Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum
General Discussion => Campfire Talk => Topic started by: hpwaco on February 19, 2021, 05:35:01 pm
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208+ hours of continuous below freezing temps here in Waco and 5 days without power in our and many other neighborhoods. Fortunately our daughters 80 yr old house has power and gas heat so we are b&b there. No response from power company as to when will be restored. And now facing water shortage because treatment plant doesn't have power!!!
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208+ hours of continuous below freezing temps here in Waco and 5 days without power in our and many other neighborhoods. Fortunately our daughters 80 yr old house has power and gas heat so we are b&b there. No response from power company as to when will be restored. And now facing water shortage because treatment plant doesn't have power!!!
I feel for you my friend. I spent 32 years at Connecticut Light and Power and worked plenty of outages. Speaking for myself and the guys I worked with I can tell you that we always knew how hard it was on the folks that had to live through a bad outage like that, you have my utmost sympathy. Best of luck.
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It would be prudent to expect a delay in reliable power production restoration. Shutting down a thermal plant that's lost its fuel supply and outside grid power source in freezing weather is a recipe for equipment damage. Everything containing water has to be drained, the steam drum, the condenser, the waterwall tubes, all of the cooling water system, etc., a big job under normal conditions. Trapped ice explodes even the hardest steel. With no freeze protection on the boiler sensing lines you aren't restarting even if the steam side & cooling water system is intact.
What Texas needs is to "Municipalize" or "Nationalize" their grid, pry the power supply out of the hands of the robber barons. Making power "ain't rocket surgery" and doesn't need to be a money printing press for the CEO class. It's not like the ratepaying public hasn't paid for the hardware many times over already. Cruz's behavior and the immediate attempt to blame renewable energy & a non-existant "Green New Deal" for the problems point to entrenched arrogance and entitlement.
Pry the cold dead fingers of the carpetbaggers off your power supply and put that CEO bonus money to work weatherizing your plants and hiring a few more qualified power plant workers.
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Fortunately our daughters 80 yr old house has power and gas heat so we are b&b there.
I hope that you shut off your main water valve and drained a bit off before you left your house. Water pipes and a hard freeze don't go well together. A friend called me in to help him fix his pipes, after a loss of heat, and I found over a dozen ruptures in five different places.
Seems like a lot of folks didn't know to shut off their water, from the pictures I've seen on the internet. Looks like maybe folks down south might be forced to learn the basics of northerner winter culture, like shutting off water in an unheated house, and keeping enough ethylene glycol in your radiator and enough charge in your battery, so they don't freeze solid and rupture.
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As a long-time Southwest desert dweller I was amazed at my brothers place in Wasilla, Alaska. The house plumbing had a central drain point so you could isolate the water, drain all your piping & walk away for a few weeks and not come back to an "Ice Sculpture House" horror show. All of their exterior water lines are 6 feet deep, even the septic lines. Who knew? A big change from my casually having exposed 1" PVC irrigation spigot risers everywhere in the front yard. His home insulation actually kept the heat in and cold out at -40F, almost a 120F differential between inside & outside. My desert house's ancient single pane windows would pass a slight breeze when the wind blew; 35F was "extreme cold" to us. :o
Sounds like the next two years will be a good time to be in the plumbing business, either parts or service. Until you have actually faced below freezing weather conditions it's hard to seriously apply the "freezing weather" construction rules to yourself. The building code folks are in for a lot of O.T. from now on.
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You need to go to Cancun, Mexico and pay $350 a night at a luxury hotel until things warm up in Texas. That is what Senator Cruz recommends as a solution to your deep freeze. ::)
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As a long-time Southwest desert dweller I was amazed at my brothers place in Wasilla, Alaska. The house plumbing had a central drain point so you could isolate the water, drain all your piping & walk away for a few weeks and not come back to an "Ice Sculpture House" horror show. All of their exterior water lines are 6 feet deep, even the septic lines. Who knew? A big change from my casually having exposed 1" PVC irrigation spigot risers everywhere in the front yard. His home insulation actually kept the heat in and cold out at -40F, almost a 120F differential between inside & outside. My desert house's ancient single pane windows would pass a slight breeze when the wind blew; 35F was "extreme cold" to us. :o
Sounds like the next two years will be a good time to be in the plumbing business, either parts or service. Until you have actually faced below freezing weather conditions it's hard to seriously apply the "freezing weather" construction rules to yourself. The building code folks are in for a lot of O.T. from now on.
I'm floored by what I've seen, it looks like they have no real building codes out there, and if they do have a DPUC, the members should be hung.
I can't believe how soft their system is. My house, built in 1926 is similar to your brothers, there's a central drain cock that will drain every drop of water in the system in about 5 minutes. After that all you have to do is shut of the well pump and you're good to go.
After seeing what those poor SOBs are going through I've never been so happy to live in a rural area. Where we live all the homes have wells and septic systems, most homes have a generator and most of us supplement our oil burners with a wood burning stove. Fireplaces here are pretty much a given. A lot of homes here especially the older ones like mine use propane for their stoves and driers as well. Around here 20 F is cold, but no thinks it's unusually cold until the temps are down around zero or below for an extended time.
I was also amazed to learn that Texas isn't part of the National Grid, honestly I didn't think there was a single state that wasn't. Whoever is running the sh*t show down there needs to be held accountable. Like you said in a previous post making electricity isn't rocket science, hell we've been doing it since the 1800's.
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Good article:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/
Nuke plants drop offline when the grid gets unstable. Their prime directive is to protect the secondary plant, as it is the only way to remove shutdown decay heat from the primary. That's NRC territory, you do not risk cooling equipment.
Coal is too stupid to go offline unless you can't physically move the fuel.
Wind turbines in cold places have de-icers built into the blades. That's an option when you order them.
The NatGas supply folks screwed the pooch here, their process equipment stopped working and things cascaded from there.
Like Zimmemr says, it all hinges on zero investment in weatherization issues, which in turn is a function of operating within an entirely privatized environment. Profits obviously divert to "shareholders" instead of into process facility improvements unless regulated to maintain continuity of service to the public.
