Snow on the Bayou

[conon394]

So... it has nothing to do with green energy. Gas turbines were shut down frozen.

Well I mean that is basically the problem really its systemic to Texas. You can of course make everything from gas pipes to water pipes to wind turbines function through the winter but you got to pay for it. Texas has chosen to implement a system that had no incentives for worst case planning and isolated their power grid from the rest of the US. In the short run that does I suppose help profits and maybe lower rates but the long term has a way biting you in the butt.

[PointOfViewGun]

Texas mayor resigns after telling residents desperate for power and heat "only the strong will survive"

A Texas mayor resigned after seemingly telling residents to fend for themselves in a Facebook post amid a deadly and record-breaking winter storm that left much of the state without power Tuesday.

As then-mayor of Colorado City, Tim Boyd wrote an insensitive message for people desperate for heat, water and power, saying "only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish.]"

"No one owes you [or] your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this!" he said. "Sink or swim it's your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I'm sick and fired of people looking for a damn handout."

Boyd told people without water to "think outside the box to survive" and called people waiting in the cold because they have no power "lazy" – even as authorities were telling people to stay home to avoid icy roads.

Interesting sense of entitlement we see from a Texas mayor.

[B. W.]

I prefer to call it a "cost effective shot"

I can tell you about some random guy who moved to Texas from Connecticut because he got fed up with the local government's attempts to raise taxes to cover a green initiative that impacts on his business' profitability. But that would be making an uncited random analogy that is non-representative, argumentum ad passiones and meaningless without broader statistical analysis. Now that may sound fine to you, but it sounds like an.. ... ... ... . . ... No I can't let my cynicism go that far.

You offered up a subjective and opinionated post. I countered with a subjective and opinionated post. Mine is based on first hand interaction with said "immigrants". So, when was the last time you were in Texas and had experience with some left-wing newcomers?

And just so you know, my neighbors are Iranian and we get along just fine. When they came, they brought common sense with them. They asked me questions about what they needed to do in case of this or that situation came up. Hey, I was, and still am, glad to be of help. It's the people who come here and think they know better that gets my goat.

Texas's natural gas grid isn't designed to handle these temperatures yet you're buying into the idea that it's working in spite of...millions of home's power going out?

O...K...

Port Arthur oil refinery shut down Monday due to unprecedented freezing temperatures, stopping about 2.5 million barrels between Houston and Louisiana. Drillers in the Permian Basin have gone offline as the temperature has gone below zero, the supply shortfall sending prices above 60$ per barrel.

23% of the power in Texas was from Wind. But given the average warmer temperatures Texas doesn't doesn't spend necessary cost to winterize it like Iowa or Denmark so many turbines have frozen.

Natural gas and coal power plants need water to stay online, yet those water facilities froze in the cold temperatures that other regions would winterize against, and the power is lost. That's an even bigger deal to Texas than wind, as the combined natural gas(40%) and coal(18%) power is most of their power. Texas also depends on Nuclear power(11%), and at least one unit is shut down for frozen water that Texas was not prepared for.

When you're in West or South Texas are you really going to spend money to winterize your equipment? Or is it sort of a gee-golly-wizz hindsight question?

Your focus on wind is a red herring. Texas just wasn't ready for this. It never was going to be. You can do your best to blame somebody that moved in. But that's just a shift.

I've been in every power producing plant in Harris County. They all have an auxiliary fuel source if the gas supply fails (No. 6 crude oil). It's required by law. The wind generators have no secondary fuel source. The power plants can operate in all weather conditions. The wind turbines can't.

Natural gas is in abundance here. There is so much that excess is routinely burnt off.

My house is on natural gas. That is how I heat my home. It has never failed in a weather event.

I have yet to see a story about all the "all electric homes" that put a major draw on the grid at a time when a quarter of the grid went down. Now why do you think that is?

I doubt you can figure it out so I'll give you some information. It wasn't so long ago that homes down here all came equipped with gas and electric. No sane Texan would buy a house without it. With the influx of people who didn't know better, developers started pitching "all electric" homes as the preferred way to go and the newcomers bought them by the thousands.

