-8c in texas ...thats gotta be a marketing topic?

[chuckChuck]

Weather risk and storm damage is a risk factor in every electrical system. There was lots of risk before wind and solar systems ever came into the picture.

[Guest]

I will try to dumb it down for you
Man CANNOT control the weather
They sure as hell can’t predict it
So the power source HAS to be as reliable as possible to mitigate the variables that the boss throws in
Something that generates power only when the sun shines or wind blows and doesn’t work in an ice storm , etc , are nothing more than a pipe dream

[chuckChuck]

What caused your recent outage?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What caused your recent outage?

Touche. Well played sir.

[dmlfarmer]

Now just imagine, if instead of wasting billions fighting climate change, we had invested an equal amount in mitigation efforts for actual weather events that actually happen. Making our infrastrucure more reliable and secure. More back up, actually studying climate history and preparing for the extremes of all types which have been known to occur.

Who is the we you are talking about? Texas is the most deregulated and privatized electrical system in NA. The private ownership of generation and retailing of electricity made the business decision to not build excess capacity, interlink with out of state generation, or winterize the system for adverse weather in order to maximize profits. Do you feel deregulation went to far in the privatization of electricity? Do you feel the government should be subsidizing a privatized electrical system to build capacity/infrastructure? Any comments on this quote: "The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union. It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances." ED HIRS, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

[Guest]

What caused your recent outage?

We live in an area that can’t survive without heat
Let them play these games and test this shit where it isn’t life or death
And worry about cities where you can’t see across the street
Leave us alone she’s a tough go here at the best of times but we are doing pretty good
Today I can almost see all the way to seldomseens place about 15-20 miles
Tired of people playing games with our lives and people sticking up for their bullshit

[Guest]

What caused your recent outage?

That was a good one tho chuck
Made me chuckle
Needed that today in this cold SOB country

[malleefarmer]

8 pm here watching evening news crikey some shots from Louisiana even there frozen.

A balmy 40 c here tommorow

[TOM4CWB]

8 pm here watching evening news crikey some shots from Louisiana even there frozen.

A balmy 40 c here tommorow

'Global Warming' is a hypocritical religion that common sense cannot square, logic cannot explain... who's faith is deception.

We would be wise to be creative, while conserving the many special blessings we are endowed with;

The failure of those responsible is obvious... it should have been obvious Texas is not immune to this...

Winter storm warnings issued ahead of significant late-summer snowstorm

By Courtney Travis, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Sep. 5, 2020 9:01 AM MST | Updated Sep. 8, 2020 11:53 AM MST

https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/winter-storm-warnings-issued-ahead-of-significant-late-summer-snowstorm/808166

Roadways are likely to initially be wet given the magnitude of the heat ahead of the storm. As the cold air arrives with the storm and the ground begins to cool, however, roads and sidewalks could turn slick early on Tuesday. Pedestrians and motorists alike should be aware of the risk for slippery travel.


Snow starting to cover roadways in Montana on Monday afternoon. (Montana Department of Transportation (DOT) camera)
The weight of the snowfall on fully leafed trees could cause limbs and branches to break. In addition to damage to trees, fallen limbs could also lead to more widespread power outages.

In addition to the snow, this storm will usher in a temperature swing of as much as 65 degrees Fahrenheit in less than 48 hours.


A dip in the jet stream will allow cold air from Canada to rush southward and bring record-challenging low temperatures in cities like Billings, Montana, Cheyenne, Wyoming and Denver.

This surge of winterlike air will bring a stark temperature contrast from Monday into Tuesday. Denver dropped more than 50 degrees in 12 hours from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, from 93 to 37. Denver had just set an all-time record high for September of 101 on Saturday.

Cheyenne also experienced the drastic drop in temperature. Following a high temperature of 86 degrees on Monday afternoon, temperatures dove down to 32 degrees just 12 hours later, early on Tuesday morning.

Cheyenne's low early Tuesday is forecast to bottom out in the upper 20s, near the 25 degree record set in 1962.

Temperatures this low have not been felt since early May in most locations.


Cold air will continue to rush southward through the middle of the week into New Mexico, northern Texas and Oklahoma. A blast of air this drastically cool is unusual for the South Central states for so early in the season. A charge of cool air in this manner in over the southern High Plains is often called a "blue norther."

