Author Topic: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)  (Read 215273 times)

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Offline AST

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2575 on: February 18, 2021, 07:51:04 AM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2576 on: February 18, 2021, 08:08:57 AM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.
Uhhhh ast not sure about that post

Offline AST

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2577 on: February 18, 2021, 08:14:48 AM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.
Uhhhh ast not sure about that post

Wow, we hating on South Park now too?  I am fine with the post.  It is probably pretty much inline with kicking people while they are down about a situation that they pretty much have no control over.

Offline AST

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2578 on: February 18, 2021, 08:31:53 AM »
What's the lowdown on crazy rate hikes, I guess more specific to TX? Do they (power provider you sign a contract with) keep most of that or is it shoveled out to another provider due to a contract they have and are using to get ya the juice?

My understanding is that sometime Tuesday, ERCOT announced that not only is there going to be a price increase due to demand, but also they are going to go back in time and raise the price for past consumption that they are saying led to a lack of supply for this event.  So basically Texas consumers are going to get double screwed, despite not being able to have constant power.

On the one hand, this is absolutely ridiculous.  I wish I could back invoice my customers for work I already provided at times when I get super swamped at work and do not have time to take on additional work.

On the other hand, I hope they actually do it.  It could be the thing that gets a majority of Texans angry enough to actually make sure lasting change comes from this situation.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2579 on: February 18, 2021, 08:34:38 AM »
What's the lowdown on crazy rate hikes, I guess more specific to TX? Do they (power provider you sign a contract with) keep most of that or is it shoveled out to another provider due to a contract they have and are using to get ya the juice?

are they actually raising rates on retail customers?  i thought the pricing increase talk i was seeing was about wholesale pricing.
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2580 on: February 18, 2021, 08:38:24 AM »
What's the lowdown on crazy rate hikes, I guess more specific to TX? Do they (power provider you sign a contract with) keep most of that or is it shoveled out to another provider due to a contract they have and are using to get ya the juice?

are they actually raising rates on retail customers?  i thought the pricing increase talk i was seeing was about wholesale pricing.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.khou.com/amp/article/weather/ercot-to-raise-texas-energy-prices-blaming-high-demand-from-winter-storm/285-76ea495b-b67b-4cb7-8f1a-47f0fb4b4234

Everything I have seen shows it is absolutely intended to be passed along to the individual, although there is a cap on just how much it can be increased.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2582 on: February 18, 2021, 08:55:26 AM »
Those are indeed wholesale prices, and most customers are on fixed rate contracts that won't see immediate large jumps.

However, there is at least one company in TX that charges individual consumers a flat fee to get access to wholesale electricity prices. That company began telling individuals to find another provider last week. This week, bills for their customers were in the several hundreds to a few thousand dollars per day.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2583 on: February 18, 2021, 09:10:28 AM »
Those are indeed wholesale prices, and most customers are on fixed rate contracts that won't see immediate large jumps.

However, there is at least one company in TX that charges individual consumers a flat fee to get access to wholesale electricity prices. That company began telling individuals to find another provider last week. This week, bills for their customers were in the several hundreds to a few thousand dollars per day.

damn.
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2584 on: February 18, 2021, 09:29:31 AM »
Not just texas that has some need of investigation or regulation.  I saw a post from McLouth, KS describing how their gas broker, Kansas Municipal Gas Association (MKGA) purchases stored gas for McLouth as well as something like 48 other gas companies, normally has an $8-$9MM annual budget.  This past Sat-Tues, they spent $30MM alone due to the fact that the gas wholesale market is unregulated with no cap.  They said that last monday, gas was $3/MMBtu, and as of yesterday, it was $622/MMBtu.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2585 on: February 18, 2021, 10:15:23 AM »
Agco shut down its facility today because it can't afford what its gas bill will be to operate. Workers are furloughed with no pay so gas brokers can continue to line their pockets. This country is broken.


Edit: workers are going to get back pay. Their union must have a ton of leverage.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2021, 10:20:29 AM by Gooch »

Offline sys

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2586 on: February 18, 2021, 10:40:54 AM »
i don't think surging wholesale rates (gas or power) are indicative of anything wrong with the system or country.
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2587 on: February 18, 2021, 10:47:13 AM »
What if, and I’m just spitballing here, the surging prices were related to a macroeconomic concept known as supply and demand.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2588 on: February 18, 2021, 11:03:44 AM »
What if, and I’m just spitballing here, the surging prices were related to a macroeconomic concept known as supply and demand.

