OK, so Texas did not connect to other grids because "socialism" and got hosed? And two politicians went on hot vacation and blamed it on "green energy" respectively?

I don't think socialism had anything to do with it. It was simply the difference between being under Federal Regulations or not.

As far as the politicians, lets discuss that in a different thread to keep this one on the technical level.

As far as the interconnect between the grid, there are also technical reasons for not tying the whole thing together. When the distances become this great, the power losses become great. Texas is big, but the population is centered mostly in 4 areas: Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. The distance from the DFW to Oklahoma City is 300 km, about like Gothensburg to Stockholm. And those are just the closest Major metro areas.

Texas has a population of 30M. It is not a small, untied grid. The US is really spread apart.

To connect Texas to the Eastern or Western grids in a Meaningful Way would require Massive Construction of interconnecting ties, most of which would be hundreds or thousands of km long. I think the Eastern Grid would be the closer tie.

And again, at the time of the Crisis, the surrounding states were having similar issues, which are not being reported.

Whoa, easy now. James, we need to stop having these rational and measured responses. Rhetorical hand-grenades and wild accusations are de riguer.

Scott, I can be as irrational as the next guy! But only on the second Tuesday of months with a "R" in them, or if my mother and my sister are drunk and pestering me...

Every time people cooperate that action does not plant the flag of socialism.

If you want to be understood, learn the meaning of the words that you use.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1614091964.JPG

If you DO know what you are saying, then dafischer is spot on. "Good job PARFing it up."

"green energy" failed. (almost entirely)

Nuclear energy failed (partially)

Hydrocarbon energy was over burdened.

And now, all the unicorn chasers want everyone to look away from the iced-over wind-turbines and focus on the over burdened hydrocarbon side.

Materials and energy...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1614093384.jpg

And then this...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1614093384.jpg


And then this...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1614093517.jpg

Or, maybe some retrofit to create the possibility of this
Which is in NY state in the dead of winter.
https://www.syracuse.com/resizer/GgN...JS5OUR4MIE.jpg

Or maybe a plan that would ensure that there's another option when the weather gets crazy so that the windmills can be turned off.

They all auto protect. They shut down if imbalanced or wind gets too high.

Areas with a higher risk of freezing have built in heaters. Most down south don't have the heater system.

Many areas were 30 to 50 degrees below normal for nearly 2 weeks.

I have to ask if any of the reduced output of the natural gas and coal was related to the letter from the dept. of energy. Not the part related to emissions but the part on page 3 or 4 related to pricing.

Did the plants put out all that they could, or were any of them throttled?

A bunch of the Natural Gas "peaking" Gas Turbines were not throttled, but the gas supply completely shut off. The gas was being used for "heating" and not available for power generation. It is common for peaking plants to be on interruptible gas supplies. They generally only run in the summer peaks.

Yeah, I know all of that. Just asking if any of the output was constrained by the letter. I haven't heard any discussion of it but, if you read the letter, it seems that would have been the case.

Maybe it was ignored, or maybe it didn't happen, I just haven't heard any analysis of that aspect of the problem. I'm not plugged into that world like others are.

Hearings will begin next week to determine who to blame.

As long as they are publicly flogged and put in the stocks, I'm fine with that...

See my usage charts one page back.

Who gets the supply is seasonal.

Winter the priority is for homes to heat them and it normally does not create an issue because demand for electricity goes down and the gas fired generators don't need the same capacity as they do in the summer.

Basically depending on season we have enough capacity for one or the other but not both at the same time which is part of what happened.

Yeah, I get that.

I don't have any data on what quantity of gas was available at any given moment.

The point is, I assume that if they restricted electrical production at any plant at any time, because they wanted to adhere to what was in the memo, that will come out when the after action report is put together. I was just wondering if there had been any discussion along those lines yet.

Once the sht hit the fan all federal and state emissions limits were lifted.

So you're saying that there was no limitation on the hot air or BS?

There was plenty of BS. I watched and listened to our governor say things that I knew for absolute fact were not true. In his defense, he was probably just saying what someone had told him.

Kind of hard but not impossible to go back and add insulation to older buildings. They were designed to keep the heat out for air conditioning. If you take a nice number like 70° as your ideal indoor temperature, in the summer around here 100° is common. So you have a 30° differential. That is what typical insulation has been deemed to be adequate to handle in homes around here. Now if the temperature drops to 20° for days on end you are looking at a 50° differential. Of course folks adjust their thermostats up or down to ease the load on the HVAC system but still, with record cold temperatures and with no system working at all, the existing insulation just can't handle it.