So we get a once in 20 year snow event and I read that half of the west Texas wind turbines go down because of snow and we have no power in south Texas resulting in no heat in the house.
I turned on the Webasto and heated up the engine, pulled the coach out and my wife and I moved in. We are toasty.
Looks like our green energy isn't quite working as well as they promised
!9 degrees in Houston right now anyone up for ice skating lol
Running the air conditioner in the bus barn while installing diesel air heater in the bus for stuff like happened to David - good move!
I sure hope none of our troops at Ft Hood are out on maneuvers as they will be flashing back to Grafenwöhr Germany, shudder!!!!!
One of the true arm pits of the world, though I hear there are numerous sandy ash trays full of butts they have had to endure...
Cold war warrior here...
Quote from: freds on February 15, 2021, 06:36:57 PM
I sure hope none of our troops at Ft Hood are out on maneuvers as they will be flashing back to Grafenwöhr Germany, shudder!!!!!
One of the true arm pits of the world, though I hear there are numerous sandy ash trays full of butts they have had to endure...
Cold war warrior here...
Our daughter lives in Killeen says it 10 degrees there now
Sounds like less of a 'green energy' problem and more of a 'failure to winterize' one; from what I've seen they're running at about a 30 gigawatt shortage, which is nearly three times what all of the wind turbines in the state are capable of producing at full bore. Something doesn't add up.
Read an interesting article yesterday about why Texas is experiencing the outages, and it seems like this has been a perfect storm of poor planning, not just of ice & snow. Looks like there were a few boxes left unticked in the state's winter preparation, almost as if no one ever asked the question "what if there's an enormous load put on the system in winter?"
Not trying to rag on Texas, but poor planning anywhere will result in pretty much the same results. It's happened here at times as well, and hopefully those in the decision-making chairs will take corrective action.
I heard many of the wind turbines are iced up and unavailable. Solar farms covered in ice and snow, thus no output.
Quote from: richard5933 on February 16, 2021, 04:21:07 AM
Read an interesting article yesterday about why Texas is experiencing the outages, and it seems like this has been a perfect storm of poor planning, not just of ice & snow. Looks like there were a few boxes left unticked in the state's winter preparation, almost as if no one ever asked the question "what if there's an enormous load put on the system in winter?"
Not trying to rag on Texas, but poor planning anywhere will result in pretty much the same results. It's happened here at times as well, and hopefully those in the decision-making chairs will take corrective action.
Back in the late 70's Texas built coal fired power plants all over the state on sites where coal deposits were located so transportation was not needed federal politics forced the closer of those,they tired to build 3 nuclear and that was a no because of politics,wind power is not going to work in Texas neither is solar the weather is too unpredictable.Texas has helicopters flying doing their best to de ice the turbines
I've also read Europe has had to resort to coal and nat gas right now due to green failures.
I read that two problems affected Texas this time around: lack of winter prep packages installed on the wind turbines and a lack of inter-connectivity with the national grid which would have permitted Texas to use the surplus power available elsewhere in the US.
If you think about how many wind turbines are installed across the north half of the US it's not hard to understand that they can be made to work in sub-zero conditions if installed with this in mind.
Perhaps the decision was made that for the few times it would be necessary to use the winter prep package it didn't make financial sense to install it, but then one has to wonder what their backup plan was.
Whether the natural gas and coal plants are being used in the EU as a planned backup or as a fall back plan is hard to know just yet - the news stories aren't complete and don't have all the needed information.
Texans will be ok winter only lasts a few days there, it will be back in the 70's in a week. The family that lives in Texas says it is more about the ice breaking power lines and poles with trees breaking taking out the grid
Yeah, fortunately it is short lived. I was visiting my brother in Midland in the 90's. They had a major ice storm. Nobody could move for a couple of days, as they don't have trucks to deal with snow and ice which is usually non existent there. On the way home, passed through Arkansas. They had 1/2" or more ice. No power anywhere in the couple of towns we passed through.😲
Ironic how it takes fossil fuel to run the helicopters to de-ice the wings of the wind turbines...
We had a similar problem in Kentucky. After several years of no or very light snows the dim bulbs at Frankfort decided it was going to stay that way and sold all the state's snow removal equipment to trim the budget.
Of course that tickled Mom's sense of humor so she dropped a couple 11" snows on us just for laughs and you can guess how that one turned out. 10 years later we are still digging our way out of that particular hole.