Here's the truth they're not telling you. It is way cheaper to build a housing community without gas lines. They then sell those homes as if they had the same value as homes equipped with gas (and make a lot of money in the process).

Now here's the kicker. There are numerous "planned communities" on the books waiting to be built. If the news media started running stories about the disadvantages of owning a home without gas those developers would lose a lot of money. I wonder who has the biggest lobby, Joe Homebuyer or Big Developer? You know you can count on the mainstream media to keep you informed, so don't listen to those rednecks who are just spitting BS at you.

They are prioritizing natural gas to homes. Even at the expense of limiting volume to electricity generation. The shortfall has pretty much zero to do with wind generation in particular. The whole Texas power system is simply not hardened against winter. Back when I was getting and MS at Iowa State we a about a 6 week period were the temp never broke 0 degrees F and night time was dropping below -20. The 3 turbines in nearby Nevada never stopped spinning day or night. But I sure there is a cost to that and I really doubt anyone in west Texas cold mitigation high on their list of what they needed. There is after all why they don't sell (auto) block heats in Texas but a lot in Alberta.

Edit to be clear wind out put went from ~7 GW to ~4.5 GW. But the deficit Texas is facing is some 21 GW. That was 2 days ago. And of course those turbines are not winterized by design.

See above. even if what you said was true, the power plants have a secondary fuel source.

Thing is as anyone who as ever lived in Houston can tell you the place and the surrounding municipalities can't even manage to devise a competent drainage system for regular annual normal heavy rain(*). The ideal thay anyone would care a wit to think about wasting money on winterizing infrastructure for some fantasy weather event would have enbe laughed out of the building.

Compare in Washtenaw county Michigan when you wanted to add a subdivision re pavement and removing farm or woodland (able to absorb water ) you had to add the cost of storm sewers and a drainage pond to take on the water from snow melt or heavy spring to summer rain (plus side you get to go play pond hockey right next to home) - Texas that sounds like socialism.

You can blame Harris County leadership for the drainage problems. They're the ones responsible for it. And, by the way, who would have thought it would be a good idea to buy a house that is just below a massive earthen retainer that is the flood reservoir? Just sayin'.

[Gaidin]

Natural gas is in abundance here. There is so much that excess is routinely burnt off.

My house is on natural gas. That is how I heat my home. It has never failed in a weather event.

Let me make one thing absolutely clear to you. What you perceive immediately in front of you is not the totality of reality and absolute truth everywhere.

Natural gas wells and pipes not winterized are a big reason why millions of Texans lost power during frigid temperatures. What gas they had was diverted to heat as liquid inside wells, pipes, and valves froze. Ice can block gas flow clogging the pipes causing freeze-off disrupting gas production. This had a disruption this week in Texas as the Permian Basin shut down. Gas accounts for most power in Texas in the winter, but you guys lost most of your flow for lack of winterized plants, and lack of winterized piping.

The mismatch is what is driving the blackouts in the drive to heat homes. There simply isn't enough fuel to on hand to both heat and power homes. Hell, by the stories, there isn't even enough fuel to heat homes. The Permian Basin fell from 22.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day in December down to 10-12 billion cubic feet per day this week. The drop off is thanks to freeze-off at wellheads where oil and gas are pumped out and equipment has frozen at gas processing plants that separate gas from fluid and impurities. Plants have to either heat up, or wait for temperatures to rise. Then Texas doesn't spend the money to winterize their equipment, guess the choice.









Other states invest more in equipment that helps prevent this kind of freeze-off. Texas hasn't seen the need, for all they got slammed by a winter storm back in 2011 that knocked power out for major cities. All this time, this is just a risk the Gulf Coast Producers have been willing to take. Now the entire state is in a rolling blackout and the major heating and power resource is shifted to priority heat so people don't god damned die.

[B. W.]

Let me make one thing absolutely clear to you. What you perceive immediately in front of you is not the totality of reality and absolute truth everywhere.

