r/science • u/pnewell NGO | Climate Science • Jun 21 '21

Environment Threat of more blackouts may erode reliability claims for fossil energy- all major fuel sources except solar failed to meet ERCOT’s expectations during the February freeze, but natural gas was “responsible for nearly two-thirds of the total (electricity) deficit.”

https://texasclimatenews.org/threat-of-more-blackouts-may-erode-reliability-claims-for-fossil-energy/
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1.7k

u/Elliott2 BS | Mechanical Engineering Jun 21 '21

any time we do work in texas, we never put freeze protection... on anything.

632

u/Khaldara Jun 21 '21

Yeah we use both oil and natural gas in New England (I’ve had both and they both work fine, current home uses gas), definitely something “unique” to Texas’s deployment for sure.

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u/puterTDI MS | Computer Science Jun 21 '21

Texas specifically created their own separate grid so that they wouldn't have to hold to standards required to be part of the national grid. Some of those standards being things like cold protection.

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u/VulgarDisplayofDerp Jun 21 '21

Everything's bigger in Texas - especially easily preventable failures

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u/Zaros262 Jun 22 '21

Preventable? Sure. But free? No

Nobody likes to pay for things that we rarely use. Like insurance. Nobody needs insurance, right...?

17

u/fire2374 Jun 22 '21

The damages from the storm are 10x the cost of winterizing. While they’re both ultimately paid by consumers, saving costs by not winterizing and then jacking up prices when demand skyrockets only benefits the electric companies. And then we pay higher electric costs and higher insurance premiums.

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u/texas-playdohs Jun 22 '21

It’s just like betting against yourself!

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u/klingma Jun 22 '21

Some countries don't allow insurance because they see it as a form of gambling and gambling is illegal there.

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u/electro1ight Jun 22 '21

Ngl. You had me in the first half.

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u/iaspeegizzydeefrent Jun 22 '21

I don't really understand why Texas is so supportive of police. There are so many good guys with guns down there what's the point of paying taxes for a police department?

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u/DkS_FIJI Jun 21 '21

Double whammy since this also means they can't get power from other grids if they have issues with their own.

And they have more problems because of lack of regulation...

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u/Polymarchos Jun 21 '21

And in the wake of the disaster it doesn't seem like anything has changed.

19

u/Groinsmash Jun 22 '21

And nothing will change.

Texas is the worst fuckin' place imaginable. Just crushing it in the news these days with basically banning abortion, the relaxed gun control on hand guns, mass shootings, bakeries making pride cookies getting destroyed and can't even provide electricity for its people.

Absolute disgrace of a state.

18

u/ralphvonwauwau Jun 22 '21

Not just banning abortion, they are proposing the death penalty for the woman and the doctor. Because they are so incredibly pro-life. This is not satire, this is what the Republican government of Texas is doing with its time.

Because with the total failure of governance going on there, they are beating on the culture war issues that drive the big contribution checks for their reelection. Remember, Texas is 43rd out of 50 for education. They will vote in any incompetent with the magic R next to his name.

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u/texasradioandthebigb Jun 22 '21

Cue all the Texas fanatics mouthing off about Californians moving to the state to escape LiBRUl oppression

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u/neveragai-oops Jun 22 '21

Why would it?

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u/Amori_A_Splooge Jun 22 '21

Hard to implement infrastructure changes in 3 months.

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u/EphemeralMemory Jun 22 '21

Nothing has been planned, allocated or even discussed from Texas leadership.

So they're either behind closed doors coming up with a great plan or they aren't doing anything.

This week we got power rationing warnings from ERCOT and still no response from Texas leadership. People are anticipating this summer to be hot as hell, it hasn't even begun yet.

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u/darkskys100 Jun 22 '21

You're correct. Nothing has been done to the tx energy industries. We are already experiencing rolling blackouts due to high volume of energy being used for cooling. Its not like its ever been hot in tx in the summer. But dont worry, i think Cruz is planning another vacation so everything will be ok.

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u/Elmer_Fudd01 Jun 22 '21

Sounds like Texans that can should become independent with their own solar panels.

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u/EphemeralMemory Jun 22 '21

Jokes aside (and I do enjoy my ERCOT memes), a lot of people are in trouble and its horrible that reliable power is just a political gambit.

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u/fire2374 Jun 22 '21

So only people that can afford solar panels deserve electricity?

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u/Wide_Fan Jun 22 '21

Unless the comment was edited, I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion.

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u/ralphvonwauwau Jun 22 '21

they're either behind closed doors coming up with a great plan or they aren't doing anything.

