Huge numbers of people in texas have been subjected to a blackout during the deadly winter storm we're having across america. Obviously it's unlikely they can report on their conditions but i want to give them all my best wishes since if they play 40k and hang out here they're part of our little brotherhood. Please join me in thinking of them at what is literally a dark time for them and given the extreme cold a dangerous one too.
My area has seen single digits for days on end now, but at least the dice haven't rolled a blackout for us too, so I hope for them to make it thru this.
Wow that's cold.. I'm amazed actually a lot more people haven't died.
I think, speaking from a country that doesn't get enough snow to be prepared and always gets brought to a standstill, it sounds like the biggest problem is people just aren't equipped for it, have thin-walled houses appropriate for the usual climate, and then are trying to fire up BBQs inside for heat etc.
What sounds like mismanagement of how the power grid has been set up as well, from what I have read.
Pacific wrote: Wow that's cold.. I'm amazed actually a lot more people haven't died.
I think, speaking from a country that doesn't get enough snow to be prepared and always gets brought to a standstill, it sounds like the biggest problem is people just aren't equipped for it, have thin-walled houses appropriate for the usual climate, and then are trying to fire up BBQs inside for heat etc.
What sounds like mismanagement of how the power grid has been set up as well, from what I have read.
Yes, the risk of getting "political" in explaining reality, pretty much all the 48 american connected states are part of a national energy grid system ran byt the fedgov and in an emergency can share power from other states that have surpluses at the moment.
Well, texas decided it didn't want to submit to the federal regulations involved in this and left their power grid off this system, so when their grid fails they can't get a single watt from neighboring states.
This was considered a mark of pride by most texans, the refusal to submit to any federal control of their grid, and was seen as no problem as texas considers itself the energy capital of the world, wrongfully as france is actually a much larger energy exporter.
There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
I don't think the issue is them being separate, the issue is the once in a life time event. It's in a similar way to the earthquake that happened on the east coast. A barely once in a life time event that you have to say "Should we even prepare for something that may not happen for a good 3-400 years?
BlackoCatto wrote: I don't think the issue is them being separate, the issue is the once in a life time event. It's in a similar way to the earthquake that happened on the east coast. A barely once in a life time event that you have to say "Should we even prepare for something that may not happen for a good 3-400 years?
Once in a lifetime weather events are happening more and more often recently. It's well worth planning for them, even if it's just contingency planning.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Most places take precautions to their energy infrastructure to protect it from cold weather. Texas did not, not with its green energy production and not with its thermal energy production. So both are failing.
We've been very fortunate in that our power has not gone out. On the other hand, we've got 9 members of the various in-laws packed into our house (making 11 of us in total), as their four houses are without power.
Monday we started losing water pressure, and later in the day we learned that the water treatment plant serving our area had lost power and we were under a boil water order. We filled a bathtub with water to use for refilling the toilet tanks (but no flushing unless you pooped), and filled some large pots with water to boil to have for washing and cleaning up. In-laws had brought about five cases of bottled water with them, so we were good for drinking water.
Tuesday morning, just when we thought to fill the second tub with water for that toilet, the water ran out completely. So, we filled that tub with snow.
Late Tuesday afternoon, water came back on, but still low pressure and still under a boil water order.
At the moment (Wednesday, almost noon), we're now back to full water pressure, but still under boil water order. More snow came during the night.
I feel like it'll be our turn any minute now to lose power to the rolling blackouts, but hopefully it will only be a couple hours when it happens. Maybe it won't happen at all, who knows?
As to the argument that we shouldn't have to prepare for "once in a lifetime" things, we had one incident of a guy trying to blow up his shoes on a plane and for the rest of eternity americans will be taking of their shoes at airport check-ins.
That sounds really awful Tanhauser, but good to hear that it sounds like you being as organised as you can be and looking out for family - fingers crossed the weather gives you a break soon and they can start restoring power and basic amenities.
Most places take precautions to their energy infrastructure to protect it from cold weather. Texas did not, not with its green energy production and not with its thermal energy production. So both are failing.
I'm sure places that expect regular snowstorms take such precautions, but even those would have troubles if serious ice storms hit - Montreal was basically knocked out for weeks following an ice storm in 1998. This is a city that is as well prepared for bad weather as any place could be and it was down for weeks.
As to the argument that we shouldn't have to prepare for "once in a lifetime" things, we had one incident of a guy trying to blow up his shoes on a plane and for the rest of eternity americans will be taking of their shoes at airport check-ins.
Tanhauser42 hope you're ok.
Shoe bomb is much different than once in a life time storm.
IDK, a snow storm in Texas is far less likely than a shoe bomb or any sort of bomb on a plane. BTW this is far off topic in a thread about wishing fellow gamers luck in bad weather. Not mention but large swaths of the South are being forced to go into rolling black outs and are in roughly similar situations.
BlackoCatto wrote: IDK, a snow storm in Texas is far less likely than a shoe bomb or any sort of bomb on a plane. BTW this is far off topic in a thread about wishing fellow gamers luck in bad weather. Not mention but large swaths of the South are being forced to go into rolling black outs and are in roughly similar situations.
So far. We'll see how often this kind of thing happens going forwards.
It doesnt matter, winterizing your grid should be a thing no matter what. Texas has gotten snow before, just not this bad.
But they dicided to go away from federal regulations because winterizing would cost money.
Pacific wrote: Wow that's cold.. I'm amazed actually a lot more people haven't died.
I think, speaking from a country that doesn't get enough snow to be prepared and always gets brought to a standstill, it sounds like the biggest problem is people just aren't equipped for it, have thin-walled houses appropriate for the usual climate, and then are trying to fire up BBQs inside for heat etc.
What sounds like mismanagement of how the power grid has been set up as well, from what I have read.
This. When I was in UK as exchange student it amused me when all town went nuts when little snow fell. We were warned if snow gets any worse school day would be halted so we get home. For the record you could still see ground under the snow and fall wasn't even medium for finnish point of view...
...amusement turned into "ugh" when bus was going downhill on this super narrow road(if car comes from opposite direction bus would have to go to pedestrial road...that narrow) and I realized bus had had summer tyres...whoops!
That was only day it snowed there that year. And I gathered snow isn't that common there.
If you add to that actual SERIOUS snow...yeah it's going to be rough.
Here in the U.K., we’re used to cold weather, if not actual snow. As such, most people are equipped for it in the home. At the very least, we’ve got winter clothes (I’ve finally bought a winter coat this year.)
If it gets a bit Parkie, sling on a jumper before putting the heating on. If you’re sitting on the sofa, pop a blanket over your legs.
But....Texas? Possibly through my own ignorance, I suspect they get such hot weather most of the time, many folk won’t have jumpers or blankets, as they simply don’t need them.
It really puts the impact of their current weather’s impact into stark relief. Because they likely can’t just bundle up.
It’s kinda the reflection of Americans being amazed at how little air con there is in the U.K. - because frankly, we just don’t need it all that often. We only get a few weeks a year where it becomes unbearably hot - and even then mostly just in southern England where I am (when I nip up to Scotland to see my family, there can be a serious heatwave at home, but in the Borders I need a jumper).
hotsauceman1 wrote: It doesnt matter, winterizing your grid should be a thing no matter what. Texas has gotten snow before, just not this bad.
But they decided to go away from federal regulations because winterizing would cost money.
