead of paying themselves bonuses.
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in those places energy companies and grid operators spent some of their sweet, sweet profits on weatherproofing their energy infrastructure instead of paying themselves bonuses.
In all fairness most of those executives only spent that money because they were forced to by the Federal government.
Re:Canada vs. Texas (Score:4, Insightful)
in those places energy companies and grid operators spent some of their sweet, sweet profits on weatherproofing their energy infrastructure instead of paying themselves bonuses.
In all fairness most of those executives only spent that money because they were forced to by the Federal government.
This is true. It is also why complete deregulation is an exercise in practical stupidity.
Right. Because if it were just federally regulated, all those greedy, evil people would suddenly become altruistic and totally work for free. That's why we never hear about corruption in government. It's a magical fairy dust that fixes everything.
Re: Canada vs. Texas (Score:2)
Texas actually has a connection to the Eastern grid, and a smaller connection to the west - they just have to be manually activated. Basically it's a big f-ing switch that somebody has to flip. It's not connected *all the time* so that a problem in the Eastern grid doesn't take down Texas as well.
During these storms with sustained record-low temperatures, the states in the Eastern grid were dealing with the exact same series of storm systems, so they didn't have power to spare.
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Texas actually has a connection to the Eastern grid, and a smaller connection to the west - they just have to be manually activated. Basically it's a big f-ing switch that somebody has to flip. It's not connected *all the time* so that a problem in the Eastern grid doesn't take down Texas as well.
This is highly unlikely. An AC connection between two unsynchronized grids is not a switch somebody has to flip. It is either a complicated AC-DC-AC setup (which would then be in frequent use) or it involves a long and people-heavy synchronization session to get the grids aligned. It is definitely not something you can flip in an emergency.
AFAIK, the answer is that the Texas interconnects are AC-DC-AC of the cheaper type, only able to provide actual power, not the reactive power you need to stabilize a fail
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> they are never anything like the scale of what is happening in Texas
In this sustained record cold, 2 million people lost power.
In California, where the weather is nearly perfect almost all the time, 51 million people lost power in 50,000 blackout events in 2020. That means million people lost power in an AVERAGE week in California. In 2019, that state had 25,281 blackouts affecting 28.4 million people.
So you're right, a record-bad event isn't the "like the scale in Texas". The worst week ever in Texas is roughly similar to a *typical* week in California. Texans are spoiled when it comes to power.
Now where did I say that California is a textbook example of a well planned, maintained and functioning power grid? What I had in mind when I wrote what I wrote was 'socialist hellholes' like the Scandinavian countries. They have freeze-your-nuts-off temperatures with lots of ice/wind/snow/awful-weather over half the year over there and yet power outages rarely exceed tens of thousands affected and outages typically don't last more than a few hours.
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> Now where did I say that California ... What I had in mind when I wrote what I wrote was 'socialist hellholes'
Ummm ... :)
> 'socialist hellholes' like the Scandinavian countries
Denmark would like a word with you.
https://www.thelocal.dk/201511... [thelocal.dk]
https://youtu.be/RO7wgS5tdz4 [youtu.be]
In fact, none of the nordic countries has even so much as a minimum wage.
What they DO have is extensive welfare programs paid for by capitalist economies.
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I like you can't admit it was a republican government that fucked up. But But But California....
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I'm sorry, are you disagreeing?
Is 51 million actually smaller than 2 million?
You'd prefer that a million people lose power EVERY week, in a TYPICAL week, rather than in the worst week ever?
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The 1998 ice storm took out large distribution lines networks along with tons of local infrastructure. This was an unprecedented storm that no one could have prepared for. How do you prevent hundreds of long haul towers from collecting ice?
Texas had blackouts from similar conditions in 2011. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
You'll see that in 2011 changes were recommended but not mandated so the same thing wouldn't happen. Well nobody can tell Texas what to do so here we are a decade later with the exact sa
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The governor's assertion that renewables failed the state painted a big red target on them. That topic, like so many other things, is now a sacred topic that cannot be criticized in any way.