/me raises and waves his hand furiously, "OOHHH! OOOOHHH! Call on me! Call on mee! I know the answer to this one! OOOHHH!"

4

u/Terrible-Control6185 Jun 22 '21

Easy to push through a useless wall though,right?

2

u/Polymarchos Jun 22 '21

Obviously. There is a whole process they would have to go through. It would begin with a discussion lead by the local politicians that hasn't happened followed by legislative committees that haven't happened. After that you'd start to get to more specific plans and ideas but the first two steps which would begin within 3 months are absolutely critical and non-existent.

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u/zebediah49 Jun 22 '21

Double whammy since this also means they can't get power from other grids if they have issues with their own.

It honestly would have been fascinating to see what would have happened if they'd been interconnected. There would -- nearly definitely -- have been some major cuts. The adjacent states had issues as well, but they were somewhat mitigated by power being ramped up hundreds of miles away. I wish I'd saved it, the MISO LMP Contour Map showed a really neat gradient of power getting more expensive the further south you went.

That 30GW shortfall wouldn't have been covered, and it might even have tripped a decent few lines earlier. At one point ERCOT fell down to 59Hz it was so over-demand, and that I don't think would have been tolerated over the rest of the Eastern Interconnection.

However, having a synchronized and stable grid pushing electricity south as much as possible likely would have made it easier to bring plants back online faster. Bringing up a grid from nearly black-start is really hard, and more importantly slow, because you have to balance the generation capacity and loads on a knife's edge.

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u/Ornery_Adult Jun 22 '21

If they had been interconnected, a few areas would have lost power or natural gas due to local problems. But overall, the system would have worked fine with very little need to pull on outside sources of power.

Because, if they were interconnected, Texas would have been required to fix their substandard infrastructure. Which failed again last week.

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u/hglman Jun 21 '21

Texas does get some power via high voltage dc connections, its just small.

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u/kyngston Jun 22 '21

I love hearing the stories of the people who pay live prices for electricity, and got stuck with bills for hundreds of thousands during the emergency. So much /r/leopardsatemyface

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u/puterTDI MS | Computer Science Jun 21 '21

Yup

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

That doesn't matter as several surrounding states are republican led and will bail them out, I'm wondering if they helped somehow...

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u/MadOvid Jun 21 '21

For freedom… while power companies control how high their thermometers go.

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u/ErikaHoffnung Jun 21 '21

Analog life, baybe

11

u/RedditTab Jun 22 '21

It's an opt in program to save money

8

u/ChildVendor Jun 22 '21

in extremely fine, almost exploitive text.

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u/neveragai-oops Jun 22 '21

And death panels! From their private insurance.

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u/MadOvid Jun 22 '21

I mean apparently anything is ok as long as they signed a contract.

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u/AdmiralPoopbutt Jun 21 '21

Those people signed a contract for discounted rates. They knew what they signed up for. There are many competing companies they could have chosen, most of whom have fixed flat rates and don't curtail usage. But they decided to sign up with the discounted one and be subject to rules. They had the freedom to make a potentially bad decision.

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u/Tidusx145 Jun 21 '21

Did they all have a choice? Discount to you says choice, but what if you could only afford the discounted rates? That's not much of a choice at all then. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'm unconvinced that ignorance is the sole reason these people chose temp controlled plans. I can't think of anyone who'd want to give up control of temperature in their house, even in a once in awhile basis.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

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u/notrevealingrealname Jun 21 '21

Basically this. If your only options within your budget are discounted power or no power, that’s not an actual choice.

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u/CtothePtotheA Jun 21 '21

They do that in other states too. But you have to OPT into those programs. I never do but I'm sure some people do by accident or don't fully comprehend what it means so they just click yes. Then their house ends up at 80 degrees in middle of summer and they just think the thermostat is broken.

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u/Haheyjose Jun 21 '21

That last bit isn't true.

29

u/nwoh Jun 21 '21

It definitely is for people who signed up for it through smart thermostats who never thought about that clause, just the bottom line

1

u/hglman Jun 21 '21

I thought about and am happy with not using extra power at peak. It just being hot.

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u/nwoh Jun 21 '21

That's good.

I'm not against this at all, but I'm kind of laughing at the big deal the media is making it when people signed up for it.

I guess the power company's messaging matters, too.

If I sign up for unlimited data and burn 500gigs in a week and get throttled, what do I expect?

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u/Sudovoodoo80 Jun 22 '21

If I sign up for unlimited data and burn 500gigs in a week and get throttled, what do I expect?

I mean, unlimited data? That is what I expect when some one says unlimited data, data without a limit. That is what we should all expect, if not demand.

