Someone mentioned at work that fossil fuel plants had failed Texas and I reminded them that if there were more fossil fuel plants there wouldn’t be a problem right now.
They're dismantling the one that I worked at when I was in college. I was the third generation to work there. Grandpa was there the day it came online and dad was there to shutdown the last turbine.
It’s a damn shame what’s happening to our nation’s coal plants. Incredible feats of engineering performed in a time when hand calcs and hand drawings were the norm. I’ve done a lot of work at coal plants and I’ve always felt a special connection to them.
I’ve done a lot of work at coal plants and I’ve always felt a special connection to them.
Never had that chance in the US, and the ones I got a chance to explore were made low-scale or mid-scale, the one midscale one was in operation since 1930. A lot of the stuff, especially the exposed stuff reminded me of steam train engines(there's another thing we should bring back). It all felt...alive. No better word for it.
And this is why California burns to the ground all the time. They FORCED PG&E to dump money into renewables instead of allowing them to use that money to upgrade/replace/fix the old lines and infrastructure that caused the fires. ALl those fires are on the stupid fucking Dems running that state.
It blows my mind that they don't run their HVAC via ground conduit in 200m chunks with inner connects. For the amount of money they've blown on stupid shit the core trunk network could be protected against things like that, and with the short runs in the event of an earthquake you can bypass the bad sections by running topside.
The grid is at max,,,,, just like pipelines, libs don’t want them,,,, I say you should self identify yourself to be turned off of all electricity and gas and gasoline if your that stupid! My electricity has been off for 45hours, no fire place and no gas, and I have a baby. Liberals suck and they are dumb shits to the Max!
100%, they want to "save" the earth(I think they are crazy and I dont belive in this global warming bullshit, the earth has cycles), stop flying in your private jets to the green summit every year or using your private yachts. Stop buying things packaged in plastic, stop buying food since its all fertilized for the most part which well fossil fuels, go crawl into a cave and enjoy life with no fossil fuels...its used in almost everything you use on the daily. Fucking idiots, I hate them all.
Just surprised they haven't blamed global warming for the winter cyclone. Look, unusual weather is unusual. Preparation is good, but shit is going to happen anyways, and it's not like a hurricane where you can try to make sure you're on high ground. Good luck, you'll be sick of the heat before too long.
Yup, we have 30000MW or 30GW of nameplate wind power potential (practically max measured is 19GW) and another 5GW of solar.
We were short about 30GW of power at the start of the week because renewables were almost 100% down and to a smaller extent the natural gas backup generation had issues starting up due to the cold.
For every renewable source that depends on climate conditions (wind or sun), there should always be a natural gas or oil backups. Oil and Gas because Texas has both.
Today was a warmer day so power is coming back up, but mainly from the backup generators getting their equipment unstuck. Wind only produced 4GW and solar about 2GW today.
Does Texas have a lot of peak generation natural gas plants? I remember that there was a surge of power companies plopping those down when natural gas was really cheap. The plants themselves are pretty much turnkey.
First I’d like to correct my numbers as I double checked them later. Wind was only up to about 4GW today and solar to 2GW.
Problem with natural gas is households. It’s much more efficient to heat houses with direct heat from burning natural gas than it is to first convert it to electricity and then to heat. So many fast depoly natural gas plants had several issues, one being cold and iceing of the equipment and the second being fuel.
Many houses heat with natural gas, even ones that don’t have electricity. Gas fireplaces, backup generators and gas stoves come to mind. My house heats water with gas. So when you have a situation like this it’s vest to prioritize direct heat since the problem is the cold.
So if you are operating a natural gas grid, should you prioritize supply to housing or power generation. The instant peak demand is too high to do both since 20% (wind and solar) were pretty much offline after Sunday night.
But yes, there are many quickfite natural gas generators, just not enough peak gas supply plus they were all spec’d probably to higher ambient temperatures, because Texas has a chronic need for power for cooling during the summer.
This is also a once in a 30 year event pretty much. Last time it was this cold in Houston was 1989.
Wind Energy in Texas typically is about 20% of generation. Loading on Tuesday that could be coped with in total was 45-46MW, wind generation was 4GW so proportonially half of normal. Solar was 2GW, solar typically is 4-5GW.
Someone mentioned at work that fossil fuel plants had failed Texas and I reminded them that if there were more fossil fuel plants there wouldn’t be a problem right now.
Yup. Never forget that these libs pushed HARD to close down coal and natural gas plants.
Dude is SO based
Yep, our county’s coal plant is headed for decommissioning. You don’t just turn one of those on and off.
