Snow was fun till power quit

Brassman · February 16, 2021, 08:28:14 PM

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?

benherman1 · February 17, 2021, 05:50:41 AM

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/

This is the result of a deregulated power industry where profit margins were chosen over safety margins.

luvrbus · February 17, 2021, 06:19:19 AM

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

lostagain · 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.

richard5933 · February 17, 2021, 08:00:10 AM

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.

luvrbus · 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

buswarrior · February 17, 2021, 08:16:24 AM

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

richard5933 · February 17, 2021, 08:32:48 AM

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/

peterbylt · 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

Peter

dtcerrato · February 17, 2021, 10:21:35 AM

The southern states just aren't equiped to deal with prolonged arctic conditions plain & simple.

richard5933 · February 17, 2021, 10:52:06 AM

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

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/

luvrbus · February 17, 2021, 10:53:14 AM

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

richard5933 · February 17, 2021, 10:55:15 AM

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.

HB of CJ · February 17, 2021, 12:09:55 PM

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.

windtrader · February 17, 2021, 03:27:27 PM

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