Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[two_bit_score]

As a reminder, a software bug in Ohio caused on of the largest US power outages in 2003.

Northeast blackout of 23 - Wikipedia

Was it’s initials “RS”?

 

[rswyan]

First energy, who now owns my electric utility in MD.

Pretty sure First Energy - who does not own General Electric Energy - at least as AFAIK - wasn't responsible for the software fault in GEE's Unix-based XA/21 energy management system that they were using at the time.

Or maybe they DO (own GEE) ... :laughing:

 

[rswyan]

We are flaring off NG all over the state as people are shivering. ...

Whose fault is that do you figure ?

:laughing:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Pretty sure First Energy - who does not own General Electric Energy - at least as AFAIK - wasn't responsible for the software fault in GEE's Unix-based XA/21 energy management system that they were using at the time.

Or maybe they DO (own GEE) ... :laughing:

Didn’t say they did..

 

[txdon]

We ended out last rolling blackout here at 9pm last night (2-17). I hope. Looking at our outage website there are no outages.

Have the rolling blackouts in all of Texas stopped?

 

[Bird]

We ended out last rolling blackout here at 9pm last night (2-17). I hope. Looking at our outage website there are no outages.

Have the rolling blackouts in all of Texas stopped?

Yes, according to Fox 4 news about 3 minutes ago. We only had that single one hour outage yesterday; been lucky so far. And while there's been a lot of water outages also, we only had a steady drip for a couple of days and now back to near normal. They supposedly had to drain our main water tower to replace some kind of valve in it, and temporarily hooked us up to another town's water.

 

[ruffdog]

Here they collect gas from the landfill and sell to the power company.

Ameresco's Janesville Landfill Gas-to-Energy Plant is Operational - Ameresco

 

[Tinhack]

Just got my electric back last night about 6:00pm or so. Grateful for that as I'm in all an electric house, including heat. First heat and light since Sunday. I was using chaffing fuel cans for heat. Still don't have any water. They were saying warming spots were open about 40 miles away but no way to get there--Icy and roads closed.

I had a stock of distilled water in the barn for coolant mixing. I brought that in the house for flushing and washing. Sister brought over about 6 gallons of water for drinking and cooking. I had about three gallons in stock. Stores around here are closed or empty of necessities. Just like the pandemic rush last March, shelves were cleared out early. Most all were taking cash only as registers and CC machines were out. Banks were closed so only cash on hand was available. Places weren't even taking checks.

I hope some head roll over this. They saw this coming for a week and no one did a thing to prepare. I'm glad my neighbors and I were able to make through this unprecedented cold. A lot didn't.

 

[lostcreekranch]

As a reminder, a software bug in Ohio caused one of the largest US power outages in 2003.

Northeast blackout of 23 - Wikipedia

I'm guessing RS conveniently "forgot" that .. in his efforts to criticize everything about Texas .. and Texans.

 

[txdon]

5 ERCOT board members don’t live in Texas, one from Canada | KXAN Austin


Also 10 years ago ERCOT did come out with guidelines for winterizing power plants and did give incentive monies if they stayed on line. I think now they should assess penalties if they do not winterize. Too late to be Mr. nice guy. I'm pretty sure the investigation will show that the plants that went down did not winterize.

 

[PILOON]

So how does a wind turbine freeze up? Does it mean ice on the blades making them to heavy, not aerodynamic, or unbalanced? Or does it somehow actually freeze and prevent rotation?

The vanes (blades) are actually airfoils so any ice buildup on the leading edges cause the airfoil to stall like an aircraft would do.
Guess they'd need to install leading edge deicer boots like on aircraft, electrically heated naturally.

Add to that the viscosity of any lubricants used.
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Insulating a home to the same specs as the norms for much colder climates (like Canada) would pay off big time.
eg: R40 attics,R20 walls and double window panes.

Adopting those specs would greatly reduce power drain during hot weather and at a minimal additional cost.

Many, if not most, insulation products are made from recycled glass so that would be a major win/win.

 

[txdon]

The mail has not been able to be delivered since Saturday. Has anyone else's mail been interrupted because of ice?

 

[lostcreekranch]

The mail has not been able to be delivered since Saturday. Has anyone else's mail been interrupted because of ice?

Yep, no delivery yet this week Don. Same for FedEx. Nothing scheduled via UPS .. so no news on them.

 

[lostcreekranch]

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

 

[Tinhack]

I've been waiting for an Amazon delivery since Monday. Had mail except for yesterday. Maybe there wasn't any for me. :confused3: Still too early for today's mail. Haven't had a newspaper since Friday. I think the wind was blowing too hard.

 

[Bearsixty7]

We've been lucky. House is all electric, mostly what's being built in this part of DFW. We didn't have any power blackouts until yesterday, seemed like 20 minutes every 1 hour then every 2 hours. Last one was about 6PM last night. Other people a few miles away would have power maybe 1hour every 8 hours. some had no power for a couple days. Lots of busted water lines being shown on the news all around DFW and I mean major water damage to many homes and apartments. Some people resorted to heating with other means and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. We at least have a fireplace and firewood to burn for some heat.
Now many districts are under a water boil notice since power was out, some treatment plants weren't working properly.
No mail so far this week. No trash pickup either.

This is pretty much what I've seen being the issue with power.

In different ways, the very cold weather has impacted every type of generator," said Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT.

ERCOT is missing about 46,000 megawatts of production ability due to loss of generators, Woodfin said. (Winterization methods were not done, even though they were recommended after the 2011 winter)
About 61% of that loss comes from thermal (coal, nuclear, gas) plants shutting down. (Gas lines froze is what some reports say, other reports are a lot is sold to Mexico and other states so the reserve was low. Haven't heard what happened to Coal and Nuclear)
Only about 39% of the loss comes from wind/solar plants shutting down, Woodfin said (Wind turbines froze as many have stated and solar was snow covered and we had overcast days almost all week).

Combine that with the crazy population increase to Texas over the last 10 years, electrical demand was too much for all these days below freezing.

 

[rswyan]

Didn稚 say they did..

That is true - however your original statement wasn't entirely clear as to who was the author of the software bug - it just addressed where the bug ultimately caused some very serious consequences.

Just wanted to clear that up ... :thumbsup:

 

[rswyan]

We ended out last rolling blackout here at 9pm last night (2-17). I hope. Looking at our outage website there are no outages.

That's great news Don - hopefully it will continue as temps continue to warm further over the next few days ... :thumbsup:

 

[rswyan]

Yes, according to Fox 4 news about 3 minutes ago. We only had that single one hour outage yesterday; been lucky so far. And while there's been a lot of water outages also, we only had a steady drip for a couple of days and now back to near normal. They supposedly had to drain our main water tower to replace some kind of valve in it, and temporarily hooked us up to another town's water.

Great news Bird ... :thumbsup:

 

[Bird]

The mail has not been able to be delivered since Saturday. Has anyone else's mail been interrupted because of ice?

Haven't seen any mail delivery trucks, so I thought there might be something about it on their website, but I sure didn't find anything.