Natural gas wells and pipes not winterized are a big reason why millions of Texans lost power during frigid temperatures. What gas they had was diverted to heat as liquid inside wells, pipes, and valves froze. Ice can block gas flow clogging the pipes causing freeze-off disrupting gas production. This had a disruption this week in Texas as the Permian Basin shut down. Gas accounts for most power in Texas in the winter, but you guys lost most of your flow for lack of winterized plants, and lack of winterized piping.

The mismatch is what is driving the blackouts in the drive to heat homes. There simply isn't enough fuel to on hand to both heat and power homes. Hell, by the stories, there isn't even enough fuel to heat homes. The Permian Basin fell from 22.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day in December down to 10-12 billion cubic feet per day this week. The drop off is thanks to freeze-off at wellheads where oil and gas are pumped out and equipment has frozen at gas processing plants that separate gas from fluid and impurities. Plants have to either heat up, or wait for temperatures to rise. Then Texas doesn't spend the money to winterize their equipment, guess the choice.









Other states invest more in equipment that helps prevent this kind of freeze-off. Texas hasn't seen the need, for all they got slammed by a winter storm back in 2011 that knocked power out for major cities. All this time, this is just a risk the Gulf Coast Producers have been willing to take. Now the entire state is in a rolling blackout and the major heating and power resource is shifted to priority heat so people don't god damned die.

You keep proving over and over that you don't know a thing about Texas and I'll add you don't know a thing about looking at pictures. Those pictures are not from a busted water pipe. Those are from rain freezing. A water pipe burst in a plant under these conditions would form a gigantic icicle from the burst point to the ground. I've seen both situations; you haven't, obviously.

Secondly, you keep talking about the Permian Basin. I can only guess you are unaware we also have oil wells here on the coast and a day or so of freezing isn't going to take them out of service. Anyone who believes that doesn't know a thing about industry. We also have reserve pumping capacity to make up for any shortfall that might occur in the Permian due to weather factors. That isn't the problem here.

And you keep ignoring the fact that the coal and gas fired plants have a reserve secondary fuel source on hand and available to switch over to should the gas be interrupted.

So, one more time in case you can't figure out what the problem is the reason the power can't keep up with demand is that when the homes and population increased, the homes were "all electric" and the additional power supply built to provide the additional power required was wind generation.

When the wind generators failed, the system was overloaded.

[Gaidin]

When the wind generators failed, the system was overloaded.

So. According to you. All those frozen pictures I posted. They will magically fix themselves. When you fix the non-winterized wind-turbines. That or wait for them to thaw(hint: other machines will thaw at this point as well).

As an engineer, I’m not sure you know jack.

[Aexodus]

Moderation has not seen fit as of yet to close this thread, but if it is to continue, any and all personal references must stop. Insults, for example towards any political orientation, must stop. Disruptive posting, and inflammatory language must also stop, because it contributes to flame wars.

Address the argument, do not attack the person. Debates should be as detached and impersonal as possible. Do not post in such a manner that would elicit a strong, emotional response if possible. Your argument should be phrased in such a way that minimizes the ability to misread the post.

Follow all the mudpit rules.

[Gaidin]

You keep proving over and over that you don't know a thing about Texas and I'll add you don't know a thing about looking at pictures. Those pictures are not from a busted water pipe. Those are from rain freezing. A water pipe burst in a plant under these conditions would form a gigantic icicle from the burst point to the ground. I've seen both situations; you haven't, obviously.

No. Those pictures are not from a busted water pipe. They are from Entergy as a power provider. Their crap is frozen.

Realign your views.

Secondly, you keep talking about the Permian Basin. I can only guess you are unaware we also have oil wells here on the coast and a day or so of freezing isn't going to take them out of service. Anyone who believes that doesn't know a thing about industry. We also have reserve pumping capacity to make up for any shortfall that might occur in the Permian due to weather factors. That isn't the problem here.

Your production capacity is currently cut in half due to the polar vortex. Natural gas plants don't typically take the route of coal plants and store extra to burn. Either way. Oil wells. Where are your oil purification plants that are winterized. We need to know what makes the pumped oil usable in this time. Why did your south-eastern oil plants winterize for all the warm climate but NOBODY ELSE IN SOUTHERN OR WESTERN TEXAS DO SO?! Was the company just this smart? Or are you just BSing me?

