The Great Texas Blackout of ‘21

Post Reply New Topic

Hospitals in Austin are running out of water, forcing some to transfer patients

In this disaster, Abbot is like the Captain of the Titanic, and Cruz is like the first man into the lifeboats.

That mayor is an absolute idiot. He deserves all criticism that comes his way.

The story of how Texas was brought to its knees by crippling cold weather leaving millions without power is a complex one, yet entirely predictable and avoidable.

The details matter, so it is important to know the long story, but let’s start with the short version: For years, Texas’ grid operator (ERCOT) has overestimated the ability to maintain a reliable grid without a sufficient supply buffer, known as a “reserve margin.” That margin is the difference between demand for electricity and what the grid can produce. When demand exceeds production, you get blackouts. That buffer has been shrinking because reliable sources of energy have been retired, few reliable plants have been constructed, and the grid is depending more and more on weather-dependent renewable energy that repeatedly fails to perform when we need it most.

When wind and solar production predictably dropped as the winter storm hit, the buffer collapsed. ERCOT needed to execute a series of balancing measures that would have protected the grid. But it did not act soon enough, which caused many more gas and some coal power plants in the system to “trip.” (Think of it as a circuit breaker that triggers to prevent a fire or other emergency at your house when there is a system imbalance.) Other weather-related issues caused problems too but ERCOT’s failure to act sooner was a major factor.

Usually, a system trip wouldn’t last long and we’d have power back in a few hours. But this time, many of the units that were tripped off the system had difficulty coming back online for a variety of reasons, including the fact that some were not designed to be taken off and put back on the system quickly, as well as other cold weather issues that exacerbated the problem.

So when people blame ERCOT for not acting quickly, they’re right. And so are the people who say that both renewable energy and fossil energy plants are not generating what they should. But it doesn’t begin there. Our overdependence on unreliable energy that caused the razor thin reserve margins started the ball rolling years ago.

Source: The Texas Power Outage Started With Bad Policy

So ERCOT can be seen as analogous to the designers and builder of the Titanic.  Sad ... very, very sad.

North Texas should be accustomed to snow...especially the Panhandle.

I can certainly understand how places like San Antonio are not accustomed to snow.

Scientists have been warning everyone for years and years that something like this is going to happen, hot places will get colder and warm places will get warmer.

Texas didn't listen. I don't blame the residents, I feel bad for them. I am mad at whoever should have done something about it to be prepared. I wonder if any lawsuits will happen. So much damage done in buildings and residents, people freezing to death or dying from carbon dioxide, even animals have frozen to death because they are not nature to cold.

And this disaster is being compared to the Titanic but this is all happening on land.

This is what happens folks when you don't believe in climate change. You have been warned.

Timeline of utility restoration depends on how rich and white you are.

River Oaks and West University, the two wealthiest parts of Houston, never lost power or water.

The Third Ward and Sunnyside, both of which are predominantly poor blacks, will probably come last.

This is exactly how Abbott planned it. I bet Joel Osteen is laughing in his huge River Oaks mansion.

It is claimed that Texas would be better off as part of a wider grid. The obvious one would be MISO, to which there is already a small interconnector. However MISO has been having severe difficulties due to the cold spell.

As with Texas, MISO is currently relying almost entirely on coal, gas and nuclear power. If they had been operating with a quarter of the power from wind, as Texas was last week, I suspect that they would have been experiencing the same blackouts as Texas has had. It is also not much bigger capacity wise than Texas, which has been running at around 60 GW this week. I suspect that any extra demand from Texas would quickly destabilise the MISO grid.

Source: Midwest Have No Surplus Power For Texas

Someday, the sun will eject a solar mass ejection similar to the Carrington Event of 1859. It will damage the large power transformers across much of the higher/middle latitudes of the U.S. These units are unique one-of-a-kind multi-million dollar transformers that typically have a lead time of over a year for manufacturing. As a result, much of the U.S. will be plunged into darkness. Not for a few days but rather for a year. Losing electricity for a day or two is an inconvenience, but in our modern world losing electrical power for a year will produce a great cataclysm.

But like most things, the world pays no attention to this threat. Governments ignore it. But someday it will catch up with us. The writing is on the wall.

If I were at a point in my life where I needed aid in such extreme weather without electricity and my elected official told me that he and the government owe me NOTHING, I can say right back "Fine then, we owe YOU nothing." We can stop paying taxes which pay their salaries. We might go to jail, but I'll have no regerts. No one pushes their Darwinism on me like that. They want a perfect society of super duper super humans made tough through social, financial, and political Darwinism and people in Hell want Neapolitan ice cream.