I sympathize with Texas, but man up. You guys just aren't used to it is all. Frozen pipes, impassable roads, not all that big a deal really. All Y'all need to import snowmobiles and torpedo heaters and you'll be just fine. You got plenty of room to put them down there when you aren't using them and since everyone down there's a millionaire, just fly them in. Job done.
Jim
Jim
Typical!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
Quote from: chessie4905 on February 16, 2021, 12:00:45 PM
Typical!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
I must have missed the memo... Is it bash green energy week?
Quote from: richard5933 on February 16, 2021, 01:27:14 PM
I must have missed the memo... Is it bash green energy week?
Texas only gets less than a 1/5 of their electricity from windmills not bashing the source but when you drive through on I 10 around Iarran 2/3 or more of the windmills are never turning
Yes a Texas winter only last a few days, but this one really got us. Some of you know I have been in the carwash and laundry business for 37 years and this will by far be the most expensive damaging event in my career. I had this all prepared and set up to get through it and it was working fine until the power was lost. Rolling outages were ok until they completely shut us down for over 36 hrs. This has never happened before and I naively didn't expect it. All my lines were weeping until the city's water stopped. Now 3 days in I have frozen boilers, water softeners, heat exchangers, pumps, and numerous exploded pipes. At this point I don't know when we will reopen.
If they just would have made the blackouts rolling like they promised we would have been fine.
The power came back on this evening, but we are staying in the bus. We don't trust AEP to do what they say
David
So the world's scientists are in broad agreement that green energy is necessary to combat climate change which is responsible for increasingly severe and unusual weather, but the state which gets most of their electricity from fossil fuels and refuses to interlink with the rest of the national grids so they can ignore federal environmental regulations is blaming green energy for power failures during a severe and unusual weather event? Okay then.
No not bashing green energy. Just reality week.
I'm not bashing it either. Texas has more wind power than any other state, even California.
ERCOT showed an all time record demand of 69000 megawatts yesterday, higher than an August peak. It was reported that nearly half the wind turbines shut down because of snow. Natural gas pipelines froze too. All the stars aligned for a bad day for sure.
Even though the Texas grid is independent from the rest of the country there was a shortage throughout the Midwest. Not much power to purchase.
I just wish they would have rolled the outages like they promised. Some of my neighbors never lost power and others have been black since Sunday. Brrrr🥶
This gets funny people talking about the environment,green energy , driving and owning a bus with a 2 stroke Detroit Diesel
Quote from: luvrbus on February 16, 2021, 05:29:47 PM
This gets funny people talking about the environment,green energy , driving and owning a bus with a 2 stroke Detroit Diesel
I taught at a school decades ago with a really interesting science teacher. He'd hear a statement like this and go off quietly and do the math. Things are not always as it seems. I wonder what the environmental savings are with us driving the old 2-strokes. True, they get horrible mileage, drip oil, and aren't the cleanest burning vehicles on the road. But, how much environmental impact would there have been if we bought new instead?
His favorite example was disposable diapers. Lots of people think that cloth diapers are more environmentally friendly, but once he did the math on the resources consumed growing the cotton, making the diapers, and the water and energy used to clean them it was surprising. He made a strong argument that the disposable actually had a smaller env. impact.
Quote from: richard5933 on February 16, 2021, 05:40:06 PM
I taught at a school decades ago with a really interesting science teacher. He'd hear a statement like this and go off quietly and do the math. Things are not always as it seems. I wonder what the environmental savings are with us driving the old 2-strokes. True, they get horrible mileage, drip oil, and aren't the cleanest burning vehicles on the road. But, how much environmental impact would there have been if we bought new instead?
His favorite example was disposable diapers. Lots of people think that cloth diapers are more environmentally friendly, but once he did the math on the resources consumed growing the cotton, making the diapers, and the water and energy used to clean them it was surprising. He made a strong argument that the disposable actually had a smaller env. impact.
LOL have you ever visited a plant were they make the windmills or solar panel I have they use some real environmental friendly products making both,.public landfills won't accept the stuff,a trucker told me he was taking the old blades to some state where they buried the blades
I dont know why they cant shred them and using the resulting material to produce something other filler for holes.
Quote from: luvrbus on February 16, 2021, 06:08:17 PM
LOL have you ever visited a plant were they make the windmills or solar panel I have they use some real environmental friendly products making both,.public landfills won't accept the stuff,a trucker told me he was taking the old blades to some state where they buried the blades
I get it that dealing with the used blades is a problem, but how does it compare to removing a mountain to get at the coal under it?