And you keep ignoring the fact that the coal and gas fired plants have a reserve secondary fuel source on hand and available to switch over to should the gas be interrupted.

Your coal plants have a bit to burn, but that's 18% of your power, IF ALL OF THEM WORK, if all of them are winterized. ARE THEY? Not all will die. But only 18% of Texas power is coal. You cannot just shift to this without having many people lose power. This is not a matter of how much coal you have. This is a matter of wiring. I don't care how much coal you have. If you don't have the wiring, people will lose power. How many people are dark now BW?

So, one more time in case you can't figure out what the problem is the reason the power can't keep up with demand is that when the homes and population increased, the homes were "all electric" and the additional power supply built to provide the additional power required was wind generation.

I think it's just because it got just god damned cold and Texas didn't know what to do with it. Your own power company says the same thing I am.

[Coughdrop addict]

I’ll tell you why. One word. Obama. How? Exactly. You don’t know. No one does. That’s the whole problem. What were Democrats doing to jeopardize the Texas power grid at the exact same time it just so happens to snow on their so-called green energy scam. Pretty convenient eh? The fossil fuel powered stations never failed, and if they did, it’s probably because Democrats sabotaged them to make the plant workers look bad. Everyone knows people in the industry lean Republican, and now they can’t keep up with energy demand because wind mills. Coincidence? I think not. Everyone knows that there’s no way there was any problems with the natural gas or coal powered plants. Have you ever seen a 50 foot ice cicle? I didn’t think so. Check mate liberals.

This is Chinese Communist propaganda from Communist China! Everyone who isn't a secret Kenyan Muslim knows that the Green New Deal storm was sent by Biden to attack Texas from his pizza-basement stronghold! Wake up Sheeple! Don't listen to those liberal scientists with their big city learning, listen to this guy who knows what's REALLY going on!

https://archive.vn/syuSW#selection-849.1-852.0

[Basileos Leandros I]

Alright, so if the gas turbines had a backup power source, why have they been shut down and Texas left in the dark?

[B. W.]

So. According to you. All those frozen pictures I posted. They will magically fix themselves. When you fix the non-winterized wind-turbines. That or wait for them to thaw(hint: other machines will thaw at this point as well).

As an engineer, I’m not sure you know jack.

You're...you're...you're an engineer?

There is nothing in those pictures that could possibly shut down a power plant. I've worked in worse conditions. Once more, the freeze didn't shut down the fossil fuel plants. It shut down the wind generators.

No. Those pictures are not from a busted water pipe. They are from Entergy as a power provider. Their crap is frozen.

Realign your views.

This just shows how easily the general public is deceived. I doubt you have ever been in a power plant or any other industrial facility.

Your production capacity is currently cut in half due to the polar vortex. Natural gas plants don't typically take the route of coal plants and store extra to burn. Either way. Oil wells. Where are your oil purification plants that are winterized. We need to know what makes the pumped oil usable in this time. Why did your south-eastern oil plants winterize for all the warm climate but NOBODY ELSE IN SOUTHERN OR WESTERN TEXAS DO SO?! Was the company just this smart? Or are you just BSing me?

Your coal plants have a bit to burn, but that's 18% of your power, IF ALL OF THEM WORK, if all of them are winterized. ARE THEY? Not all will die. But only 18% of Texas power is coal. You cannot just shift to this without having many people lose power. This is not a matter of how much coal you have. This is a matter of wiring. I don't care how much coal you have. If you don't have the wiring, people will lose power. How many people are dark now BW?

I think it's just because it got just god damned cold and Texas didn't know what to do with it. Your own power company says the same thing I am.

Hmmm, the primary source for fuel in the Harris county plants is natural gas. Their secondary fuel source is crude oil, which is stored onsite. In addition there are nuclear power facilities in SE Texas. You keep proving you don't know what you are talking about.

Alright, so if the gas turbines had a backup power source, why have they been shut down and Texas left in the dark?

That's just it. The gas turbines are running or else no one would have power. It is the wind turbines that went offline. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

The wind turbines were built to supplement the existing power system because of the increasing population, which put an added draw on the system. They represent 25% of power production. When they went offline the system was unable to meet power demands. The problem was magnified because so many of the new homes used electricity instead of gas for heating purposes.

