Thinking of our Friends in Texas

You guys should be up to the mid 60’s by saturday.

Yeh, someone on this block has a snowblower or at least electric shovel, and does a quick walk up’n’down the block clearing a path. Rather nice, I think.

Yeah, just wait ’til the greenies have the whole country “electrified”. Not enough power in “green” California to avoid rolling blackouts and the like, but yeah, let’s ban gas/diesel cars and shove battery cars on everyone. Hell, even gasoline lawnmowers and generators will be banned nationwide, too. Wheee!

Your “powerwall” might keep your house going a few days if you’re lucky, but then what? Lose power for weeks, and no hot water, no heat, no nothing. No (legal) generator or (legal) fuel to run it, after all.

Man, I feel sorry for all those deaths that’ll result. Oh, but it’ll be the powerco’s fault, right? After all, they should bury all the powerlines underground yet keep rates down. Guess some save-the-earth types will volunteer to do all that work for free, eh?

I’m telling ya, prepare now. Buy those gennies while they’re still legal. And lots and lots of fuel.

Yeh, that little critter’s a hoot, ain’t it? Had that for light over our Christmas blackout.

Inside didn’t get that cold, only the 50s, but then again ConEd kicked ass and worked around the clock to get power back on in something like 20hrs.

It was especially cold and windy that day and night, though. One more day and it probably would’ve been down in the 30s inside, too.

No candles (but I know I got a bunch of ’em in the basement), but same. All cells topped off by default, buncha powerbanks to supplement.

Tried the stove trick, didn’t really work beyond the kitchen. :laughing:

Wondering if the furnace can take DC instead of AC from the transformer. 12V or 24V, I forgot. That should be a decent backup, just in case. Have house heat, too.

That’s a relief, if they can hang on a bit longer.

Must feel like a “Twilight Zone” episode out there…

Basic math is that about 10% of the problem is from “green” energy problems. It is actually the dirty fossil fuel plants that are failing much more significantly and predictably. But it sure sounds better to ignore the actual math and blame the green boogie man. Deliberate and successful manipulation of facts to promote fossil fuels. Who is going to actually look at generation tables and do the math anyway? Who is going to actually read the ercot reports? Certainly the problem is mostly just from frozen wind turbans. Never mind the actual numbers don’t back that up.

I hope everyone in Texas can do their best by this weekend, when this terrible weather should be over.

It's a very sad situation.

Hang in there, Texas!

I’m saying the electric grid itself is already strained and near maximum capacity. Upgrades were put off year after yer after year ’cause ratepayers didn’t want to spring for the cost. Line are above ground ’cause it’s cheaper and easier and faster to string cables along poles vs digging trenches and burying cables.

Point being, transformers are blowing up on hot summer days when demand peaks, ice-storms and winds and falling trees knock down cables, and so on. Nothing to do with wind “turbans” or solar panels or coal-burning powerplants, but the infrastructure itself.

That’s an assload of eggs in one crumbling antiquated basket, that all the greenies are pushing to overload even more with everyone driving Teslas and Bolts, and houses being heated exclusively by electricity.

Even here (not sure if this is law yet, but it’s definitely in the works), but new construction of private houses is being forbidden the use of oil or propane or NG for heat, ie, electricity only. Are they retarded?

I had a blackout, yet was still able to cook and have hot water for a good long hot soak to warm up. If everything were all electricity, I’d have nothing, zero. I wouldn’t even be able to make coffee for myself. What am I supposed to do, crack open a bag of Kingsford and heat water on a hibachi indoors? I can imagine how many fires and cases of CO poisoning would result…

Point being, I’m not “blaming” turbines or solar panels (or coal-fired plants or nuke plants, for that matter). I’m blaming the greenies who are just technically and scientifically illiterate, pushing these feelgood ideas without thinking them through, or just plain without thinking. It’s like routing a fully-loaded 50-car freight train over the Cassandra Crossing. It just ain’t able to handle it. The infrastructure is not there. And what is there is inadequate.

Oh, and I can just imagine a directed cyberattack on the grid… right at times like this when the entire country’s seeing record cold (or heat).