Quote from: David Anderson on February 16, 2021, 05:19:41 PM
I'm not bashing it either. Texas has more wind power than any other state, even California.
ERCOT showed an all time record demand of 69000 megawatts yesterday, higher than an August peak. It was reported that nearly half the wind turbines shut down because of snow. Natural gas pipelines froze too. All the stars aligned for a bad day for sure.
Even though the Texas grid is independent from the rest of the country there was a shortage throughout the Midwest. Not much power to purchase.
I just wish they would have rolled the outages like they promised. Some of my neighbors never lost power and others have been black since Sunday. Brrrr🥶
David is that area not like most areas in Texas where you can shop for the best rate from different suppliers or are you married to one in you area.we have 3 to choose from on the coast and go for cheap one lol
Quote from: richard5933 on February 16, 2021, 06:36:44 PM
I get it that dealing with the used blades is a problem, but how does it compare to removing a mountain to get at the coal under it?
They mine the products in the making of the windmills
Quote from: luvrbus on February 16, 2021, 06:44:21 PM
David is that area not like most areas in Texas where you can shop for the best rate from different suppliers or are you married to one in you area.we have 3 to choose from on the coast and go for cheap one lol
Yes we have full deregulation. You can shop for best rates, but AEP owns the lines and delivers the power.
At least I have the coach to stay in. No HOA to bug me. I have some friends who are miserable without heat in their home. We will stay in the coach until it ends. Predicting more snow for south TX tomorrow 🥶
Of course we can drive two-strokes and still care about the environment - they're recycled buses! Sure a brand new one would burn cleaner, but unless you're driving all day every day the environmental impact of building that new bus is almost certainly higher than scooting around in our ancient road oilers once in a while. When you consider that most Class As don't seem to be made to last longer than ten years, we're downright green in comparison.
I've seen those photos of the windmill blades being buried too, but honestly that kind of waste output pales in comparison to the volume, not to mention the toxicity, of fossil fuel or nuclear plants. I know I'd much rather live near a windmill farm and associated landfill than I would a coal plant, that's for sure.
Truly the most frustrating part is just how many politicians take money from the oil companies and then turn around and sling mud at developing green technologies.
All I can say is that the Texas power grid was not prepared for a series of really cold days. I live in northwestern Washington state. The temperature in south Texas was 20 degrees colder than here in Washington, and we were having a snowstorm!
What happened in the southern US was a black swan weather event. The electrical grid was built for peak summer power loads. A flaw in the system has been found, but how often does it get that cold?
Quote from: Nova Eona on February 16, 2021, 07:49:48 PM
I've seen those photos of the windmill blades being buried too, but honestly that kind of waste output pales in comparison to the volume, not to mention the toxicity, of fossil fuel or nuclear plants. I know I'd much rather live near a windmill farm and associated landfill than I would a coal plant, that's for sure.
Nuclear plants have an extremely low output of waste. Even if you include deaths from nuclear weapons it is by far the safest technology out there for power generation.
For anyone currently under the assumption that Wind turbine icing" is the cause of what is going on; You are buying into the propaganda. A small percentage of power generated by wind turbines went down due to icing. The vast majority was a failure of the supply chain for fossil fuel (natural gas and coal) power generation. Here is a (far from unbiased) source but its the only one I have found with numbers: https://reneweconomy.com.au/massive-texas-gas-failure-during-climate-extremes-gets-blamed-on-wind-power/ (https://reneweconomy.com.au/massive-texas-gas-failure-during-climate-extremes-gets-blamed-on-wind-power/)
This is the result of a deregulated power industry where profit margins were chosen over safety margins.
All the states surrounding Texas had outages some forced some not,remember you are dealing with a state with a population of 30 million people, think what would would if it was in CA they have blackouts on normal days and are in the grid,Texans pay 11 cents a killowat and Ca residents pay 15 cents
All this highlights the fact that we cannot rely entirely on renewables. We will need fossil fuels as back up for a long time yet.
Quote from: lostagain on February 17, 2021, 07:46:39 AM
All this highlights the fact that we cannot rely entirely on renewables. We will need fossil fuels as back up for a long time yet.
Apparently you cannot depend on fossil fuels either, at least not when the infrastructure is built/installed in a manner which allows the natural fuel lines to freeze when you most need them to operate.