(To fend off the people that will attack me over this reply, I'm not defending the Governor's statement. If you want my opinion you should ask for it instead of assuming.)
Responses to Once in a Century Events (Score:5, Insightful)
Sincere question: why would the Texan authorities get skewered over their situation when a country that gets ice/wind/snow/awful weather all the time suffer from the same situation?
The ice storm of 1998 wasn't something that comes every year - hundreds of high tension towers were overwhelmed by ice loads taking out literally all of the electrical power paths for about 200 miles from Eastern Ontario to Montreal. Along with that, virtually every road was impassible. If I remember correctly, it resulted in the largest mobilization of Canadian soldiers since the second world war.
Differences? From the people not so much, they hunkered down and helped their neighbours, just as you have in Texas. I think the big difference was in the political response; in the Canadian ice storm provincial and federal resources came together quite well and were able to show a unified effort in making sure citizens were all right and restoring services (basically in that order).
As a Canadian when I look at the stories coming out of Texas there seems to be the same positive stories about people helping others. Politically, it appears to be a shit show with a lot of defensiveness about ERCOT not being part of the EIA (due to "Texas pride") along with a certain amount of political opportunism taking place that didn't happen in Canada. It appears that the well being of the people of Texas are of tertiary importance after money and political CYA.
From the images I see, the Texas storm was pretty bad and probably correlates in impact to the Canadian 1998 ice storm - the reason why Texas authorities are getting skewered (rightfully so, in my opinion) is because they aren't putting their constituents first in this crisis.
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Ted Cruz Crisis Response (Score:2)
Can you imagine if politicians from Quebec ran off to Cancun during the storm?
I didn't put that in my original response as I consider the trip to Cancun to be so incredibly arrogant and stupid as to be a complete outlier.
I remember laughing with my wife in 1998 watching (Prime Minister) Chretien in a parka and Toque talking about he and his family were suffering along with their constituents while he was swinging an ax to break up some fallen branches - real man of the people (this is sarcasm). But it's what a politician that doesn't have his head up his ass does during a crisis.
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Because a natural disaster is normally a golden time for a politician to stand up and show how great of a leader they are. But lately (across political parties) there seems to be a lack of actual leadership skills of our officials, and are electing ideology talking heads. And when there is a problem that needs real leadership, saying we need people to do this or that, they are not to be found.
Canada did something when the power went out, Texas, just pulled a Don Quixote and went on the attack. This would
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Quebec had a few problems with their power infrastructure in the 80s. In response, they fixed it.
That's why Texas is taking criticism. They've had similar problems in the past, and haven't taken useful steps to prevent them. Also, Texas kept bragging about their deregulated power grid and now they're busy whining about their $17,000 bills.
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Sincere question: why would the Texan authorities get skewered over their situation when a country that gets ice/wind/snow/awfulweather all the time suffer from the same situation?
Florida resident here: let me pitch in.
Why? Because this freeze wave isn't a once in a life event. It happens at least once a decade (like Cat4-Cat5 hurricanes down here in Florida.)
Not to be partisan, but Dems have been trying to "winterize" power infrastructure in Texas since the last freeze (when, 2010-2012, I can't recall.) And every single attempt has been mothballed by their political opponents.
This, like our pandemic handling, this was a completely preventable event. The self-style energy capi
I remember this storm (Score:4, Informative)
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Growing up in northern Michigan we generally had one or two ice storms a year, and they were always followed by beautiful clear skies. There's only one thing to do in that situation, get in the car and drive around admiring the incredible beauty of nature (while it tries its best to kill you.)
Ted was 'busy' (Score:2)
I'm sure Texas senators could have thought of this (or read a bit of history), but unfortunately one of them was busy navel-gazing and finger-pointing in Mexico.
Aircraft carrier (Score:2)
Also done with USS Lexington (Score:5, Interesting)
Things that make you go "hmmm" (Score:2)
So, diesel fuel. Funny how well that stuff works. Oh, and they chose to power City Hall instead of literally anything else. Can't have government without power, literally or figuratively.