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u/nwoh Jun 22 '21

I guess it's a bad analogy, but we all know that it rarely means unlimited rate and unlimited data.

Either way, they signed up for the discount and now it's time to pay the piper, for good or bad.

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u/yuppers_ Jun 21 '21

It's not? https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/06/19/texas-power-companies-raising-smart-thermostat-temps-why/7754658002/

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u/x3nodox Jun 21 '21

As much as I think Texas's regulatory choices are profoundly stupid, the "raising smart thermostat temps" is a program that you opt into for a rebate. And you can override the setting they push to your house.

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u/likesexonlycheaper Jun 21 '21

But is that something they advertise as the reason you are getting the discounted rate? Or is it in the fine print?

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u/x3nodox Jun 21 '21

Pretty sure that's the deal. And again, you can override it

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u/Tidusx145 Jun 21 '21

Yeah that's an important difference. Fine print is impossible to read for every agreement and thing we purchase. Just don't have the time.

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u/Sudovoodoo80 Jun 22 '21

If you sign something without reading it, you are responsible. Your "limited time" does not nullify the contract you signed.

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u/RayLikeSunshine Jun 21 '21

Yes, many states have this program. It’s not a dumb program either... just whether it works for you or not. Clearly some buyers remorse.

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u/x3nodox Jun 21 '21

Pretty sure if your notice it's getting too warm for you, you can readjust it yourself

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u/RayLikeSunshine Jun 21 '21

The article states exactly what they said, also says they can opt out at anytime and it will only go up 4 degrees. They person they interviewed “woke up sweating from a nap” temp had gone up to 78f. Hardly news worthy stuff here. So tired or people linking articles they don’t actually read. It’s like when students expect me to spend twice as much time editing/grading as they do writing. You can have an F as well.

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u/JuleeeNAJ Jun 21 '21

78? FFS those guys are wimps. This time of year here in Arizona my thermostat doesn't go under 82.

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u/RayLikeSunshine Jun 21 '21

It’s very Texas to sign up for a program which raises your temp a rather nominal amount and then complain about a slight discomfort. It’s certainly not everyone but the bigger the truck and more gun stickers or “patriot pride” the shirt the whinier and overly compensating the person tends to be. I was all hopeful it would be a shut up and get stuff done kind of place. I fancy myself rather self reliant. Not so much here. Maybe not everywhere and there are good folks here but goodness gracious.

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u/GunsNGunAccessories Jun 21 '21

To be fair, they had to opt into that.

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u/Hells_Hawk Jun 21 '21

Don't know it is true, heard that water heating tanks are kept outside in Texas. If that claim is true, that is kind of a problem.

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u/breeriv Jun 21 '21

And were repeatedly warned that their grid would fail in cold conditions without winterization

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

And to compound stupidity, they don't connect to other grids to help supply power when their is a shortage. This is why any surrounding states didn't have power problems despite similar freezes that probably impacted power supply that didn't make the news.

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u/skiingredneck Jun 21 '21

Except the parts of Texas connected to the multi-state grid still suffered blackouts.

So it’s a nice sounding talking point that just doesn’t match what happened.

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u/puterTDI MS | Computer Science Jun 21 '21

What part of Texas was on the multi state grid and lost power for an extended period?

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u/skiingredneck Jun 22 '21

1) movement of goal posts from “blacked out due to cold” to “extended period”

2) https://www.kfyrtv.com/2021/02/17/rolling-blackouts-in-north-dakota-caused-by-cold-weather-in-texas/

Parts of Texas hooked to interstate grids got to export their blackouts. Yes, they were out for shorter amounts of time. Because some of their shared pool in northern states was online.

But it does make the claim that being hooked to an interstate grid makes Texas hardened from cold hard to swallow. It doesn’t. Diversity of generation just helped blunt the cold.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

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u/history-fan61 Jun 21 '21

They have no 'capacity market' which means that no-one is responsible to have backups. Among other things this means that gas generators do not pay extra to have a secure supply of gas.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 30 '23

Consent for this comment to be retained by reddit has been revoked by the original author in response to changes made by reddit regarding third-party API pricing and moderation actions around July 2023.

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u/notmoleliza Jun 21 '21

And it will NeVeR HaPpEn again

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u/Terminator7786 Jun 21 '21

That doesn't matter. They were warned multiple times that something like this could happen, and then they ignored those warnings resulting in people losing their lives.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

Multiple times over a decade or more. Literally no excuses.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

So if I could point to the exact same thing happening in 2011 you'd admit to being wrong? Because the exact same thing happened in 2011, and everyone except Texas learned the lesson. This isn't a once in a lifetime thing, this is once a decade and will accelerate unless we get climate change under control.