An isolated grid assumes the providers are altruistic enough to do what's right and that they will always be the cheapest supplier. Another take on that is that you create a captive market. I think we can assume the verdict is in on the altruism.
Public power is accountable to the ratepayer and doesn't have a costly "Board of Directors" to keep in luxury. That money can go into the process facility and wages. Money spent for wages, parts & services recirculates locally, it doesn't go to the money-laundering Seychelles, Caymans or Bahamas because blue-collar folks don't have those connections.
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Good article:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/
Nuke plants drop offline when the grid gets unstable. Their prime directive is to protect the secondary plant, as it is the only way to remove shutdown decay heat from the primary. That's NRC territory, you do not risk cooling equipment.
Coal is too stupid to go offline unless you can't physically move the fuel.
Wind turbines in cold places have de-icers built into the blades. That's an option when you order them.
The NatGas supply folks screwed the pooch here, their process equipment stopped working and things cascaded from there.
Like Zimmemr says, it all hinges on zero investment in weatherization issues, which in turn is a function of operating within an entirely privatized environment. Profits obviously divert to "shareholders" instead of into process facility improvements unless regulated to maintain continuity of service to the public.
An isolated grid assumes the providers are altruistic enough to do what's right and that they will always be the cheapest supplier. Another take on that is that you create a captive market. I think we can assume the verdict is in on the altruism.
Public power is accountable to the ratepayer and doesn't have a costly "Board of Directors" to keep in luxury. That money can go into the process facility and wages. Money spent for wages, parts & services recirculates locally, it doesn't go to the money-laundering Seychelles, Caymans or Bahamas because blue-collar folks don't have those connections.
Excellent article ACR thanks for posting it. Ironically the largest outage I ever worked was the Canadian Ice storm in 1996, which was centered in, you guessed it, Quebec. Some of those areas were without power for 12 weeks, but in that outage there was massive physical damage to their system. The morning after we got there they sent our crew out to a small town, where a local Hydro-Quebec birddog took us to our first assignment. It was a long straight secondary road, with over 100 sections on the ground. I thought were going to be there until July.
It's good to see the Texans are using Altec booms mounted on Navistar chassis, at least they got that part of the equation right. ;)
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Profits obviously divert to "shareholders" instead of into process facility improvements unless regulated to maintain continuity of service to the public.
An isolated grid assumes the providers are altruistic enough to do what's right and that they will always be the cheapest supplier.
I just read an article that was discussing how some Texas consumers are billed for their electricity on a variable rate plan. It said that one supplier's rates went from a seasonal avg. $50 per megawatt hour to $9000 / Mwatt-hour. A nickel a kilowatt hour is a very good rate, $9 a kilowatt hour is something like 75 times what we pay for a fixed rate, here in the big city.
Another article suggested that winterization efforts weren't made because the competitive sales environment makes it more profitable for suppliers to operate in an unstable market.
I don't pretend to understand the economics, but I learned my lesson about the carpetbagger electric companies and their flexible rates the hard way. We didn't have a particularly hard winter the year I was tempted to switch away from Commonwealth Edison, but every time the wind blew, my new supplier claimed it was an "act of god", raised the rates, and required a greater amount of deposit, to prevent future calamities. It was written there in the fine print, that's when I learned what "force majeure" meant.
After seeing what those poor SOBs are going through I've never been so happy to live in a rural area. Where we live all the homes have wells and septic systems, most homes have a generator and most of us supplement our oil burners with a wood burning stove.
I live inside Chicago city limits, have natural gas heating and our electric grid is pretty reliable, but I still have a generator, a kerosene heater, a wood stove, and 3 months supply of canned food and bottled water. Quite a bit over the FEMA recommendations, but I've always been big on self reliance.
Plus, wood is free for the taking, although at the moment it's buried under several feet of snow.
My RE is shoveled out. Maybe I'll be riding in February this year, it's supposed to get above freezing next week, good enough to ride in.
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February!?! Just above freezing!?! You are one tough nut. And here I am thinking that 58 degrees might just be too nippy...Hats off to you. :)
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February!?! Just above freezing!?! You are one tough nut. And here I am thinking that 58 degrees might just be too nippy...Hats off to you. :)
I'm thinking I want to live where you live, I spent the day ice fishing, cause there's nothing else to do. Definition of an ice fisherman - "A freezing cold jerk on one end of line, waiting for a jerk on the other end. " ;D ;D ;D
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About 22 wild turkeys in the yard today getting their share of the quail's seed allotment, along with Junco's, Lark Sparrows, Towhees & Stellar Jays. My 5 hummingbird feeders are going through about a quart of 4:1 sugar water a day, should go up to 3 quarts by March. I planted about 500 garlic sprouts, transplanted 8 Kiowa blackberry bushes with leaves & buds, transplanted 6 Apothecary rose 2nd year now-rooted cuttings. My hillside located 25W x 50L x 20H brushpile/"habitat for inhumanity"/Deer Garden/Gopher Reserve is doing OK! On a clear day I can see the snow, maybe 15 miles distant and safely above 3500 feet. Pine Flat Lake/Reservoir is only about 12 miles of twisty, 30 MPH, casually travelled, treelined coarse asphalt away. ;D ;D ;D
After living in the Mohave Desert (the REAL one, on the Arizona side, maybe 2" of precipitation annually) for 40 years the esposa & I are really enjoying life where it rains 25" - 40" a year, there's real wildlife and a hot day is only 107F, not 128F. Sometimes it even gets down to a bitter 25F in late November. Right now the temp's cycling between 38F at 5AM and maybe 60F at 2PM. But everywhere you go there's some sort of beauty to be found, it just depends on customers attitude, eh?
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Power back on Friday afternoon after 4 1/2 days. Came by and checked house each day and ran faucets. Surprisingly temp in house never got below 60F. No way to drain system or sprinklers. Only shut off is on street side of meter. Typical for millions of modern TX houses on slabs. Gradual warming now with forecast of 70F next week!! Roads mostly clear and dry. Saw an HD this afternoon. Price gouging has already started for customers without a fixed price long term contract. Yes TX independent power grid and always thinking of us "Fled Ted".