Things like gas supply to entire gas companies is accomplished with pipelines.  This is basically a monopoly.  Govts have been regulating price increases of necessary monopolies for a long time. 

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2589 on: February 18, 2021, 11:08:03 AM »
How does one go about picking a different power company?
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2590 on: February 18, 2021, 11:15:09 AM »
How does one go about picking a different power company?

You can sign up online but they also send out door to door guys as well.

Where I live I only have a single electricity provider but it's a co-op and they are cheaper than most other places in the country.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2591 on: February 18, 2021, 11:17:32 AM »
Holy crap, guys.

I live in central Illinois, and pay a power bill that includes electric and gas once per month.  I have honestly never thought about where it comes from or how I could lose it.

I feel for you guys that aren't getting what you pay for.
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2592 on: February 18, 2021, 11:56:44 AM »
ATT has given me free data for this week!!

But I have an unlimited plan and there was virtually no signal all week when the power was out.  It's the thought that counts. 

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2593 on: February 18, 2021, 12:08:57 PM »
How does one go about picking a different power company?
MHK you have no choice. Evergy for electric and KS Gas for gas

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2594 on: February 18, 2021, 12:19:30 PM »
In Dallas you can choose between like 100 different power companies, but I’m not sure why. There is only one entity that manages the delivery of electricity to households (Oncor) and apparently whether YOUR power company is generating electricity is irrelevant to whether your home gets power when overall demand exceeds supply. It only seems to affect how much you pay (and who you pay).

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2595 on: February 18, 2021, 12:30:49 PM »
dunno if tx has the same system, but i believe (not 100% sure) that ca or at least parts of ca have it regulated so that multiple companies can use the same lines to service retail customers.  like there's one line to a house (obviously) and the line belongs to a company, but to foster competition, supposedly to the benefit of the retail customer, there might be a dozen energy providers that could use that line to sell you energy (paying a small fee to the owner of the line).

and yeah, obviously the electricity is all the same so it's just like, the companies dump a certain amount into the grid, and presumably they can bill retail customers for some of that, if they have them, and if they don't they have to take wholesale prices.
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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2596 on: February 18, 2021, 12:37:11 PM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.
Uhhhh ast not sure about that post

Wow, we hating on South Park now too?  I am fine with the post.  It is probably pretty much inline with kicking people while they are down about a situation that they pretty much have no control over.

I really think you're confusing my disdain with Texas with anything having to do with you. I'm kicking the idea of Texas down, not you. We are literally having a meeting how Texas totally deemphasized the need to "be online" with making money in my company right now. Yes, you have nothing to do it, and you are learning about how behind the times your state is in the worst ways, lash out at me all you want. Nature just messed with Texas and won in 48 hours.

I guess I did forget my Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for "How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?"
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Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2597 on: February 18, 2021, 12:41:09 PM »
That makes sense, sys. So they’re essentially like, here’s how much power we can provide, these houses wanna pay us X for it, and we’ll take the going rate for the rest. In that case not a bad system IMO.

I remember a professor talking about how you could have solar panels and actually generate enough electricity to sell some back, so that is making more sense to me now too.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2598 on: February 18, 2021, 12:44:14 PM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.
Uhhhh ast not sure about that post

Wow, we hating on South Park now too?  I am fine with the post.  It is probably pretty much inline with kicking people while they are down about a situation that they pretty much have no control over.

I really think you're confusing my disdain with Texas with anything having to do with you. I'm kicking the idea of Texas down, not you. We are literally having a meeting how Texas totally deemphasized the need to "be online" with making money in my company right now. Yes, you have nothing to do it, and you are learning about how behind the times your state is in the worst ways, lash out at me all you want. Nature just messed with Texas and won in 48 hours.

I guess I did forget my Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for "How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?"

My deepest apologies but it is really hard to separate your disdain with Texas from what I have and am experiencing at this moment.  Maybe it is a timing issue.  Maybe it is full tone can not be determined over the internet issue.

Kicking “Texas” while it is down feels really a lot like kicking its residents while it is down.  Event if we do jot agree with the whole “Texas” mindset.

Sorry I got sideways but the whole conversation started when I was cold and my nerves were quite literally raw while trying to ratio firewood by candlelight without electricity while keeping my wife and baby warm with -15 windchills in a house not built for winter.