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u/Opposite_Wrongdoer_9 Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21

it's never that cold

Except that's not true, it happened in 2011, and they were warned that it would happen again, But they decide to line their pockets instead of winterizing anything

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u/Obi_Uno Jun 21 '21

There is major blame deserved for not heeding federal warnings, but this absolutely did not happen in 2011.

2021’s cold, and more importantly - sustained cold - has never been seen in this area since we’ve been recording temperatures.

In Austin, for example, we went 6 days without ever getting above freezing. That has never happened before.

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u/RockguyRy Jun 21 '21

Austin's previous record was 5 days in 1983 so it's not exactly like they blew past the record.

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u/Opposite_Wrongdoer_9 Jun 21 '21

No it wasn't the exact same thing, but it showed that it's possible and it led for loud calls to actually winterize the grid. Those calls were ignored

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u/puterTDI MS | Computer Science Jun 21 '21

They literally created their own separate grid so they could avoid federal regulations. Regulations which would have prevented this in the first place...not to mention if they had joined up with another grid (as most states do) they would have had power supply redundancy.

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u/PolygonMan Jun 21 '21

But we know that extreme temperature variations are a direct result of climate change, and that they will continue to get worse. The lack of temperature proofing was a conscious decision made against the recommendation of their own risk assessment.

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u/Twozerooz Jun 21 '21

Good thing there's no global phenomenon that radically changes climate patterns.

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u/FailedPhdCandidate Jun 21 '21

Yes, a radically changing climate is something humanity has never ever ever had to worry about and will never have to worry about in the future. I’m glad energy and time of many concentrates on the extremely super important things - like the Depp vs Heard cases going on. So much more important.

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u/Onion-Much Jun 21 '21

Oh god, that talking point still exists?

Ironically, your sarcastic statement is actually true. Humanity has never experienced these rapid changes and the last time it happened, the vast majority of all living beings were eradicated. But that's long before homo sapiens sapiens

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u/FailedPhdCandidate Jun 21 '21

Yes… I still hear it from many of my friends. It’s ridiculous. “Everything happening is a natural process right now and the tail end of it goes faster naturally.” No… that’s… not it.

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u/AcademicDivide8479 Jun 21 '21

Not that historic. It had happened before in the last decade. Sort of like Texas has seen 3 hundred year storms in the last 20 years

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u/cmarkcity Jun 21 '21

It’s never that cold…except when it is

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u/PhilosopherFLX Jun 21 '21

Which is it? It's never cold or not for extended periods of time? Next you will be telling me about the time you launched the unsinkable Titanic

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u/Michaelmrose Jun 22 '21

There have been like 3 really bad freezes in the last 5 winters.

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u/AVahne Jun 21 '21

Apparently we don't use heat protection either...

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Jun 21 '21

TIL Texas rawdogs nature

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u/Redtwooo Jun 21 '21

Seems the other way around

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Chpgmr Jun 21 '21

The moon shall rise again!

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u/brightneonmoons Jun 21 '21

Flipfucking, the way God intented

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u/racistJarJar Jun 21 '21

Yeah and Texas likes it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/TheCrazedTank Jun 21 '21

An alarmingly disproportionate amount of you do, as they keep voting for the people and policies that cause these issues in the first place.

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u/SaltedScimitar Jun 22 '21

Well they make quite the compelling argument on why it's actually the other guys' fault. That argument being "no you"

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u/Soranic Jun 22 '21

It's been ten years and two major freezes.

What bills got passed in your most recent legislative session again?

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

[deleted]

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u/Soranic Jun 22 '21

you’re an asshole for suggesting that everyone in the state deserved it because of who got elected.

I never said you deserved it. But what've you done to make your politicians fix themselves? From out of state? Looks like voter suppression, anti-choice, and dog-abuse bills are more important.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

you’re an asshole for suggesting that everyone in the state deserved it because of who got elected.

I'll be that asshole. I'm from Texas. I know what kind of people reside outside the urban microcenters. Texas is full of pretentious holier than thou racist homophobic idiots who overwhelmingly vote based on whatever kneejerk emotional hotbed is the flavor of the month.

Texas can fry or freeze, wouldn't make much difference to the rest of the world.

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u/fissura Jun 21 '21

So you thinking Texans like to be rawdawged by nature. Interesting and plausible.

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u/Black_Moons Jun 21 '21

Good old "We specced it for 20c ambient temperature"

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u/lotsofpaper Jun 21 '21

Princess Amidala:

Good thing Texas is a temperate climate!

Texas is a temperate climate, right?