In this situation it wouldn't matter much either way, especially with the severity and the cost in need of supply the state for an event that doesn't happen barely at all in the state if at all. Case in point with the many black outs in California that happened over last Summer, in a state that should be prepared for it entirely
Also note, part of the Pacific Northwest also have no power.
We've been very fortunate in that our power has not gone out. On the other hand, we've got 9 members of the various in-laws packed into our house (making 11 of us in total), as their four houses are without power.
Monday we started losing water pressure, and later in the day we learned that the water treatment plant serving our area had lost power and we were under a boil water order. We filled a bathtub with water to use for refilling the toilet tanks (but no flushing unless you pooped), and filled some large pots with water to boil to have for washing and cleaning up. In-laws had brought about five cases of bottled water with them, so we were good for drinking water.
Tuesday morning, just when we thought to fill the second tub with water for that toilet, the water ran out completely. So, we filled that tub with snow.
Late Tuesday afternoon, water came back on, but still low pressure and still under a boil water order.
At the moment (Wednesday, almost noon), we're now back to full water pressure, but still under boil water order. More snow came during the night.
I feel like it'll be our turn any minute now to lose power to the rolling blackouts, but hopefully it will only be a couple hours when it happens. Maybe it won't happen at all, who knows?
Preparing for all kinds of scenarios is pretty standard for most power production, regardless of it's form. So, for the blackouts to be going on for this long that shows a fundamental failure of those industries.
I work in the utilities/power industry (primarily nuclear but also some fossil fuel and renewables) - the industry itself is very heavily regulated and on top of that there are internal controls that have to be able to predict and then cater for circumstances occurring, whatever form they might take. So you have 1/10,000 events (freak meteorological conditions, earthquakes of varying magnitudes) right through to 1/100,000 or even 1/1,000,000 events. This is why reactor buildings are designed and built to be able to withstand a 747 crashing into them.
Fukushima highlighted what happened when you don't counter for these events; there was a commentary that the only way it could have been a worse set of circumstances was for Godzilla to have emerged from the water but really that's not the case; the subsequent investigations showed that really a quite predictable set of events (earthquake followed by massive tidal wave) - especially if you consider Japan's position on surrounding tectonic plates.
A lack of adequate oversight and regulation meant that the diesel back-up power for the Fukushima plant was just above sea level and allowed the incoming waves knocked them out.
The UK industry (and I think others around the world which didn't close down their industries entirely) spent 100s of millions on contingency measures - some of this includes design of brand new vehicles that can cross building wreckage - making sure that another Fukushima doesn't happen again, or if another set of horrendous natural disasters do occur then a reactor meltdown can be averted.
I know other fossil fuel and renewable energy sources don't have the resting state of instability of nuclear, but I can assure in the UK at least there is still a vast amount of regulation and contingency to make sure that the modes of production and relay via the grid can continue. Any power station, be it gas, oil or coal is an extremely complex piece of equipment and the interruption of production is costing money any time that it is functioning. Freak weather, even at an extreme, should have been prepared for and contingencies in place.
I have read that the nuclear stations in Texas have still been operating and providing power, so obviously they have been able to cope (I assume the localised push for deregulation hasn't been able to over-ride INPO or which ever other federal nuclear agencies impose oversight of nuclear power production), whereas a combination of the other fossil fuel and renewables production failing has lead to the shortfall.
BlackoCatto wrote: IDK, a snow storm in Texas is far less likely than a shoe bomb or any sort of bomb on a plane. BTW this is far off topic in a thread about wishing fellow gamers luck in bad weather. Not mention but large swaths of the South are being forced to go into rolling black outs and are in roughly similar situations.
The last storm to knock out Texas' power grid was in 2011.
Most places take precautions to their energy infrastructure to protect it from cold weather. Texas did not, not with its green energy production and not with its thermal energy production. So both are failing.
I'm sure places that expect regular snowstorms take such precautions, but even those would have troubles if serious ice storms hit - Montreal was basically knocked out for weeks following an ice storm in 1998. This is a city that is as well prepared for bad weather as any place could be and it was down for weeks.
Montreal was prepared for winter weather. Ice storms that far north were really, really rare until recently; it was more of a 'St. Louis' latitude problem than a 'Montreal' latitude problem. It's quite possible that the previous time Montreal had an ice storm was before electricity became widespread.
Of course, St. Louis had far less excuse for it's prolonged power outages in the early 2000s; two from big thunderstorms and one from (drum roll).... an ice storm!
I can't speak for Montreal, but the St. Louis problems were entirely self-inflicted. The power company got tired of people complaining about them 'trimming trees without the property owner's consent' - as if consent was needed for maintaining the right-of-way - so they just stopped trimming trees unless the property owner asked them to. Needless to say, most owners didn't notice the trees weren't being trimmed away from the power lines until big storms started knocking branches down INTO the power lines...
Which is a far different failure than failing to weatherproof your generation facilities, but a major failure notwithstanding.
It would have been great if there was some sort of warning from climate scientists that extreme weather events like this could happen, so people and governments could prepare.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It would have been great if there was some sort of warning from climate scientists that extreme weather events like this could happen, so people and governments could prepare.
I get this is sarcasm pointing at climate change being a thing, but there's a rather wonderful report in the aftermath of the 2011 storm that recommended winterization of power plants and related infrastructure (like natural gas pipelines) that failed during that storm. Texas decided that requiring that their utilities to follow the recommendations would be an undue burden on their businesses.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It would have been great if there was some sort of warning from climate scientists that extreme weather events like this could happen, so people and governments could prepare.
I get this is sarcasm pointing at climate change being a thing, but there's a rather wonderful report in the aftermath of the 2011 storm that recommended winterization of power plants and related infrastructure (like natural gas pipelines) that failed during that storm. Texas decided that requiring that their utilities to follow the recommendations would be an undue burden on their businesses.
It's a representative republic though and not a democracy. The people don't have their hands in every decision that's made about infrastructure and such. We leave it in the hands of our representatives to make the right decisions about those things for our well-being.
I can't deny that the whole thing seems very on-brand for Texas...but they're fellow Americans that are suffering and I hope the federal government can help somehow.
I'm in San Antonio. Power was out for the better part of 48 hours. Got into the 40s inside.
Does it suck? Yes. Is it an annoyance? Yes. Is it definitely worse for a lot of other people? Yes.
However, I think as a 'crisis' it's a bit exaggerated. I've seen people claiming that their food has gone bad and that their house/apartment is literally freezing. That's a contradictory statement. I've gone out a few times because aside from overpasses the roads have been reasonably clear most of the time. People are slamming grocery stores, fast food places, and restaurants like you wouldn't believe. It's stupid.
Obviously reform needs to happen, but this isn't even comparable to major hurricanes that routinely tear up the coast.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
Edit: Bursting pipes is going to be a HUGE problem down there. Wet goes really, really bad with cold.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
Edit: Bursting pipes is going to be a HUGE problem down there. Wet goes really, really bad with cold.
Not really, the people in the colder states take the necessary steps to prevent it being a problem. The people running texas decided it was more important to let big energy biz hold onto that money.
And even such colder places the possibility of a blackout can still happen. Case in point with California this Summer with the heat, there wasn't a thread mocking Californians for not preparing for hot days taking a toll on their infrastructure, something to be expected from a state that usually pretty warm in a majority.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
And it wasn't a problem in Texas. Green energy performed better in the cold there than the fossil fuel energy. Certain people chose to spread lies about it for...reasons...
