One week ago, long before almost anyone else realized just how serious the situation in the plains states in general and Texas in particular would be as a result of the cascade of soaring nat gas prices, we warned that all hell was about to break loose. But not even we had any idea just how close to total collapse the system nearly was.
On Thursday, ERCOT officials said that the Texas power grid was “seconds and minutes” away from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months. They should know: ERCOT is the entity that operates the power grid that covers most of the state.
The Texas Tribune reports that as millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.
Maybe if they had read our warnings, none of what happened this week would have been a surprise. Alas, that was not the case. So in hopes to frontrun a wave of lawsuits, they spun their quick reaction as the only thing that prevented an even more catastrophic scenario: according to the Tribune, “the quick decision that grid operators made in the early hours of Monday morning to begin what was intended to be rolling blackouts — but lasted days for millions of Texans — occurred because operators were seeing warning signs that massive amounts of energy supply was dropping off the grid.”
As natural gas fired plants, utility scale wind power and coal plants tripped offline due to the extreme cold brought by the winter storm, the amount of power supplied to the grid to be distributed across the state fell rapidly. At the same time, demand was increasing as consumers and businesses turned up the heat and stayed inside to avoid the weather.
“It needed to be addressed immediately,” said Bill Magness, president of ERCOT. “It was seconds and minutes [from possible failure] given the amount of generation that was coming off the system.”
With energy prices exploding to record highs, and with demand soaring, grid operators had to “act quickly” to cut the amount of power distributed, Magness said, because if they had waited, “then what happens in that next minute might be that three more [power generation] units come offline, and then you’re sunk.”
Magness said on Wednesday that if operators had not acted in that moment, the state could have suffered blackouts that “could have occurred for months,” and left Texas in an “indeterminately long” crisis.
In other words, the millions of households left without power – in some cases for days – were sacrificing for the greater good.
So by manually shutting down entire parts of the grid, ERCOT avoided the worst case scenario: one where demand for power overwhelms the supply of power generation available on the grid, causing equipment to catch fire, substations to blow and power lines to go down.
If the grid had gone totally offline, the physical damage to power infrastructure from overwhelming the grid would take months to repair, said Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewables at Enverus, an oil and gas software and information company headquartered in Austin.
“As chaotic as it was, the whole grid could’ve been in blackout,” she said. “ERCOT is getting a lot of heat, but the fact that it wasn’t worse is because of those grid operators.” If that had occurred, even as power generators recovered from the cold, ERCOT would have been unable to quickly reconnect them back to the grid, Johnson said.
And since nobody can disprove a negative, one just has to take them at their word that dozens of people died so that millions more could live… or something.
Grid operators would have needed to slowly and carefully bring generators and customers back online, all the while taking care to not to cause more damage to the grid. It’s a delicate process, Johnson explained, because each part of the puzzle — the generators producing power, the transmission lines that move the power and the customers that use it — must be carefully managed.
“It has to balance constantly,” she said. “Once a grid goes down, it’s hard to bring it back online. If you bring on too many customers, then you have another outage.”
And while that may justify the widespread blackouts, it does not explain why the Texas grid was so underprepared for just this scenario. ERCOT officials have repeatedly said that the winter storm that swept the state caught power generators off guard. The storm far exceeded what ERCOT projected in the fall to prepare for winter. Right, but that’s why they are paid the big bucks: to predict worst case scenarios (kinda like the Fed) – it is here that everyone failed so abysmally. Which means that it has to be spun into some heroic task.
“The operators who took those actions to prevent a catastrophic blackout and much worse damage to our system, that was, I would say, the most difficult decision that had to be made throughout this whole event,” Magness said.
Nine grid operators are working at any given time who make these sorts of decisions, said Leslie Sopko, a spokesperson for ERCOT. “At the end of the day, our operators are highly trained and have the authority to make decisions that protect the reliability of the electric system,” she said in a statement.