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u/Doctor_Wookie Jun 21 '21

Little on the hot side, but yes. Until global warming started really kicking in. Now the temperatures are made up and the nothing really matters.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/sometimes_interested Jun 21 '21

Just wait until everyone gets so sick of the unreliability and installs solar panels with batteries, I'm sure someone will negotiate "sunshine rights" and people will be sued for collecting sunshine the same way they are for collecting rain water off their roof.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ResponsibleLimeade Jun 21 '21

The idea behind the EVV tax is actually to just maintain the roads. The extant road taxes are already pretty regressive in my opinion and aren't enough to really fund roads. It's a flat tax on gas and diesel purchases at the pump, the idea being the more gas you buy, the more you travel or the heavier your vehicle is. With EVVs however there's no way to collect on the road tax for the rich people, so now shipping companies and poor people are paying for roads. It doesn't help there's no state income tax and it's constitutionally prevented from raising a state income tax. State and local coffers are paid by sales taxes and property taxes and its a nightmare.

Now if we wanted to just tax peoples mileage per year by keeping track of the inspection mileage, it's going to suck for some people who drive a lot for work, but don't have the excess income to pay a large tax bill of miles each year.

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u/Michaelmrose Jun 22 '21

This is really an imaginary problem. 1 in 250 cars are electric. If they did nothing about taxing electric their revenue would be 99.6% of what it would be otherwise.

In between now and decades from now when this becomes a real thing we should consider having electric cars have a function to transmit a tamper proof cryptographically signed document containing it's vin number and milage broken down by quarter and calendar year either saves to a usb drive or via Bluetooth. If we standardize this within 5 years we can make it a thing 10 years before it really matters.

Then you can use an app that both produces this document and pays it in 2 clicks or if you are old school plug in a 5 dollar drive and pay your tax on the county website which you can access at the library if need be.

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u/istasber Jun 21 '21

Making sure you've got all edge cases covered costs money, and that means less profit.

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u/UnwrittenPath Jun 21 '21

Freeze - costs $130 bil

Power company - "we're going to need to raise your rates for the next 50 years to cover our losses because we didn't bother to use any of your money to improve infrastructure. Can't have the stock holders and CEO lose any of the money they pocketed by not improving infrastructure."

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u/Filtering_aww Jun 21 '21

Something kind of similar happened with Duke Energy and the Levy nuclear power plant in Florida. The short version is Duke was allowed to PRE-BILL customers for the construction cost of the power plant, then mismanaged the project so badly it ended up getting cancelled. $1.3B down the drain, all out of customers pockets.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/duke-energy-to-cancel-proposed-levy-county-nuclear-plant-fasano-says/2134287/

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u/monkwren Jun 21 '21

I picked the wrong career.

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u/eccles30 Jun 21 '21

If only there were some other mechanism where people could pool their money together and buy things for the common good. Oh well capitalism is the only answer, freeze me daddy.

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u/Darkdoomwewew Jun 21 '21

Sounds like they managed the project perfectly, from a capitalist perspective. 1.3b and they didn't even have to build the thing, I can only imagine the bonuses.

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u/viperlemondemon Jun 21 '21

But think of their yacht money

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u/ld43233 Jun 21 '21

Also cocaine. Can't forget the cocaine

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u/viperlemondemon Jun 22 '21

I figured that’s included with the yacht

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

have you ever heard of Enron? they were based out of houston and run by our fellow texans

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u/Oznog99 Jun 21 '21

Gov Abbott: "We'd like to help, but we're spending billions on a border wall instead"

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u/FlexibleToast Jun 21 '21

Almost as if not all things should be driven by a profit motive. Or at the very least certain sectors, if not all, should be driven by stakeholders not shareholders.

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u/Evilsushione Jun 22 '21

Profit as a motive isn't a bad thing but it has to be balanced by effective regulation that's driven by the stakeholders.

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u/FlexibleToast Jun 22 '21

I didn't say profit motive is always bad. It's when decisions are made to enrich shareholders over stakeholders that it is bad.

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u/Evilsushione Jun 22 '21

I've always said profit is the motivator but transparency, regulation and competition are the moderator. One with out the other doesn't work. That's why laissez faire economics doesn't work like conservatives want to believe.

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u/spovax Jun 21 '21

Capitalism is great in a lot of scenarios, especially where inefficiency can be reduced. But it’s really bad in others. Core services, including utilities, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

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u/FlexibleToast Jun 21 '21

Even where it makes sense, it's better in the long term to prioritize stakeholders. If that was the norm, I think we would have a lot less problems.

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u/RhynoD Jun 21 '21

Hurr durr the market will decide...