And even such colder places the possibility of a blackout can still happen. Case in point with California this Summer with the heat, there wasn't a thread mocking Californians for not preparing for hot days taking a toll on their infrastructure, something to be expected from a state that usually pretty warm in a majority.
Because we WERE prepared. People are instructed to have emergency supplies for exactly that sort of thing, and situations like utilities going down due to an earthquake. Even given people's preference towards short term thinking a lot of us do have extra supplies. The outages weren't foreseen, but they were rotated around to a reasonable degree and the people managed just fine. It was irksome, sure, but nothing like what Texas is facing.
My sympathies to the people affected by this in Texas, if any Dakka members are stuck in it, I hope you're doing well.
I'm in the PNW and a trio of ice storms over the weekend has left me without power since Sunday as well, just about every power line in town came down due to ice accumulation or falling branches, I left all my groceries out on the counter because it was colder in my apt than it would have been in the fridge normally ive had 3 hot meals in 4 days and 1 shower.
As my internet time is limited, I'm not going to prune this thread, however I will ask that posters please knock the politics off. There are other, better places to hash that out than here, and there are a lot of people suffering and dying for no fault of their own.
There IS fault of their own. If someone is living in lowland and is told 'hey, flooding is going to get worse in coming years and decades, you should prepare for that' then they proceed to do nothing then yeah, they do bear some blame for the consequences. If they did something and it turned out not to be enough that would be one thing, instead they denied that there was going to be a problem at all. Was politics involved in that decision? Absolutely. But the decision was still bad, and the lack of preparation in face of being explicitly told to prepare can and should be criticized without anyone dragging politics into it, as trex and Blacko attempted to do.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I am perfectly willing to (and have) criticize residents of my home state of California when they have no emergency supplies or plans after their homes in the middle of a dam fire zone during record-breaking heat burn down.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I mean, The poeple affected by this are not the poeple who made that decision.
They consistently elect the people who did, though.
For the record, four million of us didn't vote for the people currently in charge. But I guess it's still somehow my fault for not being able to just pack up and move to another state.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
This oversimplifies things immensely.
How many of those colder states and countries have the humidity of Texas effecting ice growth.
How many of those colder states and countries have the heat of Texas the other 99.9% of the time, its a hell of a lot easier to keep something warm when you don't ever have to worry about it overheating.
How many people understand it not just about cost but there are usually performance impacts as well and do you really want to accept those 99.9% of the time for a .1% chance of OMG or is there a better way ?
Trex is most peoples heat generated by electricity or gas ?
And even such colder places the possibility of a blackout can still happen. Case in point with California this Summer with the heat, there wasn't a thread mocking Californians for not preparing for hot days taking a toll on their infrastructure, something to be expected from a state that usually pretty warm in a majority.
Really? If I had a dollar for every time a Dakka member snidely mocked California, I’d be buying Games Workshop miniatures again.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
And it wasn't a problem in Texas. Green energy performed better in the cold there than the fossil fuel energy. Certain people chose to spread lies about it for...reasons...
Well sure nuclear energy has been fairly consistent but wind, not so much. Earlier in the month Texas was routinely getting over 300K megawatthours from electricity and now its less than a third of that. At the same time natural gas was around 350kish beginning of the month and is now over 700k. I'm not sure how that can be considered better
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
This oversimplifies things immensely.
How many of those colder states and countries have the humidity of Texas effecting ice growth.
How many of those colder states and countries have the heat of Texas the other 99.9% of the time, its a hell of a lot easier to keep something warm when you don't ever have to worry about it overheating.
But... Texas is hot. Certainly moreso than 'colder places...'
You do have to worry more about things overheating in hot climates. I never had a car's radiator fry on me outside the Southwest, nor things (including AC units) break down in the heat.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
Did you miss my mention of 1998 Montreal? Even places that deal with snow and ice regularly can get overwhelmed. Parts of Ontario lose power every year to wind and ice storms. Usually they're back up quickly, but sometimes places take a week or more. But houses in Ontario are better insulated and people have warmer clothing on hand, so it's less of an issue.
You cannot build to withstand everything the weather will throw your way. How many people live in building that could take a direct tornado strike? Almost nobody, because the cost vs risk is far too high. Climate change might require re-calculating some of those risks, though.
Generally with design, you (or the relevant building codes) generate a range of extreme events extrapolated from 30, 50, 100 (etc) years of data to estimate the likely 1 in X year event, where X might be 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years (etc). That doesn't mean the thing is designed to last that long, it means there's a 1/100, 1/500 or 1/1000 chance that it'll fail in the next year. That extrapolation is done by fitting probability distributions to that short term data and assuming the tail / asymptote of the distribution holds true.
That analysis is generally done on a location by location basis, as if you design everything for a 1/1000 chance Siberian winter, a 1/1000 chance Japanese earthquake, a 1/1000 year Saharan heatwave, a 1/1000 year West Australian cyclone, etc etc then costs will skyrocket many times over. Instead, things are designed to location-specific reliability estimates.
A flaw is that the existing data often doesn't really have enough data in it to make those calls accurately, and for all the safety factors included in any sort of infrastructure development sometimes you miss something.
Increasingly standards have been including things like "climate change safety factors", but they're typically not huge, maybe 5 to 10%, and if the infrastructure was built 10 or more years ago chances are it won't include those anyway.
the big issue seems to have been not the lack of preparation in Texas (although it's clearly a factor),
but not linking to the rest of the USA grid, the cold hit most of the country but the grid held up, and if Texas was part of it a lot of issues wold have been avoided
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: the big issue seems to have been not the lack of preparation in Texas (although it's clearly a factor),
but not linking to the rest of the USA grid, the cold hit most of the country but the grid held up, and if Texas was part of it a lot of issues wold have been avoided
Well another factor is that many people simply reject the overwhelming evidence for climate change and refuse to consider any proposal that incorporates it. To a lot of people the zeisgeist is "Well, you can believe in all that so called 'data' but I believe it's wrong, and my beliefs are just as good as yours, so checkmate."
Also I never meant for this post to get like this, all i meant to do was express concern and hors for the well being of any of our brothers in texas since it's getting the lions share of the hardship in this awful artic assault. The first reply was a moan about it, and it went into politics and religion after that. Any dakkanauts caught in the texas crisis may not be able to give us a sitrep so all we can do it hope for them and to hear from them that they made it thru.
John Prins wrote: There's no planning for once-in-a-lifetime weather events like this.
But putting 25% of your grid on wind power means those big events are going to hurt all the more, compared to coal/gas/nuke plants. Is it worth the cost to build backup capacity in case your renewables go down? Any government with a large % of wind/solar power is going to have to consider this going forward.
Yet somehow, in colder states and countries this is not a problem. Strange?
This oversimplifies things immensely.
How many of those colder states and countries have the humidity of Texas effecting ice growth.
How many of those colder states and countries have the heat of Texas the other 99.9% of the time, its a hell of a lot easier to keep something warm when you don't ever have to worry about it overheating.
But... Texas is hot. Certainly moreso than 'colder places...'
You do have to worry more about things overheating in hot climates. I never had a car's radiator fry on me outside the Southwest, nor things (including AC units) break down in the heat.
I'm not sure you're familiar with Texas.
Look at your link the eastern third of Texas is about as humid as anyplace in the country, the middle third (where alot of the windmills seem to be) is almost as humid and its only the very western portion which screws with the state average. I don't think most people realize how frickin huge Texas is which makes state by state averages once again an oversimplification.
It would be interesting to see which windmill farms are still working well and their geographic location.
