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I don't buy their security excuse. Oh you don't want people to know you weren't cutting power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure buildings? No shit.

by Rapzid 5y ago

I don't buy their security excuse. Oh you don't want people to know you weren't cutting power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure buildings? No shit. There's something else they are hiding IMHO. Perhaps it includes answers to how the few million without power is either a BS number, or an explanation as to why my city alone(which owns a power company and had enough power generation for its citizens/owners) had 1-2/3 of the resident without power for days.. If only about 1/10th of the state was without power why did the rolling blackouts stop rolling for so many people? We essentially "took one for the team". My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence.

bsder 5y ago
> My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence. I'd call you Captain Obvious(tm), but this is the Texas Laboratory for Shitty Government (to paraphrase Molly Ivins) we're talking about. Things they are likely hiding: 1) The grid is shit and has no control granularity. The granularity is sufficiently high that they couldn't disconnect enough load. Too many things are on the same circuits as the essential things. To fix this requires new power feeds (read: expensive copper wire) and the controls to run the smaller granularity. Nobody wants to to pony up the cash to fix this, so this will not get fixed. 2) Factories aren't connected with controls ERCOT couldn't summarily disconnect manufacturing plants with controls and had to fiddle with pricing games to finally force the plants to disconnect. The fact that people were without power but manufacturing plants still had power will make some people upset. But, don't worry, they'll still vote for Republicans. 3) The "critical" portions of the grid are now larger than the "non-critical" At least in the winter, residential simply just isn't pulling enough load to be able to stop a grid collapse. People have energy efficient residences. Consequently, essential things like your water treatment plant are consuming an amount of energy that takes a lot of residences to match. The only way to fix this is to keep fuel and backup turbine generators on-site to allow the plant to keep working after it disconnects. This costs money, so nobody will do it. The whole point of Texas not being on the national grid is so that the pieces of the grid don't have to spend money and be useful when things go to shit.
- smolder 5y ago
  Granularity being high implies a high number of grains; I think you meant low granularity.
LorenPechtel 5y ago
I can see a security issue--are all critical infrastructure buildings listed as such? I can see this exposing hidden facilities.

by Rapzid 5y ago

bsder 5y ago

> My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence. I'd call you Captain Obvious(tm), but this is the Texas Laboratory for Shitty Government (to paraphrase Molly Ivins) we're talking about. Things they are likely hiding: 1) The grid is shit and has no control granularity. The granularity is sufficiently high that they couldn't disconnect enough load. Too many things are on the same circuits as the essential things. To fix this requires new power feeds (read: expensive copper wire) and the controls to run the smaller granularity. Nobody wants to to pony up the cash to fix this, so this will not get fixed. 2) Factories aren't connected with controls ERCOT couldn't summarily disconnect manufacturing plants with controls and had to fiddle with pricing games to finally force the plants to disconnect. The fact that people were without power but manufacturing plants still had power will make some people upset. But, don't worry, they'll still vote for Republicans. 3) The "critical" portions of the grid are now larger than the "non-critical" At least in the winter, residential simply just isn't pulling enough load to be able to stop a grid collapse. People have energy efficient residences. Consequently, essential things like your water treatment plant are consuming an amount of energy that takes a lot of residences to match. The only way to fix this is to keep fuel and backup turbine generators on-site to allow the plant to keep working after it disconnects. This costs money, so nobody will do it. The whole point of Texas not being on the national grid is so that the pieces of the grid don't have to spend money and be useful when things go to shit.

smolder 5y ago
Granularity being high implies a high number of grains; I think you meant low granularity.

LorenPechtel 5y ago

I can see a security issue--are all critical infrastructure buildings listed as such? I can see this exposing hidden facilities.