Don't know what we would have done if daughter had also lost power as all hotels that had power were booked. Just another interesting entry to add to my 79 year old life book.
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Power back on Friday afternoon after 4 1/2 days. Came by and checked house each day and ran faucets. Surprisingly temp in house never got below 60F. No way to drain system or sprinklers. Only shut off is on street side of meter.
Glad to hear you experienced no home damage. Your comment reminded me, that's another thing we yankees are taught to do in a cold snap, leave the faucets running at a slow drip. The running water is less likely to freeze than static water.
I've drained down systems with no provision built in, by shutting off the water at the street and loosening one of the unions on the meter, and letting it drain from there. If there's a floor drain nearby, all is well, if not, $15 worth of stuff from the local home store and 20 minutes of McGuyvering, and you can have a portable janitor's sink to put under the meter and drain it off elsewhere via a garden hose:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Medium-Mixing-Tub-26100/301943161
https://www.amazon.com/Lifegard-Aquatics-Standard-Threaded-Bulkhead/dp/B0002Z7U1K
https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-2-in-x-2-in-Black-Steel-Nipple-300-12X2/100580106
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DIG-1-2-in-PVC-Pipe-Thread-x-Hose-Thread-Conversion-Elbow-Q59/100183158
But, you should be fine, this was a hundred year storm, after all. Hopefully, the system will enhanced and they'll be ready in a few years when the next polar vortex reaches you. The last one, two winters ago, was much colder for us than this one. It went below -20F, here in Chicago.
Looks like ERCOT is going under the bus. If it ain't the state governments fault, and it ain't the corporations fault, it's gotta be those nonprofit guys.
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Good article:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/even-power-disasters-are-bigger-in-texas-heres-why/
Nuke plants drop offline when the grid gets unstable. Their prime directive is to protect the secondary plant, as it is the only way to remove shutdown decay heat from the primary. That's NRC territory, you do not risk cooling equipment.
Coal is too stupid to go offline unless you can't physically move the fuel.
Wind turbines in cold places have de-icers built into the blades. That's an option when you order them.
The NatGas supply folks screwed the pooch here, their process equipment stopped working and things cascaded from there.
Like Zimmemr says, it all hinges on zero investment in weatherization issues, which in turn is a function of operating within an entirely privatized environment. Profits obviously divert to "shareholders" instead of into process facility improvements unless regulated to maintain continuity of service to the public.
An isolated grid assumes the providers are altruistic enough to do what's right and that they will always be the cheapest supplier. Another take on that is that you create a captive market. I think we can assume the verdict is in on the altruism.
Public power is accountable to the ratepayer and doesn't have a costly "Board of Directors" to keep in luxury. That money can go into the process facility and wages. Money spent for wages, parts & services recirculates locally, it doesn't go to the money-laundering Seychelles, Caymans or Bahamas because blue-collar folks don't have those connections.
The altruistic providers find themselves soon out of bussiness, the unions sleeping with the bord of directors failed the folks that are the core value in the development, supply and maintainance chain.
Some call it shell economy, it assumes that the energy that is produced at lower cost (efficient) carries the one the one that is produced at higher cost (inefficient or often called green). Take away the foundations = cole, gas in some places geothermal and you will see how everything on top of it sizes to including nuke power.
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About 22 wild turkeys in the yard today getting their share of the quail's seed allotment, along with Junco's, Lark Sparrows, Towhees & Stellar Jays. My 5 hummingbird feeders are going through about a quart of 4:1 sugar water a day, should go up to 3 quarts by March. I planted about 500 garlic sprouts, transplanted 8 Kiowa blackberry bushes with leaves & buds, transplanted 6 Apothecary rose 2nd year now-rooted cuttings. My hillside located 25W x 50L x 20H brushpile/"habitat for inhumanity"/Deer Garden/Gopher Reserve is doing OK! On a clear day I can see the snow, maybe 15 miles distant and safely above 3500 feet. Pine Flat Lake/Reservoir is only about 12 miles of twisty, 30 MPH, casually travelled, treelined coarse asphalt away. ;D ;D ;D
After living in the Mohave Desert (the REAL one, on the Arizona side, maybe 2" of precipitation annually) for 40 years the esposa & I are really enjoying life where it rains 25" - 40" a year, there's real wildlife and a hot day is only 107F, not 128F. Sometimes it even gets down to a bitter 25F in late November. Right now the temp's cycling between 38F at 5AM and maybe 60F at 2PM. But everywhere you go there's some sort of beauty to be found, it just depends on customers attitude, eh?
ACR: You're killing me ;) It's 15F here this morning, my garden is buried under 26" of snow with more predicted, and the roads are covered with a toxic mix of sand, salt and calcium chloride. I normally enjoy the winter but this year between Covid and all the rest of it, I'm ready for an early spring.
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Power back on Friday afternoon after 4 1/2 days. Came by and checked house each day and ran faucets. Surprisingly temp in house never got below 60F. No way to drain system or sprinklers. Only shut off is on street side of meter. Typical for millions of modern TX houses on slabs. Gradual warming now with forecast of 70F next week!! Roads mostly clear and dry. Saw an HD this afternoon. Price gouging has already started for customers without a fixed price long term contract. Yes TX independent power grid and always thinking of us "Fled Ted".
Don't know what we would have done if daughter had also lost power as all hotels that had power were booked. Just another interesting entry to add to my 79 year old life book.
Your house only dropped to 60 degrees during the cold snap? That is strange. My home has been dropping to 60 degrees almost every day this winter (I only run my furnace for an hour in the morning and two hours at night), even when it is sunny and 60 degrees outside, in spite of having double-pane windows and about 18" of fiberglass insulation in my attic. ???
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@ #15:
"the unions sleeping with the bord of directors failed the folks that are the core value in the development, supply and maintainance chain"
I know that you know that the people signing the checks run the show. The Union doesn't run the show, it just tries to keep management from stepping too harshly on the workerbees.