'Breaking weather records: The Great Blue Norther

VIDEO: Remembering record-setting cold front in Tulsa
By: Megan McClellan, FOX23 Severe Weather Team
Updated: November 11, 2020 - 5:54 AM
A strong cold front moved across the United States on November 11, 1911 that drastically dropped temperatures across the country and set many records.
In Oklahoma, not only were record highs set ahead of the front, but record lows were also set behind the front.
Some of the more interesting facts;

Tulsa hit a record high of 85° (also hit in 1989)
The temperature by the following morning was down to 15° (still the record low)
OKC set a record high of 83° and by midnight a record low of 17° (both still valid)
Independence, KS the temperature dropped from 83° to 33° in one-hour.
Winds gusted over 60 mph behind the front creating a dust storm across parts of Oklahoma
Janesville, WI was struck by an F4 tornado and within hours was experiencing blizzard conditions and a temperature near 0°
At least 15 tornadoes occurred across the upper-Midwest
This incredibly strong cold front is known as "The Great Blue Norther of November 11, 1911".
The FOX23 Severe Weather Team is talking digging through the numbers to see just how rare these types of events are and if we could see one like this again.'

[oneoff]

I will try to dumb it down for you
Man CANNOT control the weather
They sure as hell can’t predict it
So the power source HAS to be as reliable as possible to mitigate the variables that the boss throws in
Something that generates power only when the sun shines or wind blows and doesn’t work in an ice storm , etc , are nothing more than a pipe dream

IN OTHER WORDS
Anything that generates power only when the sun shines or wind blows and doesn’t work in an ice storm , etc , can contribute nothing to solutions required.

[oneoff]

So having too much electricity is the problem? You have been telling us the opposite, that we wont have enough! Make up your mind.

Cant you just turn down some gas or other dispatchable sources when there are lots of renewable sources and ramp up the other sources when renewables are low? That's what system operators are designing their systems to do. I am assuming they have this figured out at the AESO in Alberta?

But don't let that stop you and your friends on Agrisilly blaming renewables every time the power goes out. Even on systems where there are hardly any renewables. LOL

An emphatic "No". to ham stringing base load production. In practice what happens is dispatchable sources schedule maintenance periods; or are decommissioned or not able to be brought back online; especially on short notice. They become "Uneconomic"
Supposedly not needed. Until found absolutely essential. Like WTK happened?

If you want to know why the natural gas system failed in Texas; numerous operators from cooler to colder climates could diagnose the problem in an instant. Freeze ups from wellhead to point of use occur within hours of temperature changes both a bit above and below the freezing point (0C or 32F). The cure is relatively minute methanol injections. Much preferably...before the fact.

For those who need to be told more than once. Prevention of the problem is so much easier; unless never needed. Screw up and the Texas situation happens. It is not an accident; it can be for seen; even guaranteed at first temperature changes through and near the freezing point of collecting moisture; and first at points of gas flow restriction .

This provides a lesson for renewable energy promoters too. No energy for periods where there is no wind or sun. Ergo imminent problems if not fully prepared. That shouldn't be on heads of primary base load producers. Rest of intermittent electrical supply possibility also can't be guaranteed by anyone because of obvious valid reasons.
Again; it should be up to those who claim they can produce so much cheaper. Let them foot the bill and be responsible for any addiditional unreliability they add to participation in the grid. After all they claim to be able to be showing the profits; and should be responsible for added complications of systems.

[oneoff]

Weather risk and storm damage is a risk factor in every electrical system. There was lots of risk before wind and solar systems ever came into the picture.

See above post.... It needs to be read at least another time.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/texas-power-outages-alberta-1.5917052 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/texas-power-outages-alberta-1.5917052

Lessons for Alberta from the Texas power blackout

Everything is bigger in Texas, even the power market spikes
Joshua Rhodes and Blake Shaffer · for CBC News · Posted: Feb 17, 2021 2:11 PM MT | Last Updated: February 17

This column is an opinion from Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin, and Blake Shaffer, a professor at the University of Calgary.

The frigid Arctic air that gripped Alberta for much of the last two weeks has descended on the U.S. Deep South. But unlike Alberta, Texas and its surrounding regions aren't designed for this type of weather.

Buildings are designed to shed heat, not keep it in. Power systems are built to meet the extreme peaks of sweltering summer heat, not mid-winter cold.

Pushed to the brink, with record-breaking demand for this time of year coupled with power supply failures across the spectrum of fuel types, the Texas grid was forced to shut off pockets of power to millions of consumers around the state in an effort to ration available supply and avoid a catastrophic, system-wide blackout.

In short, it's an event that will be discussed for decades by electricity traders. It's the stuff of nightmares for power market designers and grid operators, and a dangerous situation for millions of Texans without heat.

So what happened? Who's to blame? And what lessons can Alberta take from this event?
What happened in Texas

In essence, the situation in Texas came down to classic supply and demand.