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Can't have shelters functioning without power.
FTFY
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The goal was to have a location that was heated, could make food and so on, so people could come in when help was needed rather than die alone at home. A lot of us have spare wood for this kind of situation, but not everyone does, and not everyone had enough for the timeline (up to 3 weeks). It was impossible to buy extra wood after a few days, all the stock was gone, so it was great that they had a way to help their local population in need. I`m not sure if that's this town or another one nearby, but I rem
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That's where people were sheltering. Nice to have somewhere warm with food for people with no heat to hang out.
If you're going to bring up Hydro Quebec (Score:2, Insightful)
Comparing Hydro Quebec and Texas's energy market is unfair. Hydro Quebec is state owned, so their services are extremely poor and their prices over inflated (their prices are set by government, so it's just a tax they can raise).
Texas's energy market is self regulated without government intervention. The free market controls Texas's energy infrastructure. As such, it's clear that Texasns pay less per kwh, and enjoy a grid that is substantially more stable. What happened in Texas was a once in a life time ev
Re:If you're going to bring up Hydro Quebec (Score:5, Informative)
So in exchange for paying $0.015 more per kilowatt/hour Canadians get a reliable and modern electrical grid able to withstand frequent phenomenal weather events. Sounds like a good deal to me, especially since Canadians will never experience a rise of 7,500% overnight. Why are Libertardians always short-term thinkers? I suppose if they weren't they'd have to get a new religion.
https://www.energyhub.org/elec... [energyhub.org]
The average residential price of electricity in Canada is $0.174 per kWh. This price includes both fixed and variable costs, and is based on an average monthly consumption of 1,000 kWh.
The average price decreases to $0.135 if you exclude the territories.
https://www.npr.org/sections/l... [npr.org]
The average price for electricity in Texas in the winter is about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Texas utility regulators allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour.
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If Texas winterizes its grid, do you think rates will go up 45%?
No, I think it would go up 75% because then generators could blame the big bad Federal government for the hike and most residents are stupid enough to believe them.
The Northwest Territories and Nunavut are further away from the main Canadian generating facilities than Mexico City is from the Texas generators, power is very expensive in the far Arctic. Perhaps you missed the part that said "The average price decreases to $0.135 if you exclude the territories." I know reading comprehension must not be your
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Now this is how you troll. 8/10.
Re:If you're going to bring up Hydro Quebec (Score:4, Informative)
Lol. Bravo, that was a magnificent troll.
For the information of the Google challenged, Quebec has some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world. They only send bills every other month.
Domestic electricity prices:
Quebec: 6.08 c/kWh ((first 40 kWh/day), 9.38 c/kWh thereafter.
Texas: Who knows. The average seems to vary between about 10 c/kWh to almost 16 c/kWh.
Oh, and the Quebec prices are in CAN $ so knock off 30%.
Last resort (Score:2)
A few years ago I did some consulting at a factory that needed temporary extra power. They rented a generator in the 1 MW class. This came in a 20' ISO shipping container which included the genset, enough fuel to run for days and enough sound deadening that noise wasn't an issue. Derailing a 80-ton locomotive seems crude by comparison. I suspect there was quite a run on generators after the ice storm, to make that move a necessity.
The demise of rail (Score:2)
Sadly, this would be difficult to reproduce in my city today. In the past, we had a network of freight rail and spurs throughout the business/industrial sections of town. Including a rail spur into our power substation. Used for the delivery of transformers and switch gear. But the rails-to-trails activists have been busy pulling up all the track so it's no longer available for such uses. Or for commuter light rail either.
Cute but irrelevant to current events (Score:3)
Though a few areas with rail spurs might be able to move fast enough to use locomotives if their facilities to be powered are adjacent. Dragging locos downtown over gas lines etc is risky because the underground world is far from solid...
Large portable gensets for rent are a solved problem. So is portable military power generation on which the state government might call. Thinking to USE them is not a solved problem, nor is planning in advance to connect them to important structures (hospitals generally excepted as most have their own generators, even my local, large pain management practice has a permanent unit).
