Why Texans are freezing their asses off

How reliable are the reliable if they are not winterized?

How come Norway has reliable wind turbines? They winterize.

Lustylad and the WSJ were trying to distort the fact that we need all sources to keep costs down. I'm a proponent of nuclear. They were shucking for the oil and gas industry. Originally Posted by WTF

Again, Mnuchin was just quoting the WSJ, and doesn't hold himself out to be an expert on this, like he is on macroeconomics.

I spoke with my friend again mentioned in the OP. I'll preface this by saying he's not an expert on power plants, but knows what was happening in midstream and the oilfield this past week as well as anyone.

He says gas-fired power plants use water for cooling. As long as the plants are operating, everything is fine. The turbines generate heat, the water absorbs the heat, the water won't freeze, regardless of how cold it gets.

Now, what happens when ERCOT and the power plants foolishly shut off the electricity to the gas producers, processors and pipelines, and the compressors and pumps go down and the gas can't be produced? Then the gas-fired power plants don't get natural gas. They have to shut down. The water freezes. In other words, if the gas hadn't been shut off, because the electricity was shut off, then winterizing would largely have been a moot point.

When ERCOT et al took note of their huge mistake, which didn't take all that long, everything was fucked. Getting the gas production and power generation infrastructure back up and going again was easier said than done.

As to your other points, Nuclear is more expensive. Winterizing increases costs and thus prices, albeit both of us suspect it doesn't increase them that much. People don't plan for a once in a lifetime cold spell. There's some kind of a balance there, what risk are you willing to take for what price. This is mostly not about greedy corporations and their profits, but rather what price the consumer will pay for energy. And black swan events that people don't plan for. And human stupidity.

Yeah, we could regulate windmills and tell them to winterize like Norway. Would that necessarily make sense in Texas? Maybe so and maybe not, but people didn't have a clue until this week.

Good point. The turbines don't break down in Iowa because of cold weather, they are winterized.

This problem similar to the Hurricane Katrina problem. They built the new levies strong enough for a level "3" hurricane. Murphy's law take a hold and boom you get level "5" hurricane and 10,000 citizens have to live in the Superdome for a week. Originally Posted by adav8s28

Very good analogy

You could have had it worse. You could have been this guy.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/u...ric-bills.html


His Lights Stayed on During Texas’ Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.


After a public outcry from people like Scott Willoughby, whose exorbitant electric bill is soon due, Gov. Greg Abbott said lawmakers should ensure Texans “do not get stuck with skyrocketing energy bills” caused by the storm.

You could have had it worse. You could have been this guy.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/u...ric-bills.html


His Lights Stayed on During Texas’ Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.


After a public outcry from people like Scott Willoughby, whose exorbitant electric bill is soon due, Gov. Greg Abbott said lawmakers should ensure Texans “do not get stuck with skyrocketing energy bills” caused by the storm. Originally Posted by HedonistForever

Yes, some "savy" consumers were saving $15 or $20 a month going through Griddy instead of locking in prices with Texas Utilities and Oncor and the like. Then they get stuck with huge bills when the spot price of electricity went from, say, $0.12 per kilowatt hour to $9 per kilowatt hour. That's how ERCOT (group that manages the Texas grid) encouraged companies to idle some gas fired power plants so they'd be in a position to supply power during periods of peak demand. You have power plants, peakers I think they're called, that make most of their money during a few days or weeks a year. And they made a lot of money this year, assuming they actually get paid by Abbott or the utilities or whoever.

.

This is from a buddy in Houston who's high up with a gas pipeline company. Oncor (power company) and ERCOT (outfit that controls the electric grid in Texas) in their infinite wisdom decided that compressors on gas pipelines and compressors at the inlets to gas plants were not essential, so blacked them out. They also shut off electricity to wells in the Permian Basin. The effect of all this was to shut off production wells and salt water disposal wells.

So basically a lot of the gas production infrastructure went off line. And it's not so easy to get things going again as when the wells and the compressors and the gas plants stop operating, things freeze up.

So anyway as a result the gas fired power plants were deprived of fuel, so they had to shut down. And just like the gas plants and the compressors and the wells, getting them going again in freezing conditions can be problematic.

In summary, according to my friend, shutting off the power to the oilfield and gas plants generated a chain reaction that resulted in the gas fired power plants going down. He said he and colleagues begged Oncor and ERCOT not to shut off the electricity, because they knew what was going to happen. Undoubtedly people working for other midstream companies were doing the same.

These people just had no common sense. Yes, we need to maintain power to hospitals, etc. But when they cut off the fuel source for the power plants, they put us in a position where that may happen anyway. Originally Posted by Tiny

A friend of mine from way back in my school days, although retired now, spent many years as an electrical engineer and at one time managed the division of a very large firm that sold power distribution equipment for substations and other infrastructure. Although since he is in a different field, he looks at the issue through a lens that differs slightly from your friend's, since he doesn't have a great deal of familiarity with the gas production or pipeline industries. Nonetheless, judging from a few other things he said, my take on his views lines up well with what you posted.