"Some call it shell economy, it assumes that the energy that is produced at lower cost (efficient) carries the one the one that is produced at higher cost (inefficient or often called green). Take away the foundations = cole, gas in some places geothermal and you will see how everything on top of it sizes to including nuke power."
The Electrical Utility world works best with a power mix. A diversity of energy supply sources makes you less vulnerable to individual market price increases or a specific type of fuel shortage through adverse weather or supply line disruption.
In sane states Utilities are regulated. They have a fixed rate of return and are obligated to provide continuity of service. In Texas it's a free for all, so there is plenty of room for chicanery. I'm thinking that Cruz wasn't worried when he blew off his Senator job and flew to Cancun in the middle of this s _ _ tstorm because the Senator job of protecting the public wasn't where his money was coming from.
As far as "Inefficient Green Energy", that's spoken like someone that hasn't ever lived too far from a coal or NatGas facility. Where's all that independence talk go when we're talking about home energy? And I'm unsure what you were trying to get out there about Nuke power. The plant I worked at put out 2300 MW of baseload at 4.5 cents per KWH. As the average ratepaying California customer pays about 17 cents per KWH, a) it's about the same as normal NatGas production rates, and b) something hinky is happening in Cal T&D to add 10-12 cents to every KWH by the time it gets to your home. Every other state seems to only take about 3-5 cents to deliver product.
The system fails if it isn't watched, monitored closely & corrected because that's the way it works when people are involved.
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@ #15:
"the unions sleeping with the bord of directors failed the folks that are the core value in the development, supply and maintainance chain"
I know that you know that the people signing the checks run the show. The Union doesn't run the show, it just tries to keep management from stepping too harshly on the workerbees.
"Some call it shell economy, it assumes that the energy that is produced at lower cost (efficient) carries the one the one that is produced at higher cost (inefficient or often called green). Take away the foundations = cole, gas in some places geothermal and you will see how everything on top of it sizes to including nuke power."
The Electrical Utility world works best with a power mix. A diversity of energy supply sources makes you less vulnerable to individual market price increases or a specific type of fuel shortage through adverse weather or supply line disruption.
In sane states Utilities are regulated. They have a fixed rate of return and are obligated to provide continuity of service. In Texas it's a free for all, so there is plenty of room for chicanery. I'm thinking that Cruz wasn't worried when he blew off his Senator job and flew to Cancun in the middle of this s _ _ tstorm because the Senator job of protecting the public wasn't where his money was coming from.
As far as "Inefficient Green Energy", that's spoken like someone that hasn't ever lived too far from a coal or NatGas facility. Where's all that independence talk go when we're talking about home energy? And I'm unsure what you were trying to get out there about Nuke power. The plant I worked at put out 2300 MW of baseload at 4.5 cents per KWH. As the average ratepaying California customer pays about 17 cents per KWH, a) it's about the same as normal NatGas production rates, and b) something hinky is happening in Cal T&D to add 10-12 cents to every KWH by the time it gets to your home. Every other state seems to only take about 3-5 cents to deliver product.
The system fails if it isn't watched, monitored closely & corrected because that's the way it works when people are involved.
Who is the workbees? Where are they? What are they doing? Union SOB´s defintely eating a huge portion of the pie. Who introduces f"§$% BS programs like "mansplaining", "drug control" and another sort of terror that any employee has to withstand additionally?
There are computers to monitor processes and ring alarm when something is off in a process. Hopefully someone left with little bit of clue to take a "corrective" action once the alarm goes off.
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Who is the workbees? Where are they? What are they doing? Union SOB´s defintely eating a huge portion of the pie. Who introduces f"§$% BS programs like "mansplaining", "drug control" and another sort of terror that any employee has to withstand additionally?
There are computers to monitor processes and ring alarm when something is off in a process. Hopefully someone left with little bit of clue to take a "corrective" action once the alarm goes off.
I don't know what your union background is but I can tell you that in mine, IBEW local 420, the elected union officers, with the exception of the three top elected officials receive no pay other than what they earn, they volunteer all of their time. The three who are paid are paid by the company at the standard rate of pay for their classification, for forty hours a week. For example if we elect a meter reader as our president he'd be paid the top rate for a meter reader, which is about $27.00 an hour. If he were a lineman he'd get $45.00. They do get some walkaround money from the union but it's a pittance, and they get no over time. A decent line hand out here that works some overtime can net around $225K. I know of two guys that made over 400K on a regular basis.
As far as bullshit programs those are driven by the companies need to get along with federal mandates. The union figures rightly, that if the company wants to bring us in out of the cold to sit through a class, which always includes breakfast and lunch, and pays us a decent wage including travel time to and from the class site than so be it.
As far as drug testing goes I've seen what happens when guys show for the job high, I support mandatory drug testing, and so does every single guy in our local. You'd have to be an absolute fool to oppose drug testing in a industry as dangerous as utility work.
As far as alarms going off, the problem in this game is that once the alarm goes off it's already to late. You have to keep that monitor from coming on in the first place and the way things went down in Texas they just didn't have the time, the ability or the intelligence.
The assholes in Texas largely created their own problems and I have zero sympathy for them, they allowed themselves to be fed a bill of goods, and in the end it turned around an bit them square in the ass, I still can't believe they thought connecting NG was a bad idea.
As far as the "worker bees" by which I presume you mean the guys that do the grunt work, as always they'll be the ones that get the mess straightened out. And don't forget, their families are just as cold and hungry as everyone else's but instead of being there for them they're out trying to get the whole mess turned around.
Lastly for anyone that doesn't like unions I'd suggest that without them there'd be no paid vacation, no forty hour work week, no work place safety standards, no eight hour work day, no overtime, no paid sick time, no minimum pay and so on. And yes even non union workers have reaped the benefits union workers fought for.
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@ #19:
Who is the workbees? Where are they? What are they doing? Union SOB´s defintely eating a huge portion of the pie.
Are you on Management's payroll? Sounds like every Pro-Corporate First Line Supervisors rhetoric I've had to listen to. Apparently all that time you spent in Sweden paid off for their management. "Who is the workerbees" indeed. Across the board Labor is getting a smaller slice of the pie. Not unsupported opinion, just cold numerical fact.
