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After the TX grid failure last winter, it's probably not a coincidence that Samsung's new facility will be near ERCOT's operation center in Taylor, which manage
by josaka 5y ago
After the TX grid failure last winter, it's probably not a coincidence that Samsung's new facility will be near ERCOT's operation center in Taylor, which manages the TX grid, and will likely be the last load to shed when the grid's stressed. Used to work in the Austin fab, and the amount of money lost per minute in a power failure is mind boggling. The tax breaks Taylor offered ($314m) are not that different from what Samsung was reported to have lost due to the grid failure ($270m).
- 0_____0 5y agotangentially related bit of trivium... when i was house hunting a looked at a house across from a fire station, and upon doing research about what it's like to live across from one, found that a.) they tend not to blast sirens upon exiting the station, in contrast to living near a hospital with an ED, and b.) the power grid segments that fire stations are on have priority and are less likely to lose power during blackouts.
- shortstuffsushi 5y agoI wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location, a good friend of mine lived right next to one and it seemed you couldn't go 15 minutes without being drown out by them heading out.
- mindcrime 5y agoI wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location, In my experience (former firefighter here), it absolutely does. It also varies by call type, time of day, etc. So if we got a call at 2:00 AM and there was no traffic on the road near the station, we might leave the station with no siren out of respect for the people trying to sleep in the homes very close to the station. This would be more true if the call was a lower priority call in the first place. OTOH though, if the call as "residential structure fire with occupants reported trapped" our focus would not be on sleeping neighbors and there's a better chance that we'd be getting on the Q pretty much right out the door. Another factor for us was that our station was right next to an intersection that was very busy at times, and known for many traffic accidents. So any call where we had to turn left (towards the intersection) out of the parking lot, there was a better chance we'd be hitting the siren and air-horn pretty much right from the jump. Anyway, yeah, net-net, this is going to vary based on lots of factors: department policy / culture, geography, time, traffic, etc, yadda yadda.
- 41b696ef1113 5y ago>getting on the Q pretty much right out the door Q?
- howdydoo 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q2B
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoIf the fire station is located on a busy road or near a blind curve, turning on the siren when exiting might be a good policy. Out on a county road with good sight lines and low traffic? They can wait until they're going at a hazardous speed or intersection. My main concern would be all of the communications equipment they typically have. Being that close to high powered transmitters can cause annoying interference.
- mynameisash 5y agoNot just a good policy -- my wife is a former EMT & firefighter in MN, and at least there, apparently it's the law that fire trucks blast their horns at every intersection. Whether this is required when they leave the fire hall and turn onto the first road, I don't know.
- ddingus 5y agoA conversation may yield better too. If they know they are waking a day sleeper, for example. I know I would attempt one. Try nice and some charm and see what comes of it. May end up popular with neighbors.
- shortstuffsushi 5y agoHe's since moved, I'm not sure if he had spoken to them, but I think you're right that it would have made him a hero of the area. This was a pretty densely residential area of Waukesha, WI - the fire department near the airport.
- ddingus 5y agoWell, maybe a passerby benefits from this exchange.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoIn NJ they go off all the time to alert the volunteers not at the station, and it's used for all emergencies, not just fires that need trucks to roll out.
- pewpew_ 5y agoI live in NJ, directly across the street from a fire station. I also occasionally work nights to connect with team mates in other time zones. You will always see the flashing lights but they have never blasted the sirens at night.
- jws 5y agoMy office is adjacent to a fire station. The policy has changed over the years. They used to use the sirens all the time. Now they almost never use the sirens when they leave. In a way that makes it more disturbing when they do, you know there's a reason. Other things which are bothersome about a firehouse… • They put the communications radio on some sort of loud speaker sometimes, so you get to listen to all the calls in the city. • They have some sort of turbine that runs a lot. Maybe a hose dryer? I haven't gone to ask, but when I used to do audio recordings there were days we couldn't record because of it. • Their backup generator optimizes efficiency by minimizing the muffler. The tests are pretty loud. • The building department made me block up the windows on their side because I was too close to the property line and a fire might spread to the fire station. I say if the fire department can't keep fire from coming out my window and setting fire to their building 60 feet away, that's at least partly their fault. :-) • They are a multi-tier bureaucracy. When their tree slowly fell over on to my building it took many months to get them to admit it was their tree and maybe they should cut it down. Lots of finger pointing between the fire department and various city levels and a few "dead parrot" conversations with different functionaries.