Have a good day and sorry for the confusion.

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Re: Winter Death Storm 2011 (Updated for Winter Death Storm 2014)
« Reply #2599 on: February 18, 2021, 12:47:54 PM »
Ast getting all huffy about Texas having four million people without power overnight and comparing it to the great plains doing 20-60 minute pauses is very texasy

Not huffy at all.  I was told Texas was having blackouts because Texas.

Apparently Kansas is having blackouts because Kansas.

Apples and oranges in scale.

And in case anyone was wondering, KY and KS are connected, all of the Eastern US, and a ton of Canada connected together.

And all of Western US connected together.

Not connected: Eastern US, Western US, and Texas,

Hence why Texas has 4 mill out, KS after dealing with this for 2 weeks decides "well we'll occasionally have outages every so often and not for everyone and only for like 3 hours a day for some people" Texas after it's exhausted all it's resources after 2 days: welp that's it isn't it but the power for emergency sources". That's the difference. That and natural gas for everyone (lol) is just poof, CO2 right now. And here I was told fossil fuels were the reliable ones.

Resiliency and grid reliability comes in numbers (for the most part).

And I was not trying to pick on you obv, you can't do anything about it, it's just really funny (to me) to have "we can do this on our own we're our own goddamn country" Texas brought to it's knees over a little cold in 48 hours time.

And that's with all the oil a Texan can shake at. At least it took KS 2 weeks to succumb to (occasionally) having to have (some) people go out (for 30-60 minutes). And most of that succumbing is due to Texas falling down at it's fat face sucking all the natural gas for itself as it huddles for warmth around the burnt out embers of it's pride cause it can't handle it.

I am glad you talked about apples & oranges in scale.  It is a great point.

Roughly the same number as or more people were out of power in Texas than the entire population of Kansas.  Maybe that brings to light the scale difference in how many people the Texas grid is providing power too.  To go even further, it looks like ERCOT services most likely twice as many people as SPP.

The infrastructure and houses are not built with this cold of weather in consideration.  Why?  Because historically there is not a need for it.  So when this type of event happens, there becomes way more demand per person/household than our northern counterparts.

This is in no way a post white-knighting ERCOT and it is becoming pretty apparent as this event unfolds they are a mumped ip group.  Several of its board members do not even live in Texas.  So this does not appear to be a Texas only mindset as has been implied heavily.  The chair and vice-chair live in Michigan and Germany so this is apparently not Texas only thinking.

For the record, going off of the little information that is available on their actions at this point, I hope that ERCOT is severely overhauled or even dismantled after the investigation into this event.


But to say you are comparing apples to apples in referring to the blackout in Kansas and Texas is just as disingenuous on your end.

All of your post is fair, the bold is really the crux of my issues of the "Texas being Texas." They decided to create their own grid, on their own, and play by their own rules. It is well and good, but, and as unfortunate as you all have to live with said consequences, you are seeing that. I get CEOs and others can live wherever to do whatever, but Texas still decided to go in it alone. And you are right, they should be investigated and dismantled for thinking they knew what they were doing. After all, it birthed the ability for companies like Enron to go around and selectively blackout people because of economics, instead of thinking of the welfare of their compatriots.

Where did Texas touch you?  Show it to us on a doll.  We won’t tell.
Uhhhh ast not sure about that post

Wow, we hating on South Park now too?  I am fine with the post.  It is probably pretty much inline with kicking people while they are down about a situation that they pretty much have no control over.

I really think you're confusing my disdain with Texas with anything having to do with you. I'm kicking the idea of Texas down, not you. We are literally having a meeting how Texas totally deemphasized the need to "be online" with making money in my company right now. Yes, you have nothing to do it, and you are learning about how behind the times your state is in the worst ways, lash out at me all you want. Nature just messed with Texas and won in 48 hours.

I guess I did forget my Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for "How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?"
The mistake in this case was a colossal one, but the solution seems incredibly simple. Texas just needs to enact and actually enforce regulations that require power producers to take precautions far beyond what might seem necessary (kind of like making sure an elevator can handle 4000 pounds and then saying the max is 2000 or something).

It’s not being on its own grid that caused the problem here (although obviously being on a larger grid would have helped). It’s the fact that each producer was pretty much left to their best judgment as far as what was needed to survive harsh conditions, and (as private businesses tend to do) many balanced preparedness with profit.