Texas being oil country there should be MANY containerized and skid-mounted generators available with the oilfield trucks to deliver them and many industrial/commercial rental outfits like Sunbelt ready to deliver. If you're near a welding supply many of those can rent engine-driven welders with integral generators (often used as backup by the clueful as parts and service are easily available, many homeowners who don't weld buy them for backups).
Disaster readiness should be considered both government and individual civic duty because collective readiness mitigates disaster impact. Everyone should shoot for at least a month unsupported survival on their own. If you need power to survive you failed at clothing and sleeping bags, since humans routinely camp out in all weathers with no additional heat. Oxygen concentrator users should have a suitable genset and safely stored fuel plus full-sized backup cylinders in case of concentrator failure.
NEVER be one-deep on equipment and if you're old, weak or crippled have a plan to drive out-of-state to survive if necessary. That's what bugout bags are for and if you're not able to shelter in place you'd better have a seriously considered plan to GTFO, not least because ordinary fires etc can destroy any building without warning and you can grab a bugout bag on the way out the door.
Prepping is mostly a state of mind. The world is a very, very bad place with intermittent periods of local comfort. Humans use tools because without tools and the equipment they build nature will promptly kill us. Learned helplessness won't save you so be ready or be screwed when the time comes.
Re:So Texas just has to build train tracks? (Score:4, Informative)
Canadian loco fuel oil contains anti-gel additives and viscosity enhancers to prevent the fuel from gelling in extreme cold. It's illegal to do the same in the US because of EPA rules that prohibit the use of viscosity enhancing agents in fuel oil. Those additives are also incompatible with the SCR systems on locomotives manufactured after 2014 when the EPA Tier 4 requirement for clean diesel emissions started applying to electricity generators.The additives destroy the catalyst that breaks down and oxidizes the soot in the exhaust stream.
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Citation needed.
Different additives might be needed than in the past, but winterizing additives are in use in the USA.additives
Re:So Texas just has to build train tracks? (Score:4, Interesting)
Canadian loco fuel oil contains anti-gel additives and viscosity enhancers to prevent the fuel from gelling in extreme cold. It's illegal to do the same in the US because of EPA rules that prohibit the use of viscosity enhancing agents in fuel oil.
Might want to do a little bit of research on that.
Most diesel suppliers switch to a winter mix in the late fall (has #1 diesel mixed in with #2 or antigel additives added). The ASTM standard for diesel (ASTM D975 - 02) even has a recommended minimum cloud point temperature by state.
You can also purchase your own additive (Power Service, Howse, etc all have a winter mix as do most of the other diesel additive brands).
Those additives are also incompatible with the SCR systems on locomotives manufactured after 2014 when the EPA Tier 4 requirement for clean diesel emissions started applying to electricity generators.The additives destroy the catalyst that breaks down and oxidizes the soot in the exhaust stream.
Nope, perhaps when SCR systems first came out, but the additive manufacturers have had 6+ years to come up with additives that are compatible with the SCR/DPF system.
Power Service states that their product is safe for use with new engines and is listed as safe to use by Cummins: https://powerservice.com/learn... [powerservice.com]
Aaron Z
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Once the fuel has jelled, you won't start a diesel until it warms up in my experience. Turned unseasonably cold here one autumn, truck wouldn't start and pulling off the fuel pre-filter showed jelly. Truck sat for a couple of days till it warmed up. This was not even freezing temperatures, just the wrong fuel blend.
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Growing up, My father had a Diesel truck. He plugged it in during the winter to keep it warm. Trains ans such, are often always running, to keep them warm. So it isn't a big deal, normally. If you heating the engine, when it is off, the power goes off, you often have a few hours before it gets gelled.
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Yes, I plugged in the truck in the winter and it always started. This was the only time I ever had the diesel gelling problem and the diesel would not flow through the fuel lines. Warming up the engine wouldn't have helped in this one case. As I said, it was unseasonably cold, just above freezing, end of August IIRC, and the fuel was summer blend. Looking in the pre-filter, it looked more like wax then diesel. The pre-filter was a regular fuel filter like you'd find on an older gas car.