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states#
There are computers to monitor processes and ring alarm when something is off in a process. Hopefully someone left with little bit of clue to take a "corrective" action once the alarm goes off.
Are we talking Process Facility or System Oversight? Power Plants only can do what the hardware allows to be possible within the budgetary constraints permitted by their Management. Are you attempting to reference ERCOT? Ercot just suggests, the individual members can decide whether or not to route profits away from the Owners pocket or squander them on trifling system reliability upgrades. Looks like the pockets are winning, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" as Gomer Pyle used to say. Senator Cruz's behavior makes it pretty clear who's driving, and it ain't the frozen, dehydrated ratepayers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas
ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation,[12][13] and its members include consumers, electric cooperatives, generators, power marketers, retail electric providers, investor-owned electric utilities (transmission and distribution providers), and municipally owned electric utilities.[14]
During the February 2021 storm it emerged that a third of ERCOT's board of directors live outside of Texas; this includes the chair Sally A. Talberg, who lives in Michigan, and the vice chair Peter Cramton.[2] This revelation drew considerable anger from the public as well as elected representatives, and the board members' names and photographs were temporarily removed from the ERCOT website due to death threats.[45][46] The board was also criticized for its meeting days before the storm: though the meeting lasted more than two hours, the members spent less than a minute discussing storm preparations and readiness.[47][48][49][50]
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Are you on Management's payroll? Sounds like every Pro-Corporate First Line Supervisors rhetoric I've had to listen to. Apparently all that time you spent in Sweden paid off for their management.
;D ... I´ve heard all the shit myself. I´ve definitelly never done anything that would be worth a buck. ;) ...worse than politicos, they can now apparently even read your thoughts.
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;D ... I´ve heard all the shit myself. I´ve definitelly never done anything that would be worth a buck. ;) ...worse than politicos, they can now apparently even read your thoughts.
If they could read my thoughts they'd be afraid to turn their backs on me.
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If they could read my thoughts they'd be afraid to turn their backs on me.
In that case corona comes in handy. ::)
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In that case corona comes in handy. ::)
Yuengling: breakfast of champions. ;)
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I heard on the CBS radio noon news today that some Texas residents were receiving utility bills of over $1000 even though the power had not been on during the big freeze. I wonder what that is about? I think there is an article in my newspaper today about the subject that I have yet to read. But I will be doing so soon.
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I heard on the CBS radio noon news today that some Texas residents were receiving utility bills of over $1000 even though the power had not been on during the big freeze. I wonder what that is about?
Re-connection charge? !!
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I heard on the CBS radio noon news today that some Texas residents were receiving utility bills of over $1000 even though the power had not been on during the big freeze. I wonder what that is about? I think there is an article in my newspaper today about the subject that I have yet to read. But I will be doing so soon.
Some of the bills are even higher, it has to do with the insane way they're allowed to increase rates during periods of high demand. Texans should be calling for the scalps of the assholes that pushed through the states off the wall energy laws. You can read more here :https://www.kbia.org/post/after-days-mass-outages-some-texas-residents-now-face-huge-electric-bills
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Here is the story from my newspaper. In case you don't want to read it off of the internet. ;)
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Annex the worst carpetbaggers. Municipalize or Nationalize the rest. Power Generation is too impactful on the economy to allow the "Private Sector" carte blanche to wargame the power customers. Regulated Public Utilities provide reliable service at reasonable rates. More working folks get employed, nobody is making $50M a year gaming the customers. The public has already paid for these "Blue Light Special" generation systems years ago. My old private utility had an unofficial 5 year payoff requirement for any projects, Texal is at least as venal. These guys have made plenty of dinero, now send them down the road. The Plant Managers, Operators and Maintenance folks all know what to do, you won't miss the CEO class a'tall... 8)
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Annex the worst carpetbaggers. Municipalize or Nationalize the rest. Power Generation is too impactful on the economy to allow the "Private Sector" carte blanche to wargame the power customers. Regulated Public Utilities provide reliable service at reasonable rates. More working folks get employed, nobody is making $50M a year gaming the customers. The public has already paid for these "Blue Light Special" generation systems years ago. My old private utility had an unofficial 5 year payoff requirement for any projects, Texal is at least as venal. These guys have made plenty of dinero, now send them down the road. The Plant Managers, Operators and Maintenance folks all know what to do, you won't miss the CEO class a'tall... 8)
I second that. Well said my friend.
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Annex the worst carpetbaggers. Municipalize or Nationalize the rest. Power Generation is too impactful on the economy to allow the "Private Sector" carte blanche to wargame the power customers. Regulated Public Utilities provide reliable service at reasonable rates. More working folks get employed, nobody is making $50M a year gaming the customers. The public has already paid for these "Blue Light Special" generation systems years ago. My old private utility had an unofficial 5 year payoff requirement for any projects, Texal is at least as venal. These guys have made plenty of dinero, now send them down the road. The Plant Managers, Operators and Maintenance folks all know what to do, you won't miss the CEO class a'tall... 8)
A "Regulated Public Utility" like Pacific Graft and Explosion in California? What do you do when the state's Public Utility Regulators have their heads up their asses and just approve everything that the "Regulated Public Utility" wants to do (including every rate increase), or not do (in the case of maintaining and improving their facilities), because they have no idea how to run a utility? >: (
I am not sure what the solution is, but many politicians in California believe that having the government run utilities is the way to go. Kind of like having the Department of Motor Vehicles providing your electricity, gas and water. ::)
Interestingly, in my city the government runs the sewerage disposal system and that seems to work well. ;)
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A "Regulated Public Utility" like Pacific Graft and Explosion in California? What do you do when the state's Public Utility Regulators have their heads up their asses and just approve everything that the "Regulated Public Utility" wants to do (including every rate increase), or not do (in the case of maintaining and improving their facilities), because they have no idea how to run a utility? >: (
I am not sure what the solution is, but many politicians in California believe that having the government run utilities is the way to go. Kind of like having the Department of Motor Vehicles providing your electricity, gas and water. ::)
Interestingly, in my city the government runs the sewerage disposal system and that seems to work well. ;)
In Connecticut there are still a few small municipal utilities, essentially town run, that work quite well, but they're small and I doubt the model would work well on a large scale, there are to many variables and power generation and transmission work best when there is a strong, enforceable set of standards.
