15 degrees, snowing [discussion on energy situation in Texas]

[SMAlset]

yes they do if you purchase them with anti icing system, which it seams texas hasn't... hopefully they will reconsider. don't know if anti icing can be retrofitted.

interesting @SMAlset, seems ice isn't a big problem in iowa.
"Because Iowa is blessed with drier ice, wind farms there haven’t had to invest in such elaborate measures".

While that has been the case for Iowa, the article referenced does mention wetter places like Scandinavia and Scotland:

“In wetter places like Scandinavia and Scotland, some turbines are filled with hot air while others have a special coating to prevent ice from forming. These winter-ready turbines cost about 5 percent more than regular turbines, and the heating process uses up some of their energy output, Stefan Skarp, who oversees wind power for Swedish utility Skellefteå Kraft, told Bloomberg News. Hu’s team is working on more energy-efficient technologies that could be cheaper.”

So is the 5% extra referenced for the winterizing
worth incurring compared to the cost of the resulting damage experienced without it and the overall disruption to businesses? Guess it depends who has to absorb all the damage/disruption costs. And we know utilities would pass that cost on to consumers anyway. I understand this will end up costing Texas over a billion. For those that will not have a home to live in for awhile where will they go? Will Texas see a larger population of poorer people? With the Arctic warming, will these polar vortexes become more common?

 

[SMAlset]

Texas will have a lot of questions to answer going forward. I would expect higher utility charges to pay to at least repair damages to current system and have to wonder if Texas will need to institute a State tax to support infrastructure improvements like other States have in place. How much gets passed on to end customers, how much apportioned to businesses? No one is going to be happy.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Some of the biggest earthquakes in the US have occurred not in typical earthquake country. Like in New Madrid, MO. In 1811 and 1812 its fault shook hard enough to temporarily reverse the flow of the Mississippi river and ring church bells in New England. So being prepared no matter where you live is wise.

yes, interesting you should say that. My relative in Oklahoma used to joke about me (and California) falling into the ocean when the BIG ONE hits. That was LONG ago. Ironically a few years ago, they started getting a LOT of earthquakes and damage. Some blame it on fracking, but whatever the reason, your point is well made. You never know if an earthquake can happen or where. I recall even having a couple earthquakes in Tennessee when growing up. They thought it would never happen there either.

 

[pdx_m3s]

yes they do if you purchase them with anti icing system, which it seams texas hasn't... hopefully they will reconsider. don't know if anti icing can be retrofitted.

interesting @SMAlset, seems ice isn't a big problem in iowa.
"Because Iowa is blessed with drier ice, wind farms there haven’t had to invest in such elaborate measures".

It's really not worth it until you're trying to support the entire grid with renewables. Texas' wind turbines were never intended to be a single point of failure (and they weren't NG was). What Texas needs are winterized NG turbines, wells, and distribution systems, as well as interconnects to other grids. I'd imagine interconnects would be cheaper than rebuilding the entire generation infrastructure.

 

[Feathermerchan]

Have a look at the South Texas Nuclear project. The turbines sit on an open deck. Not in a building. They had a trip on one unit due to controls freezing up.
Google Maps

 

[SageBrush]

With the Arctic warming, will these polar vortexes become more common?

Since I am not a climate scientist, I can only pass on what I read:

Polar vortex's (vortices ?) are expected to increase in frequency as the main ocean circulations are disrupted by ocean heating.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

...] the cold weather /.../ caused generators and other parts of Texas's energy infrastructure to fail and regulators have previously warned about the lack of preparedness when a 2011 cold snap caused power outages in the state.

[...]

However, the state had previously been warned about the issues in its infrastructure and what steps they could take to be better prepared for future cold weather situations.

After low temperatures battered the Southwest in 2011 -- resulting in the loss of power for 1.3 million customers across several states and rolling black outs for several million Texans -- the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation released a report recommending preventative measures to protect Texas's energy infrastructure from future extreme winter storms.

The 2011 report also notes that after a similar cold snap in 1989, recommendations to better prepare energy infrastructure for such weather went largely unheeded.

"[T]he answer is clearly that the corrective actions were not adequate, or were not maintained," the report says. "Generators were not required to institute cold weather preparedness, and efforts in that regard lapsed with the passage of time."