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Where do you plug in a train\generator when the power is out? You appear to have created a Catch-22 here...
They have a built in built-in electric-powered block heater. The same can apparently happen to gasoline engines in extreme cold, at least my uncle who got sent to drive a tank in Russia during WWII told me that in winter they used to have to heat their P.4's engine and fuel up before they could start the damn thing. This also applied to for aircraft engines: http://www.phoenix-fr.com/docu... [phoenix-fr.com]. Another thing you had to do was drain radiators because temperatures got so cold that they exceeded the specs of the
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Once the fuel has jelled, you won't start a diesel until it warms up in my experience. Turned unseasonably cold here one autumn, truck wouldn't start and pulling off the fuel pre-filter showed jelly. Truck sat for a couple of days till it warmed up. This was not even freezing temperatures, just the wrong fuel blend.
Engines are kept on on cold weather to prevent such things. Not just in Canada, but Siberia, northern China, Hokkaido, etc. Though in the case you describe, the wrong fuel blend added to the problem.
The same with tanks and motorized equipment in winter warfare.
Re:Gotta keep the ruling class warm and cozy (Score:5, Insightful)
Municipal buildings were being used as shelters, dumbshit. Of course the Libertardians all preferred to freeze to death rather than admit that a government could do something right, which is why Boucherville's government is still sane and well-run today.
Re:Gotta keep the ruling class warm and cozy (Score:5, Insightful)
An 11 year old boy died so the utility company could save a few bucks by not winterizing.
The 11 year old who passed away is an undeniable tragedy. Using him for your throwaway "so they can save a few bucks" line is reprehensible. Winterizing where "winter" usually isn't a thing (I read average daily temperature in south Texas in February is typically north of 60*F) is wasteful and foolish (they don't build houses with 2x6s down there, either). Given the size of Texas and the amount of infrastructure in question, it's also probably a little bit more than "a few bucks" in cost. (hundreds of millions? billions? more?)
I'm not a fan of placing a value on human life, but there is some point where "we have to do it to save just one life" becomes an absurdity.
Re:Gotta keep the ruling class warm and cozy (Score:5, Informative)
Winterizing where "winter" usually isn't a thing
Average temperatures may be non-freezing, but the last big snowstorm hit that area less than 10 years ago. Preparing for once-a-decade events is definitely not "an absurdity".
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It is when corporate executives rotate out of one company into another about every eight years. Why would they prepare for a once-in-a-decade event when they won't be around when it happens? It might lower their stock options!
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I think the answer in this case is pretty clearly that they should have done it. At this point that choice to prioritize short term profits has resulted in an emergency that is costing lives, and probably hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars when this is all said and done in property damage and lost productivity from much of the state being effectively shutdown.
Texas had this happen 11 years ago (Score:3)
You seem to be responding in much the same way you're deriding OP for. This wasn't "spending billions to save 1 life", that's just icing on the shit cake. This was "well, we're not the one's who're gonna have to pay to clean up the mess, so fuck 'em".
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That one politician from Texas (whose name escapes me) claims the deaths from lack of electricity were worth it to keep the feds outs. An 11 year old boy died so the utility company could save a few bucks by not winterizing.
Remember that this is the state whose governor said a few months ago that Grandma and Grandpops were happy to take one for the team and die of covid to save the economy.
What just happened in Texas is just the mini-fucked-up-me version of how we have handled the pandemic at the fed and state level.
A perverted culture based around an ideology of toxic individuality is affecting this country, and it is getting people killed. Half a million so far by the pandemic and God-knows how many by the Texas freeze.
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Before one of the terminally brain-dead drops in to claim that it was the fault of wind turbines, 90% of the wind turbines in Texas kept running without interruption (the other 10% are on the portion of the grid that doesn't touch the National electrical grid, so weren't required to have deicing equipment). The failed wind turbines supplied >1% of Texas' electrical generation.
