Texas

[GatorGar247]

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.

Luckily for us the temperature is already rising . Low of 28 tonight back in the 70s by next week. Hopefully this spell will open some eyes and changes are made.

Is it the pressure drop that causes the trash to freeze or the air temps? Does it cause a pressure drop when the power plants suddenly try to pull more volume? Do you inject glycol to mitigate the hydrates? By the time the gas gets to us its processed and normally dry..

 

[Mighty Mouse]

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.

Being in the midstream industry, I'd imagine that you've seen a risk matrix many times. Most gas producers/gatherers in Texas would consider sustained far-below-freezing temperatures to be a low likelihood/high impact risk and choose not to spend much trying to mitigate it. That's not an unreasonable decision, but it certainly can come back to haunt you if the low likelihood event does come to pass.

 

[KsRancher]

For you guys that aren't used to power outages. Here is a tip. Fill the bathtub up with water if you see something in the forecast that looks like it might take lines down. That way you can still flush the toilets. Our power always goes out. Between ice in the fall/winter and thunder storms in the spring/summer. The longest we have been out is 11 days before.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Is it the pressure drop that causes the trash to freeze or the air temps?

Both. Joule-Thomson effect cooling caused by the pressure drop across a control valve can cause flowing fluids to freeze up even when air temps are well above 32°F. Once air temps drop below 32°F, stagnant fluids are also at risk of freezing.

Does it cause a pressure drop when the power plants suddenly try to pull more volume? Do you inject glycol to mitigate the hydrates? By the time the gas gets to us its processed and normally dry..

We're far enough removed (by miles of pipeline and multiple pressure breaks at compressor stations and processing plants) that we'd never see a pressure drop caused by increased draw at a power plant. We inject methanol into our gas streams at some freeze-prone points (typically control valves and/or meters) to suppress hydrate formation temperatures, but this strategy still has its limits.

 

[Red Letters]

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.

We've had winter related blackouts as resent as Feb 2011 and Jan 2014, I just got nostalgic posting the day my son was born in 89 and screwed up the purpose of my post.. Point being, while we may not get bad weather every year, we still get it. I don't understand how wind, natural gas, coal and nuclear as well as the pipelines that supply natural gas to the power plants ALL had some sort of weather related issues leading to the problems we experienced.
I saw pictures of houses with aquariums and toilets frozen solid and icicles hanging from ceilings from broken pipes. No telling what the death toll will end up.

 

[sneaky]

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...

It hasn't been over 40 degrees at my house since Nov. It isn't fun being cold all the time, but pipes are buried deeper here than Texas, and you don't let water drip or it'll freeze up in your drain pipe then you have problems. At least here it snows, down that way it's mostly freaking ice. Screw that.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[wind gypsy]

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.

Much more traditional (coal, nuke, NG) capacity was unable to generate and off line than wind during this mess so how do you figure that having more of it would have made the situation better?

The grid in TX in whole was not designed to deal with this weather. period. Anyone who's pointing at any one type of generation is doing so only out of their desire to justify their personal beliefs.

 

[Cedarsavage]

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...

I think the big thing is we’re used to it and have our houses built accordingly and gear to deal with it.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Much more traditional (coal, nuke, NG) capacity was unable to generate and off line than wind during this mess so how do you figure that having more of it would have made the situation better?

The grid in TX in whole was not designed to deal with this weather. period. Anyone who's pointing at any one type of generation is doing so only out of their desire to justify their personal beliefs.

obviously if you cant do four things right then you should try atleast to get one, two and three fail proof before adding a less predictable 4th. Pretty much sums it up. Wind resource money would of been better spent on those traditional plant support infrastructures.

doesn’t matter now wind expansion will be dead in Texas after current leases are filled.

 

[Billy Goat]

obviously if you cant do four things right then you should try atleast to get one, two and three fail proof before adding a less predictable 4th. Pretty much sums it up. Wind resource money would of been better spent on those traditional plant support infrastructures.

doesn’t matter now wind expansion will be dead in Texas after current leases are filled.