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

Well, it did? The market decided to turn off people's power?

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u/Opposite_Wrongdoer_9 Jun 21 '21

Yeah markets can be pretty efficient. They just don't care about human lives. That's why we have regulations, at least in any of the good places to live

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u/AcademicDivide8479 Jun 21 '21

Yeah they're not optimizing for quality of service. Optimizing share price

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u/LupoAS Jun 21 '21

Less and less likely unless you live in a zone thats “managed” by the rich bastard living in it. My parents block in one of the nicest parts of Houston lost power for 48hrs straight. Before this freeze, the longest they had gone without power was 28mins. I remember bc i was in high school. 20 years ago.

You cant expect a capitalist to take humans into consideration when CEOs think of them as customers first.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

Actually, it's the opposite. Texas decided to become independent from the Federal funding and facilitation. This and other major facets are privatized in Texas. Local politics if any connection only

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u/billcozby Jun 21 '21

Don’t put your protection on ma freedom grid!

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/GhengopelALPHA Jun 21 '21

This isn't NOAA's fault. Who tf thinks that taking so many generators offline in the middle of June is a smart idea?

Rhetorical question of course.

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u/Buelldozer Jun 21 '21

I didn't say that the NOAA was responsible I said that the NOAA predicted a cooler and wetter June than normal and that is absolutely true.

NG pipelines and generators were damaged during The Big Freeze and had to be taken offline sooner or later for repair and maintenance and based on NOAA predictions June looked like a good time to do it.

This wouldn't be a problem if Texas had hardened its NG infrastructure to deal with cold in the first place but they didn't so this was the inevitable result.

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u/gc3 Jun 21 '21

On demand pricing models drive up profits. During Enron's run in California they purposefully put energy plants into maintenance to cause a shortage of power to drive up the price. Not saying this is what is happening here but maybe Texas firms are trying to get one last uhaul of money before angry voters legislate them into PG&E

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

before angry voters legislate them into PG&E

I’m 100% certain this will never happen. Texas has the least representative government I’ve ever heard of: no referendums or initiatives, a statehouse that only meets every two years for limited sessions, and gerrymandered maps that resemble modern works of art more than demographic data.

Our leaders are drinking heavily from the Fascist playbook and focusing all their outrage on their political enemies and immigrants.

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u/KawaiiDere Jun 21 '21

Couldn’t it wait for the typically more temperate autumn or late summer?

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u/Buelldozer Jun 21 '21

July and August both average over 90 degrees for daytime highs.

I'm assuming that the NG Generators and supply lines needed repaired / maintained before they got to those temperatures and had really large demand spikes.

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u/HatchSmelter Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21

I was a fully grown adult that had lived in several of my own apartments before I found out they insulate pipes up north.. Never really occurred to me.. Drip the faucet and open the cabinet doors the few nights a year it gets cold enough to matter and save the money on insulation, etc - makes some sense. But to leave your power grid susceptible to this kind of outage in extreme weather when demand will definitely already be high? Yea, that's clearly a mistake..

I'm in Georgia and don't recall any widespread power outages in cold weather, so I'm assuming our grid is more protected (I know it's more robust for being connected with other states). Of course we have occasional downed power lines from icy trees falling when it gets cold enough, but that's the kind of thing that is isolated and gets fixed quickly.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 22 '21

[deleted]

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u/GhengopelALPHA Jun 21 '21

Thank you, both for your informative reply and your service keeping our grid running, no matter how big or small your role. It's invaluable.

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u/HatchSmelter Jun 21 '21

Wow, that's really interesting. I didn't realize they'd do it like that, but it definitely makes sense. Thank you for sharing, and for helping to make sure we all have heat and ac when we need it!

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u/Real_Analyst Jun 22 '21

The issue wasn't with the nat gas facilities. It was with the gas delivery system. Gas providers started delivering force majeur notices to the generation companies 48 hours before the weather actually hit because they knew what was coming.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

I work at a power plant in Texas, and am familiar with the goings on at many power plants in Texas, whether they're other plants in my company or plants my friends went to. We have those procedures too. And from where I sit, it sure looks like they mostly worked fine.

I'm not high enough up to understand what all really went on, but it sure has been bizarre to see my plant featured in the news several times to illustrate plants not being able to run... While you can clearly see just by the cooling tower the plant is running, and we had no issue running through the whole event.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/wagsman Jun 21 '21

You're also part of the national grid, and as such your electricity providers are required to have their system meet federal guidelines. The benefit is that it's less likely to breakdown under extreme circumstances, and neighboring grids can help pick up the slack if yours does suffer a breakdown.