Update from Fort Worth, TX: Still have power. We think the reason we've never lost power is because, as the bird flies, we're less than a mile from a fire station and a natural gas well. Still under a boil water order. In fact, more of Fort Worth got put under a boil water order yesterday (or day before?), so nearly half the city is under a boil water order. Still have a bunch of in-laws in the house today, but they're planning to return home today.
I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
I hope that our Federal and fellow State governments act quickly to lend a hand, as well as the appropriate charitable organizations.
That said, America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership. Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow?
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
I hope that our Federal and fellow State governments act quickly to lend a hand, as well as the appropriate charitable organizations.
That said, America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership. Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow?
The truth if this is very real. In the past when we had freezes, it would be 70 the next day. Why salt the roads...its just gonna be all melted in 12 hours.
I have a fireplace in my house that i have never wanted to light until this week cause its never been worth the hassle and ive lived in this house for almost 10 years.
so yes we could all be better prepared..but until Sunday..we've never had any evidence we have needed to
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
Because they were told it would.
To me, that is not the citizens fault.
That is the part where I say....
America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.
It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.
The truth if this is very real. In the past when we had freezes, it would be 70 the next day. Why salt the roads...its just gonna be all melted in 12 hours.
I have a fireplace in my house that i have never wanted to light until this week cause its never been worth the hassle and ive lived in this house for almost 10 years.
so yes we could all be better prepared..but until Sunday..we've never had any evidence we have needed to
-Ray
Interestingly enough, we did have a big freeze in Dallas/Fort Worth 10 years ago, just before the Super Bowl was held here. That freeze also shut down the area for most of a week, as the snow and ice didn't completely clear up until the sixth day. However, that freeze didn't impact the whole state like the current one did, and the temperatures then weren't as cold as now.
The truth if this is very real. In the past when we had freezes, it would be 70 the next day. Why salt the roads...its just gonna be all melted in 12 hours.
I have a fireplace in my house that i have never wanted to light until this week cause its never been worth the hassle and ive lived in this house for almost 10 years.
so yes we could all be better prepared..but until Sunday..we've never had any evidence we have needed to
-Ray
Interestingly enough, we did have a big freeze in Dallas/Fort Worth 10 years ago, just before the Super Bowl was held here. That freeze also shut down the area for most of a week, as the snow and ice didn't completely clear up until the sixth day. However, that freeze didn't impact the whole state like the current one did, and the temperatures then weren't as cold as now.
Yep. It killed a lot of power infrastructure across the state then as well, and a pretty extensive list of winterization measures that needed to be taken was produced (mostly in line with federal regulations that Texas doesn't follow). Texas decided to publish them as recommendations, and ERCOT predictably did none of those things.
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
I hope that our Federal and fellow State governments act quickly to lend a hand, as well as the appropriate charitable organizations.
That said, America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership. Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow?
Our system heavily relies on the qualities of the people that we elect -- that they actually put the well-being of ALL of their constituents first. In a system where officials may have short terms of office, they can easily get caught in the trap of ignoring deeper issues for easy political actions that boost their chances of re-election. When things get as polarized as they are now in the country, officials may also take actions simply to screw the other party. Neither of these things I described are governing. It's a flaw in our system, and it's an even more of an issue when our chief rival for decades to come is a one-party regime with a plan.
About 325k homes still without power. ERCOT says most of these outages will be resolved before the end of the day, majority of the issues are with blown transformers.
Lots of voices in this thread making accusations about Texans. Attacking people when they're cold and hungry is easy when you're comfy sitting behind a keyboard hundreds of miles away.
There's times I wish certain members of Dakka cared more about the welfare of others.
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
Because they were told it would.
To me, that is not the citizens fault.
That is the part where I say....
America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.
It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.
Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.
There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.
We huddled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Rod the old wiener dog was under six blankets for a week straight. I was literally picking up his bed and moving him from room to room. The Poodle Princess was so light she was able to walk on top of the snow like a little elf dog.
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
Because they were told it would.
To me, that is not the citizens fault.
That is the part where I say....
America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.
It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.
Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.
There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.
People who are barely getting by, barely making it paycheck to paycheck, are hardly likely to be able to afford such preparations, and i'm afraid america's 'new economy' has put vast numbers of people in that situation.
We huddled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Rod the old wiener dog was under six blankets for a week straight. I was literally picking up his bed and moving him from room to room. The Poodle Princess was so light she was able to walk on top of the snow like a little elf dog.
Its all melting away now.
I’m glad the Doggo was kept toasty warm.
Good Frazzled, nice Frazzled. Give paw, and you shall have a whisky!
Easy E wrote: I really do feel for the folks caught up in all of this. I do not blame any individual Texas citizen that they have warm weather insulation, no winter gear, and are unprepared for snow, ice and cold. Why should they be prepared for it? It rarely ever happens!
Because they were told it would.
To me, that is not the citizens fault.
That is the part where I say....
America in general is ill prepared for natural disasters and seem to prefer to react instead of plan for them. That IS a failure of political will and leadership.
It is a failure of our elected officials and non-elected officials, not of general citizens.
Two things: First, those officials were elected by the citizens, or put in their position by those who were. Second, the citizens could still do preperation on their own. Adding insulation to their homes, having emergency supplies, extra cold-weather clothing, even getting a backup generator or solar panels.
gm
There are a lot of people out there who are suffering even after they made their best effort to prepare for whatever circumstance has now befallen them. They deserve my sympathy a lot more than people who were warned and did nothing. I don't have an endless well of compassion.
People who are barely getting by, barely making it paycheck to paycheck, are hardly likely to be able to afford such preparations, and i'm afraid america's 'new economy' has put vast numbers of people in that situation.
So after being stationed for 9 years at nothing but bases in warm locations I was given orders to someplace that was definitley going to have a winter. So trying to plan ahead I decided to get a uniform jacket ahead of time. Went to clothing sales at the large base I was stationed at, no such luck. Went to clothing sales at the even larger army base a couple hours away still no luck. So how much cold weather gear do you think is actually available in most parts of Texas ?
In Florida where I am now most people know how they need to prepare for a hurricane, but in Southern California where I'm from if you said "Hurricane will be here in 5 days get ready' It would be massive chaos because its so far outside their paradigm but I bet they're a lot more ready for an earthquake than most people.
To many people in this thread oversimplify everything beyond reality. How about just follow the intentions of the OP and stop trying to score points.
Ouch. Seems there's now another disaster happening in texas. "bit" high electricity bills. If you had fixed fees no problem. If variable you could be in trouble. Read news article about bills almost 17000 dollars O_o. That's gotta hurt.
Water pipes still broken for many. Incidentally that's something that happens here time to time despite snow and sub-zero tems being almost yearly thing.
tneva82 wrote: Ouch. Seems there's now another disaster happening in texas. "bit" high electricity bills. If you had fixed fees no problem. If variable you could be in trouble. Read news article about bills almost 17000 dollars O_o. That's gotta hurt.
Water pipes still broken for many. Incidentally that's something that happens here time to time despite snow and sub-zero tems being almost yearly thing.
Water is back on in Austin, with boil water notices, likely ending today. This doesn't help everyone with broken pipes (or if you are in an apartment block, where is the whole thing gets shut down), but its a start.
Family friends had pipes break in Katy. Lost their bedrooms as the ceilings came in from the water.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.
>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens
That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.
Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.
It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.
However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.
However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.