- emodendroket 5y agoI used to live a mile or two away from a hospital and getting the lights back on before everyone else was nice.
- m0zg 5y ago> the power grid segments that fire stations are on have priority and are less likely to lose power during blackouts So do large grocery stores, for obvious reasons.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoI lived in an area that lost power every time there was a stiff breeze. This was back in the 1990s, when we still used telephone modems. I blew up 3 of them. 2, even with surge protectors. But power came back quickly, because I was on the same trunk as the fire station.
- bell-cot 5y agoThis...but did Samsung quietly negotiate a "any further energy supply f*ck-ups are 100% on YOUR dime" deal with the State of Texas, or what? By several accounts, the TX grid got darn close to collapse last winter - at which point "ERCOT Op Center is next door, and we get top priority" would not get you a single erg.
- Kaytaro 5y agoI was surprised the power outage affected Samsung because in DFW the outage only affected residential areas. I didn't see a single commercial/industrial space without power including fully lit empty parking lots.
- 88840-8855 5y agoWhat finance guy will ever approve this? I doubt that the service agreement would ever be approved with that clause.
- kurthr 5y agoLOL, the current political heads for the state of Texas (and county of Taylor) will happily trade future liability of their constituents for investment now (and kickbacks later). Honestly, I think Samsung's management is more comfortable in this sort of "political" environment than many others. If you watch local news reporting, it's hilarious that they (politicians) have no idea what the "factory" does. I'm personally highly doubtful that a fab which hasn't broken ground will be producing viable 5nm at the 2H of 2024 as claimed (or cyber trucks for that matter).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- awsthro00945 5y agoI really doubt proximity to the ERCOT center has anything to do with it. The new facility isn't close enough at all to the ERCOT center to be on the same grid segment. And with a new facility like this that is in the middle of a field outside of town, the new fab will be built on its own grid segment anyway, completely separate from the rest of Taylor and the ERCOT center. Taylor was chosen because that area (northeast of Austin, just south of Taylor) is one of the last areas near Austin that has abundant amounts of wide open fields ready to be developed. They also got a good deal on the water usage, and of course the tax breaks from Williamson County.
- seltzered_ 5y agoDo you have any thoughts on how water availability will be in the years/decades to come and how a fab would impact it and the communities depending on it? My understanding is when you cross east past round rock towards Hutto/Taylor, the water aquifer being used changes to use water piped over from Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer.
- awsthro00945 5y agoNewer fabs like this recycle a huge portion of their water. I did some back of the napkin math a few weeks ago and the amount of water that the fab will be drawing (after accounting for the recycling) will be about the same as the water usage of an equivalently-sized suburban neighborhood. So while water usage is definitely a concern, I'm not sure that this fab is a bigger concern than your typical neighborhoods or farms.
- msisk6 5y agoThe ERCOT campus has their own generation capability along with sitting between two distribution grids. Same with their DR site in Bastrop. In the case of a black start condition (grid totally down), ERCOT would need to come up first to coordinate the grid restoration. Taylor is an ideal place for a large manufacturing operation since it's close to major highways and railroads, not too far from Austin, and land is very cheap.
- geoffcline 5y ago> land is very cheap *was I'm between Taylor and Austin (Bagdad Rd, Leander). 1 acre lots along this strip have gone from ~$115k a year ago, to some recent sales at ~325k.
- 5faulker 5y agoAs more and more companies start to invest in Texas there is more demand in tigetening the grid to avoid future catastrophes.
- wonderwonder 5y agoThey are setting up fairly close to Tesla. Wonder if they are working on a deal for Tesla to provide battery backup. Interestingly enough Austin, TX appears to be rapidly approaching SF status as a tech hub and may soon surpass them. Its an interesting thing to watch and really gives insight into how politics and taxes affect business and growth.
- nodicksplease 5y agocare to share any sources? or did you just make this up?
- wonderwonder 5y agoMake what up, The Tesla link? I just asked the question, I have no info either way, notice I said "Wonder if".
- nodicksplease 5y ago> rapidly approaching sf status. That should be a quantifiable metric?