So your argument is that the money spent on windmills prevented them from winterizing their other plants?


It seems to me like expanding the infrastructure of anything wouldn't have prevented it. They just decided that cold wouldn't be a problem, or a problem they would invest in. I think the fact that it was going to cost money was the problem, they decided better to shut down in cold then to be prepared for it. Employees tend to be that way too, they would rather take a day off and loose pay then to actually show up for work, sometimes you find a good one tho who shows up no matter what.

The issue now is they wanted to be seperate, they were going to take care of themselves, now they want fema money, and were pulling energy from other areas that were prepared, over taxing their systems and putting the burden on people that didn't have anything to do with their decision making.

 

[wind gypsy]

obviously if you cant do four things right then you should try atleast to get one, two and three fail proof before adding a less predictable 4th. Pretty much sums it up. Wind resource money would of been better spent on those traditional plant support infrastructures.

doesn’t matter now wind expansion will be dead in Texas after current leases are filled.

Billy Goat nailed it. Utilities look at their portfolio and add new generation to meet their needs. Regardless of what type of generation they added, they decided they wanted more capacity at a lower cost per kWh rather than less capacity with at a higher cost that is more reliable in extreme weather.

 

[cuerro viejo]

So your argument is that the money spent on windmills prevented them from winterizing their other plants?


It seems to me like expanding the infrastructure of anything wouldn't have prevented it. They just decided that cold wouldn't be a problem, or a problem they would invest in. I think the fact that it was going to cost money was the problem, they decided better to shut down in cold then to be prepared for it. Employees tend to be that way too, they would rather take a day off and loose pay then to actually show up for work, sometimes you find a good one tho who shows up no matter what.

The issue now is they wanted to be seperate, they were going to take care of themselves, now they want fema money, and were pulling energy from other areas that were prepared, over taxing their systems and putting the burden on people that didn't have anything to do with their decision making.

How many coal plants where closed and replaced with wind? 3

overall it’s not a capacity issue, it was asset management issue, this case weather

my agruement is wind is more unpredictable then NG and Nuclear, so when they where recommended 9 years ago to insulate generators at NG plants because they would freeze if we hit record lows , they should of spent the money there instead of Wind infrastructure. Take Subsidies out of wind and it’s a dead issue anyway.

I have a pretty substantial wind lease, if I could do it all over again, I’d pass.

Texas traditionally has been a higher giver to federal taxes then a taker. Out side of hurricanes here recently

 

[wind gypsy]

How many coal plants where closed and replaced with wind? 3

my agruement is wind is more unpredictable then NG and Nuclear, so when they where recommended 9 years ago to insulate generators at NG plants because they would freeze if we hit record lows , they should of spent the money there instead of Wind infrastructure. Take Subsidies out of wind and it’s a dead issue anyway.

I have a pretty substantial wind lease, if I could do it all over again, I’d pass.

Texas traditionally has been a higher giver to federal taxes then a taker. Out side of hurricanes here recently

You said we wouldn’t have had this problem if that 25% of wind was coal, NG, nuke instead.
Now you’re saying they should have just invested that money into making the existing grid infrastructure more resistant to extreme cold. Those are two vastly different things. They could have invested in upgrading existing thermal generators but rate payers would have covered the cost.

Undeniable that wind is an intermittent generator that can’t be controlled and it requires a more robust transmission infrastructure. I hate what it does to flyways and it’s an eye sore. But it’s cheap. Cheaper than creating new natural gas generation even WITHOUT subsidies. So without subsidies investment would definitely be greatly reduced but the wind industry would be far from dead.

It’s sad to see how an issue like this brings out the tribalism with political commentators and politicians posting 7 year old pictures of frozen turbines in Sweden saying “sPrayIng fosSiL fuels from a HeliCopter uSing foSsil fuels tO kEep reNeWable energy ruNning.” And all the tribe jumps onboard blaming their woes on the greenie hippies rather than the temperature design basis the grid was built on.