David Tuttle, a research associate in the Energy Institute at University of Texas at Austin, told CNN "[T]here is a fair criticism that the Texas generator fleet was not sufficiently winterized" but noted that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation did not mandate Texas to follow its recommendations.

"It looks like NERC made recommendations on best practices but did not make them mandatory," Tuttle said.

While key questions remain as to the extent these recommendations were implemented across the state, at least one Texas city took precautions that might have paid off. Following the freeze of 2011, El Paso winterized its power plants and this time, the city experienced minimal outages compared to the rest of the state. [My bold and underline.]

Source: Fact-checking the Texas energy-failure blame game - CNNPolitics

 

[SMAlset]

Source: Fact-checking the Texas energy-failure blame game - CNNPolitics

Pretty sure I have since read that the Governor said that it wasn’t due to solar/wind after getting more facts so corrected what he had previously stated.

 

[nwdiver]

Pretty sure I have since read that the Governor said that it wasn’t due to solar/wind after getting more facts so corrected what he had previously stated.

Depends on who he's speaking to. He blamed wind on a faux news interview AFTER he said it was gas constraints.

Anyone with at least a double digit IQ knows neither wind nor solar can possibly be to blame. It's just some kind of absurd performance art.

 

[jboy210]

yes, interesting you should say that. My relative in Oklahoma used to joke about me (and California) falling into the ocean when the BIG ONE hits. That was LONG ago. Ironically a few years ago, they started getting a LOT of earthquakes and damage. Some blame it on fracking, but whatever the reason, your point is well made. You never know if an earthquake can happen or where. I recall even having a couple earthquakes in Tennessee when growing up. They thought it would never happen there either.

Yep. When I was looking at the New Madrid, MO map I noticed how close it was to Tennessee and thought of you.

 

[nwdiver]

The Columbia Energy Exchange discussed the Texas fiasco in their latest podcast with Jesse Jenkins and Cheryl LaFleur. The SUPER-obvious point Jesse made was that Wind and Solar are fuel savers. Gas is firm supply meant to be relied on. The fact people can't get this straight is absurd. If you're burning more CH4 than you should... blame wind and solar. If your lights go out... blame gas. It's that simple.

Another point he made that might be less obvious is that their modeling consistently shows that wind and solar generally don't reduce the amount of firm capacity you need. If we need 1000GW of gas turbines with 20% renewable generation we'll probably STILL need ~1000GW of gas turbines wth 99% renewable generation. Those 1000GW of gas turbines will just produce 40TWh/yr instead of 3200TWh/yr.

 

[pdx_m3s]

The Columbia Energy Exchange discussed the Texas fiasco in their latest podcast with Jesse Jenkins and Cheryl LaFleur. The SUPER-obvious point Jesse made was that Wind and Solar are fuel savers. Gas is firm supply meant to be relied on. The fact people can't get this straight is absurd. If you're burning more CH4 than you should... blame wind and solar. If your lights go out... blame gas. It's that simple.

Another point he made that might be less obvious is that their modeling consistently shows that wind and solar generally don't reduce the amount of firm capacity you need. If we need 1000GW of gas turbines with 20% renewable generation we'll probably STILL need ~1000GW of gas turbines wth 99% renewable generation. Those 1000GW of gas turbines will just produce 40TWh/yr instead of 3200TWh/yr.

And so the saga of confusing power and energy continues.

 

[Feathermerchan]

Well it has not ever been not confusing. The fact that it is real time makes it confusing real fast in an emergency.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

...They had a trip on one unit due to controls freezing up.

false, the feed water on the secondary steam loop to the condenser got too cold, tripped the system and the didn't over ride the notification. perhaps they need to revise the inlet water to mix hot condenser water with cold inlet water to make sure the pipes don't freeze.

It's really not worth it until you're trying to support the entire grid with renewables. Texas' wind turbines were never intended to be a single point of failure (and they weren't NG was). What Texas needs are winterized NG turbines, wells, and distribution systems, as well as interconnects to other grids. I'd imagine interconnects would be cheaper than rebuilding the entire generation infrastructure.

agree. but over the last 20 years we have mainly only installed wind. and with the -1 degrees and NO WIND (MPH), wind power was going to be zero even without icing problems, we were going to have rolling blackouts even with NO OTHER FAILURES. we don't have enough base generation capacity to meet a 82 Gw load. the cnn fact check article listed above said 28Gw of base was out which puts the grid at less then 80Gw of base.

