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2020-21 Winter weather; bring it on


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42 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I guess. But no one is running sprinklers. Hundreds of thousands of people are without electricity so they aren't running their washing machines or dishwashers. A lot of people are without hot water I'm guessing if they have an electric heater so they aren't showering. Hell, we have had hot water almost this entire time up until this morning and I've showered once in maybe 4 days. 

It seems like there would be a lot of ground for dripping/running faucets and breakage leaks to cover to get to 3 times the usage of a 110 degree day in August. 

Yea that number sounded pretty high everything going on. If true god damn

Flying out to Vegas tomorrow. Please don't get cancelled

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7 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

About half the town has power at any given moment, usually for a few hours then it gets shut off again. Almost nowhere has reliable water. It's fucked. Probably better by Friday, but I wouldn't count on it.

I've never been off for less than 10 hours since last Thursday.  this rolling thing in Austin is bullshit.  austin energy doesn't know how to do it.  I realize its not all AE's fault because ERCOT tells them to shed load.  l have friends in Buda/Kyle saying they are 40 min on/20 off all day today.

this austin load shed plan/map is fucked.  It appears that people are either 90%+ on, 40% on, or 10% on.  heads need to roll at all levels.

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36 minutes ago, Constant said:

I think that is the million dollar question. I think we all were fine with a ‘everyone do your part’ mentality of rolling blackouts. I know I was prepared and had explained it to my kids as a greater good to the community. 
 

Turns out we spent 50 hours in the dark and cold while surrounding neighborhoods never once had a flicker. That was hard to explain and I don’t think i’ll ever reconcile with whatever bullshit they throw out there. It is fucked up and should never happen. 

Saw this type of shit in The Woodlands after hurricanes nailed stations on the coast.  They would announce rolling blackouts.  We were like, OK, lets roll with it.

Every time this would happen in our neighborhood - Copper Sage in Cochran's Crossing - our house and about 3-4 others would be without power.  I could literally look across the street and see folks with their lights on.  Them and the rest off the neighborhood never saw their lights flicker over the course of a couple of weeks.  This was during August... you can only get to one layer of naked to try and cool off.  

Bottom line, this shit sucks.  It sucks more for others.  I know what you are feeling.

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North Texas Municipal Water District calling for the immediate curtailment of non-essential use.

https://news.ntmwd.com/ntmwd-requests-immediate-curtailment-of-non-essential-water-use

Quote

Immediate curtailment measures include:

Isolate any water leaks immediately
Do not hoard water
Do not wash clothes or dishes, wash only when necessary
Delay showers and only hand-bathe when necessary
When possible, do not drip your faucets
If you must drip or stream your faucet, collect the water for other use such as filling toilets, washing dishes, etc.
Do not use the garbage disposal, place food scraps in garbage can, (composting is a great alternative)
Turn off the water to brush teeth, shave and soap up in the shower
Ensure that hose bibs and faucets are protected from freezing weather
Locate and repair any water leaks
When cooking, peel and clean vegetables in a large bowl instead of under running water

 

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

We are using 3 times more water than "ever before"? That can't just be from dripping faucets can it? 

this is horseshit.  talked to a friend of mine who knows some city wastewater folks and the issue has nothing to do with people dripping some faucets.  we aren't using more than we would on any random day during the year.

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6 minutes ago, Blackcat00 said:

Buddy of mine who runs a Serv Pro here in Austin told me today this is the largest area wide disaster he has ever seen in his 20 plus years in restoration/mitigation. 

a hurricane that hits the Cen-tex, H-town, and DFW?  You betcha.

Sure, the roofs and structures are intact, but the water damage...  holy fuckballs.

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Just lost power in Greatwood again after having it all day. We had moved back in from the farmhouse and now we are headed back there for the night. Lights are still on there but no water. I’m pretty sure with the power loss our neighborhood water pressure is going to rapidly deteriorate.

