Texas power situation

[agesilaus]

7 minutes ago, bigjim said:

Well just thanks a lot for this information given that  so many don't don't read load restriction signs.😂

You would not want to pay for the ultimate bridge, airplane, building or power system if they did build them for every possible contingency. Do you want your power bills to triple?

Edited February 19, 2021 by agesilaus

[bigjim]

Not to stir the pot but Marines understand comedy, Navy not so much. 😄  But yes I know that and I get your point.

[bigjim]

13 hours ago, agesilaus said:

There is no doubt that ERCOT bungled this but that is to be expected out of any government agency.

We have been told that ERCot is private not government but does that not mean that the "government" read state of TX should oversee and ERCOT.  I think I will go to Cancun.

Remember the Post Office is a public corportation that sure seems to be controlled by the "government"

This is all just food for thought so maybe we can see more than one side.

[GlennWest]

20 minutes ago, TXiceman said:

When you let high pressure liquified natural gas down to a vapor state, the temperature is extremely LOW.  This is how air conditioning works at warmer temperatures.  The condensed liquid refrigerant is reduced in pressure and you get a refrigerating effect.  There can be some water vapor in the gas and this can freeze in the control valves.  Also, if the control valves are not properly insulated, the water vapor in the atmosphere can freeze on the cold valves and prevent them from working properly.

Ken

There are very little LNG gas lines or service in Texas. All homes are NG. LNG is super cold. 

[bigjim]

4 hours ago, NamMedevac 70 said:

How do you store wind power??

One more time. They are not the total answer but they allow us to save the fossils for when we need them most and in general are non-poluting .  Who knows, in the future there may be a way to store it. I sure hope so.  In my rinkydink way i store a little elec. from my solarl panel for night use. May be minimal but works for me.   I often store sun heated water in a few gallon or so jugs covered in a black plastic bad to use for bathing before it cools down too much in the evening.  Saves me a little propane and or elec.  As I said, pretty rinkydink but every little bit helps.

 

To my knowledge California is not stand alone but it is all more complicated than that.

Edited February 19, 2021 by bigjim

[Barbaraok]

14 hours ago, D&J said:

They are getting power from the national grid, Nebraska is going full bore generating power and selling it to our southern neighbors. 

Denny

Since Texas has no connection to the national grid, how is this happening?   

[bigjim]

21 minutes ago, GlennWest said:

There are very little LNG gas lines or service in Texas. All homes are NG. LNG is super cold. 

Brain is super fuzzy this AM so need Txiceman or someone else to help me.   Am I correct that all "NG" is liquid until it hits the regulator?  Or if the event of leak the "hole" becomes the regulator and the liquid flashes to  gas due to the pressure change from compressed liquid into "gas".

[Barbaraok]

9 minutes ago, bigjim said:

To my knowledge California is not stand alone but it is all more complicated than that.

They are part of the Western Grid.  What people don't know about rolling blackouts is that they happen all across the country when an area is under increased demand.  Being on the grid doesn't guarantee that you will get all of the power you need, just that you will get as much as others can share.  When a huge region is under excessive heat, for example, then several states may be getting rolling blackouts.      And in California, during the Santa Anas, some of the blackouts are do to not sending ANY POWER, from any where, down transmission lines that are blowing in the wind because you don't want those big lines sparking as they are torn from the transmission towers starting fires, or in neighborhoods falling into fields, roads, etc.   We had threat of rolling blackouts last summer in Arizona when the wildfires in the Superstitions were generating ash that was falling on big transmission lines and arcing - the system took those lines out of service for a day and everyone was asked to set AC to a minimum setting of 82°.   

[Barbaraok]

1 minute ago, bigjim said:

Brain is super fuzzy this AM so need Txiceman or someone else to help me.   Am I correct that all "NG" is liquid until it hits the regulator?  Or if the event of leak the "hole" becomes the regulator and the liquid flashes to  gas due to the pressure change from compressed liquid into "gas".

NO, natural gas goes through pipelines as gas.  When it is shipped in trucks, railroad tank cars or shipped, it is compressed and becomes liquified natural gas and is easier to transport.   

[GlennWest]

3 minutes ago, bigjim said:

Brain is super fuzzy this AM so need Txiceman or someone else to help me.   Am I correct that all "NG" is liquid until it hits the regulator?  Or if the event of leak the "hole" becomes the regulator and the liquid flashes to  gas due to the pressure change from compressed liquid into "gas".

LNG are trucked or shipped to pump station. There it is converted to NG and pumped to residents. No lines flow LNG. I helped build the one at Sabine Pass. That pipe is all stainless and super thick. 

[Barbaraok]

44 minutes ago, agesilaus said:

You would not want to pay for the ultimate bridge, airplane, building or power system if they did build them for every possible contingency. Do you want your power bills to triple?

Wonder if that is why every bridge has weight limits posted?  Usually in terms of weight on the heaviest axle of the vehicle going across.   

Why wouldn't you design for a minimum of 100 yr storm since they do occur and no one knows WHEN they will occur?   Cost more, sure, but how many billions will be spent trying to remediate the damage that has been done by by not having regulations in place?