On another note, this whole thing raises awareness to just how complicated and fragile our grid is. Seems like it would be relatively easy for an adversary to cause widespread pain by targeting our grid.

 

[Kountry Biscuit]

I just think we live in a really comfortable time in history... No one takes accountability for themselves and being prepared for the things life throws at us at all anymore. It is always the governments fault and we always need it to take care of us at all times. I reject that idea. This country and the path it is on is not sustainable.

Ok, now the comment guys can attempt to drag me for this take. lol

 

[cuerro viejo]

Now you’re saying they should have just invested that money into making the existing grid infrastructure more resistant to extreme cold. Those are two vastly different things. They could have invested in upgrading existing thermal generators but rate payers would have covered the cost.

Undeniable that wind is an intermittent generator that can’t be controlled and it requires a more robust transmission infrastructure. I hate what it does to flyways and it’s an eye sore. But it’s cheap. Cheaper than creating new natural gas generation even WITHOUT subsidies. So without subsidies investment would definitely be greatly reduced but the wind industry would be far from dead.

It’s sad to see how an issue like this brings out the tribalism with political commentators and politicians posting 7 year old pictures of frozen turbines in Sweden saying “sPrayIng fosSiL fuels from a HeliCopter uSing foSsil fuels tO kEep reNeWable energy ruNning.” And all the tribe jumps onboard blaming their woes on the greenie hippies rather than the temperature design basis the grid was built on.

On another note, this whole thing raises awareness to just how complicated and fragile our grid is. Seems like it would be relatively easy for an adversary to cause widespread pain by targeting our grid.

No, I said in the beginning we had an infrastructure problem/ asset management problem not a capacity problem. With that said wind replaced three more reliable coal plants from a capacity stand point. I also said wind turbines frozen and turn off where two different things. Most here simply turned off and sat idle, to keep from damaging them. I joked about de-icing via helo. Wind turbines didn’t help in our situation.

My point has always been we wasted money on Wind turbines and should of spent it on NG infrastructure. We where told to do upgrade infrastructure 9 years ago. We didn’t. Money allocation went to Wind infrastructure instead, which didn’t help us.

Take the subsidies away then let’s see if it’s cheaper, And at a very minimum mandate making /building them all 100% state side. The bulk of them are coming from China and Brazil. Corpus Christi ports are full of them being off loaded.

 

[cuerro viejo]

I just think we live in a really comfortable time in history... No one takes accountability for themselves and being prepared for the things life throws at us at all anymore. It is always the governments fault and we always need it to take care of us at all times. I reject that idea. This country and the path it is on is not sustainable.

Ok, now the comment guys can attempt to drag me for this take. lol

I don’t disagree, with that said it mind blowing how many people don’t know where the water cut off to their home is.

 

[Kountry Biscuit]

I don’t disagree, with that said it mind blowing how many people don’t know where the water cut off to their home is.

Or any other basic functionality of anything in their lives... Good times have created weak men. Weak men are bound to create hard times for the U.S. We are seeing it unfold every day. I just hope my kids will be the strong men/women that come from hard times.

 

[Reburn]

I just think we live in a really comfortable time in history... No one takes accountability for themselves and being prepared for the things life throws at us at all anymore. It is always the governments fault and we always need it to take care of us at all times. I reject that idea. This country and the path it is on is not sustainable.

Ok, now the comment guys can attempt to drag me for this take. lol

Here we couldn't agree more.

 

[Rock-o]

...now they want fema money, and were pulling energy from other areas that were prepared, over taxing their systems and putting the burden on people that didn't have anything to do with their decision making.

...all the while "TEXIT, we don't need y'all, secede, secede, secede!!!"

 

[Reburn]

This is getting better. We know you didnt have power. But even though were removing the price caps that way we can charge what we like. We know everyone suffered and since your down let me go ahead and kick you with higher electricity bills now and later. SORRY HOMIE.

Texas to raise energy prices and suspend price cap amid winter storm - Power Technology

Texas has announced sweeping changes to the state’s energy pricing structure amid the ongoing winter storm,

www.power-technology.com