re: Texas people: ERCOT warning

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If you did a root cause analysis on grid (lack of) reliability, it comes down poor choices made in generation sources. You can spin shite however you want, but that's the truth.

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I don’t need to do one. Because I have a copy of the RCA commissioned by ERCOT after the ice storms last year. The single issue is a lack of winterization. You have no fricking clue what you’re talking about.

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I thought brown outs from heat was just a communist state problem… hmmm

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It used to be. Sadly, California is sending their communists to other states en masse.

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It's the unpredicted demand increases, like this heat or a big freeze, where power suppliers can't keep up. And they can't keep excess capacity online for these unpredicted events since that would cut into their bottom line.

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With the heat this makes sense.

However, with the big freeze, there were regulatory issues iirc.

In short, the energy companies weren’t able to prepare for the freeze without incurring MASSIVE fines from Biden’s EPA (permission was needed and slow played).

I said at the time Abbot should have stepped in directly and told the EPA to frick off. He royally screwed up if I am remembering the details correctly. Lastly, Ted Cruz showed his true colors in that event as well. Cruz = RINO.

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Biden's America.* *Remember when shite like hurricanes and solar flares were Trumps fault? Well now it's Sleepy Joe's turn.


Texas has a completely independent power
grid that isn’t connected to any other state or federal system.

Not surprising, but you have no idea what you're talking about. ERCOT has been shitting the bed for years as the population of TX increases.

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You are so dumb you don't get my comment at all. It's NOT Biden's fault but if Trump were in office he would get blamed. Just like hurricanes and solar flares aren't anyone's fault. Look past your Progressive overlords and read the post again loser.

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Kindly shut the frick up.

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Kindly frick off.

I have a novel idea. INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES!!

This is the 21st century.

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This was true to a large extent, however, weren’t there issues with a request to ramp up energy production that was EVENTUALLY approved by the EPA, but only AFTER it was too late to actually implement those measures?

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It didn’t have any impact. There are several ways to get around that including an order from the governor. Also, I think it was approved within hours of request. The issue was units freezing up. Well heads, transfer pumps, cooling pumps, turbines, modules, etc. Every gen type lost some production due to freezing..

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It didn’t have any impact. There are several ways to get around that including an order from the governor.

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I stated as much. Abbot totally shite the bed.

However, you didn’t address the MASSIVE fines that the energy companies were afraid of 10’s of million and then some). Money, like as not, was a factor.

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Also, I think it was approved within hours of request.

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Like 24 of them? This was at a time when minutes mattered. It was either intentionally slow played, or incompetence on a horrific scale (or both). You are minimizing the circumstances.

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The issue was units freezing up. Well heads, transfer pumps, cooling pumps, turbines, modules, etc. Every gen type lost some production due to freezing..

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Which is why time was of the essence.

A lot of people suffered as a result of poor decisions...starting with Biden’s EPA, Abbots lack of intestinal fortitude, ERCOT’s fear of fines, and Cruz’s disappearing act (or rather...that of his vacationing family).

if you say so. It was addressed in the AAR and was a nothing burger.

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Like 24 of them?

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This is wrong. The request wasn’t time stamped but the notification to market participants of request and to begin ramp up prep was sent a 2/14 17:58. The DOE approval came in at 2/14 19:41.

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Now if Texas was part of the national grid,

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Where did this myth come from?

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In short, the energy companies weren’t able to prepare for the freeze without incurring MASSIVE fines from Biden’s EPA (permission was needed and slow played).

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I would like to know where you’re getting this. The freeze occurred less than a month after Biden’s inauguration. Are you saying generators were starting to winterize their facilities in late January?

Winterization of power plants really isn’t all that complicated. The vast majority of cold weather trips occur due to instrumentation problems. Example: impulse tube on a boiler pressure transmitter freezes, causing an incorrect pressure reading and the boiler trips on a pressure safety high.

Preventing this is relatively simple. You identify critical instruments, and you heat trace/insulate them. You can install pre-traced/pre-insulated tubing bundles or you can add heat tracing and insulation to the existing instrument tubing. For manifolds/transmitters you install either insulation blankets or hard-shell enclosures.

These are not difficult fixes, nor are they particularly costly. Instrument winterization is standard practice in most US climates. The problem is that the power industry is notoriously cheap and plants tend to not prepare for contingencies unless there is a clear regulatory requirement. When you look at refineries, chemical plants, and power plants, power plants are almost always at the bottom in terms of developing robust systems.

I used to chalk this up as a consequence of the way power plants are regulated - since public utilities commissions often have to approve spend/rate increases, my theory was that restriction in the market led to this “cheapness.” However, the situation in Texas kind of indicates otherwise. The fact that the same problems occur in a “deregulated” market points to this being more of a systemic problem in the industry. Plants simply don’t think the cost of improving reliability outweighs the risk of downtime.

The natural gas production shortages during the freeze are a bit of a different topic. But as I understand it, many of the wells and gathering facilities didn’t have major problems until they started losing power.

In any case, I’m not sure what the EPA has to do with it. Maybe there’s something I’m missing.