Considering it came on this morning right at 8:00 and then went off again right at 5:00, I’m thinking this is planned and it won’t be back for a while  

Fuck you, Centerpoint.   

 

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

ERCOT showing capacity up to 54GW.  

It's been climbing all day and this is about 10GW better than most of the week.

ERCOT now showing a bit less capacity at 53GW.  However, for the first time this week going into the evening hours, there's a healthy spread between forecast demand and capacity until midnight.

http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/main/currentDayForecastSystemLoad.png?uniquenessFactor=1613604290871

 

Every day this week, about this time, their forecast for demand blows way above capacity and stays that way until midnight.  It usually doesn't come to pass, but if that's the metric they're using to require load to be pulled, this status is a really good sign.

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1 hour ago, 4th_and_18 said:

It’s as simple as some reports use “customers” and some use “people” and everyone thinks it’s the same.

Yep.  A "customer" could be a loner in a garage apartment, or a family of five, or it could be an apartment complex with 30 people where the complex is billed as one customer.

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1 hour ago, boknowstecmo said:

Friend offered his place up for me to spend the night, since he still has power. Who wants to take bets that on the 20 minute walk there he'll lose his power?

Schrodinger's boknowstecmo.   If you walk over, it'll be without power, but if you don't, it'll keep it.  It will either have power in 20 minutes, or it won't.

Wait, need more drinking.

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Over on the 38th street and Shoal Creek bridge near the Randalls, a true American hero was trying to keep the bridge's drain holes unclogged, as there was a big-ass lake of water on the bridge, that would surely be a nice sheet of ice in the morning.

Also, if people need running water, and you run out of snow, Shoal Creek is moving nicely.  Would be just fine to flush with that water.

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Where the fuck is FEMA in all this? Is it not an emergency when 4M+ people are freezing their asses off and without water?

I believe they’ve been mobilized to help with supplies and shelters. Agree the response seems delayed, though they obviously can’t fix the power grid and conditions haven’t been prohibitive when it comes to travel.
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55 minutes ago, Chopper said:

In some areas/neighborhoods they can't turn off the power due to life saving equipment, emergency equipment, etc. It may be as simple as if one guy down the street can only breath on a respirator and he's registered it with the electric department, they can't shut down power on purpose to that entire grid/circuit. That doesn't include city hall, the 911 offices, police and fire departments, etc. I don't know how many roofs one circuit or grid, whatever the terminology, serves, but you'd have to subtract those connections and then cycle power through whatever the remainder. Why that's not happening, I don't know.

If it were as simple as one person, in a city of Austin’s size wouldn’t there be one of these people in basically every area?

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35 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

I've never been off for less than 10 hours since last Thursday.  this rolling thing in Austin is bullshit.  austin energy doesn't know how to do it.  I realize its not all AE's fault because ERCOT tells them to shed load.  l have friends in Buda/Kyle saying they are 40 min on/20 off all day today.

this austin load shed plan/map is fucked.  It appears that people are either 90%+ on, 40% on, or 10% on.  heads need to roll at all levels.

The problem with Austin is a shitload of state and county agencies are scattered all throughout Austin, plus "critical businesses" (telecommunications, etc.), and every one of these little fiefdoms probably all consider themselves to be a part of the critical infrastructure.  We've also got hospitals scattered all over.  And the Camp Mabry area probably overlaps multiple smaller grids.

So a decent chunk of the population is going to get hammered by power outages versus other areas.

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35 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Rice Professor (Energy & Climate) posted an interesting thread on twitter about energy policy in Texas. Not going to post the whole thing here but here's one intriguing tweet.

 

 

That's good stuff.  This one seems notable.

Quote
Where ERCOT totally missed the situation was in forecasting outages. Actual outages of "firm" resources -- mostly gas, plus a bit of coal and 1 of 4 nuclear reactors that went down -- topped 30 GW, more than double its worst case scenario.
 