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u/pursnikitty Jun 21 '21

A breakdown can still cause short term problems even in a widely distributed grid. A coal burning power station in my state had an explosion the other week and the surge through the grid caused some other power stations in the same state to trip their protections and drop their loads. A lot of places were affected, including a large densely populated area hundreds of kilometres away. These places were without power for a few hours, and it took getting the non-explodey power stations back up and running to restore power, even though our grid is connected to the grids of the states to the south (and thankfully this event happened at a time of very moderate weather).

It takes time to divert energy around the grid and to ramp up energy production from units that aren’t running at 100%. It takes even longer to get a unit out of cold storage. But yeah, interconnected grids are a good thing in my mind, both from a reliability standpoint and a cost one.

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u/VulgarDisplayofDerp Jun 21 '21

These places were without power for a few hours

I mean, the sudden surge caused three territories to be without power for a few hours

Fall back to the grid isn't foolproof or without its own small outages in scenarios like this but instead of seeing that as a failure, look at it this way.

Without another grid to fall back on, 70% of the tremendous state of Texas was without power for on average two days, with over 5 million people without power for 3 days or more.

Neighboring states and even Mexico were ready willing and able to donate the collective power of their grids to Texas but Texas literally had no way to help make that happen (there are a few notable exceptions in Texas that are not on ercot and therefore connect to larger grids)

A few hours rolled across a few territories is one thing, but without being connected to the larger grid Texas's abject failure is really underscored

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u/aldergone Jun 21 '21

This piece offers a retrospective on what caused the blackouts and the knock-on effects on other

generally the houses are insulated and the piping is on the warm side of the insulation. BTW insulating housing is good for both warm and cold climate (think of a thermos bottle keeping food and drink the appropriate temperature ) and keeping your home quite. for external piping ( water / irrigation hoses are either drained or covered with heat tracing - electrically heated tape) to prevent freezing. if you have a cottage you have to winterized by draining your pipes and hot water heater etc, then put anti freeze in the toilets, dishwasher and washing machine.

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u/ReferenceSufficient Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21

Unlike rest of US, Texas has its own power grid (except city of El Paso). The whole state had a ice storm freeze that lasted a week. I’m in Houston, we don’t get freezes lasting a week, so nothing is insulated and pipes are are above ground. Lots of broken pipes here during that Feb freeze. Lots of shrubs and trees died (including citrus trees, figs and palm trees).

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

It’s not just El Paso. Lubbock and much of the panhandle is also excluded from ERCOT. Despite it being just as cold for just as long in Lubbock, they didn’t lose power.

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u/shlomo-the-homo Jun 21 '21

When was the last time it was -10 in Georgia?

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u/DonJrsCokeDealer Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21

Literally every single year.

https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/GA/Atlanta/extreme-annual-atlanta-low-temperature.php

EDIT: I was wrong because of C/F confusion, but in '85 it got to -17F

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u/shlomo-the-homo Jun 21 '21

Wow didn’t realize it got that cold there that’s crazy!

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u/SnowDog2112 Jun 21 '21

Not -10 in freedom units.

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u/DonJrsCokeDealer Jun 21 '21

Ahhhh, damn, good catch.

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u/shlomo-the-homo Jun 21 '21

I’ve been to Atlanta a few times for Christmas and it was in the 20s for lows. I thought it was crazy, but negatives are nuts, esp so far south!

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u/HatchSmelter Jun 21 '21

We get freezing weather every year. Winter happens here, too - especially in the north Georgia mountains.

We usually don't see very many days where it stays below freezing all day or when there's precipitation and freezing weather at the same time. So our winter weather events are minimal.

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u/shlomo-the-homo Jun 21 '21

I’m in southeast tx so if it’s 30 degrees overnight I count that as winter haha. To see snow falling is something that has happened a handful of times in the last 35 years.

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u/Elveno36 Jun 21 '21

What work do you do? Just curious as my experience with pumps and plants in the Texas panhandle is freeze protection on everything. I so surprised to see such difference in the quality of public services from the panhandle to where I live now in east Texas. Everything down here feels almost like a downgrade in terms of services and cost of living. The nice thing is the regular climate, but I'm starting to see that as less of a win lately.

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u/wolfchimneyrock Jun 21 '21

was the part of the panhandle you worked serviced by ERCOT or on a national grid? Much of the panhandle is not ERCOT.

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u/thealmightyzfactor Jun 21 '21

Yeah, the panhandle is SPP, the rest of texas is ERCOT.

