Texas

[orionthehunter1]

Waste of money compared to flight to cancun. Come back when it warms up, easy fix. Us Texans dont need america..

Ha thats funny look how much Texas was paying for natural gas over the last few days from out of state

 

[thegrouse]

It has been pretty rough down here. We went above freezing for 2 hours yesterday. I am prepared, melted snow to flush the commode and have a generator and plenty of food on hand. Our leaders have failed us. Too many people in our city cannot take care of themselves in times like these. Monday morning the windchill was -10F. My pipes froze underground and in the wall. I cut out a section of the wall and got them working, that was before the water went out. Good times. I was sweating walking in my neighborhood last week during the day. We are not set up for cold temps. I think this will be over tomorrow and I will be back in shorts and sandals by Wednesday. Colder here this weekend than my Dad's place in Western MT.

 

[fatbacks]

How the hell do people further north deal with this kind of weather year after year? It's embarrassing that us in Texas have had such a hard time. I am embarrassed anyway...

You should see us when it gets above 80° up here... hahah!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Reburn]

I don't know where you get your information. Have you ever looked at a NG pipeline map of Texas? Many of which originate in South Texas and traverse the entire country to northern states... Sorry that I am not exactly thrilled that your reusable energy utopia is not based on reality. Windmills are ridiculously inefficient which is why they can only be operated through government subsidy.

Like I stated before, half of them sit idle all year because of this fact. It takes more to operate them than the energy they produce. I am all about being diverse, but not when the cost of operation far outweighs the benefits. I think you're blinded by a one-sided groups talking points.

I would bet money that you do not live anywhere near where they build these solar farms and windmill forests... Not exactly a conservationists ideal sight to behold. Really saving the planet by going that route. Bravo

Simple fact of the matter is you know nothing about me.
Fact of the matter you would be wrong about looking at them. I look at them plenty.

Another simple fact. People want to use power. You want to really take the stance that fossil fuels are infinite. And we shouldnt be looking at and investing in renewables? Im not blinded by shit.
Yep windmills, solar farms, roads, citys, light pollition. All a conservationists dream.

You seem to think I'm some kind of green warrior. In fact you would be wrong. I sit in the middle and am happy to find some kind of balance. While we could debate the efficency of windmills its pointless. You have made your stance public. I ain't about to try and change your mind. Cars were much less effiecent then horse and buggys at one point. Why arent you using a horse drawn carriage to go to the grocery store. Technology advances and evolves. Writing something off because its not the best right now is not how inovations get made. But at this point we are delving into economics and I dont want to get too far over your head. We should just all go back to killing whales and burning whale oil. Whale oil lamps will be all the rage again. I mean what the heck did they know in 1972 anyways.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Not trying to be argumentative (with any of this) but this wasn't a once in a century storm, many parts of Texas get this weather all the time and it was worse than this in coastal areas in 89. (I just remember that because my son was born during that cold snap)

Texas is a big state and a century is a long time, so maybe "once-in-a-century" is indeed a bit of an overstatement on my part. But this is clearly an unusually deep and long cold spell. Take a look at the NWS's recent "record reports" for the following forecast offices:

Corpus Christi​

Dallas/Fort Worth​

Midland​

Shreveport​

Records for lowest daily high temperature are being broken left and right. Incidentally, those NWS offices are located in/near the counties that produce the majority of Texas's natural gas. So even if the recent weather isn't that far out of the ordinary for some areas of the state, if the major gas-producing areas are experiencing record cold and associated difficulty in maintaining production of the state's primary power generation fuel, localized cold spells could have statewide impacts on the power grid.

 

[Billy Goat]

Simple fact of the matter is you know nothing about me.
Fact of the matter you would be wrong about looking at them. I look at them plenty.

Another simple fact. People want to use power. You want to really take the stance that fossil fuels are infinite. And we shouldnt be looking at and investing in renewables? Im not blinded by shit.
Yep windmills, solar farms, roads, citys, light pollition. All a conservationists dream.

You seem to think I'm some kind of green warrior. In fact you would be wrong. I sit in the middle and am happy to find some kind of balance. While we could debate the efficency of windmills its pointless. You have made your stance public. I ain't about to try and change your mind. Cars were much less effiecent then horse and buggys at one point. Why arent you using a horse drawn carriage to go to the grocery store. Technology advances and evolves. Writing something off because its not the best right now is not how inovations get made. But at this point we are delving into economics and I dont want to get too far over your head. We should just all go back to killing whales and burning whale oil. Whale oil lamps will be all the rage again. I mean what the heck did they know in 1972 anyways.

Hell I thought whaling was something you did at the bar around last call.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Waste of money compared to flight to cancun. Come back when it warms up, easy fix. Us Texans dont need america..