As someone from Texas, thanks for everyone's concerns. My household in Dallas flipped between 1-3 hrs of power and 5-8 hrs of no power. Pool equipment is definitely damaged..just need to wait and see how damaged it is.
The major issue for this is not actually our independent power grid. When it works, normally its actually extremely reliable and robust. The issue is the people that were in charge of it. They knew WELL AHEAD of schedule that the temps would drop dangerously low. Yet they decided that rather than winterize the generators and other equipment properly, an estimated small power outages were an acceptable loss. Because of them, millions of people suffered and untold damages caused. They had one job: provide electricity to the millions of Texas residents. And when people needed that electricity the most, they made the worst decision that they possibly could.
I cannot even count the number of people that have burst water pipes inside their house. Water shortages were a thing for many places too because they went out of power so their facilities froze over....meaning that many households simply ended up having little to no useable water. In some places around Dallas, neighborhoods have to boil their own water to make it drinkable because the facilities are either still thawing or damaged and needing repair. Things were bound to happen, but all the damages can almost be completely traced back to power outages.
I do hope you all take your frustrations to the failed leadership, and hold them accountable. Getting more competent management would be a way to salvage something from all this.
And before someone comes in with the usual 'they will get away with it'; maybe, but I wouldn't underestimate Texans.
Yeah, those Texas people brought this on themselves, with their politicians and their conservative politics. They shamefully brought human suffering on themselves by being on their own power grid that they can't maintain. It's good so many people are vocal about their incompetence and corruption and how its lead to so many people dying. That's the only way they will be held accountable.
Saw this letter on Department of Energy's website and it really confused me. Did not sound like what I was hearing on the news.
"To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes. Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources. ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."
To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.
Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.
Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.
Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.
ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."
This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.
To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.
I am with Frazzled just outside of Austin - the absolute worst part was no TV or internet and I slipped on the ice going out to repair a leaking valve and cracked my wrist. But, all good and while not getting into politics or blame, it was a total cluster f@#k...
I think the DFW area gets a bit colder, so may have been slightly better prepared, but I have been in the Austin area for over 20 years and this one was a real shocker. We did get weather reports saying it was coming for almost a week or more.
The major issue for this is not actually our independent power grid. When it works, normally its actually extremely reliable and robust. The issue is the people that were in charge of it. They knew WELL AHEAD of schedule that the temps would drop dangerously low. Yet they decided that rather than winterize the generators and other equipment properly, an estimated small power outages were an acceptable loss. Because of them, millions of people suffered and untold damages caused. They had one job: provide electricity to the millions of Texas residents. And when people needed that electricity the most, they made the worst decision that they possibly could.
I mean, you say the issue wasn't the independent grid, but if your grid were integrated with the other US grids then power could have been siphoned from them to supplement your own when the plants began failing.
It wouldn't have completely prevented the problems but it certainly would have lessened them. Yes, the people in charge ignoring the warnings are at fault, but the decision to keep the grid separate is what allowed their negligence to be so catastrophic.
To use a nautical analogy. Your independent grid is a cruise liner without a radio, it cannot get help from other ships in the area or communicate with sea rescue in a timely fashion if something goes wrong. The captain of your ship sailed it straight into a rock and it began to sink and it was found there wasn't enough lifeboats for the people on board. Having the radio wouldn't have prevented the captain from hitting the rocks, or made more lifeboats be on the ship, but it would have meant that other ships in the area would have got your SOS and been able to come and rescue people with their own lifeboats.
techsoldaten wrote: Yeah, those Texas people brought this on themselves, with their politicians and their conservative politics. They shamefully brought human suffering on themselves by being on their own power grid that they can't maintain. It's good so many people are vocal about their incompetence and corruption and how its lead to so many people dying. That's the only way they will be held accountable.
Woa there dude, I'm one of the more cynical ones here and I still think this is way too far. Not being prepared for something bad does not at all equate to being responsible for that bad thing happening. They didn't just go out and conjure up a nasty storm to hit themselves with, that's ridiculous.
On a different note, I haven't seen numbers on how many people have died, it would be great if you could share your source.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.
>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens
That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.
Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.
It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.
However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.
However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.
You're so close (and don't take that in an insulting way).
They had warming centers they had snow plows and deicing trucks spread through out the state. To say nothing was done doesn't match reality. The two main things that seem to have gone wrong were power and water (which goes back to power), something you don't prepare in a week. I really hope they take a look ay their power system after this, heck I'm not so sure if they had been generating enough it would have got most places anyways, a large amount of the time power problems are as likely to be transmission as anything else. (That's why centralized solar is so dang stupid but that's another topic)
gotta also keep in mind regardless of what kind of vehicles that were available.....people couldn't get gas for them either because the gas stations didn't have power, meaning the pumps didn't work and payment couldn't be processed. so there's that too.
also regarding the grid, the Texas grid does have two connections to the eastern grid, but the strain that it put on those connections are actually capped out and it was impossible to siphon in more without likely having caused collateral damage elsewhere. i don't care whether we interconnect with other grids or not. It's not something i will debate or have enough knowledge on because we all know legally there will be so many holes and complications that I simply dont wanna delve into it lol. I can say that Texas generates nearly twice the energy that the next level down which is florida. IIRC, texas generates about 11-12% of all power in the US. Florida generates about 6-7%. Now what happens when you collapse like nearly 50% of our power generation? that means we would need to import power that probably encompasses more than some states could generate anyway. could enough energy have been drawn in? probably, but again i dont have the knowledge on how readily available electricity is to be transferred between grids or how much would be available to meet our crazy power needs. However, regardless of whether that would have worked or caused neighboring states to also have some issues, that does not reduce in any way the responsibility of those in charge of the powerplants to winterize or otherwise prepare the powerplants for extreme weather. just because we can draw power from other states, does not mean our generators do not need to be prepared.
The thing about Texas is....we have a lot of trust. You could call it blind trust, but we, in general, do think highly of each other in Texas and are willing to trust in each others honesty. Clearly, ERCOT could not be trusted to do their part.
again i am not an expert, im just pointing things out from what i know and have seen. but we had a deficit of equivalent to 4-6% of total power generation in the USA. Even crossing grids may have proved challenging for nearby states as they may have had to strain from the rest of their grid.
To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.
Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.
Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.
Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.
ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."
This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.
To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.
That's not what it says though. This is the Federal Department of Energy authorizing ERCOT to exceed federal emissions standards to meet reliability requirements, which means consistent uptime for customers. As long as they're doing so, they need to make reports to the feds on how they're doing so (the last paragraph) on how they're doing so. The second paragraph says that even though they're allowed to exceed those emissions standards, they need to do their damnedest to make sure they don't violate them by exhausting all reasonable measures beforehand (which also have to be reported in the daily updates).
That number sure to rise as everyone gets checked on/found.
Assuming the number is legit (not a political comment, we just never know these days) I'd guess the 75-150 range for deaths in Texas. The connection of the storm to the deaths in a few of those cases is a bit indirect, but most of them are more or less a direct result.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's not about scoring points (with who, anyways?) it's about pointing out cause and effect.
>Bad thing is predicted
>People do nothing to prepare
>People are unprepared when bad thing happens
That's how reality works, get used to it because this is the tip of the iceberg.
Again, I can't fault most ordinary workers and people who are just trying to get by. As some one who lives in the high desert, does it make sense for me to be prepared for a tidal wave? No.