One thing he did point out that I didn't realize is that huge quantities of coal were always stored at the site of coal-fired plants, whereas there is little or no gas storage near the gas plants -- it's all "just-in-time" delivery and depends on the smooth flow through pipelines. Very cold air is of course much denser than warmer air, and it takes a while to get the gas going with sufficient velocity when spooling up the plant for peak demand. Through the pandemic, we've repeatedly seen the havoc that isolated supply-chain disruptions -- even those involving only one type of part -- can wreak on various manufacturing industries. I'm not sure that's a very good analogy, but it seems to me that it might make some sense.

Another thing he said that I found pretty scary is that many reports indicated that large portions of the grid, or even the whole grid, could fail if more than just a few plants tripped off at near the same time. My understanding is that this would entail the risk of large voltage spikes that could damage or destroy transformers and other infrastructure.

In a worst-case scenario, a "black start" would have to be accomplished. Starting a plant requires a lot of power from the rest of the grid, and that isn't possible if the interconnections across large areas falter or fail. Then the plants would need to restart one by one after checking, testing, and repairing components in scattered areas.

I'm told that such a process could take many days, or even a couple of weeks -- so as bad as this event was, it could have been much worse.

.

Here's an article confirming what happened.

You heard it from Tiny first!

Good news - it'll be 72 degrees tomorrow, at least in Dallas! But you already know that...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/giant...005229826.html

.

Here's an article confirming what happened.

You heard it from Tiny first!

Good news - it'll be 72 degrees tomorrow, at least in Dallas! But you already know that...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/giant...005229826.html Originally Posted by lustylad

And 75 on Tuesday!

(Time for the local college girls to start wearing shorts and swimsuits.)

.

lustylad you are picking and choosing your facts.

Huh? Go cherry-pick your nose, will ya? All I did was reprint a WSJ article.


You post a bunch of facts and then try and illogically apply a narrative. You are just as guilty as the other side.

What facts and what narrative are you whining about? Try to be specific for once in your life, ok?


Tiny and myself (sic) had already broken down the problem. The gas generation plants were not properly winterized.

Oh dear! Did I rudely interrupt your private convo with Tiny? Sorry, man. I can tell you got it all under control now. Except that a perfect storm by definition has multiple causes. You're such a simple-minded simpleton that you always boil a complex issue down to a single culprit, in this case gas plants not being "properly winterized".


Wind is a great source to use when available but those wind turbines need to be winterized just like they do in Norway.

Where did I disagree with that? Oh wait, I didn't! By the way, does winterizing keep the blades turning when there's no wind? Asking for a friend.


Again....the problem was Texas was not prepared for a freeze of this length.

According to Tiny, and as confirmed in the yahoo article I just shared, a lot of the gas-fired power plant outages could have been avoided if ERCOT hadn't stupidly turned off electricity to the gas pumping stations during the rolling blackouts. Does winterizing protect you against stupidity?


Also there were parts of Texas that actually were. Why you might/should ask? Because these regions were not part of the independent Texas grid but were plugged in to other regional grids that diverted electricity to say a Lubbock.

You're saying not everyone is plugged into ERCOT. Good to hear, I guess. I only know what I read.


Your style has always been to throw out a bunch of irrelevant facts and then ridicule others less knowledgeable about said facts...as wrong. You try to win a battle and you care nothing about winng (sic) the more important war. Much like you threw a bunch of GDP numbers and hawk Trump as some economic guru....when in fact his bottom line numbers were no better than Obama's last 3 years vs Trumps first three.

Your style, as frequently noted and amply documented by gnadfly and nevergaveitathought, is to falsely attribute to others arguments they never made, then claim victory over the straw man. That's like charging up the wrong hill in battle after battle and pretending you're winning the war... And get over your silly GDP obsession. You accuse me of cherry picking yet you're the one who chooses 3-year averages to obscure the fact that the economy was slowing down visibly under Obama and expanded by a meager 1.6% in his last year (2016). Fortunately Trump came in and kick-started the growth engine again.


So gtfoh with those numbers you and the WSJ are distorting.

I have no idea wtf you're whining about now. I didn't distort anything. Are you afraid to be specific?


Perry was the one that pushed wind power in Texas...not AOC.

Who said anything about Perry? Or AOC? Not me. Not the WSJ either.


There is nothing wrong with winf (sic), gas and nuclear and coal if you know their strengths and weaknesses and plan accordingly.

Agreed. And you know all about gauging strengths and weaknesses, dontcha?


What hopefully will happen is a (sic) honest discussion in what happened and plan accordingly moving forward.