To sum it up. If new gas plants had been built instead of wind turbines this problem would not have occurred.

[PointOfViewGun]

Texas largely relies on natural gas for power. It wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.

Texas largely relies on natural gas — especially during times of high demand — to power the state. Experts say natural gas infrastructure, from pumping it out of the ground to the plants in city centers, was unprepared for the plunging temperatures brought by the winter storm.

Officials for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of Texas’ grid, said the primary cause of the outages Tuesday appeared to be the state’s natural gas providers. Many are not designed to withstand such low temperatures on equipment or during production.

More than half of ERCOT’s winter generating capacity, largely powered by natural gas, was offline due to the storm, an estimated 45 gigawatts, according to Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT.

Woodfin said Tuesday that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, are offline and that 30 gigawatts of thermal sources, which include gas, coal and nuclear energy, are offline.

It is possible to “winterize” natural gas power plants, natural gas production and wind turbines, experts said, which prevents such major interruptions in other states with more regular extreme winter weather. But even after upgrades were made after the 2011 winter storm, many Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent these sorts of disruptions happening to the equipment, experts said.

The problem is clearly not about not building more natural gas plants. It's about the Republican way of doing things in Texas.

[B. W.]

Texas largely relies on natural gas for power. It wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.






The problem is clearly not about not building more natural gas plants. It's about the Republican way of doing things in Texas.

Now there's a good instance of a BS article. Here's what the article was saying:

Let's completely ignore the fact that 25% of the power grid went down because it was frozen wind generators.

I own a percentage in a gas well and it did not go down. To have a few out of service is not unusual. The article is a complete distortion of reality.

The simple fact is clear. 25% went offline because the wind generators were frozen. That is a fact. Only about 6% of the wind generators were operational. That is unacceptable.

[PointOfViewGun]

Now there's a good instance of a BS article. Here's what the article was saying:

Let's completely ignore the fact that 25% of the power grid went down because it was frozen wind generators.

I own a percentage in a gas well and it did not go down. To have a few out of service is not unusual. The article is a complete distortion of reality.

The simple fact is clear. 25% went offline because the wind generators were frozen. That is a fact. Only about 6% of the wind generators were operational. That is unacceptable.

Wind accounts for 23% of power generation in Texas. The wind turbines can be winterized. They were not in Texas.

From the same article:

By some estimates, nearly half of the state’s natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants have forced some operators to shut down.

This "I have a black friend so there is no racism" argument have no place here.

Frozen Wind Farms Are Just a Small Piece of Texas’s Power Woes

Wind shutdowns accounted for 3.6 to 4.5 gigawatts -- or less than 13% -- of the 30 to 35 gigawatts of total outages, according to Woodfin. That’s in part because wind only comprises 25% of the state’s energy mix this time of year.

Amid Texas freeze, oil producers still shut; governor bans natural gas exports

Natural gas output also slumped. At this time a week ago, Texas was producing about 7.9 billion cubic feet per day, but that fell to 1.9 billion on Wednesday, according to preliminary data from Refinitiv Eikon. Natural gas accounts for half of Texas’ power generation.

The simple fact is that wind power, which could have been winterized, was only one of the sources for the outages.

[Gaidin]

You're...you're...you're an engineer?

There is nothing in those pictures that could possibly shut down a power plant. I've worked in worse conditions. Once more, the freeze didn't shut down the fossil fuel plants. It shut down the wind generators.

Work in all the conditions you want. If the facility doesn't work because it's not designed to work in the conditions, you won't be at work that day. Why? Because the company won't pay you to come to a non-working facility and stand around and do nothing. When this storm came south down through Canada, they the Canadians had a good smooth stream of electricity. So did our norther states that plan for winter.

Not Texas though.

Hmmm, the primary source for fuel in the Harris county plants is natural gas. Their secondary fuel source is crude oil, which is stored onsite. In addition there are nuclear power facilities in SE Texas. You keep proving you don't know what you are talking about.

Freeze the water they use, the plant shuts down.

