OT: Power outages plague Texas, other states amid deadly cold, snow

"Denmark has a temperate climate, characterised by mild winters, with mean temperatures in January of 1.5 °C (34.7 °F), and cool summers, with a mean temperature in August of 17.2 °C (63.0 °F). "

michael adams

...

Monthly mean sea level since 1915 from the tidal gauge station at Newlyn in West Cornwall:

And there's this:

"A new analysis of global sea level rise rates concludes the rising trend was 1.56 mm/yr-¹ from 1900-2018. This is the same rate as for

In 2018, Frederikse et al. assessed the contributing factors to long-term sea level rise from 1958 to 2014. They determined ice melt and thermal expansion combined to add 1.3 mm/yr-¹ to sea levels during this period, and the overall rate of sea level rise was 1.5 mm/yr-¹."

summarised in WUWT from

They would work better, with longer life.

Since they get paid not to work why bother?

I have relatives in Texas. The latest news is that their power supply is back (this is in a downtown condominium), meaning that they can at last gain access to cars in the parking garage (with electrically-operated gates!), but...

...there is still no water, despite the supply facility being being quite nearby, presumably because of the electrical supply to that facility not yet being restored sufficiently robustly.

They remain quartered in a nearby hotel.

More roads are now passable, though with temperatures up to around 0°C, travel is not being advised.

according to one Taxan Mayor (who has just resigned) it what comes of having a socialist government.

Oh I agree, but my point is that even losing the Greenland ice cap through positive feedback isn't really a significant problem.

He said you shouldn't expect the state to do anything for you. All up to yourself. Which makes me wonder where he thinks his wages etc come from and why they are paid.

Well that is a value judgement

Surrounding the whole of east anglia with a 5 meter seawall to preserve the Fens and avoid losing a shitload of prime arable land is a significant problem in my book

Water systems have backup generators.

Ours has diesel backup. (That's what I smelled when in the parking lot there.)

The biggest liability some of these designs have, is loss of the access road via flooding, can prevent the facility from getting supplies.

This is their power in Texas.

natural gas forms 53.5% of that

If you lose natural gas pressure, it's already close to broken. Anything else down for maintenance ? Blammo. This assumes there is no redundancy in the gas system. I've never heard of such details with gas - it's meant to look "monolithic" from a public relations perspective.

Of course, gas pressure never drops.

The natural gas likely bumped off some coal facilities. Coal facilities that if they were still there, could have been used. But the spool up time on a "dead" plant, might be significant (if a plant is moth-balled, it might not be running in the afternoon, if you notice you need the power in the morning).

It's not the generating capacity as such, but fuel diversity that might have helped a tiny bit in this case.

You don't really want to run the coal, but if your ass is freezing off, it would be a welcome solution.

I had a friend at work, whose former job was with the gas company. He did pipeline maintenance. He said on a couple occasions, he drove out to a site, and the pumping station was gone (exploded, just a crater). Which tells you they must have more than one pumping station, with a replacement not far away. The pump is self-fueled (no lekky in the woods). If there is gas pressure upstream, the pump burns natural gas to function as a booster. My friend relates the story, because when you're at a site, you're constantly thinking about that crater. And where you're standing with respect to such craters. He doesn't smoke... A non-smoker. Strange.

To lose gas over the entire state, maybe their gas storage cavern wasn't large enough. We got a larger one here a couple years ago, because the maths weren't looking good on the previous setup. And we don't even go crazy with the natural gas peaker stations here, either.

Paul

The hunt for scapegoats begins. More symbolic gestures.

Texas has an LNG terminal for exports, which implies that at some point in time, they had excess production, and sought to sell it off. And they also have those pipelines to Mexico. LNG terminals need only store enough to fill up the next ship, so you could not "reverse the line" and run the state off that. We're trying to build such an LNG terminal on the West Coast (for some reason).

But I can't find any evidence of a storage capability in Texas itself. This wouldn't be public knowledge, so the "investigation" will have to determine what is missing. The plants that filter the gas were out of commission, because "no power" (sour gas wells have H2S in the gas, so the gas must be purified of stinky stuff). But if the storage cavern thing was working, there "should have been power".

You would think a plant purifying gas, would have a backup generator. Just as silicon fabs need and have backup power sources, even if the backup power never seems to work.

I blame this all on Caretaker Willy. Somewhere there is a rogue individual wot done this. Round up the usual suspects.

Paul

Americans are mainly morons. They have a pathological horror of socialised medicine whilst happily enjoying socialised defence, police and fire services. You can see why the British were so happy to get rid of them at the time.

AIUI what was missing was a decision to engage with the rest of the US as it would have meant having to adhere to federal standards. Texas being very big on sovereignty at the expense of it's citizens well being.

Luckily that could never happen here.

Not police. There are more than 15,000 separate police departments in the US (less than 50 in the UK). Which explains why so many appear to be staffed by the likes of Sheriff Hiram Q Globetrotter and a couple of hayseeds. Y'know, like in those old Westerns where the town is in the hands of a crooked sheriff and deputies in the pocket of the local landowner.

But their wages are paid from taxes ?

The advantage is that the sheriff does what the town council want. And if you don't like it, America is a big place with more than 15,000....

Meaning that the Town Council can set non-obvious speed limits using the US-style useless limit signs, and the cops can carefully ignore transgressions committed by locals, while nailing any out-of-towners who happen to be passing through.

More legalised banditry.

Don't they already take power off the grid to keep the bearings moving when there's no wind? A bit more power to stop icing should be possible. Eh - we could have a small power station providing all the ancillary power the turbines require in adverse conditions if you think about it.

We can import all the food we need from anywhere in the world. No need to 'save' the fens. You can go and live on Greenland instead :-)