The good news is that the Texas nightmare is coming to an end: ERCOT said it made “significant progress” overnight Wednesday to restore customer power to many Texans, and remaining power outages are likely due to ice storm damage to the distribution system. Some areas that were taken offline will also need to be restored manually, according to ERCOT.
ERCOT warned that emergency conditions remain, and that “some level of rotating outages” may be necessary over the coming days to keep the grid stable.
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We crazy preppers didn’t seem to have much of a problem. The stored food, water, alternative heating sources and generators came in kind of handy. Even allowed us to go out in this God awful weather and share some of it with friends, neighbors and family who desperately needed help.
John you got it right. Some of us have prepared for emergencies and deal with them. Its beyond me why every time, every single time, year after year emergencies happen and Americans are totally unprepared. American sheep spend their lives with their heads in dark smelly places and then wait for Gobment and crazy peppers to save them.
Here in Northeastern Kentucky, we’ve had 2 particularly nasty ice storms and a snow storm in the last week or so. There are still lots of power outages. My power has remained on, but just in case, I always keep kerosene around for my Aladdin Mantle lamps. Out by the garage, I’ve got a covered and very dry pile of lump coal for the 150 lb coal capacity stove I use to heat the garage. You don’t have to go without heat or light, but you do need to plan for that.
water was and still is an issue in many parts of TX. dems were spinning narrative bad gop the 1st day..
I fail to see the relation to partisan politics. This happened because of corruption.
Which thankfully for everyone, is a bi-partisan treat.
Meteorologist Joe Bastardi from weatherbell.com called Governor Abbot a week or two ago with a warning that they were about to be hit by a cold front that would shatter all records. He also called Senator Cruz.
The issue is the lack of preparation and obviously this grid board is incompetent. One third of the members do not live in Texas and two live in foreign countries. Apparently the wind turbines use lubricants which like your automobile have differing viscosities for different seasons. Where I live the turbines keep turning with thinner oils designed for our excursions to -30 with little trouble. In Texas the lubricants were for warm weather climates and thickened from the cold shutting down the whole mess.
Right down the road from me a couple of miles is a “peaker plant” which is a gas fired generating plant which is capable of dark starting the grid in this region and can provide enough extra to prevent brown outs when it is 100 and all the AC is cranking full power. It is also the terminal where all the many wind farms transmit their electricity to the grid. If the wind power were interrupted this peaker would immediately fire up replacing the wind power.
What do those lubricants consist of? I’d bet hydrocarbons. Same with everything else (delivery vehicles, power tools, etc.) that service those farms.
We are so fucked. This country is managed by MBAs and do-gooders. There is no leadership.
We have lots of leadership.. Bad leadership! Worshippers of junk science. No critical thinking. No regard for history. When people push movements claiming absolute answers in mathematics and other disciplines is racist, it’s time to load your magazines because 2+2 won’t equal five unless they insist at gunpoint and with this asshole Honore being called to hunt us down by Pelosi, that day is close at hand.
There is a multitude of reasons for the great debacle and cocked-up mess that is currently ongoing in Texas. I’m without water but I do have power restored. The local power company sent a text with the threat of ‘conserve energy’ or get the the blackout. I complied, mostly because, without water you can’t wash clothes so you don’t need a clothes dryer and the hot water heater isn’t working to keep water hot. I live on a hill, my water meter is two tenths of a mile from the house, all uphill and the municipal water storage tanks are empty. They don’t have water and their suppliers don’t have water so things are bleak going forward. No matter, I have stored water and have mastered the art of the spit bath.
As to ERCOT and all the rest, well, where to begin. First, South Texas rarely sees weather like what we’ve had for over a week now. Snow and single digit temperatures are EXTREMELY rare, they happen but generally only last for a day or two. Water lines are buried six inches, and everything is geared to extreme heat, temps in the high 90’s and above. 11o is not unusual. I’d like to see some Northerners function when it’s that hot.