I'm really tired of explaining this to your TEXAS RAH RAH RAH blindness. If you don't protect against cold, components freeze, plants shut down. Texas has never invested in this.

We have never said every plant shut down for cold. But enough. One thing is for sure. ERCOT will not predict when the power network will be back at normal load instead of a controlled blackout cycle. They didn't two days ago. They haven't today. And they won't until they have a reason to change that rolling blackout policy.

[Basileos Leandros I]

That's just it. The gas turbines are running or else no one would have power. It is the wind turbines that went offline. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

The wind turbines were built to supplement the existing power system because of the increasing population, which put an added draw on the system. They represent 25% of power production. When they went offline the system was unable to meet power demands. The problem was magnified because so many of the new homes used electricity instead of gas for heating purposes.

To sum it up. If new gas plants had been built instead of wind turbines this problem would not have occurred.

Gas turbines are NOT running. They're offline. 25% of wind turbine power does not account for the rest of the 75% going partially offline.

The state’s grid operator said Feb. 15 that about 34 gigawatts of power were offline. But of that, about 4 gigawatts was due to problems with wind turbines. The rest came mainly from the state’s primary sources, natural gas and coal.

30 GW were on natural gas and coal. Taken out. This has 0 to do with wind turbines and green energy.

[B. W.]

When I first learned that the windmills were freezing up I knew there would be an ensuing disaster and that the news media, which is all in on green energy, would be doing backflips to deflect from the real cause of these events. It's the reason I started this thread. It is a good example of how much dishonesty there is in the press.

Wind accounts for 23% of power generation in Texas. The wind turbines can be winterized. They were not in Texas.

From the same article:


This "I have a black friend so there is no racism" argument have no place here.

Frozen Wind Farms Are Just a Small Piece of Texas’s Power Woes


Amid Texas freeze, oil producers still shut; governor bans natural gas exports



The simple fact is that wind power, which could have been winterized, was only one of the sources for the outages.

So much disinformation in one article. First it says that 23% of the grid's power comes from the wind turbines...but we know that they were down to 6% operations. And yet the article says that they only represent 13% of the total outages.

Work in all the conditions you want. If the facility doesn't work because it's not designed to work in the conditions, you won't be at work that day. Why? Because the company won't pay you to come to a non-working facility and stand around and do nothing. When this storm came south down through Canada, they the Canadians had a good smooth stream of electricity. So did our norther states that plan for winter.

Not Texas though.


Freeze the water they use, the plant shuts down.

I'm really tired of explaining this to your TEXAS RAH RAH RAH blindness. If you don't protect against cold, components freeze, plants shut down. Texas has never invested in this.

We have never said every plant shut down for cold. But enough. One thing is for sure. ERCOT will not predict when the power network will be back at normal load instead of a controlled blackout cycle. They didn't two days ago. They haven't today. And they won't until they have a reason to change that rolling blackout policy.

We average at least one good freeze a year even where I am at here on the coast. If you go 40 miles north of here freezes are not uncommon at all. So why hasn't this problem manifested itself before? There's always going to be some reductions associated with bad weather events. Bad weather events in Texas aren't uncommon. So, your comment that Texas has never invested in cold weather protection is ridiculous.

Now, as for the windmills, it appears that the same left-wing pie in the sky thinking that caused them to be created and built was also incorporated into winterizing them.

[The Guy With No Imagination]

But you're wrong though.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Texan Crisis management:

Senator Ted Cruz left Texas for Cancún as the state was battered by a brutal winter storm

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/u...sultPosition=1

[B. W.]

Gas turbines are NOT running. They're offline. 25% of wind turbine power does not account for the rest of the 75% going partially offline.



30 GW were on natural gas and coal. Taken out. This has 0 to do with wind turbines and green energy.

Just not true. If the gas turbines weren't running the whole system would have failed. Only 6% of the wind generators remained operational. The wind generators represented 23% of total possible output. That's a huge figure.

The other power producers, even with outages, still managed over 50% output because they had backup fuel sources. Most maintained at a much higher level than that. Saying that other plants had reduced capacity is hardly comparable to the wind generators being reduced to 6% of their capability. That's what took the system down.