 

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tenor.gif

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-greg-abbott-to-give-latest-on-texas-response-to-mass-power-failures-during-winter-weather/

"Some natural gas produced in Texas is currently being shipped to locations outside of the state. Abbott said he’s working to put through an order Wednesday that will last through Feb. 21 requiring those producers to sell natural gas to Texas power generators. He also said the president is helping to address spikes in the prices of natural gas. "

---

If we are pushing natural gas to out-of-state, they should maybe boost the capability to bring in more electricity from out-of-state.

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4 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

If it were as simple as one person, in a city of Austin’s size wouldn’t there be one of these people in basically every area?

What atomheartbevo posted above plus what is referred to as the Life Support program - if a person qualifies and if they have registered with the electrical department, their power cannot be purposely turned off unless they're provided with sufficient notice. Between those issues, that about accounts for most of the areas (plus grids with hospitals, rehabilitation centers, assisted living) that can't have their electricity turned off on purpose.

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Bad news: neighbor let us know that the small tree on our neighbors property fell....to lean on top of my wife’s new car.

Good news: it was small enough for him to cut it with a handsaw and get it off.

Better news: a 6.5 inch layer of snow, topped by an icy shell, absorbed the blow so it looks like it didn’t even hit any paint.

It’s the little things. We’re going to get back over there tomorrow afternoon to scope things out, and do more house securing, and pick up some of the food we have there (we brought some over to my parents, but we’re going through it with five of us).

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1 hour ago, 4th&Five said:

Made it back to my house to make sure it wasn’t flooded. No signs of rupture so far. Turned off at street. I know it’s been asked and answered but what’s my process for turning it back on Friday and checking for leaks?

Roads weren’t terrible. Made it to Costco south before they closed at 3 and got some water and dinner. No line at Whole Foods either. Had plenty right now to get people through a day or two. 

Open faucets and turn on main slowly. The last thing you want, especially if ice has weakened your lines, is to shock them by rushing water into a closed loop that hammers it all when it fills up. 

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This is an embarrassment.  I know the weather has been unusually cold.  Some power outages, rolling blackouts, etc. should be expected.  However, what has and is occurring has exposed utter imcompetence.  Heads need to roll.  This should never happen again.  I am ashamed.  A week of cold weather, and I feel like I'm living in a 3rd World country.  Fucking ridiculous.

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3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The problem with Austin is a shitload of state and county agencies are scattered all throughout Austin, plus "critical businesses" (telecommunications, etc.), and every one of these little fiefdoms probably all consider themselves to be a part of the critical infrastructure.  We've also got hospitals scattered all over.  And the Camp Mabry area probably overlaps multiple smaller grids.

So a decent chunk of the population is going to get hammered by power outages versus other areas.

good point on the state/county agencies scattered and Mabry.  should be a big part of the review of this clusterfuck at a city/county level on how to do reasonably timed rolling blackouts in an emergency.  we don't have to worry about russians or chinese invading austin or making sure the trains run on time.  maybe they could get their heads out of their asses and determine how to deal with power/water distribution.

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6 minutes ago, Somnio said:

This is an embarrassment.  I know the weather has been unusually cold.  Some power outages, rolling blackouts, etc. should be expected.  However, what has and is occurring has exposed utter imcompetence.  Heads need to roll.  This should never happen again.  I am ashamed.  A week of cold weather, and I feel like I'm living in a 3rd World country.  Fucking ridiculous.

Yes. Time to start looking for a new house outside of Travis County. Every friend north of the domain never lost power. I will let renters pay for the new subway from the W to the airport. Fuck this shit 

66 motherfucking hours

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15 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

That's good stuff.  This one seems notable.

 

So its worst case scenario was nowhere close to an actual worst case scenario. No one at any level at ERCOT raised their hand and asked - hey what if we have a 100 year ice storm? The kind that we haven't had in 72 years. 