But to your point, I don't see the main push for adding renewable energy to the mix advocating for going without backups. As we all know with our buses, having redundancies for our critical systems is necessary. Having a fossil fuel redundancy is not antithetical to the move towards green energy.
High pressure natural gas lines don't freeze only the water vapors in low pressure supply lines freeze or at the meter freezes ,it is the customer reasonability to prevent that same as your water supply
If the wires are lying on the ground, snapped by weight of snow/ice, or the trees that haven't been cut back on the corridor fell and snapped them, or, not in this instance, but high winds did the same...
Doesn't matter where in the sweet beeboop the power is coming from, it ain't getting to you.
The American Dream, the pursuit of wealth and profit, comes before redundancy, maintenance and boring old upkeep.
When did busnuts become such complainers? We have systems and a remote survival rig...
Shouldn't we be proudly hollering "bring it on" ???
Happy coaching!
Buswarrior
Quote from: luvrbus on February 17, 2021, 08:07:06 AM
High pressure natural gas lines don't freeze only the water vapors in low pressure supply lines freeze or at the meter freezes ,it is the customer reasonability to prevent that same as your water supply
Don't know what to tell you, but it's being widely reported that the natural gas system is experiencing problems from freezing temps. We're not talking about the laterals serving individual homes here, we're talking about distribution and production.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/02/16/texas-gas-service-warning-freezing-wells/
It would be bad in Texas right now to own a Tesla or an Electric powered vehicle of any type ;D
Peter
The southern states just aren't equiped to deal with prolonged arctic conditions plain & simple.
Quote from: peterbylt on February 17, 2021, 09:06:18 AM
It would be bad in Texas right now to own a Tesla or an Electric powered vehicle of any type ;D
Peter
Not always better with a gas or diesel car right now - apparently it's hard to pump fuel without power. Some truck stops are closing.
https://cdllife.com/2021/heres-a-list-of-major-chain-truck-stop-closures-power-outages/
Quote from: richard5933 on February 17, 2021, 08:32:48 AM
Don't know what to tell you, but it's being widely reported that the natural gas system is experiencing problems from freezing temps. We're not talking about the laterals serving individual homes here, we're talking about distribution and production.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/02/16/texas-gas-service-warning-freezing-wells/
Low pressure distribution systems, natural will freeze 200 degrees below zero at 800 psi,it is defiantly not going to freeze at a 8000 psi well head at 10 degrees ,some one is not taking care of their drip tanks if that story is true , natural gas pressure to a power generating station is over 500 psi it was when I worked Tenneco our subsidiary Channel Industries supplied the gas from our transmission lines
Quote from: luvrbus on February 17, 2021, 10:53:14 AM
Low pressure distribution systems, natural will freeze 200 degrees below zero at 800 psi,it is defiantly not going to freeze at a 8000 psi well head at 10 degrees ,some one is not taking care of their drip tanks if that story is true , natural gas pressure to a power generating station is over 500 psi it was when I worked Tenneco our subsidiary Channel Industries supplied the gas from our transmission lines
Whatever the reason, the results are clear. They're having trouble keeping the generation stations operating and the lights (and heat) on.
Way way back in about 2005 or sosss, (yeah yeah, I know this is ancient history) it snowed about 6" overnight. Since I was bored the mighty Small Cam Cummins 250 got fired up. Temp was about +28F. No block heater. No starting fluid either.
Cranked slowly at first then after about 10 seconds started right up non assisted. After airing up and a short warm up period I locked the drivers up and started doing donuts, brodies. and burnouts in the fresh dry snow. Large level hard dirt field.
Crown Super Coach 10 wheeler. No chains. Honest to goodness all true. :)
So,
how many busnuts got actually caught up in the storms and lost power for an extended period of time? How many took refuge in their buses and stayed cozy and snug? just thinking we are a pretty blessed bunch to have such a wonderful fallback. Also, very good reason for spending $$ on keeping the bus around, just tell wifey it is one more insurance bill - no worries.now - let me get back to some tire shopping. lol
I don't know why Texas didn't use this proven method in some of their cities🤣.
https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148
Quote from: rgwilliams on February 19, 2021, 07:24:35 PM
I don't know why Texas didn't use this proven method in some of their cities🤣.
https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148
I've wondered the same thing for years - why aren't locomotives included in the emergency plans? Seems to me like with a little planning, railroad sidings could be located near essential power customers like hospitals and emergency services so things could be connected in rapid fashion.
