Big storm / cold front

Making bank.

 

I haven't had power since Sunday night. Lost water yesterday. I checked into a hotel then the hotel lost power and water.
This is an epic f^&* up of colossal proportion. Taking a 5 gallon bucket and getting water from the pool to flush the potty. I am sitting in my truck in my driveway right now. I'll warm up a bit, charge my phone then go back inside.
I've been through Ike, Harvey, but this is way worse.
There will be movies made about how this went down I'm sure.

Remember the Cali rolling blackouts when the traders called the power plants and said hey, we think you need to "go down for maintenance."

I've been studying this on my phone non stop to find out exactly how this happened and I'm still not sure I've found an answer, but here are a few possibilities.....

1. Gas burning plants intentionally went off line because the price of nat gas. This sounds kinda tin foily to me but the chemical plant that I work at we just shut down the ENTIRE plant Friday because the price of fuel to feed my 6 boilers to provide the 650# steam was too high. I have never seen that happen before. Ever. Something about the price going from 3$ to 130$.

2. Wind turbines failed. I think this has a bit to do with it but maybe not the root of the problem. Total of 46mw taken offline and wind and solar is 31% of that.

3. ERCOT is getting a lot of the blame and some is warranted but they are still like the air traffic controllers of the grid. They planned that in the extreme worst case scenario thermal producers would be a max of 14 mw taken offline because of them tripping. The actual number is 30mw and that was just this morning. I listened to the interview of the ercot ceo this morning and they asked him why no communication about the status and he says we've been telling everyone since feb 2nd that this was gonna be big. Then in the next question asked why they weren't prepared and says we didn't know it was gonna be this bad.

4. Legislature is to blame. When we "deregulated" something about a cap on fuel pricing. PUC didn't do their job, something. If I say you can charge a max of 5$ to sell sandwiches, then bread goes to 45$, then you stop selling sandwiches and go out of business. Or if they tax the eff out of you if you burn coal, then you stop burning.

5. Existing plants didn't winterize for this. El Paso energy learned from this in 2011 and invested to keep it from happening but other plants didn't.

6. Producers can't generate power because the gas lines are frozen. I don't believe this one but it's what the governor told everyone on the news today.

Maybe someone smarter than me can tell me which one it was but or a combo of some or all but what I do know is I can see my breath in my living room. Energy capitol of the world. I can't imagine a single mom with a 4 month old or a 93 yr old Grandmother.

Someone messed up big time and they need to pay.

 

Yep.

Just got my power back ~4 hours ago after a ~60 hour blackout. Not even counting on it staying on, but going to at least get the house warm while I can. It was 38 in my bedroom last night, my gelfoam pillow was frozen into a rock. Think I posted all that earlier. As you said, it sucks bad enough for those with resources and resourcefulness. I can't imagine what it's like for the less well off. More deaths will be discovered in the coming days and someone's head(s) need to roll over this.

A friend in the industry is repeating the NG lines frozen reasoning, as well as that home use of NG spiked simultaneously leading to shortages. Difficult to swallow that one here in TX, though.

 

Sorry to hear of your story, a few friends I have in Texas are suffering a similar fate with no power, frozen pipes, etc. Apparently most gas stations are dry now too?


Wind is a primary source of electricity in Antarctica, not sure how people latched on to "wind can't work below freezing" narrative.

I think you hit on it w/ #4, this was released by the PUC, which essentially says the producers stopped generating because they wouldn't charge less than the $9000/megawatt cap (300x the market price prior to the storm). So since they can't force them online, they're now allowing them to break the $9k+/MW price cap and pass it on to the consumer? Hopefully people don't get $20,000 power bills in the mail. And hopefully no one froze to death either (although I'm sure it has happened already).





Also, I don't buy the natural gas pricing argument.

All generation companies would have entered in a NG futures contract negotiated months and months ago, specifically to hedge against events like this and other fluctuations in NG pricing, nobody of any size is paying the spot price on the day of the storm.


This is the honestly sounds like the same shit the producers pulled in California that someone mentioned earlier, the difference being dying in freezing weather happens a lot quicker.

 

If it comes out that this was all about money, and things like the astonishing power bills you mentioned DO happen, people will fkn RIOT around here!

 

It reads as generators were selling electricity below the cap at $1,200 vs $9,000. ERCOT decided that since demand is far higher than supply, generators should not undercut the set price and be required to charge at the $9,000/MWh cap or even more. You can see how they are allowed to break that price cap for the now poorly named "Low system-wide offer cap" in the full order following that link in your image which shows pricing rule that states they can charge 50x the spot price of natural gas or $2,000/MWh, whichever is HIGHER. https://www.puc.texas.gov/51617WinterERCOTOrder.pdf

 

You should know that it's always about the money. Money was saved by not winterizing, money was made by charging 70x the pre-Uri price, and, in the end, nothing will change. This is all par for the course.

 

Just think how much more this will be f’d up once we get more electric cars out there. Especially with states like California mandating no more non electric new sales after 2030 or 2035....can’t remember the date.

 

I’m in San Antonio...we don’t know how to handle this crap. You Yankees get your asses down here and take your weather back home!

I woke up Monday morning to a 59 degree bedroom but nobody cared because we had real snow on the ground. Since Monday morning power has only been coming on for 5 minutes every 3-5 hours. Thank God the one thing I didn’t sell when I quit was my Honda 3000 watt generator. We are warm, we have cold food , and I have hot coffee.

We have an awesome grocery store chain here called H-E-B. They responded to hurricane Harvey faster and better the The National Guard...even they weren’t ready for this. It’s a damn mess and I can’t wait until it’s 100 plus degrees and 70% humidity again.

 

Dateline Minneshitholia, 3:41 CST February 18, 2021

We have just survived our first overnight with temperatures above O degrees F in approximately 10 days. Coming to you from inside the D’ern Studios, where the mercury hovers at 7 above outside and 66 degrees inside.

Stay tuned for further updates as this develops.


















If your neighbor is cold, start them afire.












Stupid autocorrect

 

It has been a bit chilly out lately. The truck got really crappy mileage(thanks, AutoStart).

I did miss out on a day of shooting on Sunday, because the electronic targets internal temp only got up to -15 degrees, and they need to be up to at least -10 to function properly.

It was a balmy 9 last night when I left work.

 

"It's okay, I got 4wd."
"You f@ckin' retard! It's ice. the shit falling from the sky, it's ice! 4wd won't do shit!"
"I got 4wd."

 

Yep. 4wd on ice just means you can get going faster before you crash because you still can't brake or turn.

 

Hey, some people don't need to learn how to land..... (if you permit the analogy)

 

That shit was rampant when when all of us southerners were drilling the Marcellus in Pennsylvania. A lot of really expensive lifted F-5000’s and egos were destroyed.
On a ski trip in Colorado my wife asked my why I was driving so slowly if we have 4WD, my response was 4WD doesn’t do shit on ice it just gives you a slightly better chance of driving out of the ditch you slide into.

 

Stupid question.... But how is running air conditioners full blast throughout the hot summers in Texas any different than people turning on electric heaters with strain on the power grid?

 

I’m the summer the turbines that we are apparently pretty dependent on aren’t frozen in place.

 

Oh, the hippy dippy save the earth power sources don't work in the cold? Who'd have thought that?

 

Well they work really well if you winterize them, Texas said who needs that. Oops

 

Electric heaters consume ~3x the power an AC does.