Hopefully people like you will be excluded from the conversation. Originally Posted by WTF

Awww... are you really trying to censor me, wtf? Why would you want to do that? Is it because you can never refute my superior arguments and you're looking for an easy way out by silencing my unassailable voice of reason? That's kind of weak and cowardly. Robust debate is good for you! Listening to others critique your lame talking points is an excellent way for you to shore up your limp, half-baked arguments. You do want to fortify your forensic "skills", dontcha?

But maybe I'm misinterpreting your fascist impulse to strip me of my 1st Amendment rights. Are you by chance being jealous and protective of your friendship with Tiny? Do you fear if I'm allowed to comment I'll turn him against you? Well, I've got news for you. Tiny's weltanschauung aligns a lot closer to mine than yours, insofar as you can even be said to have a consistent or coherent worldview. The only real difference between Tiny and me is - he is far too polite to bitch-slap you whenever you need a good, sound bitch-slapping. I'm less restrained, as you know from experience.

Awww... are you really trying to censor me, wtf? Why would you want to do that? Is it because you can never refute my superior arguments and you're looking for an easy way out by silencing my unassailable voice of reason? That's kind of weak and cowardly. Robust debate is good for you! Listening to others critique your lame talking points is an excellent way for you to shore up your limp, half-baked arguments. You do want to fortify your forensic "skills", dontcha?

But maybe I'm misinterpreting your fascist impulse to strip me of my 1st Amendment rights. Are you by chance being jealous and protective of your friendship with Tiny? Do you fear if I'm allowed to comment I'll turn him against you? Well, I've got news for you. Tiny's weltanschauung aligns a lot closer to mine than yours, insofar as you can even be said to have a consistent or coherent worldview. The only real difference between Tiny and me is - he is far too polite to bitch-slap you whenever you need a good, sound bitch-slapping. I'm less restrained, as you know from experience. Originally Posted by lustylad

I think you're an educated dumbass and it now appears a latent homosexual. Not that there is anything wrong with that. You can compete for Tiny's affection all you want. If you fear me trying to silence you, fear not!

I worked in a gas refinery and knew exactly wtf happened. I still have friends that do...they were running at reduced capacity and were told not to start up if they had to shutdown because of the power surge that would entail. I have a friend that directs the flow of energy in Austin. It is simple math.

Your WSJ article was a political hit piece that had no relevance to this situtation. That you were too dense to understand that fact then and now,....does not suprise me.

What field are you in in Pennsylvania? Men Clothing?

And get over your silly GDP obsession. You accuse me of cherry picking yet you're the one who chooses 3-year averages to obscure the fact that the economy was slowing down visibly under Obama and expanded by a meager 1.6% in his last year (2016). Fortunately Trump came in and kick-started the growth engine again. Originally Posted by lustylad

I believe the article linked below was written specifically for people of your ilk.



https://www.barrons.com/articles/un-...rs-51553801603

The most you can claim is that Obama’s final seven quarters, ending in first-quarter 2017, ran a thudding 1.5%, while his successor somehow pulled that out of the basement, boosting it to 2.7%. But that claim seems premature this early in the game.

This impartial scorecard should be contrasted with the approach taken by different partisans—since they might well reveal their partiality again.


Take a case of spinning the results in Trump’s favor. Speaking of “an economic takeoff that had failed to occur under the policies of the previous administration,” former Senator Phil Gramm claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “real gross domestic product grew by 3.1% from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018—the largest rise in 13 years.” In other words, you had to reach back 13 years, under George W. Bush, to find a comparable performance. The clear implication was that nothing like this had ever been seen on Obama’s watch.



That 3.1% is now 3%, but Gramm could have made the same statement and it would have been technically correct. You have to reach back 13 years to find a calendar year in which fourth quarter over fourth quarter growth ran 3%. But an impartial approach would be to ask whether 3% growth had occurred over any four-quarter period. Otherwise, you’re merely capitalizing on the arbitrary fact that we westerners prefer to declare a New Year every Jan. 1—rather than on, say, July 1.

There was in fact more than one four-quarter period over the past several years when growth ran 3% or better. The most recent was second-quarter 2015, when real GDP was 3.4% higher than the second quarter of 2014.

.

Except that a perfect storm by definition has multiple causes. You're such a simple-minded simpleton that you always boil a complex issue down to a single culprit, in this case gas plants not being "properly winterized".



By the way, does winterizing keep the blades turning when there's no wind? Asking for a friend.

Originally Posted by lustylad

Not always do I boil complex issues down to a single culprit...only when justified.

Had the plants and production fields been winterized...there would have been no need to prioritize hospitals and assisted living facilities over production fields. Do you understand wtf I just said?