I expected a better response, pointless point.

Congress is in recess and he’s a lawyer not a plumber or an engineer. Not to mention he doesn't make state policy. Gov Abbot and Lt Gov Patrick are who are incharged of state policy, response and fema. although I'm not a huge fan of him, he is damn sure better then Beto. You can have Beto if you want him.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Ha thats funny look how much Texas was paying for natural gas over the last few days from out of state

With out federal subsides and EPA we wouldn't be in this mess....

 

[cuerro viejo]

Got it you dont like windmills. You would perfer Texas be beholden 100% to natural gas pipe lines coming from other states and Canada. Great. Thanks for your opinion. I'm glad that your not making decisions for the rest of us.

As I said. Windmills and solar are good but diversity is key. I would be fine paying $50 more each month to supplement the NG infrastructure as well. Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a sound business plan. This is a complicated issue on how it occured and its not going to be sorted out in a day. Diversting in windmills is a stupid idea. They are there they can still run just fine. I saw a number that only 25% of windmills froze up. Thats not a significant number.

Texas has Coal, Nuclear, NG, solar and top 5 in the world in wind. Reports are varying from 25-60%. Wind is 1/4 of our energy production. Froze up and turned off are different things.

Most importantly we wouldn't of had an issue if that 25%’ish percent Wind was back to coal, Nuclear or even NG infrastructure. TX is 25% of the entire US NG production 41% of the oil.

 

[Billy Goat]

Texas has Coal, Nuclear, NG, solar and top 5 in the world in wind. Reports are varying from 25-60%. Wind is 1/4 of our energy production. Froze up and turned off are different things.

Most importantly we wouldn't of had an issue if that 25%’ish percent Wind was back to coal, Nuclear or even NG infrastructure. TX is 25% of the entire US NG production 41% of the oil.

The real problem is that nothing was winterized. Had the windmills been built for cold, they would have been fine. Had the NG been built for cold, they would have been fine.

The way you are going on about it, it's like wind was the only problem in the cold, everything was having problems. It was short sighted decision making on the infrastructure.

 

[Billy Goat]

Too soon?

 

[cuerro viejo]

The way you are going on about it, it's like wind was the only problem in the cold, everything was having problems. It was short sighted decision making on the infrastructure.

no, I’m saying everything has a cost allocation, money would of been better spent on making NG infrastructure more robust, or even nuclear. Wind is excessive in cost, federal subsidies should stop. There is a better allocation that cost less. If that makes sense.
End of the day you have to decide where to spend a given amount of money. At this point it’s not wind.

better to do it right and spend the money on one thing, then to do two things half arse. In this case nasty temps caught the half ass,

Apparently TX producers has also been exporting NG all week too....

 

[Billy Goat]

no, I’m saying everything has a cost allocation, money would of been better spent on making NG infrastructure more robust, or even nuclear. Wind is excessive in cost, federal subsidies should stop. There is a better allocation that cost less. If that makes sense.
End of the day you have to decide where to spend a given amount of money. At this point it’s not wind.

better to do it right and spend the money on one thing, then to do two things half arse. In this case nasty temps caught the half ass,

Apparently TX has also been exporting NG all week too....

The problem with that is it doesn't drive any innovation. We can all agree NG isn't a forever answer, I'll agree there is a better allocation, might not/probably isn't wind, but doubling down on NG won't be driving a better solution. What happens when there's a NG shortage? You put more money into a single source solution, you're going to be that much further behind when that source goes down.

I feel like fossil fuel is another short sighted answer. It works for now, and I think there's lots of areas where ff's won't be replaced, but I think finding alternative ways to make energy, and using things differently to not consume energy off of a main grid to reduce demand will further everything.

I look at the fuel in this country as a savings account/trust fund. The slower we are burning through them the better off we will be. Save it for the future.

I'm not sold on nuclear for the waste, maybe we can make improvements. But also given that nobody prepared for what would happen with the plants and cold weather, I don't know how well they will prepare a nuclear plant either.

I'm not in the energy industry in anyway. I'm just a dumb redneck, my perspective might not be worth too much, just how things make sense to me. Evolve or die, that's a moto in business, but it carries over to a lot of things.

 

[GatorGar247]

I'm in south east Texas on the coast . I've been here 43 years and I have never seen temps down to 8 degrees like we had a couple days ago.
What a lot of people up north don't realize is it isn't the snow that hurts us. It's the rain that freezes. The roads around me were 4 inches of ice . I didn't see the first snow flake . 8 degrees and 85% humidity sucks. I was out in it all night Sunday and Monday night trying to keep instrumentation from freezing so our cogen could back feed the grid to help the power company . That is until the governor cut us off from natural gas. He shut down 12 to 15k houses that we were supplying electricity for. But a decision had to be made and it was gonna hurt people either way .