Second, there have been WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE who have moved here in a short time. Millions of Californians and escapees from blue states along with scads of illegals have turned the Hill Country into an over crowed shit hole, millions of crappy subdivisions are metastizing all over the farm land and nothing is able to keep up with the overdevelopment. No constraint are place on the developers and the counties are too greedy to call a halt so the resources are strained to the breaking point. Water is going to be a MAJOR problem going forward.
Third comes the Federal Government and green mandates, ‘green energy’ that needs sun and wind to work coupled with environmental mandates re air quality and other EPA requirements. Sadly, the politicos in Texas bowed to the greenies and now 33% or more of the energy comes from solar and wind. I’m all for clean energy but killing off fossil fuels to get there is idiotic and destructive.
Fourth was the spiraling cost of nat gas, the real reason for the blackouts was $1,600 and up cost per megawat of energy. Zerohedge was doing a running commentary about that one. Enron’s tactics used in Texas.
I don’t know where it goes from here, hopefully it causes the blue staters to think twice about moving to Texas, perhaps they should go to Tennessee?
That was a nice concise update and opinion.
Glad you have power and stored water.
A good water filter is worth the investment i think.
Do you have wood heat backup?
I have a fireplace and camp stove. Lots of scrap lumber pieces that I tend to scrounge for various reasons. I have a Berkey knock off but I find that coffee filters and a three minute boil often does the trick if one can’t afford a Berkey.
Doesn’t do much if the water stops flowing completely though.
Doesn’t do much if the water stops flowing completely though.
San Antonio: an apartment complex burnt to the ground because there was no water…
I’m sorry, but there are not a “multitude of reasons “.
You see, i just learned yesterday from some dude named “mark” that the bitter cold ya’ll are experiencing is all a CONTROLLED FALSE FLAG. There are these geo-engineer dudes, and dudettes, who CREATED the cold weather! As such, Texas never actually came within “seconds and minutes” of any disaster. The geo-engineers had it all under control the whole time.
I am informing you of this not to point out the error of your ways, but to give you peace and comfort. Within days you will have 70 degree weather and your water will be flowing.
You might even see unicorns on your property.
Peace and prosperity unto you.
What few unicorns we had all froze to death. Their tiny little corpses are lying under the snow, I will scrape those bedraggled little corpses together after the thaw and feed them to the feral hogs.
Peace and prosperity be with you as well…
I, too, am a Hill Country resident and luckily came through with our well and pipes intact. Being prepared with a generator and propane-powered cooking and fire logs for heat made all the difference. Haven’t spotted any unicorns as yet, but will be watching for them as the snow melts.
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the “house farms”, as my wife calls them. The city of Kyle never met a developer they didn’t like and as things get more developed in the surrounding areas, we pray our “little slice of heaven” stands strong and keeps developers out. Maybe the bad press about Texas will help slow the tide of imports.
The blue staters are running away from lots worse so Texas seems cool.
Oh yee of little faith in the TLPTB (L=Luciferian’s) advancing technological capabilities.
Here is a Polar Vortex blast (I mean Ice Nucleation) from the past…
Geoengineering: Polar Vortex – Ice Nucleation 101
18,064 views
•Jan 10, 2014
Naw, none of this is possible…just another tin foil hat conspiracy theory…Always believe the TV news people…and the rest of media…after all the people that brought you 108 years of debt slavery, one FF war after another… an international Plandemic, wouldn’t – couldn’t – can’t develope the ability to control the weather…right???
TEXAGEDDON: A False Flag Geoterrorist Operation With Multiple Nefarious NWO Goals
CLIMATE ENGINEERING AND THE POLAR VORTEX CONVEYOR
Radical weather and temperature extremes are rapidly increasing in intensity and frequency. The geoengineers are continuing to ramp up on their forcing of the climate processes even as the whole climate system frays apart.