It is leaderships job to prepare for emergencies, and "lead" the people into what they need to do for prepare. For example, Chicago can handle big winter storms fairly quickly and easily with only a few days prep/issues. However, when a massive heat wave hits.... they are less prepared for that, but still manage a response that involves cooling centers, medical services, and electrical power grid issues. That is normal.
However, I DO expect my political leaders to stage general emergency supplies, have a general evacuation plan, and also have a weather monitoring team ready to let me know IF somethings was going to happen so the Government could then have a "disaster recovery" team mobilize resources quickly. That does not seem like any of that happened in Texas, and I feel bad for the citizens due to that.
However, I will cease feeling bad if no one pays a political price for their negligence.
You're so close (and don't take that in an insulting way).
They had warming centers they had snow plows and deicing trucks spread through out the state. To say nothing was done doesn't match reality. The two main things that seem to have gone wrong were power and water (which goes back to power), something you don't prepare in a week. I really hope they take a look ay their power system after this, heck I'm not so sure if they had been generating enough it would have got most places anyways, a large amount of the time power problems are as likely to be transmission as anything else. (That's why centralized solar is so dang stupid but that's another topic)
The the more I learn I realize that the State Government gave utility companies the guidelines for winterizing their equipment and the option to winterize, but most opted NOT to winterize.
So basically, the political and economic leadership "half-assed" it. Politically because winterizing was an "option" and not mandatory when the guidelines were met, and Economic/Energy leadership "half-assed" it by taking the option that the State offered them instead to not winterize even if the guidelines to winterize were met.
Yet, I am pretty sure no one but the lowest level workers and decision makers will face any penalties for these "half-assed" measures. I do not blame the citizenry of Texas for their Political and Economic leadership being faulty. However, it is up to them to make sure the right people get held accountable for the half-assed measures they took.
Is Texas not a democratic state? I mean this in the general sense. Do the citizens of Texas not elect their leaders?
If in a democracy we are poorly lead, we bear some responsibility for that. Of course, you can say that the system is not very democratic really and so on, but ultimately changing the system is also in the hands of the people so this only slightly dilutes the responsibility.
I think both sides of the equation have blame to bear. The citizens elected incompetent officials, but that does not absolve the officials for being incompetent.
Da Boss wrote: Is Texas not a democratic state? I mean this in the general sense. Do the citizens of Texas not elect their leaders?
If in a democracy we are poorly lead, we bear some responsibility for that. Of course, you can say that the system is not very democratic really and so on, but ultimately changing the system is also in the hands of the people so this only slightly dilutes the responsibility.
Maybe I am severely ignorant, but I consider myself fairly affluent and knowledgeable in politics and current affairs. However, I do not know the specific energy policy of every single person I voted for or those that sit on those committees.
I guess I am dumb and you know every stance from every angle of every elected official in your location...
While not piling on you specifically, many posters on here seem to take the same view, so I would question their knowledge of every person sitting in the position to make these kinds of choices. Armchair quarterbacking at its finest.
To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.
Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.
Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.
Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.
ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."
This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.
To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.
That's not what it says though. This is the Federal Department of Energy authorizing ERCOT to exceed federal emissions standards to meet reliability requirements, which means consistent uptime for customers. As long as they're doing so, they need to make reports to the feds on how they're doing so (the last paragraph) on how they're doing so. The second paragraph says that even though they're allowed to exceed those emissions standards, they need to do their damnedest to make sure they don't violate them by exhausting all reasonable measures beforehand (which also have to be reported in the daily updates).
You aren't actually disagreeing with me here in any real regard. You're just not taking the logical next step with how companies like this tend to consistently exploit this sort of legislation- I care a lot less about their technical requirements than how I expect them to behave while 'technically' adhering to those requirements. I've been in a position to observe too many government contracts and what contractors can get away with while still being 'in compliance.'
To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes.
Dispatched units (work teams?) aren't going to be sent out unless they meet ERCOT's 'reliability standards' (whatever those are), and we're disguising this under a concern for 'environmental impacts.' The referenced to 'the times' probably sets limits on their working hours. (easily excused here because working at night or in poor weather might require generators that would cause additional environmental impacts.
Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources.
Basically we'll use whatever means necessary, so long as the end result looks reliable and low-emissions on paper. But the wording (prior to dispatching) allows for any delays they see fit and (exhaust all) suggests they can cost whatever the market will bear as long as the excuse is 'low-emissions' and 'reliable.' Given what's happening with ridiculous bills, I assume this is what's being used to 'justify' hitting consumers with ridiculous bills.
ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order."
This one is relatively easy: the Department (texas state department of energy, I assume) will get daily reports on generating units (ERCOT's various energy facilities) if and only if they're using the 'allowances' (resources) this Order covers. Otherwise the state government can back the feth off.
To me this sounds like a company trying to justify poor service and delays in restoring service by blaming environmental laws. The fact that its written pretty much exclusively in weasel words certainly doesn't lower my suspicions.
That's not what it says though. This is the Federal Department of Energy authorizing ERCOT to exceed federal emissions standards to meet reliability requirements, which means consistent uptime for customers. As long as they're doing so, they need to make reports to the feds on how they're doing so (the last paragraph) on how they're doing so. The second paragraph says that even though they're allowed to exceed those emissions standards, they need to do their damnedest to make sure they don't violate them by exhausting all reasonable measures beforehand (which also have to be reported in the daily updates).
Understand something about energy policy in Texas.
When it comes to where the energy comes from - solar, wind, nuclear, coal, oil - the Federal government decides how it gets prioritized, not the state. Texas may have it's own grid, but they need permission from the Department of Energy to turn on a reactor.
The first electrons delivered to consumers always come from renewable resources. It's about 10% of the supply. From there, they make decisions about reliable sources of energy based on what's available. January - March is usually when maintenance is happening because consumption is down. You can't just turn a reactor on when the weather gets bad, and winterization isn't something to be taken lightly. It's not a matter of insulating a bunch of pipes, it's a matter of making sure they also work when it's 120 degrees.
I listen to people talking about winterizing and elected officials in Texas and the need for reform and really wish the discussion was informed by actual energy policy. Easy to point fingers, hard to deal with reality.
MDSW wrote: I am with Frazzled just outside of Austin - the absolute worst part was no TV or internet and I slipped on the ice going out to repair a leaking valve and cracked my wrist. But, all good and while not getting into politics or blame, it was a total cluster f@#k...
I think the DFW area gets a bit colder, so may have been slightly better prepared, but I have been in the Austin area for over 20 years and this one was a real shocker. We did get weather reports saying it was coming for almost a week or more.
Seven inches of snow is unbelievable, literally unbelievable here. Del Rio, on the border with Mexico, got 11 inches during the last of the five storms.
On the flipside, I had to kick on the AC for a few minutes upstairs yesterday as it was pushing 80 inside. Thats what we're used to.
Da Boss wrote: Is Texas not a democratic state? I mean this in the general sense. Do the citizens of Texas not elect their leaders?
If in a democracy we are poorly lead, we bear some responsibility for that. Of course, you can say that the system is not very democratic really and so on, but ultimately changing the system is also in the hands of the people so this only slightly dilutes the responsibility.
Maybe I am severely ignorant, but I consider myself fairly affluent and knowledgeable in politics and current affairs. However, I do not know the specific energy policy of every single person I voted for or those that sit on those committees.
I guess I am dumb and you know every stance from every angle of every elected official in your location...
While not piling on you specifically, many posters on here seem to take the same view, so I would question their knowledge of every person sitting in the position to make these kinds of choices. Armchair quarterbacking at its finest.