This source [cbsnews.com] says 16,000 MW of wind power was down during the crisis. Texas has about 30,000 MW of wind capacity. Where does your "90% kept running" come from?
Re:Gotta keep the ruling class warm and cozy (Score:5, Informative)
I agree the GPs 90% is wrong, but there is a correct 90%.
https://electrek.co/2021/02/19... [electrek.co]
Itâ(TM)s estimated that of the gridâ(TM)s total winter capacity, about 80% of it, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal, and some nuclear power. Only 7% of ERCOTâ(TM)s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.
So if half the wind turbines were down, that a represents 3.5% loss of power from wind, 3.5% still delivered by wind, and 93% of the power was supposed to come from elsewhere all along. Even if 100% of the wind turbines had failed, texas should have had >90% capacity available.
Wind turbines are also perfectly fine in winter if they are winterized. Just ask Greenland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden.
The problem in texas wasn't wind, the problem in Texas was lack of winterization across the board. The natural gas sites froze up too; by some estimates nearly half the natural gas electric production came to a halt as well.
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the problem in Texas was lack of winterization across the board.
Yes, and it was a calculated risk that came out on the wrong side of an unusual set of winter weather.
I drove a 60 mile round trip every day last week to check on my factory just south of Dallas. I saw a plow truck exactly twice and I think it was the same truck both times. Having grown up in the upper Midwest, in 300 miles of driving in weather like that I would have seen 100 plow trucks.
It would have been nice to have 100s of plow trucks last week, but for the previous 20 years they'd have been sitti
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It would have been nice to have 100s of plow trucks last week
Well, that's the wrong way to do it, but probably how Texas would do it. A bracket on every heavy vehicle and a plow attachment that sits in the back of the vehicle yard is the way we did it in Michigan, and it's cheap. That chunk of metal can sit in the back of the yard rusting for a decade, but it's still available when needed even if it's not pretty sitting on the front or bottom of a new truck. Of course you've privatized every bloody piece of public infrastructure down there, so the county probably
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80 years? Perfect design requirement. EVERYTHING is designed for the "100 year" disaster: the 100-year earthquake the 100-year flood, etc.
Except dams. Dams are designed for the THOUSAND YEAR FLOOD.
Some engineers don't fuck around. Those that do, are what the rest of us call "Bad Engineers".
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I guarantee you have exactly none of those things you mentioned right now.
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Sure they did. I like fairy stories, tell me another one!
I've watched the proud independent Libertardians suck down every penny of Welfare they can scam out of the government for my entire life. All three people that I've know who were scamming "disability" payments from Social Security claimed to be Libertardians, and you should have seen the Libertardian feeding frenzy for FEMA money after the hurricanes. I saw people throw perfectly good furniture and appliances on the lawn and soak them with hoses to
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To be fair, for Canada, most people have a more complex infrastructure for heat, than electric heat. Heck I live in the North East United States and my Home has 3 different methods of heat.
I use Wood Pellets in a Stove as my primary heat, Which does a good job, at keeping my whole house rather warm. But I also have Oil Heat for when it gets really cold, or I run out of Pellets and unable/unwilling to get some more. Now during a power outage. I have small generator, that I got for a couple hundred bucks.
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People right in town often don't have much choice for heat, basically electric or gas and the gas furnace usually needs power to run. Apartments, rentals or just people who almost never experience a power outage.
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Re: 1.21 jiga watts? (Score:2)
Around here the ski resorts do have diesel generators installed at the base of every lift, but the lifts normally run on electricity from the grid.
The generators are used as a backup... you do not want to strand skiers on the lift if the power goes out.
Self reliance is a myth... (Score:2)
The lesson here is self reliance.
"Self reliance" is just another way of saying "Fuck you - got mine".
A stance which lasts about as long as one's larder is full.
It gets busted long before that every time one needs actual professional assistance - like with dentistry, a burst appendix, setting a broken leg, barbering...
The lesson here is that utilities should be publicly owned, continuously maintained, robustly constructed and designed with several layers of built-in redundancy backups.
Not necessarily in that order.
I.e. You can haz army? FUC
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