Edited by ztejas
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10 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

tenor.gif

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-greg-abbott-to-give-latest-on-texas-response-to-mass-power-failures-during-winter-weather/

"Some natural gas produced in Texas is currently being shipped to locations outside of the state. Abbott said he’s working to put through an order Wednesday that will last through Feb. 21 requiring those producers to sell natural gas to Texas power generators. He also said the president is helping to address spikes in the prices of natural gas. "

---

If we are pushing natural gas to out-of-state, they should maybe boost the capability to bring in more electricity from out-of-state.

Uh. They should be held criminally negligent. If I’m a fire station and there’s a burning building next door and I ignore it to go help the place across town, I don’t think it would go over too well. 

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Just now, ztejas said:

So it's worst case scenario was nowhere close to an actual worst case scenario. No one at any level at ERCOT raised their hand and asked - hey what if we have a 100 year ice storm? The kind that we haven't had in 72 years. 

Not 100 years; the one 72 years ago does not count.  Not relevant.  I kid, of course.

We've had so many Black Swan, once in a lifetime, unprecedented, etc. events in the past 10 years, it makes me wonder if the talking heads really know what those words mean.  On a positive note, we will not see them again in our lifetimes.

Regardless, ERCOT and Adler still suck.

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14 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

tenor.gif

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-greg-abbott-to-give-latest-on-texas-response-to-mass-power-failures-during-winter-weather/

"Some natural gas produced in Texas is currently being shipped to locations outside of the state. Abbott said he’s working to put through an order Wednesday that will last through Feb. 21 requiring those producers to sell natural gas to Texas power generators. He also said the president is helping to address spikes in the prices of natural gas. "

---

If we are pushing natural gas to out-of-state, they should maybe boost the capability to bring in more electricity from out-of-state.

That's some Boss Hogg shit.

 

vJuhSK.gif

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8 minutes ago, boilerhorn said:

Not 100 years; the one 72 years ago does not count.  Not relevant.  I kid, of course.

We've had so many Black Swan, once in a lifetime, unprecedented, etc. events in the past 10 years, it makes me wonder if the talking heads really know what those words mean.  On a positive note, we will not see them again in our lifetimes.

Regardless, ERCOT and Adler still suck.

Actually you're right. The last time we had 6 inches of snow was 72 years ago - but I'm guessing it wasn't this cold for this long in 1949. So it might be more like a 200 year weather event.

And, unfortunately, when it comes to climate-related natural disasters we will see more of this in our lifetimes. Maybe it's good that we're taking a kick in the ass so we can prepare for more shit down the road. Flooding, drought, cat-5 hurricanes. It's all going to get more frequent.

Edited by ztejas
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Re the Rice professor Twitter thread is awesome. He’s spot on with what our mix should look like, and how we should run it.

We won’t. This will be used to kill solar and wind, and an excuse to build - probably with subsidies - uneconomical coal. Why? Because fuck you libtards. Even though gas makes much more sense.

We need peaking capacity. It probably needs to be gas. Generate our needs from as much renewables as we can, when we can. Fill the rest of the need with gas generation.

And I’d love a second look at nuclear as well.
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14 minutes ago, boilerhorn said:

Not 100 years; the one 72 years ago does not count.  Not relevant.  I kid, of course.

We've had so many Black Swan, once in a lifetime, unprecedented, etc. events in the past 10 years, it makes me wonder if the talking heads really know what those words mean.  On a positive note, we will not see them again in our lifetimes.

Repost, don't care.

EuZGyxHVgAI-Xg5?format=jpg&name=large

 

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16 minutes ago, boilerhorn said:

Not 100 years; the one 72 years ago does not count.  Not relevant.  I kid, of course.

We've had so many Black Swan, once in a lifetime, unprecedented, etc. events in the past 10 years, it makes me wonder if the talking heads really know what those words mean.  On a positive note, we will not see them again in our lifetimes.

Well it's easier to do now that we've adopted the Just in Time/Hedge Fund model of cutting to the bone and just barely having enough resources to meet typical need.  Good enough 98% of the time, saves some pennies.

Meanwhile, residential gas outages may be the third wave after power and water, according to WFAA just now.

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