In order to perpetuate public confusion and division in regard to the true state of the global climate, the power structure must create and re-create the “polar vortex” cool-downs which mainstream media then sensationalizes. Some regions in the eastern US that were just buried under the last “polar vortex” hit record high temperatures today. Those same places are going to go back to snow by Wednesday. Though it recently snowed in the southern US near the Gulf coast, on November 24 warm rains were falling far into Canada almost all the way into Labrador. It’s balmy in Alaska as temperatures are still hovering at or near record highs in places (which mainstream media tends not to report). There is also the following much more dire fact that should be contemplated, the power structure is preparing for societal collapse. They will do everything possible to hide the true magnitude of damage done to the biosphere until the last possible moment.
Climate engineering is a tool of DECEPTION that has very successfully confused and divided populations. Those in power and their media have created the illusion of a “cold world” by orchestrating isolated engineered weather events. If the public truly understood the gravity and immediacy of the climate unraveling (much of it caused and fueled by the climate engineering itself), there would already be global panic. The agendas being carried out are complex, this should always be considered and kept in mind.
Dane Wigington
Nothing to see here…just go back to your regular scheduled Mocking Bird program…you don’t want to be called a Tin Foil Hat Right Wing Nut Conspiracy Theorist…do you?
Good red pilling, Mark. Some of us(probably you), have known about “geoengineering” for a long time. Chem trails is just part of it. Weaponized weather is in every bodies future, maybe future death. Stucky is quite smart, but, like most, is stuck in the approved Overton window. When it comes to the “narrative”, (((they))) have been very good at fooling most of the people, all the time. The KGB figured out that intensive brain washing for TWO months could condition people to the point that NOBODY could change their minds with ANY truth or facts. “It’s easier to fool a man, than to convince him he’s been fooled.” Sam’l Clements.
Tree Buddy,
I think it’s more black pilling…many already red pilled don’t understand it or haven’t done deep research into it.
I have a Son in law who refuses to even look at any 911 evidence of what really happened…I have a massive file…indisputable if you take the two days it will take to read and listen to it all…he will not open it…it’s not that he doesn’t have an IQ off the charts…he has been around me enough to know my investigative background, and I have proven/exposed so many other Wing Nut FF to him (The Fed being one) it scares him to know I will prove the truth about 911 to him. He just doesn’t want to face it, and told me that once.
I posted this on AoC’s thread about Texas and the first response was to call me a Tin Foil hat wearer…BOOM! CIA Operation Mocking Bird strikes again!
Everything is a lie, our currency, our government, our media, our food, our plandemic/masks/lockdown, our history, and now our weather. One deception and lie after another.
Don’t piss on my leg, tell me it’s raining and threaten me if I say anything I’ll be mocked, that’s what Mocking Bird really just is…another threat…blackmail towards people who refuse to be silenced.
You may have been down the rabbit hole more than me. Most people CAN’T be skeptical or cynicle enough. If folks on TBP would look into Operation Mocking Bird, they would learn, earn some cynicle skepticism. Your next to last paragraph reminded me of a lengthy article titled something like “Everything you Know is Wrong.” That was an article that really enhanced my “conspiracy theorist” status. Keep keeping us informed.
Tree Buddy,
Check out my recent post on ‘The Fear Experiment Worked’…
This country will never be free of evil until the CIA is dealt with at the TOP.
They seem to be a tactical arm of TLPTB.
Is a Civil War going on in the 17 Intelligence Agencies?
I sure hope so…if not we are all fooked!
Speaking of climate manipulation….here’s a patent issued in 1951 for a device that modifies the weather…created by Harvey M. Brandau
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2550324?oq=2550324
and here are more patents for weather control devices…
Then you have HAARP…
Major aspects of the program are kept secret for alleged reasons of “national security.” Yet there is no doubt that HAARP and electromagnetic weapons capable of being used in warfare do exist. According to the official HAARP website, “HAARP is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere…
“It isn’t just conspiracy theorists who are concerned about HAARP. The European Union called the project a global concern and passed a resolution calling for more information on its health and environmental risks. Despite those concerns, officials at HAARP insist the project is nothing more sinister than a radio science research facility.”
