Chalkie

No, I don't think that listing all the military bases (and the other links) in Colorado Springs added a thing to the discussion is all. Critical military facilities have their own power backup, as they have at every military base worldwide, and therefore it really doesn't matter. CSU as far as I am aware (I am open for evidence otherwise) gives no preference to the military bases. I would also love to see evidence that CSU utilities are "hardened" specifically due the presence of the bases. Additionally, CSU does not provide utilities to Schriever AFB, just look at their coverage map. This is so far removed from my point that you can not compare CSU to ERCOT and has nothing to do with the problems in Texas.

Having dealt with deep wells (190' at my folks cabin) and shallow wells (about 35') I have to say that is the strangest setup I have ever heard of. Is there no way to actually drop a pump down the well? That would prevent the pump from freezing for sure. Otherwise, yes, I agree that if the pump was inside the cistern it would likely shield the pump from freezing events in other than extraordinary events.

Holy Cow!!! What a tirade. Does it change that CSU is a city owned non-profit organization that pays NOTHING to shareholders? Does it change my statement that they serve about 500,000 customers? If power does happen to go down in parts of Colorado Springs as has happened in the past, the military bases get no particular priority. A downed line is a downed line and when restored so is power to the affected customer.

If you clear all WSJ cookies from your computer that will reset their count. That sounds like the article I was quoting.

Yes, and I think I read somewhere that there is a call in legislature to require that all ERCOT board members be residents of Texas. That makes sense to me.

We can only hope so. Here is a chart from the CDC: The source link for this is found on the CDC Data Tracker and scroll down to "Reported Cases". To go along with this I found an OpEd on the Wall Street Journal written by Dr. Mark Makary who is a is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. In it Dr. Makary says: You can read the full piece here at the WSJ. Overall, I find this to be very hopeful and I hope his assessment tied with the CDC stats is accurate.

I am going to pick a hole in your statement as a former 30 year recent resident of Colorado Springs. There were some outages in Colorado, perhaps not enough to warrant any rolling blackouts, but they happened none the less. They had a lesser impact because Colorado is mostly prepared for the cold. Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU), where your power never flickered, serves about 500,000 people and because it is a city owned, non-profit utility, the profits are constantly being put back into the system as improvements and to keep rates low. Profits are not paid to share holders. As a result CSU has a power on record of approximately 99.99% of the time. To compare what happens in Colorado Springs to other areas, especially the 26 million that are in ERCOT, is simply invalid. Now, if you want to hold up CSU has a shining example of what could be in utilities, that would be fair.

Yes, the wind turbines in Texas do not have the cold weather packages that they do in colder areas.

I am familiar with the group and I did state that I am not an engineer, etc. They explained the methodology so why would it have an anti-wind bias if the facts check out? They did not give real high grades to coal and gas and real kicker to me is that 2 other renewables fared better, so I don't think it is anti-wind, as much as it is validating the fact the wind in Texas failed when it was needed most. If this had been the first cold weather event in Texas one could forgive ERCOT for not knowing what would happen, however, there was a similar event 10 years ago almost to the day.

I ran across a pretty interesting article regarding the failures of the Texas grid during this weather event. Wind Energy Fails: Grading the Reliability of Energy Sources During the Texas Power Outages I am not a scientist, engineer or statistician but the data presented seems to be factual to me.

Not exactly generations since Texas had a major cold weather event just 10 years ago. USA Today article

Trailers with a gross weight exceeding 7,500 lbs. must pass an annual safety inspection. In some cases, you may be asked to provide additional information such as: Weight Certificate. A note on the weight certificate that we ran into when we registered our RV. The weight they want is an empty weight, not possible when you are living in it. The DMV settled for a photo with the weight sticker on the RV that also had the VIN. The clerk was sure this would work and so took it to her supervisor who submitted it to the state and it was accepted.

That is likely true until there are more satellites up. When I was using a "manual" antenna for DirecTv you had to have it pretty darned precise to get a signal, and now with my Pathway X2 if it misses just one of the satellites it has a fit, and it is automated supposedly. I think things will get more flexible as time goes on with this project.

I thought this was going to be one of the advantages to Starlink - portability. I have seen pics of the equipment and it doesn't look any larger than a satellite TV dish.

I agree that until 2016 nothing came on line for a number of years. However, you said and I quote: That list shows about 50 reactors that came on line after 3 Mile Island. Yucca (not Yukon) Mountain, which would have provided long term storage for nuclear waste was halted for purely political, not scientific, reasons according to the GAO. It is something we are going to have to reckon with, however, because as existing plants age and need to be decommissioned we will need to store the waste somewhere. Maybe this could be a new Elon Musk project, launch the waste into the sun or something.

Not so. Quotes from US Energy Information Administration: We are still building reactors. And if you look at this reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#United_States you find that a number have come on line since 3 Mile Island. Currently a multi-national effort to build a fusion reactor is underway in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. If fusion reactors can be perfected nuclear will definitely be the power source of the future. Here is an article in Scientific American.

The school my daughter works for was supposed to be closed Tuesday and Wednesday (Monday was holiday) and then have virtual classes the rest of the week. That has now been changed to closed, period, due to continued rolling blackouts.

Not just the University. The entire state of Texas has been woefully unprepared from local to state levels. Depending on area it has been no electricity, no water, no gas or some combination of the three.

I found two items on a tax lawyers website that might be of interest. However, I think the above advice to consult an attorney directly is the best advice.

We have a T-Mobile signal booster that works fairly well for 4G LTE but will not work for 5G. I have no idea if they offer an updated one for 5G or not. I do know when the M2000 does not receive a strong enough 5G signal it will revert to 4G LTE.

Where our daughter lives they sent messages to residents telling them to drip faucets, and just as you stated they were then forced to send out messages saying to boil water. Now they have no water at all unless the city can "import" water from neighboring cities. The mismanagement at state and local levels for this weather emergency is appalling.

Glad you found it. In T-Mobile fashion the phone associated with the M2000 will be in the area code of whatever you used for the delivery address. Seems funny as our T-Mobile phones are both 719 but the M2000 is 737.

Wouldn't matter to me as the park I am in (in Texas) doesn't want their taps left on, and now as long as the subfreezing temps have hung around they have shut their water treatment plant down.

I have a gizmo for a microwave that you are supposed to put in a scrambled egg and cook it to make the egg for an egg muffin. I have found that unless you time it perfectly it comes out rubbery and can vary from egg to egg. It is much more satisfactory to me to pour that scrambled egg into one of the silicon rings in the fry pan. But your experiment sounds interesting. Let us know if it works, which I think it will, but the real trick would getting an easy over egg out of a microwave.

I went to the TMobile site and see it here https://www.t-mobile.com/tablets. Then scroll down.