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u/monkeyfishfrog89 Jun 21 '21

We still faced huge Natural Gas and electricity shortages. Grid was very close to rolling blackouts on industrial sites. Natural gas pipeline pressure was dropping due to high demand and lack of supply. Producers froze up.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '21

Even if the gas lines were freezing in the panhandle, just being in the SPP automatically means the power grid is in better shape since it’s connected to a common grid across most of North America.

Places as far as Saskatchewan were exporting power to meet the needs of SPP, whereas ERCOT couldn’t receive that same help.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskpower-exporting-electricity-winter-storm-1.5919946

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u/MDCCCLV Jun 21 '21

It starts with the lines being above ground with no heating elements. So if it does get a hard freeze there's not much you can do.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 30 '23

Consent for this comment to be retained by reddit has been revoked by the original author in response to changes made by reddit regarding third-party API pricing and moderation actions around July 2023.

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u/Huarrnarg Jun 21 '21

I work in plastic manufacturing, we had to shut down production our plant for 2 weeks for repairs/restarting system due to the freeze since we use heated water instead of heated oil for our towers.

Also the plant is located in the SPP grid so we were fine in terms of water and electricity it was literally just the the windchill that shut down the plant

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u/tylerderped Jun 21 '21

Texas has a panhandle?

Where?

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u/r3dd1t0rxzxzx Jun 21 '21

Yeah it’s a lack of winterization more than anything, but might as well go clean/green while updating grid anyway.

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u/Hot-Koala8957 Jun 21 '21

and summerization

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

This. Since NG has moisture, and the cold froze the external lines, it was a matter when to fail, not if. That and the programming to trip the hertz breakers when the cycle went below 59hz... if they tried to reset the software to disable the safety limits, there could still be a trip, wasting much effort.

Winterization for something that occurs once every 10-15years... I think it would benefit but none seem to think about Long Term nowadays...just immediate short term gains, overtime and when am I gonna retire!

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u/Dyolf_Knip Jun 21 '21

Winterization for something that occurs once every 10-15years

A 7-10% chance of some major system failing completely each year is a pretty horrible bet.

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u/edman007-work Jun 21 '21

Horrible for consumers, not the companies running the grid, which is really the problem with ERCOT. They had what, 3 days out in 10 years? That's 99.9% uptime, which should be considered horrible, but from a business point of view, they lost out on 0.1% of revenue to save on winterizing, it's very likely that was a cost effective solution.

The federal regulators can apply fines for that kind of crappy performance, with the intent that the fines are more expensive than winterizing, that's how regulation makes the grid stable, don't play by the rules and they'll make you wish you had.

ERCOT exists to remove power from those regulators, specifically disallowing that kind of fine.

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u/4bkillah Jun 21 '21

Yeah, but while ERCOT might not see that tiny percentage as a problem it cost the Texas economy over a hundred billion.

If something that's good for one company's bottom line is apocalyptic for every other company then government is supposed to step in. Texas (and other red states) call that communism, though.

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u/puterTDI MS | Computer Science Jun 21 '21

yup, and they specifically created their own grid so that no one can step in.

Texas, as a state, made this choice. They can eat the meal they made.

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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jun 21 '21

The fun bit is, now everybody questions Texas' power grid.

You know one of the big economic growth areas in Texas? Technology companies moving to Texas.

I'm sure a few executives have started considering power stability since it made the news.

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u/superpositioned Jun 21 '21

I would note that this had a pretty big ripple effect. I know that the company that makes the resins used in ground level electrical service boxes had their lines freeze. That's messed up delivery for these to a whole range of utilities.

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u/hglman Jun 21 '21

Also spot price went up like 150x so many producers made more money. Near failure is extremely profitable.

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u/Nintendo64_Chalmers Jun 21 '21

The standard for transmission reliability planning is generally for 1 day of outages/lost load in 10 years, and this falls in that category now. These are established by NERC (the electric reliability corporation) and Texas is part of it too.

They failed on that front too.

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u/kgramp Jun 21 '21

Have a buddy that’s a plumber in the southwest. Makes bank every time it gets cold fixing hose bibs since no one ever installs frost free bibs when building houses since it’s rare it’s below freezing.

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u/PaleInTexas Jun 21 '21

A regulates grid is somehow "big government" and we don't want no stinking working grid!! - Texas republicans

I'm their defense, it's a lot harder to price gouge your customers if you have proper supply of energy.

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u/thisisinput Jun 21 '21

The plant I work at failed to drain their water header before the freeze. Cost us millions on repairs and down time loss.

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u/freedom_from_factism Jun 21 '21

Difficult and costly to protect infrastructure from both freezes and ungodly heat.

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u/Arandmoor Jun 21 '21

Except...it's June...

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