 

[orionthehunter1]

Texas went cheap on their infrastructure and is paying the price. There is no reason you couldn't have had natural gas. I work for a midstream gathering company in Colorado. Our equipment runs in 95 degrees in the summer and -30 below in the winter. Maybe you guys will figure out to bury your lines a little deeper and not shut off equipment when its below zero.

 

[Q child]

Can anyone explain why they weren't buying power from the Eastern Interconnect? It looks like they have two DC ties. That would essentially be an infinite source. Maybe I'm missing something...

 

[GatorGar247]

Natural gas freezes at -200 degrees. Transmitters and valves were freezing. Mainly condensate in the air lines running the automatic valves.. it's very humid here. Plant air have desiccant driers and we still have problems with moisture.. I'm talking at the gas fired plants not a pipeline. This is the end of the pipeline where the nat gas is used to fire boilers and cogens. Because of regulation you have fail safes that shut down production. When valves fail and trip the units off its game over. Once things start to cool they start to freeze faster. It's a domino effect..

 

[Marbles]

What a lot of people up north don't realize is it isn't the snow that hurts us. It's the rain that freezes. The roads around me were 4 inches of ice . I didn't see the first snow flake . 8 degrees and 85% humidity sucks.

Weather like that is not unique and can be found in most costal areas up north. The difference is we see it enough to be worth investing in things. One example is studded snow tires. They would dry rot before you would use them, and I don't think you should try to keep a pair. However, having them makes driving on ice pretty easy. I lived in San Antonio for over 3 years, I also saw the whole city shut down over ice and snow that was mild. I'm pretty sure I drive on worse nearly every day from December to March in Anchorage. I know I've driven on much worse ice in northern Missouri.

The flip side, I don't have an air conditioner, not worth investing in one. But, when the weather gets to 90 degrees on rare occasion it really sucks. Two summers ago it got hot (relatively speaking) in Anchorage and you could not find a fan or an AC to buy anywhere. I have a fan now, but I'm not spending the money on a window AC unit.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

The problem with that is it doesn't drive any innovation. We can all agree NG isn't a forever answer, I'll agree there is a better allocation, might not/probably isn't wind, but doubling down on NG won't be driving a better solution. What happens when there's a NG shortage? You put more money into a single source solution, you're going to be that much further behind when that source goes down.

I feel like fossil fuel is another short sighted answer. It works for now, and I think there's lots of areas where ff's won't be replaced, but I think finding alternative ways to make energy, and using things differently to not consume energy off of a main grid to reduce demand will further everything.

I look at the fuel in this country as a savings account/trust fund. The slower we are burning through them the better off we will be. Save it for the future.

I'm not sold on nuclear for the waste, maybe we can make improvements. But also given that nobody prepared for what would happen with the plants and cold weather, I don't know how well they will prepare a nuclear plant either.

I'm not in the energy industry in anyway. I'm just a dumb redneck, my perspective might not be worth too much, just how things make sense to me. Evolve or die, that's a moto in business, but it carries over to a lot of things.

Molten salt reactors look promising (https://flibe-energy.com/). Nuclear (uranium or molten salt) makes a lot of sense for stationary electricity generation. I'm not concerned about natural gas supply. We have about 15 years of domestic proven gas reserves at current consumption rates and 90 years of unproven reserves. NG will continue to have a role as a residential and industrial heat source even if it does get displaced as a fuel for electricity generation. Wind and solar probably have their places, but I'm not convinced they can reliably provide a significant portion of our energy needs. My preference would be to level the playing field as much as possible and let every energy source compete on a free and open market.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Natural gas freezes at -200 degrees. Transmitters and valves were freezing. Mainly condensate in the air lines running the automatic valves.. it's very humid here. Plant air have desiccant driers and we still have problems with moisture.. I'm talking at the gas fired plants not a pipeline. This is the end of the pipeline where the nat gas is used to fire boilers and cogens. Because of regulation you have fail safes that shut down production. When valves fail and trip the units off its game over. Once things start to cool they start to freeze faster. It's a domino effect..

On the upstream end, it's the water that comes out of the well alongside the gas that gives us trouble. Piping can plug off solid due to ice (or hydrates) forming inside the pipe. We often use the water-saturated "field gas" to operate pneumatic control valves, which likewise suffer from condensation/freezing inside the lines. Support equipment such as compressors and pumps also struggle in the cold. And like you said, once one domino falls and fluid stops flowing, the problems quickly spread to other parts of the production process.