The God Damn wind did not stop blowing in a fucking winter front(so tell your friend to go fuck him/herself)...but the wind Turbines stopped turning because they weren't WINTERIZED. Do you understand wtf was just said?

So that we are clear, a Perfect Storm may have multiple causes....but if you understood wtf you were talking about,you'd know that taking away one element PREVENTS THE PERFECT STORM.


Now go sell some ties or shoes...nobody that has worked in this field is buying any of your bullshit.

Awww... are you really trying to censor me, wtf? Originally Posted by lustylad

It works for illegal alien workers. Not so much under the current administration who by an EO seeks to equalize all illegals with the same (if not more) of the privileges of LEGAL CITIZENS. They will end up with $15 an hour wages and healthcare.

""The green new deal"

Had the plants and production fields been winterized...there would have been no need to prioritize hospitals and assisted living facilities over production fields. Originally Posted by WTF

Well, we did have one of the nuclear units shut down for a day or two. And some compressors would have gone down anyway, like they do whenever there's severely cold weather in Texas. However, please note that demand surged with record cold temperatures. People, institutions and businesses who were using gas for heating needed more. That includes hospitals and assisted living facilities. The demand for electricity increased too because many people use electric heating.

Anyway, what I'm getting at, winterizing wouldn't have prevented the spike in demand, for both natural gas and electricity, so that rationing and blackouts may have been required anyway.

A couple of safeguards that industry and government undoubtedly will be considering going forward. Adavs28 brought up the first. ERCOT needs more interconnection capacity, with other grids, ideally without becoming heavily regulated by the FERC (the Feds). This would help Texas if this happens again. I don't think it will, because I think we'll be better prepared. But still, when other states get into a similar fix we'd be in a position to help, as the largest energy producing state in the nation, by a long shot.

Second, we need more gas storage fields in Texas, and we need to make damn sure the compressors and other infrastructure to get the gas from the fields to the gas fired plants is protected from the cold. This would help with summer surges too.

The God Damn wind did not stop blowing in a fucking winter front(so tell your friend to go fuck him/herself) Originally Posted by WTF

I think that friend is me, and yes, I do masturbate daily, usually while thinking about my one true love, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I posted here that I was driving through the "wind belt", from Abilene to Lubbock, and the windmills weren't turning and the wind wasn't blowing.

So here's the deal. I set off at about 1:00 PM from Weatherford. I hadn't had any breakfast and was starving. But all the restaurants were closed. Even the Whataburgers, which are always open. Yeah, one in Weatherford was open, but only doing takeout, and the line of cars stretched about 3 blocks, so I said fuck that. I stopped somewhere along the way to buy some peanuts. I got out of my car and the wind wasn't blowing, but that was somewhere around Ranger. Finally when I got to Sweetwater, which is in the area where there are a lot of windmills, I found a Whataburger that was open, went inside, and didn't notice any wind. Now when I was driving through the area, only about 10% of the Windmills were turning. I figured this was because some weren't working because of wind velocity and some because they'd been shut down, for lack of winterizing or whatever.

I was curious yesterday so went back and looked at wind velocities on the day I traveled, and actually they were around 10 to 15 mph. Maybe when I went into and came out of Whataburger the wind had died down. Maybe my memory's failing me. Anyway, my bad, sorry.

That still doesn't change the fact that you don't have wind energy when the wind's not blowing, so you must have enough infrastructure with gas, coal and nuclear fired power plants to take up the slack.

Kind of getting off the subject, I attended a presentation by ERCOT some years ago, when the federal government was paying big subsidies to wind generators. The lady engineer posted a graph that showed how much the wind generators PAID ERCOT on some days to produce electricity. That's right, they were paying $.01 or $.02 per kilowatt hour to put electricity into the grid, at periods when the grid was over-supplied. The reason wasn't operational. If there were no tax considerations, the wind owners would have shut down their windmills to prevent the wear and tear on the equipment. But, pulling a number out of the air, since they were getting a $.03 per kilowatt subsidy from the federal government, it was a paying proposition to keep them going.

Well, we did have one of the nuclear units shut down for a day or two. Originally Posted by Tiny

Who is "we"?

You spend too much bandwidth (not to mention time) attempting to impress others with your inciteful knowledge acquired from 3rd parties.

It sounds to me like too many "decision makers" connected with "utilities" jumped on the "clean-green" energy wagon a bit early when the effectiveness and reliability had not been even tested, much less PROVEN, for periods of weather that fell OUTSIDE OF THE GLOBAL WARMING MODEL.

Go figure!

.

For anyone who may be into reading ridiculously long FERC reports, there's this:

https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/f...-11-report.pdf

I'm not, so I just read the "executive summary" starting on page 7, and skimmed through a couple of the other sections that piqued my curiosity.

It doesn't appear that Texas PUC members bothered to act on many of its recommendations, as has been reported by numerous sources in recent days.

.