[Dutch_12078]

1 hour ago, agesilaus said:

There have been no pumped hydro storage facilities built in the US for decades. There are very few suitable locations and environmentalist fight them in the courts. Using their standard demand something while fighting against what they demand.

Also those storage units are highly inefficient, it takes a lot of energy to pump that water up a mountain and you get more losses when you convert that height into electric power. You spend 100 MW to get back 50 MW (just an estimate)

You might want to ask the US DOE how they feel about pumped storage:

"Pumped storage gets a boost (or two) in the US"

https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/pumped-storage-gets-a-boost-or-two-in-the-us.html

Or Duke Energy:

"Pumped-Storage Hydro Plants"

https://www.duke-energy.com/Energy-Education/How-Energy-Works/Pumped-Storage-Hydro-Plants

[Kirk W]

Things are finally improving in north TX! We just went above the freezing level for the first time in 139 hours! That is not a record or even close to one as the record is 295 hours in December of 1983. This was a record for the month of February. 

Additional good news is that Mesquite has now lifted the boil water order.

[GlennWest]

Our water just coming back on. Boil notice though. My tank was just about empty. Guage reads empty.

[Kirk W]

[hemsteadc]

19 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

Things are finally improving in north TX! We just went above the freezing level for the first time in 139 hours! That is not a record or even close to one as the record is 295 hours in December of 1983. This was a record for the month of February. 

Were there mass power shortages in 1983?

[TXiceman]

3 hours ago, GlennWest said:

There are very little LNG gas lines or service in Texas. All homes are NG. LNG is super cold. 

You also get a cooling when you force a high pressure gas across a control valve or orifice.  Look up J-T cooling or Joule-Thompson,

Ken

[GlennWest]

Aware of this. 

[D&J]

2 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

Since Texas has no connection to the national grid, how is this happening?   

They don't have agreements between other states but they are connected. Texas buys power from Nebraska and pays Kansas and Oklahoma for the use of their lines to transport it. All states that generate power sell it to other states including Texas but if they don't have agreements the states are free to charge whatever the market can bear. If they had agreements then the transportation and generating fees are lower at agreed amounts. I normal times states that sell electricity without agreements make out better but if they have to buy it the same high prices will cause them pain at the meter. Nebraska is a peaking state so they sell their excess to other states they have agreements with or to the highest bidder.

Denny

[Jinx & Wayne]

3 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

Why wouldn't you design for a minimum of 100 yr storm since they do occur and no one knows WHEN they will occur?

I suspect they were designed with that in mind.  It appears that what was once a 100 year storm is now a 30 year or fewer storm.  Houston had 500-year floods in 2015 (Memorial Day), 2016 (Memorial Day) and 2017 (Harvey).  Maybe it is just the dice rolling.  Or maybe it is climate change.

Wayne & Jinx
2017 F-350 diesel, dually
2006 Carriage Carri-Lite 36KSQ

[hemsteadc]

21 minutes ago, Jinx & Wayne said:

 Or maybe it is climate change.

It's becoming less and less 'maybe.'

[mptjelgin]

3 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

Wonder if that is why every bridge has weight limits posted?  Usually in terms of weight on the heaviest axle of the vehicle going across.   

Why wouldn't you design for a minimum of 100 yr storm since they do occur and no one knows WHEN they will occur?   Cost more, sure, but how many billions will be spent trying to remediate the damage that has been done by by not having regulations in place?

Most Texas bridges have no posted weight limits, as they are designed for the maximum "legal" load. The only load-posted bridges are those not capable of safely carrying the legal maximum load. And the load posting signs often include a diagram with various combinations of legal loading based on number of axles. 

It is very common to design different classes of roadways for different return periods. For instance, a local low-volume Farm-to-Market road bridge may be designed to pass only a  2-year or 5-year flood. Anything bigger than that overtops the bridge or approach roadway and closes it for a period of time. Why?  Because traffic volume on the road is relatively low, and the cost/benefit ratio of building a bigger/taller bridge and associated roadway don't make sense. 

Higher volume roadways may have bridges designed for 25 year or 50 year return periods, while the highest volume/most important roads have bridges designed for 100 or even 500 year return periods. 

There is nothing magic about a so-called "100 yr storm/flood/wind". It is just a nice, round number that means that there is a 1% chance in any given year of that magnitude event occurring.  

With a finite pot of money available for construction, you may have to choose between one new "100-year" bridge or two new "25-year bridges".  As I stated earlier, design engineering is all about balancing probabilities with cost and coming up with the most workable solution for the owner.  

[noteven]

It was refreshing not to have economic sanctions being brought against Canada for sending the cold weather. 

[Kirk W]

3 hours ago, hemsteadc said:

Were there mass power shortages in 1983?

I have no idea as we lived in WY at that time. 

[bruce t]

100 year storms! How does anyone know this is a once in 100 years? Reliable records have only been kept for 100-150 years. Even then many old records aren't reliable. Maybe this is a rare event or maybe the last 100 years have just not been 'average'. There was no power grid 100 years ago. No gas, no wind turbines. Heck not even a solar panel on the Alamo.

Maybe the term should be once in the "past 100 years".

Just being pedantic. But these sorts of terms are thrown about without giving consideration to what the term actually means. The term is used to 'exaggerate" the current event/s.