Ho boy…

Yep, don’t mess with Texas. Says so right in the Bible…

They should put some heating system on the wind turbines.It can be self powered

I dont live in Teaxas. I am going by what they say on the news. Its not one news site, its all of them that say the same story.

Does anyone know WHY the non-green power plants are under capacity right now today ?

This will explain most of it;

From the article;

“Some turbines did in fact freeze — though Greenland and other northern outposts are able to keep theirs going through the winter,” The Washington Post reports. “But wind accounts for just 10 percent of the power in Texas generated during the winter,” and the losses tied to thermal plants mostly “relying on natural gas dwarfed the dent caused by frozen wind turbines by a factor of five or six.” According to ERCOT, wind power generation is actually exceeding projections.

One nuclear reactor and several coal-fired plants went offline, but “Texas is a gas state,” Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas, told The Texas Tribune. And “gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now.” Instruments and other components at gas-fired power plants iced over, and “by some estimates, nearly half of the state’s natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures,” as electric pumps lost power and uninsulated pipelines and gas wells froze, the Tribune reports.

After a 2011 winter storm knocked out power to about 3 million Texans, a federal report warned Texas the same grid debacle would happen again if it didn’t adequately weatherize its power infrastructure and increase fuel reserves — and reminded Texas that “many of those same warnings were issued after similar blackouts 22 years earlier and had gone unheeded,” The Associated Press reports.

“Upgrades were made following the 2011 winter storm,” The Texas Tribune notes, but “many Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent the sort of disruptions happening to the equipment.”

The other thing that residents of Texas are screaming (about and rightly so) is why areas that have come back online are allowed to light large Corporate Buildings like Christmas when they are closed.

Never understood that crap anywhere, it’s like America saying “Look how effing cool we are, we will burn electric for no reason other than Vanity”
I always was raised to relate electric to water, you wouldn’t leave a sink faucet running after you used it and left the room, so why should you leave the electric “Tap” on when not needed?
Not talking security lights, talking unoccupied working/living spaces.
If we all give a little it makes a big difference on the Grid, not to mention lower bills for us all.

Texas appears to be unique in that it keeps it’s own power and therefore is isolated/shutoff to/from neighboring states which could help out if they were linked up to each others Grid but they are not.

Here’s an idea with those of us who have a long commute via car/truck. Charge powerbanks and flashlight batteries on drive and use them at home instead of AC lights.
Your vehicle produces more juice than it needs so it costs no more of fuel mileage and your flashlights at home have been saying “Use me , make me earn my keep”

It’s Win, WIn, WIN :slight_smile:

Enough for now, keep safe everyone and remember sharing a smile costs you nothing and makes you feel better too.

It’s weird, Michigan is a “gas” state also. I don’t know what the ratio of NG vs Electric furnaces, but put it this way. I’ve never seen an electric furnace in a house in this state. And I remember 2 power outages in the last 30yrs. One was from ice and downed lines, and the other was a construction crew that cut a main line.

And this has never happened as far as I know. And I can guarantee Michigan has much colder temps on a normal basis than Texas has ever seen, including last Monday. It’s –13ºF right now.

I don’t know, maybe TX households only have electric heat pump furnaces which don’t work very well in temps under 50ºF, and not at all if electrical grid is down

Ahh, there it is, ” it didn’t adequately weatherize its power infrastructure and increase fuel reserves “. :wink:
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Now the blame falls on those responsible for not fixing a known problem. :wink:
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Thanks Muto !!
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I never saw a building where they purposely leave all the lights on.

Global warming contributes to Texas cooling. I guess keeping the pipelines and wind turbines warm wasn’t even a consideration before this. I wonder how feasible it would be to prevent a repeat of this in the future? Maybe string up some Texas lumens lights around the important spots.

Good luck to everyone down there and stay safe. It seems like everyone in the country (and the world) is going to have a taste of Mother Nature’s wrath in their lifetime

https://images.app.goo.gl/yufxEGMuhCSbrAiE6
NYC skyline

Only 10% of the lights are on, how do you know those offices are empty? Could be the cleaning crew etc.

Also some sky scrapers have outdoor display lights to show off the building.
This is normal.