Originally Posted by brainz01 (Post 11230555)

You have PARF’d up this thread with with countless assertions that are patently false. Texas has building codes, regulation, and has public utilities. Duh. But this event was generally not planned for. By anyone. Full stop. And that may have been a reasonable assumption.

You see, and this may be a surprise, but it doesn’t tend to get really cold here very often. If it did, we’d of course have invested in appropriate measures. No one said this was an unsolvable problem. It’s just not a problem that was likely to happen, so the money didn’t get spent.

If you lived here, I’d give you more room to claim that you’d seen this event coming. But as someone that’s been in the energy industry for almost 3 decades on both the power and oil and gas side, I can tell you that this was a very long-tail, unprecedented event. No one was predicting this. No one had thought through the interdependencies of all the systems that failed.

Texas, in addition to be a leading producer of oil and gas, is also the leading producer of renewable energy in the US. We have some of the cheapest power in the nation. It’s one of the reasons that businesses are relocating here. I’ve not paid more than 8c/kWh for electricity for more than a decade (and often much less). Much of that is due to our deregulated (but not regulation-free) power markets. Yep, it’s been money in my pocket, and the pockets of my fellow Texans.

In my opinion, there’s no single group to blame (except maybe Canada), but ironically, the primary issue was that natural gas production was curtailed by wellhead and processing freeze-offs due to the extreme cold. There was reportedly 8Bcf/d of gas shut-in in Texas as a result. That’s a lot of gas — gas that would have been more than adequate to keep the lights on and heat homes. Interestingly, despite such shut in volumes, gas production overall was up. Why? Because of free markets and the fact that those that had working wells let ‘em rip. For producers that weren’t hedged this was a bonanza — Q1 earnings season will be interesting indeed. But gas demand was higher, and gas LDC demand (for heating) effectively takes precedence over electricity usage. While electricity can be switched on and off, turning off the gas is a much bigger/slower deal.

Not that renewables get a pass. They went down too. But if more gas had been available, we’d not had as much of an issue.

This is a very complicated situation, and there are solutions that could have helped. Here’s a few off the cuff:

- Require additional wellhead insulation and heat tracing — that relatively minimal cost gets passed on to all consumers (even outside Texas) — could happen
- Require winterized turbines — might happen
- Build more nukes or coal, and have them as a larger percentage of base load — never gonna happen
- Make more stringent building codes/insulation standards — could happen, but wont change all the existing stock of older, under insulated homes, so limited impact

All of these options would have increased costs and likely gone unused for very long periods of time. Many would argue it would be wasted money.

So yeah, TX could have done more, but it’s hard to blame them for not wanting to spend money such long-tail events. It keeps Texas affordable and less draconian than many other well-intentioned but over-governed places. As dramatic and uncomfortable as this has been, it pales in comparison to the damage wrought by hurricanes and flooding we regularly see.

Thankfully, it’s unlikely we see another freeze like this again soon. Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I are already planning our winter emergency kits once the stores are re-stocked: Pipe insulation, duct tape, Sharkbite fittings, and more. Better to be prepared. We’re prepared for hurricanes, and sweating it out while we wait for the power to come back, not freezing in our houses. But unless we see another storm like this again soon, I doubt any real change happens. Until proven otherwise, it was a black swan.


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Originally Posted by Eric 951 (Post 11230572)

excellent post describing the current situation and possible future prevention--not just knee-jerk bashing of Texas as some of the uninformed have been doing.

Originally Posted by group911@aol.co (Post 11230567)

Maybe the answer is to require the power provider to insure the loss due to failure to deliver?

Originally Posted by javadog (Post 11230389)

Well, you did ask, now didn’t you?

Originally Posted by wdfifteen (Post 11230617)

No, I didn’t ask about your petty narcissistic pissing match. I asked what outsiders can do to help the people of Texas.
I don’t care about you or your opinions. I am concerned about the people who are living through this nightmare.

Originally Posted by Rawknees'Turbo (Post 11230675)

One thing's for sure, despite possible faults in planning and finger pointing by those involved, you can bet your BBs that the hands-on workers have been busting their asses in the cold to deal with this shiitstorm.

Originally Posted by Rawknees'Turbo (Post 11230675)

One thing's for sure, despite possible faults in planning and finger pointing by those involved, you can bet your BBs that the hands-on workers have been busting their asses in the cold to deal with this shiitstorm.

Originally Posted by David (Post 11230592)

I’m not real familiar with the trading part of the business but it’s my understanding if you sell the power you have to provide the power. Meaning if you sold power a year ahead at $40/MWh and you can’t generate it when you said you would you, the generator, are stuck buying it at market rate to replace it. Max rate in Texas is limited to $9,000/MWh but I’m pretty sure that was far exceeded on Monday.

Of course nobody would buy summer generation quantities of power ahead for February. So no retail supplier would have enough power purchased at reasonable prices so they’re screwed.

Originally Posted by speeder (Post 11230754)

At the minimum, what would it take to make most houses in Texas winter-proof against a future event like this? Would insulating the pipes better do it? I have no idea what exactly happened down there, other than the blackouts.

Originally Posted by speeder (Post 11230754)

At the minimum, what would it take to make most houses in Texas winter-proof against a future event like this? Would insulating the pipes better do it? I have no idea what exactly happened down there, other than the blackouts.