And given the dearth of unicorns of color..💁🏼♂️
They're dismantling the one that I worked at when I was in college. I was the third generation to work there. Grandpa was there the day it came online and dad was there to shutdown the last turbine.
You sound like a RealRedneck!
It’s a damn shame what’s happening to our nation’s coal plants. Incredible feats of engineering performed in a time when hand calcs and hand drawings were the norm. I’ve done a lot of work at coal plants and I’ve always felt a special connection to them.
If you've worked on the ball mills that is a life long connection. the shit is in my ass crack 2 years later!!
Don't forget the slide rule
Never had that chance in the US, and the ones I got a chance to explore were made low-scale or mid-scale, the one midscale one was in operation since 1930. A lot of the stuff, especially the exposed stuff reminded me of steam train engines(there's another thing we should bring back). It all felt...alive. No better word for it.
Why did Texas listen to them?
i wish the law empowered us to completely get rid of any downright shitty person who hold no value as human beings whatsoever
And this is why California burns to the ground all the time. They FORCED PG&E to dump money into renewables instead of allowing them to use that money to upgrade/replace/fix the old lines and infrastructure that caused the fires. ALl those fires are on the stupid fucking Dems running that state.
It blows my mind that they don't run their HVAC via ground conduit in 200m chunks with inner connects. For the amount of money they've blown on stupid shit the core trunk network could be protected against things like that, and with the short runs in the event of an earthquake you can bypass the bad sections by running topside.
BUT WE NEED THAT HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO LAS VEGAS!
...and then we get rolling blackouts and the like because muh rEnEwAbLe eNeRgY isn't capable of making up the difference.
The grid is at max,,,,, just like pipelines, libs don’t want them,,,, I say you should self identify yourself to be turned off of all electricity and gas and gasoline if your that stupid! My electricity has been off for 45hours, no fire place and no gas, and I have a baby. Liberals suck and they are dumb shits to the Max!
100%, they want to "save" the earth(I think they are crazy and I dont belive in this global warming bullshit, the earth has cycles), stop flying in your private jets to the green summit every year or using your private yachts. Stop buying things packaged in plastic, stop buying food since its all fertilized for the most part which well fossil fuels, go crawl into a cave and enjoy life with no fossil fuels...its used in almost everything you use on the daily. Fucking idiots, I hate them all.
We should save the earth by getting rid of elitist luxuries!
The Sun has cycles too and we are entering into a Grand Solar Minimum that could last as long as 3 sun cycles into 2053.
I wish you warmth and tenacity in this trying weather. God bless you and your family.
Just surprised they haven't blamed global warming for the winter cyclone. Look, unusual weather is unusual. Preparation is good, but shit is going to happen anyways, and it's not like a hurricane where you can try to make sure you're on high ground. Good luck, you'll be sick of the heat before too long.
Yup, we have 30000MW or 30GW of nameplate wind power potential (practically max measured is 19GW) and another 5GW of solar. We were short about 30GW of power at the start of the week because renewables were almost 100% down and to a smaller extent the natural gas backup generation had issues starting up due to the cold. For every renewable source that depends on climate conditions (wind or sun), there should always be a natural gas or oil backups. Oil and Gas because Texas has both. Today was a warmer day so power is coming back up, but mainly from the backup generators getting their equipment unstuck. Wind only produced 4GW and solar about 2GW today.
Does Texas have a lot of peak generation natural gas plants? I remember that there was a surge of power companies plopping those down when natural gas was really cheap. The plants themselves are pretty much turnkey.
First I’d like to correct my numbers as I double checked them later. Wind was only up to about 4GW today and solar to 2GW.
Problem with natural gas is households. It’s much more efficient to heat houses with direct heat from burning natural gas than it is to first convert it to electricity and then to heat. So many fast depoly natural gas plants had several issues, one being cold and iceing of the equipment and the second being fuel.
Many houses heat with natural gas, even ones that don’t have electricity. Gas fireplaces, backup generators and gas stoves come to mind. My house heats water with gas. So when you have a situation like this it’s vest to prioritize direct heat since the problem is the cold.
So if you are operating a natural gas grid, should you prioritize supply to housing or power generation. The instant peak demand is too high to do both since 20% (wind and solar) were pretty much offline after Sunday night.
But yes, there are many quickfite natural gas generators, just not enough peak gas supply plus they were all spec’d probably to higher ambient temperatures, because Texas has a chronic need for power for cooling during the summer.
This is also a once in a 30 year event pretty much. Last time it was this cold in Houston was 1989.
Ercot.com
Wind Energy in Texas typically is about 20% of generation. Loading on Tuesday that could be coped with in total was 45-46MW, wind generation was 4GW so proportonially half of normal. Solar was 2GW, solar typically is 4-5GW.