Am I alone here in calling bull???
Uhh, I DEFINITELY research the positions of people I vote for. Obviously a lot of people don't do that, which is what leads to problems in the first place. Which is the point.
The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
Btw, I am only really responding to the point about only the officials being responsible. Obviously the storm is an unprecedented event.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
ERCOT is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by existing members.
Texas Public Utility Commission is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by the Governor and Legislature.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
Btw, I am only really responding to the point about only the officials being responsible. Obviously the storm is an unprecedented event.
I will only blame voters if they continue to support the same folks AFTER something like this happens without those responsible being held accountable in anyway.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
ERCOT is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by existing members.
Texas Public Utility Commission is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by the Governor and Legislature.
How does one become Governor or part of the Legislature in Texas? Do those simply fall out of the sky or are they elected? If those people are elected into these positions by the population of Texas then you may be correct on a technicality but it's an useless distinction, especially if it leads to people freezing to death.
People vote for politicians because they approve of their policies and one should at least have an idea where these people stand when one's voting for/against them. Adults don't get to say "I didn't know" when they vote for incompetent fools.
Some phenomenal gak takes in here fellas. Something bad has happened, and a lot of Texans are in a really rough spot atm because of a whole slew of issues, brought to a head by a rare weather event. This sucks. People have been absolutely floored by unforseen expenses in terms of house damage, energy prices, and indeed, deaths. Bagging on them for * hurr durr, their fault for not voting like I would have, a big brain smart guy * is fething NASTY. And it's like, there's a large enough population in TX that easily hundreds of thousands of people DIDN'T vote for the current government, and even those who did, like many many others, didn't forsee this particular kind of disaster happening - because that's the very nature of disasters.
It's perfectly possible to vote for a candidate in good faith, and then have them make a policy decision that you personally don't agree with in a way that is done behind closed doors, or reactively - like, would you demand every American poster defends the intervention in Iraq? Every British poster defends the continued selling of arms for use in Yemen?
Fun fact, every poster here has a little flag next to their name, and every single state that those flags represent has done something reprehensible and gakky during whatever current political administration it's under. That's just the cold fething reality of how nation states work, and no-one has ever asked to be a citizen of the place they were born under. You wanna get real edgy? The relationship between states and their subjects is never consensual, and it's totally a protection racket and we're all victims of it.
Just because your government does stupid gakky things doesn't mean that you are a stupid gakky person, nor do you deserve the consequences of reactive policy decisions made beyond your direct control, especially in this case, with an act of god. Double especially because people have had their homes ruined, and even died. Get off your fething high horses, and maybe try to figure out why a bit of humanity is so hard to dredge up for you.
Anyway, politics, sorry mods, sorry Matt Swain, not sorry to the creeps who think that civilians should be blamed for a policy mis-step that has cost lives, absolute garbage take.
People vote for politicians because they approve of their policies and one should at least have an idea where these people stand when one's voting for/against them. Adults don't get to say "I didn't know" when they vote for incompetent fools.
Is this true though? To me it looks completely backwards; people get told by the politician why they should support their policies. The rest is just optics and how your lizard brain perceives them.
I also don't think anyone would have given the slightest bit of attention to x politician's energy grid policies.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
ERCOT is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by existing members.
Texas Public Utility Commission is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by the Governor and Legislature.
How does one become Governor or part of the Legislature in Texas? Do those simply fall out of the sky or are they elected? If those people are elected into these positions by the population of Texas then you may be correct on a technicality but it's an useless distinction, especially if it leads to people freezing to death.
People vote for politicians because they approve of their policies and one should at least have an idea where these people stand when one's voting for/against them. Adults don't get to say "I didn't know" when they vote for incompetent fools.
Your argument lacks merit.
ERCOT IS CHOSEN BY ITS OWN MEMBERS.
PUC is chosen in staggered terms by the Governor and legislature. The governor is elected. This is a second level appointment.
Ok, the argument that wind turbines must fail in cold weather is false. They work in near arctic conditions quite well if operated and equipped properly.
Matt Swain wrote: Ok, the argument that wind turbines must fail in cold weather is false. They work in near arctic conditions quite well if operated and equipped properly.
They work in literal antarctic conditions if operated and equipped properly.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
ERCOT is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by existing members.
Texas Public Utility Commission is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by the Governor and Legislature.
How does one become Governor or part of the Legislature in Texas? Do those simply fall out of the sky or are they elected? If those people are elected into these positions by the population of Texas then you may be correct on a technicality but it's an useless distinction, especially if it leads to people freezing to death.
People vote for politicians because they approve of their policies and one should at least have an idea where these people stand when one's voting for/against them. Adults don't get to say "I didn't know" when they vote for incompetent fools.
Your argument lacks merit.
ERCOT IS CHOSEN BY ITS OWN MEMBERS.
PUC is chosen in staggered terms by the Governor and legislature. The governor is elected. This is a second level appointment.
So I started reading about about ERCOT and found this:
In early February 2011, a major winter storm impacted Texas; freezing and extreme cold at natural gas pipelines and wells, as well as generating units (such as coal-fired power plants and wind turbines) caused power outages across Texas affecting 3.2 million customers. ERCOT and its regulator, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, failed to adopt a mandatory standard for preparing electricity infrastructure for such occurrences (winterization), despite recommendations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Texas's failure to prepare left the state vulnerable to winter-storm blackouts, including the major disaster that occurred ten years later in February 2021.[21]
So how does that work? Can somebody explain this? I don't even care anymore if my argument has merit with how much of a mess this is. They just exist, did nothing when they should have a decade ago, then for some reason nobody can affect them, somehow nobody's responsible, and everybody just shrugs their shoulders every X years when things freeze and people die. That doesn't make anything better even if it explains that somehow the government that was voted into power isn't directly responsible.
I don't know where this falls on the "free market <-> government agency" spectrum but it feels like they are not exactly accountable to anybody and somehow that's accepted in Texas. WTF? All of this reads like an actual Kafkaesque mess.
What can actually be done here? It happened before and this time it's apparently even worse but the best defence for this system is "nobody voted for them (directly)". How are things even allowed to be like this? Why do people accept this for so long? If somebody lost family members in this catastrophe, who is held accountable?
In the long term, voting. No matter the position, there is a trail of authority eventually leading to an elected official.
In the short term, contact local figures of authority (the governor seems a good place to start) directly and voice complaint. A hundred thousand messages reading the same thing gets attention.
Da Boss wrote: The officials obviously also bear responsibility. More than the voters. But I would never completely absolve voters of responsibility in a democracy. It's infantilizing them to do so, I would perceive it as a kind of insult.
ERCOT is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by existing members.
Texas Public Utility Commission is not elected by the Texas citizenry. They are appointed by the Governor and Legislature.
How does one become Governor or part of the Legislature in Texas? Do those simply fall out of the sky or are they elected? If those people are elected into these positions by the population of Texas then you may be correct on a technicality but it's an useless distinction, especially if it leads to people freezing to death.
People vote for politicians because they approve of their policies and one should at least have an idea where these people stand when one's voting for/against them. Adults don't get to say "I didn't know" when they vote for incompetent fools.
Your argument lacks merit.
ERCOT IS CHOSEN BY ITS OWN MEMBERS.
PUC is chosen in staggered terms by the Governor and legislature. The governor is elected. This is a second level appointment.