- wonderwonder 5y agoAustin has seen a 40+ % increase in tech jobs in a decade and has recently attracted major companies like Tesla and oracle to headquarter there while the majority of FAANG companies are building large campuses there. This site does a pretty good job: https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ Article from the SF Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Austin-COVID-tech-migration-silicon-valley-16315291.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Austin-COVID-tec... Hopefully that addresses your question as to why I hold this opinion.
- shmatt 5y agoYes, they made it up According to wikipedia/some google-fu SV has just above double the high tech jobs as Austin
- samstave 5y agoTwo things: Terrorist #1: FOCUS ON THAT PLANT ANT TAKE IT OUT!! --- Second thing: WHY THE FUCK ARENT THESE COMPANIES BUILDING THEIR OWN POWER PLANTS?
- bloodyplonker22 5y agoThree things: why would a terrorist take it out when they could take out a ton of other higher priority targets? Why would a company waste tons of money to build a power plant when they could just use an existing power plant. It may not be 100% reliable, but it's a hell of a lot better than wasting tons of money building their own. Lastly, thanks for the completely nonsensical post and typing in all caps like it is a no-brainer when it's obviously not.
- samstave 5y agoAre you delusional on the actual value of targets? Clearly so. Companies all over the WORLD conquer resources for their benefit, If I have to explain this to you then, [CAPS INTENTIONAL] - GO FUCKING LEARN ABOUT HISTORY YOU FUCKING MORON. (3 months old account talking to an elder...)
- zrm 5y agoDoesn't it cost less than that amount of money to have on-site backup power?
- johnchristopher 5y agoIsn't Samsung big enough to simply ask permissions to build their own nuclear reactor at that point ? Or wind turbine farms or whatever ?
- hutzlibu 5y agoA new nuclear plant cost billions and takes years to get permission and construction to complete. I assume they rather want to make chips, soon.
- johnchristopher 5y agoWell, for the sake of entertainment let's see: I suppose Samsung still want to be able to manufacture products in its Texan factories for more than 5 years (which according to my small European contry is roughly the time it took to build a nuclear power plant in the 70's) and they have billions (oh and Apple too) and according to Google's first results: Companies that are planning new nuclear units are currently indicating that the total costs (including escalation and financing costs) will be in the range of $5,500/kW to $8,100/kW or between $6 billion and $9 billion for each 1,100 MW plant. So why not ? They'd control one more link in the supply chain.
- hutzlibu 5y ago"So why not ? They'd control one more link in the supply chain." Because operating a nuclear reactor is a whole different thing, than operating a chip plant and you usually want to focus your energy, not spread it out. And when the goal is, to just have blackout save energy for your chip plant, then there are way cheaper, riskfree and faster solutions, like batteries, or gas generators.
- dboreham 5y agoReactors and wind farms still need a grid.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
- vesche 5y agoI doubt it. The land is just cheap and widely available over there. Also, they know workers will be attracted to being a short commute from Round Rock. The storm that caused the grid failure is a very rare occurrence ("100-year storm").
- bradknowles 5y agoWhich means that it will probably happen this year, too. And every year after this, thanks to the global catastrophic weather changes.
- geoduck14 5y agoIf you are that big of a deal, wouldn't you have your own power plant with reserve power? My university had 2 power plants. Surely it isn't that hard
- cplusplusfellow 5y agoIt has nothing to do with ERCOT presence, despite the social karma of referring to the “grid disaster.” There have been literally hundreds of other grid disasters in New York, Chicago, the entire state of California, and yet no one would be surprised if the plant showed up there. Why?
- jquery 5y agoBecause they aren't known for being racist backwaters that banned abortion?
- tiffanyh 5y agoLocation close to ERCOT is not the reason. Samsung for years has had a major facility outside of Austin. Samsung Austin Semiconductor https://goo.gl/maps/nX9BFxHoVMCVKBLL7 https://goo.gl/maps/nX9BFxHoVMCVKBLL7 And ERCOT is also based outside of Austin. Austin is also the state capital, centrally located & home of one of the nations largest universities (UT), who has a strong engineering & CS program graduating thousands of students per year. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that major companies have a significant presence in or around Austin.
- comboy 5y agoWhy not use generators like most data centers in case of power failure? Is energy usage that much higher?