Modern America seems to have a thing against any kind of railroad growth or advancement these days unfortunately, however sensible they may be in any number of applications.
Idiots in the Outhouse with their Fossil Fuel Bans and the Tree Huggers are gonna kill us all. ;D
Quote from: muldoonman on February 20, 2021, 08:05:51 AM
Idiots in the Outhouse with their Fossil Fuel Bans and the Tree Huggers are gonna kill us all. ;D
Please explain
Seriously Richard? Maybe you don't agree with him, but you know exactly what he means.
Quote from: chessie4905 on February 20, 2021, 11:27:40 AM
Seriously Richard? Maybe you don't agree with him, but you know exactly what he means.
Not sure agreeing or disagreeing is the point.
Sure.
We moved back into the house on Friday. Staying in the coach during the outage made us one of the very fortunate families in our community. It was great to have it :^
My business, however took a lot of damage. We got most everything running again by Saturday. Now I read that the Center Point Energy may hit us with a huge gas cost adjustment. I poked around on the web and only found a small article about what might come.
https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/134764/in-gas-price-spike-centerpoint-conserves-as-jerry-jones-profits
If they hit me with times 150 on my February bill my little corporation will be bankrupt. They roll the gas cost adjustment into the entire monthly usage. They don't break it out by the day.
I was closed all week during the gas spike, but my billing period ends Feb 28 so they have plenty of cubic feet used to roll in the adjusment. I'm going to call them tomorrow to find out what to expect. I am hoping for some good news.
David
I hear you about Diesel Locomotives. However if you dig deep enough there was nucellar sub tied up to the dock that was also a temporary power source in an emergency.
Snow is rare in Seattle, but I do remember multiple instances of running extension cords to neighbors so they could power their natural gas furnace's and TV plus game station.
Hey I also turned on every light in the house and driveway because I could LOL!!! (Wife didn't think it was funny, hey one reason she is an ex.)...
After 30 minutes on the phone with a service rep, I was assured that any price increase would have merited a notice on their web portal. The bill should be normal this month unless I'm notified otherwise.
Well, speaking of locomotives used as an ad-hoc electrical power source, a few decades ago a WWII era T-2 oil tanker broke in half and the stern half of boilers, turbines and engine fuel tanks steamed to Eureka California, and being turbo-electric it was used as an electrical power plant for a while.
Later, a new forebody with stainless steel tanks was attached and she became the S/S Angelo Petri, a wine tanker transporting wine to the east coast. It was not drinking wine, though the ship's crew drank it by the bucket.
Trains are DC current that would take a big inverter
Quote from: luvrbus on February 23, 2021, 04:35:45 AM
Trains are DC current that would take a big inverter
That's what I thought at first too, but apparently at one point they switched to using AC alternators on the larger locomotives after silicon rectifiers come on board during the 1960s.
BNSF here at the repair shop must not have got the message
Quote from: luvrbus on February 23, 2021, 05:21:19 AM
BNSF here at the repair shop must not have got the message
I seriously doubt that every locomotive is the same. Or are you saying that every locomotive in use is just like the one you have in the shop?
BNSF has 8000,6000 line locomotives all I seen are the same they all have EMD engines with DC alternators and DC traction motors,they are serviced every 6 months and rebuilt every 10 years
Not doubting what you're saying or seeing in the shop. Just saying that there are still AC locomotives out there. We're talking here about an occasional use of one for backup in an emergency, not converting a whole fleet.
Quote from: richard5933 on February 23, 2021, 06:36:53 AM
Not doubting what you're saying or seeing in the shop. Just saying that there are still AC locomotives out there. We're talking here about an occasional use of one for backup in an emergency, not converting a whole fleet.
I think Amtrak GE built engines are AC that run the east coast ,the EMD 4000 hp engines have a 64 volt starting DC system that is charged by the alternator the 8-8 volt starting batteries are huge in those things
Right. Who is is going to reimburse the railroads for using their locomotives to generate electricity. Its not like they are rolling in dough. There are thousands of large standby generators across the US not being used this time of year. Use them. Also logistics would be far easier. Tracks, in many places don't go where electricity would be needed.
Quote from: richard5933 on February 20, 2021, 09:10:29 AM
Please explain
Explaination follows,,, Current Comprehension of the Fossil Fuel Fiasco is all it takes with the Idiots in charge now. ;D