To my mind, having spent 32 years working for an electric utility, there are several issues. The first is that too many DPUC jobs are filled by patronage appointments, they're usually clueless and very often alternate between kowtowing to the utility they're supposed to regulate or display outright hostility to it. Both positions are untenable. The second problem is that in every case I can think off deregulation has been a disaster, in some cases less than others but overall I don't think it's worked out well, California and Texas being two prime examples.
Other issues are largely behind the scenes for example while the blue collar jobs at most utilities pay a very nice wage, especially where those jobs are union, it's very hard to find anyone to fill them, it's hard, dangerous work and always compromises your family life for the worst. Consequently few youngsters want to become linemen, electricians, or meter service mechanics because the work is hard, the hours long, and you're away from your family at the worst times. There is also the stigma of "working with your hands, " which is another discussion. Consequently most utilities are understaffed, which ironically benefits the bottom line, so companies turn a blind eye to it, meaning in emergency there aren't enough hands to do the work.
So what would fix it? First, the nation needs a coherent, rational energy plan, with one set of standards that every Utility would be bound to, right down to the right way of making a splice. Second, deregulation has to end, there are some industries that need regulation and the electrical business is one of them. I'd also suggest that electrical utilities should, to some degree, be nationalized, few services are more vital to our nations well being than a steady, reliable flow of electricity. To that end I think a national control board, even one with limited power, if you'll excuse the pun, would be better than what we now have.
Lastly elected officials must hold industry leaders accountable. At Connecticut Light and Power I think we had a good record on that. During my tenure quite a few high ranking officers, including a CEO were forced to resign because they performed poorly during storm restorations, or were caught in outright lies. That's as it should be but rarely is. whether that would solve all or even any of the problems is questionable, but at least it would make a good start.
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That is a great analysis, zimmemr. My observation of PG&E in California over many years is that the workmen are very competent and do their jobs well with professionalism. However, the weak link is upper management who are more concerned about cutting costs, keeping the price of the company's stock high and paying out dividends to their stockholders. While these tasks are necessary to run a publicly-traded company, in PG&E's case they got carried away with the profit end and lost track of their primary job of providing safe and reliable electric and gas services. They are also big on "golden parachutes" for the top executives, who seem to need these parachutes on a regular basis. ::)
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@ #32: A "Regulated Public Utility" like Pacific Graft and Explosion in California?
No, as a bit of easy research reveals to the interested searcher that PG&E is in point of fact an investor owned utility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Company
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company is an American investor-owned utility with publicly traded stock. The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California, United States.
The LADWP, a municipal utility, is more pertinent to this discussion. The "Public Control" and "Power Delivery" sections are interesting. What's not mentioned in the "California Electricity Crisis" attached article is that LADWP customers were largely unaffected due to the mandate that such a utility operates under, that it's allegiance is to their customers, NOT "shareholders".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301_California_electricity_crisis#:~:text=Drought%2C%20delays%20in%20approval%20of,April%202000%20to%20December%202000.&text=Enron%20took%20advantage%20of%20this,bidding%20in%20California's%20spot%20markets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power#Public_control
Power delivery
The LADWP first offered municipal electricity in 1917 when Powerhouse No. 1, a hydroelectric power plant located in San Francisquito Canyon and which is powered by the Los Angeles Aqueduct, began generating electricity. It ultimately produced 70.5 megawatts and is still in operation, producing 44.5 megawatts. Three years later, in 1920, Powerhouse No. 2 was added. The powerhouse was destroyed when the St. Francis Dam failed, but the plant was completely rebuilt and back in service by November 1928. It remains in operation today, having the capacity to generate 18 megawatts.
On January 17, 1994, the city of Los Angeles experienced its one and only total system black-out as a result of the Northridge earthquake. Much of the power was restored within a few hours.
In September 2005, a DWP worker accidentally cut power lines that caused over half of Los Angeles to be without power for one and one-half hours.[3]
Again - Power Generation is too impactful on the economy to allow the "Private Sector" carte blanche to wargame the power customers.
Generation = Energy, which is a basic commodity of our civilization. The LADWP was formed to pry the dead cold fingers of Private (Pirate?) Enterprise off of Los Angeles water supply. The same applies to electricity, sunlight & air. Anyone controlling the price of a basic commodity like these affects the entire economy. Unlike in 1880, there is now no voodoo to making power happen. We need to get the incentive to manipulate the power supply for profit in the rear view mirror.
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That is a great analysis, zimmemr. My observation of PG&E in California over many years is that the workmen are very competent and do their jobs well with professionalism. However, the weak link is upper management who are more concerned about cutting costs, keeping the price of the company's stock high and paying out dividends to their stockholders. While these tasks are necessary to run a publicly-traded company, in PG&E's case they got carried away with the profit end and lost track of their primary job of providing safe and reliable electric and gas services. They are also big on "golden parachutes" for the top executives, who seem to need these parachutes on a regular basis. ::)
Thanks, they always say it's the sergeant's that run the army and in my experience that's true of utility companies, most of the management hacks are just there to push paper. It's the foremen and crews that actually keep the wire up and the lights on.
In a perfect world utility company rates would be balanced against the cost of doing business vs a fair return on investment for their shareholders, while still allowing the company to set aside enough cash for routine maintenance and upgrades. Once the company's profits exceed a certain margin, they should be rebated to the consumers. When utilities were regulated that was more or less the case. I'm not up on all the current regs, but I know it's no longer the case in Connecticut, and even if it were slick management would certainly figure a way around it. One way they could increase profits would be to limit the compensation of upper management. Jim Judge, CEO of Eversource, the parent company of CL&P, made 20 some million dollars in 2018 alone. Judge is a decent guy, and I think he did a fair job running the company but I'm pretty sure he could have got along just fine on 2 million a year. Full disclosure I own stock in Eversource, and I've done well with it, but seriously 20 million a year? :o
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PG&E is moving out of San Francisco and their old building is up for sale. They are moving to Oakland, CA where I believe I heard that they will be leasing a portion of an existing office building in the downtown area to save money - or perhaps for some other reason.