At one point, all 254 counties in the state of Texas were under winter storm warnings. These historic, state-wide, cold temperatures led to record demand for energy that drove electricity prices from their typical mid-$30s into the thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour, and natural gas from $3 to several hundred dollars per MMBtu.

When there still wasn't enough supply, the electricity grid had to initiate rotating outages that have lasted for days, leaving many Texans in the cold.

On paper, Texas had the capacity to manage this record demand. But the Texas grid is built for summer: it measures its reserve margins and resource adequacy against being able to provide electricity on hot summer afternoons when the entire state is demanding power for air conditioning.

One major takeaway from this experience is how ill-prepared Texas's infrastructure is for these extreme cold events, and how that differs from their ability to meet summer peaks.
Freezing temperatures and a power system not designed for them resulted in a lack of gas supply and soaring natural gas prices during the Texas power outage. (Blake Shaffer)

Simply put, Texas's infrastructure doesn't invest in the type of insulation and cold weather protection that is the norm in Alberta — because by and large, they rarely need it.

In the end, many natural gas wells and other infrastructure froze in Texas and surrounding regions, limiting supply in this time of high demand. Other thermal assets, such as coal and natural gas power plants, also experienced issues with frozen water intakes, and some wind capacity has been lost to icing.

This squeeze on not just one, but two, energy sectors (gas and electricity) that are closely interconnected has pushed both of them beyond what they were designed to handle, causing both to fail.

It foreshadows the future for Alberta. We skated through our recent cold snap with nary a suggestion of system emergency, because our fuel delivery and power infrastructure is built for those types of extremes. However, it may be a far different story when we have to grapple with temperatures in the 30 C and even 40 C range in summers to come.
Who's to blame?

It's only natural in the aftermath of a serious event like the Texas power outage is that people will be quick to seek and assign blame. Many are all too eager to find any excuse to reinforce their pre-existing notions about the unreliability of wind, blaming the outages on a dearth of wind power.

But answers aren't so simple, and it will take time to fully dissect this event.

What we do know is that wind performed, for the most part, roughly as expected: a small fraction of its maximum capability, but roughly in line with what the Texas system counts on for reliability purposes in the winter.

Natural gas, oft-touted for its ability to provide reliability in power grids with large shares of renewables, was beset with struggles.

Freezing temps led to shut-in production in a system not designed for these temperatures. This resulted in a lack of gas supply and soaring natural gas prices — in some cases 100 times typical pricing. During the Texas outage event, over 30,000 MW of thermal power plants, or 35 per cent of thermal power capacity, was offline.
Alberta and Texas put their faith in the market when it comes to the power grid. Over the years, this has worked reasonably well. Alberta’s and Texas’s power markets tend to result in lower — but more volatile — prices. (Blake Shaffer)

In short, no single fuel is to blame, nor would a different market design have saved the day. Texas ended up in the proverbial perfect storm of having both an extreme demand shock and correlated supply failures at the same time.

Takeaways for Alberta

Alberta and Texas share many similarities in their power grids.

Both are historically based around fossil fuel generation, with recently growing shares of wind and solar. Both have limited electrical connections to their neighbours, leaving it largely up to themselves to manage their reliability. And both operate, uniquely in North America, under what is called an "energy-only" market — paying competitive generators solely for the energy they produce.

While the rest of the continent adds a layer of capacity payments to ensure sufficient power generating capability to keep the lights on, or relies on a traditional, regulated system of utilities (over-)building to meet their customers needs, Alberta and Texas put their faith in the market, letting wholesale power prices rise to what may seem at times astronomical levels.

more.....

[jazz]

There is no lesson for Ab from Texas. What an idiotic article. Ab has never had a province wide grid meltdown. The NG facilities are all winterized and coal is at the ready when needed. There are interconnections to BC and Sask and MB through Sask.

And wisely Ab has kept its idiotic green virtue signaling projects at a minimum.

The lesson is for all the woke crowd pushing net zero and renewables. Adding any type of renewable generation reliant on weather and susceptible to it at the same time makes it much more fragile and its the stupidest thing we could ever do.

[chuckChuck]

IN OTHER WORDS
Anything that generates power only when the sun shines or wind blows and doesn’t work in an ice storm , etc , can contribute nothing to solutions required.

System operators and designers know very well that solar and wind are intermittent and design enough back up into the system to cover off intermittent renewables.

What happened in Texas is demand went through the roof and the fossil fuel sources failed and wind and solar were still putting out a predictably small winter amount.

So the reality is the Texas was not prepared for an extreme winter weather event. Alberta on the other hand is well prepared for winter.