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ungated: https://archive.is/GfiPd https://archive.is/GfiPd "Engineering challenges can be solved, but the real menace is an unwillingness, expressed through po

ungated: https://archive.is/GfiPd https://archive.is/GfiPd "Engineering challenges can be solved, but the real menace is an unwillingness, expressed through politics, to pay for the greenhouse reductions we say we want. Power lines are unwelcome. Solar arrays and wind farms are not everybody’s idea of pretty and so must be located in unpopulated areas. Batteries can’t yet cure an intermittency problem, leaving only conventional plants. Coal is the worst of greenhouse offenders, gas is better and yet still opposed by greens, and forget about nuclear. ... But I doubt many people will be phlegmatic when Texas-like rolling blackouts come to the Northeast or New England one of these winters, as they almost did in the 2014 polar vortex. Falling trees won’t be the culprit. The guilty party will be our choice not to invest in pipelines and backup gas plants to support our desired renewables in the face of cold spells a lot more predictable than those that landed on Texas. This outcome is all but guaranteed unless we get a better discussion than the one we’re having. Then something else will become manifest: When the design performance limitations of utility systems come into play, it will always be in the interest of politicians and utility executives to change the subject to global warming."

simonh 6y ago
>The guilty party will be our choice not to invest in pipelines and backup gas plants... The major cause of the outages was that 40% of their gas plants failing due to frozen pipes.
- soneil 6y ago
  There's a lot that can be solved there just by adding storage. I won't pretend it's a silver bullet, the only silver bullet here is the much more vague "invest in your infrastructure like your economy depends on it" - but Texas is so resource-rich that it treats supply as a solved problem, and has very little buffer storage between gas supply and gas plants. "Just-in-time logistics" carries risks and rewards, and a large part of what we're seeing here is those risks.
  - sanp 6y ago
    How is not winterizing equipment JIT?
    - soneil 6y ago
      It's not - I'm not trying to pretend this is the only problem or the only solution. It's just one facet of a wider problem (as is winterizing). Anyone who tells you there's only one problem here is either being naive, or hand-wavy (eg, the problem is investment. I do believe that stands, but it's terribly hand-wavy). Texas' overall pipeline, for gas at least, is a pretty straight connection of supplier to consumer - which is the equivalence I'm drawing to JIT logistics. Any fluctuation at the supply (which is most the winterization issues) is a direct risk to the consumer. Buffers in the distribution reduce risk to the consumer. Winterization reduces risk at supplier. Neither exists in a vacuum, they both contribute to the overall resilience of the system.
- peterwoerner 6y ago
  There were no major causes it was a systemetic failure across all sectors due to nothing being winterized. Gas failed, coal failed, wind failed, solar failed, the grid failed. Its politics to point only at gas or only at renewables, it was systematic, which might be what you are saying.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Sure, that’s fair, I’m just saying the biggest single reason for losing power was gas plant failures. I’m refuting the idea that that was a particular failure of renewables. I would agree supply continuity means renewables are not usually a complete solution, but that’s a very different argument and not relevant to this incident.
    - edbob 6y ago
      You say that 40% of the gas plants failed. I'm sure you're also aware that wind was only able to produce 15-25% of its capacity, and it was at the lower end of that range during the cold nights when temperatures were below 0°F. Your framing in the GGP makes it sound like everything can be blamed on gas plants, and completely ignores wind output collapsing to 15% of capacity. As a world leader in wind capacity, we can't just ignore our abysmal wind generation situation by pointing fingers at other energy sources which performed much better relative to their share of capacity.
milofeynman 6y ago
Renewables weren't what caused the Texas blackouts. This is a GOP taking point to distract from their deregulation to the point of failure. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...
- barbacoa 6y ago
  Bad regulation is not the same as deregulation.
tgflynn 6y ago
Power plants in the Northeast don't go down when the weather gets cold.

simonh 6y ago

>The guilty party will be our choice not to invest in pipelines and backup gas plants... The major cause of the outages was that 40% of their gas plants failing due to frozen pipes.

soneil 6y ago
There's a lot that can be solved there just by adding storage. I won't pretend it's a silver bullet, the only silver bullet here is the much more vague "invest in your infrastructure like your economy depends on it" - but Texas is so resource-rich that it treats supply as a solved problem, and has very little buffer storage between gas supply and gas plants. "Just-in-time logistics" carries risks and rewards, and a large part of what we're seeing here is those risks.
- sanp 6y ago
  How is not winterizing equipment JIT?
  - soneil 6y ago
    It's not - I'm not trying to pretend this is the only problem or the only solution. It's just one facet of a wider problem (as is winterizing). Anyone who tells you there's only one problem here is either being naive, or hand-wavy (eg, the problem is investment. I do believe that stands, but it's terribly hand-wavy). Texas' overall pipeline, for gas at least, is a pretty straight connection of supplier to consumer - which is the equivalence I'm drawing to JIT logistics. Any fluctuation at the supply (which is most the winterization issues) is a direct risk to the consumer. Buffers in the distribution reduce risk to the consumer. Winterization reduces risk at supplier. Neither exists in a vacuum, they both contribute to the overall resilience of the system.
peterwoerner 6y ago
There were no major causes it was a systemetic failure across all sectors due to nothing being winterized. Gas failed, coal failed, wind failed, solar failed, the grid failed. Its politics to point only at gas or only at renewables, it was systematic, which might be what you are saying.
- simonh 6y ago
  Sure, that’s fair, I’m just saying the biggest single reason for losing power was gas plant failures. I’m refuting the idea that that was a particular failure of renewables. I would agree supply continuity means renewables are not usually a complete solution, but that’s a very different argument and not relevant to this incident.
  - edbob 6y ago
    You say that 40% of the gas plants failed. I'm sure you're also aware that wind was only able to produce 15-25% of its capacity, and it was at the lower end of that range during the cold nights when temperatures were below 0°F. Your framing in the GGP makes it sound like everything can be blamed on gas plants, and completely ignores wind output collapsing to 15% of capacity. As a world leader in wind capacity, we can't just ignore our abysmal wind generation situation by pointing fingers at other energy sources which performed much better relative to their share of capacity.

milofeynman 6y ago

Renewables weren't what caused the Texas blackouts. This is a GOP taking point to distract from their deregulation to the point of failure. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...

barbacoa 6y ago
Bad regulation is not the same as deregulation.

tgflynn 6y ago

Power plants in the Northeast don't go down when the weather gets cold.