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@ #19:
Who is the workbees? Where are they? What are they doing? Union SOB´s defintely eating a huge portion of the pie.
Are you on Management's payroll? Sounds like every Pro-Corporate First Line Supervisors rhetoric I've had to listen to. Apparently all that time you spent in Sweden paid off for their management. "Who is the workerbees" indeed. Across the board Labor is getting a smaller slice of the pie. Not unsupported opinion, just cold numerical fact.
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states#
There are computers to monitor processes and ring alarm when something is off in a process. Hopefully someone left with little bit of clue to take a "corrective" action once the alarm goes off.
Are we talking Process Facility or System Oversight? Power Plants only can do what the hardware allows to be possible within the budgetary constraints permitted by their Management. Are you attempting to reference ERCOT? Ercot just suggests, the individual members can decide whether or not to route profits away from the Owners pocket or squander them on trifling system reliability upgrades. Looks like the pockets are winning, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" as Gomer Pyle used to say. Senator Cruz's behavior makes it pretty clear who's driving, and it ain't the frozen, dehydrated ratepayers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas
ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation,[12][13] and its members include consumers, electric cooperatives, generators, power marketers, retail electric providers, investor-owned electric utilities (transmission and distribution providers), and municipally owned electric utilities.[14]
During the February 2021 storm it emerged that a third of ERCOT's board of directors live outside of Texas; this includes the chair Sally A. Talberg, who lives in Michigan, and the vice chair Peter Cramton.[2] This revelation drew considerable anger from the public as well as elected representatives, and the board members' names and photographs were temporarily removed from the ERCOT website due to death threats.[45][46] The board was also criticized for its meeting days before the storm: though the meeting lasted more than two hours, the members spent less than a minute discussing storm preparations and readiness.[47][48][49][50]
The indivdual members are not humans and would not fill their pockets if they got the chance, right? Same way as the CEO's and bord members, who are on the payroll. Just another employee to entertain the public and squeeze the inefficiencies within of the company = not very sucessfully those days, often because they are inheritors and have no clue what they are doing.
You may know as a hobby pilot that fighter jets are aerodynamically instable. That means the centre of gravity is infront of the aerodynamic centre which results in simillar behaviour as
an inverted pendelum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWhGjxdug0o
While you may get away with a long pendelum, the shorter it gets the quicker the reaction has to occure to keep it up there. It is beyond human control, something some humans apparently are not capable to process in their mind. It´s the computer that has to maintain ballance, if it fails only a redundant control loop can save the day. There is no energy mix without oil and gas which is the foundation to all energy, why is it so difficult to understand.
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@ #38: Sounds like you are confused about who decides where the profit goes.
Same way as the CEO's and bord members, who are on the payroll.
Ercot just suggests, the individual members can decide whether or not to route profits away from the Owners pocket or squander them on trifling system reliability upgrades.
The CEO's and Board members are the only ones with a "vote" here. They make their own rules & pay scales.
often because they are inheritors and have no clue what they are doing.
Sadly they DON'T CARE about their impact, the only game is to extract maximum return.
There is no energy mix without oil and gas which is the foundation to all energy, why is it so difficult to understand.
Here's a handy guide to the electrical power mix in the USA:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
Roughly-
40% Nat Gas
20% Coal
20% Nuclear
7% Wind
7% Hydro
2% PV Solar
4% "other"
Energy doesn't care where it comes from. Commercial & Residential rooftop PV can cover 40% of the US's energy needs if it's developed. Wind is nowhere near built out. Tidal & Ocean Current energy is untapped. Bio-methane digesters for animal & human waste are largely untapped. Like I have pointed out many times, energy storage for renewable intermittent sources is key to adoption, and H2 as blends or as pure H2 in oil wells and salt domes is the easiest way to get there.
The "foundation to all energy" is energy, not a specific source. Whale oil, kerosene and wood was the "foundation to all energy" in 1800, but science moved on. We can go with more nukes and build out PV & Wind with utility grade storage and easily cover gas & coal.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321742090_Rooftop_solar_photovoltaic_potential_in_cities_How_scalable_are_assessment_approaches
xxxxxxx
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Energy does´t care where it comes from. That´s true, but to consumer does. If you have a fully automated plant that makes let´s say high tech polymer components the wages are miniscule. Lot of factories left Europe "only" because of high energy cost and went to china "because" they make predominantely cheap energy with cole plants. Cheap energy doesn´t need to mean dirty. The cost of enery is reflected in everything, in agriculture, in industrial production and at the energy bill itself. Unless you like to see everything going to the dustbin it might be a good idea to be ballance it out with import duties and/or trying to lower the cost of energy.
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When it comes to new clean power plants, like windmills, just don't put them in my backyard. And bird lovers say that they slice and dice flying birds - that apparently can't see the slowly moving blades. ::) And of course nuclear is a dirty word, especially in Japan, so I hear.
I would love solar panels on my roof, but I am surrounded by hills and only see the sun during the summer when that star is overhead. Perhaps the best solution is to use less power by wearing warmer clothes during the winter and opening windows to let the breeze in during the summer which is what I do. ;)
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"Cheap energy doesn´t need to mean dirty. The cost of energy is reflected in everything, in agriculture, in industrial production and at the energy bill itself."
Precisely correct. Converting over to a National Grid, promoting rooftop PV, creating utility grade H2 storage, promoting H2/NatGas blending and then having a functional way to store renewable energy helps decarbonize the energy supply at minimal cost. Energy is way too important to our technological society let the "Free Market Casino" stack the chips in favour of the House. And to clarify by House I am talking about the folks currently controlling & manipulating the energy supply for profit, i.e. the corporate boards of private energy companies. How did you like those $16,000 Houston power bills from the same good folks that brought you the rolling blackouts? Laissez-faire capitalism at it's finest...