"On Wednesday, ERCOT reported 46,000 megawatts of generation were offline. Of that, ERCOT officials said 28,000 megawatts came from thermal sources such as coal, gas and nuclear plants, and 18,000 megawatts were from renewable energy, namely solar and wind."​

If you want to rely on only renewables as a country we will need the ability to move 60 Gw of power across country with DC lines ( Tres Amigas SuperStation - Wikipedia ), and large scale storage with hydrogen or hydrogen related products. we are starting to see hydrogen fuel cell / battery powered vehicles in California. if we could use hydrogen to and other elements (like carbon dioxide) to create a liquid, at STP, fuel that would be great.

but texas needs to add more thermal base generation, more then just more then just natural gas generation plants. it probably will not be coal, which leaves nuke plants... hopefully that will be the outcome from this storm.

 

[nwdiver]

If you want to rely on only renewables as a country

Nobody that understands energy wants to rely on renewables. We want to use renewables to burn less fools fuel. That's not relying on them... that's using them use burn less fools fuel. I use my grid-tied solar PV to reduce my electric bill but I don't 'rely' on it to keep my lights on.

Eventually we can reduce our use of fools fuel to zero and rely on H2 produced by surplus wind and solar. In this case we'll be using renewables to burn less H2 and make more...... still not 'relying' on renewables. We will never 'rely' on renewables. That was never the goal. Unless your definition of 'rely' is to produce more energy that you need on an annual basis.... but that's not what causes blackouts....

Aside from spending more money.... what benefit is there to adding 1GW of thermal over 1GW of gas? Don't you think ensuring a reliable supply of gas is going to be cheaper than thermal? Thermal is economically obsolete. It's inefficient, expensive and incredibly messy. Nuclear costs ~15x more to build, takes ~10x longer, costs ~10x more annually... why would anyone build another thermal plant ever??? I mean... even IF we get a 50% improvement in nuclear.... that's STILL not in the ballpark of competing wth gas....

 

[Feathermerchan]

false, the feed water on the secondary steam loop to the condenser got too cold, tripped the system and the didn't over ride the notification. perhaps they need to revise the inlet water to mix hot condenser water with cold inlet water to make sure the pipes don't freeze.

Where did you see this? I wonder why the other unit did not trip.

 

[SageBrush]

NO WIND (MPH),

For how long ?

 

[nwdiver]

Where did you see this? I wonder why the other unit did not trip.

It was a problem with sensing lines. They were probably getting incorrect flow readings. This is another disadvantage with nuclear. With a gas plant in this scenario it probably would have been worth it to roll the dice on a possible equipment failure. Can't do that with nuclear....

On Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, at 0537, an automatic reactor trip occurred at South Texas Project in Unit 1. The trip resulted from a loss of feedwater attributed to a cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps, causing a false signal, which in turn, caused the feedwater pump to trip.​

 

[Feathermerchan]

So my statement above was right - They had a trip on one unit due to controls freezing up.

From the article you quoted - (and the one I got my info from)
"cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps"

The sensing lines typically have no flow so they can freeze more easily. I don't know what the temperature was but my brother who lives close to Houston reported 17 degrees.

Anyway with a Nuc plant you can't just restart it. I read somewhere that a trip requires NRC approval to restart the reactor. Plus there are other reactive elements created in the core when you shut down a reactor that have certain half lives that must be accommodated.

 

[ThomasD]

The Green new deal net zero emissions by 2050. With 100% energy coming from renewables in 10 years which when written gives a 2029 time frame to go all renewables

You can read it for yourself here, but here are the essential elements: It says the entire world needs to get to net-zero emissions by 2050 — meaning as much carbon would have to be absorbed as released into the atmosphere — and the United States must take a “leading role” in achieving that.

The Green New Deal calls on the federal government to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create high-paying jobs, ensure that clean air, clean water and healthy food are basic human rights, and end all forms of oppression.

To achieve those goals, the plan calls for the launch of a “10-year mobilization” to reduce carbon emissions in the United States. It envisions sourcing 100 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable and zero-emissions power, digitizing the nation’s power grid, upgrading every building in the country to be more energy-efficient, and overhauling the nation’s transportation system by investing in electric vehicles and high-speed rail.

To address social justice, the resolution says it is the duty of the government to provide job training and new economic development, particularly to communities that currently rely on jobs in fossil fuel industries.