So I started reading about about ERCOT and found this:
In early February 2011, a major winter storm impacted Texas; freezing and extreme cold at natural gas pipelines and wells, as well as generating units (such as coal-fired power plants and wind turbines) caused power outages across Texas affecting 3.2 million customers. ERCOT and its regulator, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, failed to adopt a mandatory standard for preparing electricity infrastructure for such occurrences (winterization), despite recommendations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Texas's failure to prepare left the state vulnerable to winter-storm blackouts, including the major disaster that occurred ten years later in February 2021.[21]
So how does that work?
Welcome to the United States. Federal recommendations are just that, recommendations. Unless its passed into law, the 50 states (let alone independent bodies that operate various pieces of infrastructure and programs, have no obligation to actually accept that recommendation. And the US tends to walk softly around the divide between the 'federal gov't recommends to the states and the federal gov't mandates to the states,' for various historical & political reasons. There are a very tools and levers that get employed (Ie, 'you won't get federal highway money unless you do X' to influence states to accept recommendations, but the federal/state system just isn't set up to operate in the fashion you seem to expect. No one is legally responsible for not winterizing because no one was legally required to actually do it. They had the legal ability to say 'no, we don't need to adopt a mandatory standard' (Note- that's an important distinction. They didn't fail to do something mandatory, they decided against the recommendation to make it mandatory)
It should also be noted that most of the ERCOT board lives out of state, and most of them have resigned in the last week or so, which currently we for some reason accept as 'My bad, but you can't sue me if I just nope out of here.'
Now, the morality of the system and the rest of your questions are really beyond the scope of gaming forum with a no politics rule.
Can somebody explain this? I don't even care anymore if my argument has merit with how much of a mess this is. They just exist, did nothing when they should have a decade ago, then for some reason nobody can affect them, somehow nobody's responsible, and everybody just shrugs their shoulders every X years when things freeze and people die. That doesn't make anything better even if it explains that somehow the government that was voted into power isn't directly responsible.
I don't know where this falls on the "free market <-> government agency" spectrum but it feels like they are not exactly accountable to anybody and somehow that's accepted in Texas. WTF? All of this reads like an actual Kafkaesque mess.
What can actually be done here? It happened before and this time it's apparently even worse but the best defence for this system is "nobody voted for them (directly)". How are things even allowed to be like this? Why do people accept this for so long? If somebody lost family members in this catastrophe, who is held accountable?
Voss wrote: Welcome to the United States. Federal recommendations are just that, recommendations. Unless its passed into law, the 50 states (let alone independent bodies that operate various pieces of infrastructure and programs, have no obligation to actually accept that recommendation. And the US tends to walk softly around the divide between the 'federal gov't recommends to the states and the federal gov't mandates to the states,' for various historical & political reasons. There are a very tools and levers that get employed (Ie, 'you won't get federal highway money unless you do X' to influence states to accept recommendations, but the federal/state system just isn't set up to operate in the fashion you seem to expect. No one is legally responsible for not winterizing because no one was legally required to actually do it. They had the legal ability to say 'no, we don't need to adopt a mandatory standard' (Note- that's an important distinction. They didn't fail to do something mandatory, they decided against the recommendation to make it mandatory)
It should also be noted that most of the ERCOT board lives out of state, and most of them have resigned in the last week or so, which currently we for some reason accept as 'My bad, but you can't sue me if I just nope out of here.'
Now, the morality of the system and the rest of your questions are really beyond the scope of gaming forum with a no politics rule.
Less that the feds want to tread lightly, more that ERCOT was purposefully carved off from the rest of the US power grid in order to avoid the Interstate Commerce clause, and thus prevent the federal government from being able to regulate the ERCOT grid. Thus, the feds aren't legally allowed to enforce their weatherization standards that would have prevented both the 2011 disaster and this one. There's a few ways the feds can bypass that (as you mentioned, they can withhold funding, offer grants, or regulate externalities that effect other states), but for the most part the Texas grid is free to do whatever it wants.
Voss wrote: Welcome to the United States. Federal recommendations are just that, recommendations. Unless its passed into law, the 50 states (let alone independent bodies that operate various pieces of infrastructure and programs, have no obligation to actually accept that recommendation. And the US tends to walk softly around the divide between the 'federal gov't recommends to the states and the federal gov't mandates to the states,' for various historical & political reasons. There are a very tools and levers that get employed (Ie, 'you won't get federal highway money unless you do X' to influence states to accept recommendations, but the federal/state system just isn't set up to operate in the fashion you seem to expect. No one is legally responsible for not winterizing because no one was legally required to actually do it. They had the legal ability to say 'no, we don't need to adopt a mandatory standard' (Note- that's an important distinction. They didn't fail to do something mandatory, they decided against the recommendation to make it mandatory)
It should also be noted that most of the ERCOT board lives out of state, and most of them have resigned in the last week or so, which currently we for some reason accept as 'My bad, but you can't sue me if I just nope out of here.'
Now, the morality of the system and the rest of your questions are really beyond the scope of gaming forum with a no politics rule.
Less that the feds want to tread lightly, more that ERCOT was purposefully carved off from the rest of the US power grid in order to avoid the Interstate Commerce clause, and thus prevent the federal government from being able to regulate the ERCOT grid. Thus, the feds aren't legally allowed to enforce their weatherization standards that would have prevented both the 2011 disaster and this one. There's a few ways the feds can bypass that (as you mentioned, they can withhold funding, offer grants, or regulate externalities that effect other states), but for the most part the Texas grid is free to do whatever it wants.
As he says, welcome to the United States. Profit uber alles.
OFC - who would do such a thing as build underground railroads that move people around when the whole city can flood. Keep in mind this is one city! 50ish people died from drowning!
There isn't a city planner on city plan concept that doesn't plan around average weather. My best friend is a plumber. You wouldn't believe the amount of extra work/ money that has to go into northern plumbing compared to plumbing in the south. It is just accepted that rare weather events will cause issues and they do.
Just imagine what would happen if this kind of storm hit california. You think theyd have 100% power capacity? They cant even meet energy demands during normal weather conditions. With that homeless population too? Thousands would probably die. I wouldn't blame the state policy though...because disasters happen and that's why we call them disasters. They are rare unforeseen events.
Xenomancers wrote: I think you people need to learn to accept a disaster for a disaster. If you applied this kind of cold politically rhetorical idealism to everything.
OFC - who would do such a thing as build underground railroads that move people around when the whole city can flood. Keep in mind this is one city! 50ish people died from drowning!
There isn't a city planner on city plan concept that doesn't plan around average weather. My best friend is a plumber. You wouldn't believe the amount of extra work/ money that has to go into northern plumbing compared to plumbing in the south. It is just accepted that rare weather events will cause issues and they do.
Just imagine what would happen if this kind of storm hit california. You think theyd have 100% power capacity? They cant even meet energy demands during normal weather conditions. With that homeless population too? Thousands would probably die. I wouldn't blame the state policy though...because disasters happen and that's why we call them disasters. They are rare unforeseen events.
New york does not cut itself off from a national power grid and sharing system just to give the finger to 'so'schlism" and to defy any efforts at federal standards to ensure power stability. Former new york governors do not go on tv and say that the people of new york should accept power outages and a few dozen deaths from cold and lack of power as a fair price to avoid 'fedrul gubmint reg joo lay shuns". New york does not give the finger to the rest of america then expect FEMA aid and bailouts when their own policies cause disasters.
ive had 3 hot meals in 4 days and 1 shower.