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"Cheap energy doesn´t need to mean dirty. The cost of energy is reflected in everything, in agriculture, in industrial production and at the energy bill itself."
Precisely correct. Converting over to a National Grid, promoting rooftop PV, creating utility grade H2 storage, promoting H2/NatGas blending and then having a functional way to store renewable energy helps decarbonize the energy supply at minimal cost. Energy is way too important to our technological society let the "Free Market Casino" stack the chips in favour of the House. And to clarify by House I am talking about the folks currently controlling & manipulating the energy supply for profit, i.e. the corporate boards of private energy companies. How did you like those $16,000 Houston power bills from the same good folks that brought you the rolling blackouts? Laissez-faire capitalism at it's finest...
Roof top PV, Windturbines, H2 ....is all a result of the casino fu"§$in up the grid and the energy supplie driving the cost up. Nukes, Cole, Railways and anything that was for the "collective" prosperity, paid for by tax money was in many parts of Europe state property until the "privatisation" started. Now nationalising it back to the State is definitly a bad idea those days because the officials are part of the casino and the players are in the house. Nevertheless it's the card being playd and may indeed happen, they are ready.
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EVERY process fails if not kept an eye on and corrected from time to time. When was the last time YOU voted to appoint anyone to a private company's Board of Directors? That would be never. If you are an active voter, at least you have some say in how a Public Utility is run. Rooftop PV is generally paid for by the homeowner, as mostly the subsidies are gone. The panels are good for probably 80 years, the inverters normally at least 20, and when you are making your own KW's you don't much care if they are 5 cents or 5 dollars, you are replacing like for like on Net Metering. You use the Grid at night and push kilowatts back into it the next day. Siting a generation facility is expensive, adding panels to a carport doesn't take a 5 year Environmental study. If the homeowner pays for it, I'm not seeing the downside here. You remove system load, reducing infrastructure upgrade costs. The Public Utility gets some essentially free generation during the day, reducing costs across the board. Add in energy storage as H2 blending or as a pure gas in existing oil wells and you really start to get somewhere. Again, unmanaged processes tend to fail. Total Private sector power gets you a ringside seat a debacle just like Texas has right now. You have an input as regards public power operation, private you do not. Doing nothing has a predictable outcome, don't talk yourself out of trying.
Science to the rescue, from out of the past!
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210223-the-battery-invented-120-years-too-soon
>>> Speeding forward to the mid 2010s, a research team at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands happened upon a use for the nickel-iron battery based on the hydrogen produced. When electricity passes through the battery as it’s being recharged, it undergoes a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen and oxygen. The team recognised the reaction as reminiscent of the one used to release hydrogen from water, known as electrolysis.
"It looked to me like the chemistry was the same," says Fokko Mulder, leader of the Delft University research team. This water-splitting reaction is one way hydrogen is produced for use as a fuel – and an entirely clean fuel too, provided the energy used to drive the reaction is from a renewable source.
Nickel-iron batteries are extremely durable, as Edison proved in his early electric car, and some have been known to last upwards of 40 years
While Mulder and his team knew that the nickel-iron battery’s electrodes were capable of splitting water, they were surprised to see that the electrodes started to have a higher energy storage than before hydrogen was being produced. In other words, it became a better battery when it was used as an electrolyser too. They were also surprised to see how well the electrodes held up to the electrolysis, which can excessively tax and degrade more traditional batteries. "And, of course, we were rather content that the energy efficiency appeared to be good during all this," says Mulder, reaching levels of 80-90%.
Mulder dubbed their creation the "battolyser", and they hope their discovery can help solve two major challenges for renewable energy: energy storage and, when the batteries are full, production of clean fuel.
"You'll hear all these discussions about batteries on the one hand and hydrogen on the other hand," says Mulder. "There's always been a kind of competition between those two sets of directions, but you basically need both."
Renewable value
One of the biggest challenges of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar is how unpredictable and intermittent they can be. With solar, for example, you have a surplus of energy produced during the daytime and summertime, but at night and in the winter months, the supply dwindles.
Conventional batteries, such as those based on lithium, can store energy in the short-term, but when they’re fully charged they have to release any excess or they could overheat and degrade. The nickel-iron battolyser, on the other hand remains stable when fully charged, at which point it can transition to making hydrogen instead.
"[Nickel-iron batteries] are resilient, being able to withstand undercharging and overcharging better than other batteries," says John Barton, a research associate at the School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University in the UK, who also researches battolysers. "With hydrogen production, the battolyser adds multi-day and even inter-seasonal energy storage."
Besides creating hydrogen, nickel-iron batteries have other useful traits, first and foremost that they are unusually low-maintenance. They are extremely durable, as Edison proved in his early electric car, and some have been known to last upwards of 40 years. The metals needed to make the battery – nickel and iron – are also more common than, say, cobalt which is used to make conventional batteries.
This means the battolyser could have another possible role for renewable energy: helping it become more profitable.
Like any other industry, renewable energy prices fluctuate based on supply and demand. On a bright, sunny day there might be an abundance of power from solar, which can lead to a glut and a dip in the price the energy can be sold for. The battolyser, however, could help smooth out those peaks and troughs.
"When electricity prices are high, then you can discharge this battery, but when the electricity price is low, you can charge the battery and make hydrogen," says Mulder. <<<
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Ya, a job for the social engineers, entertainers, artists, teachers, doctors, self promoters, gretas, ... I´ll do "exactly" nothing. When is it going to be ready ?
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@#45: Here's a slogan you can use - "I'll see that when I belive it." anon
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@#45: Here's a slogan you can use - "I'll see that when I belive it." anon
A decade ago I told them "I believe it when I see it" - that got me into lot of trouble already.
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A decade ago I told them "I believe it when I see it" - that got me into lot of trouble already.
Including a swedish world saving RETARD running purposely infront of my car forcing me to do a fullstop to convince me how good ABS is. Even than I did not need it by the way, what would have been better is a huge whip and a very small garden. ;) ::)