— Quote from a TV documentary on HAARP by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
https://americandigitalnews.com/index.php/2017/08/30/adn-compilation-hurricane-harvey-and-weather-modification/
Mygirl, Tree Buddy,
Others: If you have taken the Red Pill wonderful…here is a Black Pill…
Check this 0ut…
Mygirl – Not to worry, we are getting our share of the blue staters with their confused ways of how government should work. Central TN, near A0C is getting more of them than W TN, but we are still seeing houses going up everywhere.
I’m seriously considering selling for a mint at 100% ask – else I cut my orchard down – and moving out further. Or leaving the country altogether when the passports come in. Eff this ess.
Couldn’t Winnie give you a soapy bath? You may have to listen to the prophecies of Moroni, but isn’t it worth it?
And no, we don’t need any more locusts, thank you very much. Christ, we’re all meth heads and hillbillies here. WTF do they want to move to the land of redneck banjo music?
. WTF do they want to move to the land of redneck banjo music?
Silly, they are going to change and improve all you hillbillies, they will overrun the area and replace the natives with invasive species. They are like Asian carp or burmese pythons. You will get what Texas is suffering from, idiot leftists who don’t know their asses from holes in the ground taking over and turning paradise into shit. They are human kudzu.
No. We have enough of these cocksuckers and the POS County Mayors aren’t shutting down the developers.
You know why the developers aren’t being shut down?
Political kickbacks and dark money. When enough of them sit on the school and town boards you can watch the neighborhood go to hell.
I see the same thing on the East Coast where I live. The area where I live can barely support the myriad pizza joints that populated the pre-Covid days, yet they allowed a huge new restaurant called “The Edge” with a parking lot covering half the property that now sits empty with zero customers. Two other developments were built by Hasidic realty agents. One is a huge office building complex built near one of the busiest and most heavily trafficked intersections near town. The other is a shopping annex strip mall that doesn’t even have electricity or drywall installed yet. Both will service the influx of Hasidic residents bound to move in within the next several years. This township will just become more congested, overrun, and mismanaged like Lakewood NJ and Ramapo, NY.
There are no less than five senior retirement communities surrounding my suburban area. The occupancy rate has expanded in them, as well. In good weather it’s almost impossible to make a left turn without a traffic light and it’s only going to get worse.
Mygirl, AoC, Man on SM, think of your new neighbors as “areas of salvage opportunities” when they die or leave. There will be lots of useful stuff laying around for the survivors/prepper’s to put to use. As Hard Farmer would say “think in terms of oppetunity” opening up.
That’s if I decide to stay, I’m not sure I want to live in a shithole and what the vermin leave behind will be useless because they aren’t intelligent enough to acquire items that will help them survive and prosper.
I’m going to re-read The Monkey Wrench Gang for some tips on where to go from here.
Human kudzu is a great analogy. It creeps slowly enough that you don’t really notice, appears nice and “green,” and eventually smothers to death, everything it touches.
There’s lots of those blue people moving into Kentucky mainly via Lexington and Louisville, and those places keep becoming more shithole every day. Thank goodness they don’t like the rest of the state.
About northerners being unable to deal with extremes? We have hit at least 107 where I live and have been in Iowa when it was 110.
I was in Savanna IL the day they set the state record of -38. There was no wind and it wasn’t that bad. The snow squeaked when you stepped on it.
Our stuff worked at -38 and 107. Couldn’t resist. I do hope everything gets working quickly for you. We do have bad stuff happen here but it is usually tornado related.
It’s all because of our over reliance on technology, the magic pill that will cure all of our ills. In an ideal world, technicians would keep everything operating flawlessly, forever. Mother Nature is and has always been the great equalizer, look at the Corp of Engineers and all of their flood control failures. The laws of physics can never be violated for long, self reliance is the only solution to this man made problem. The future is very grim as long as partisanship is out of control. We are rapidly devolving into a tribal society, tribes will do what tribes have to do.
You forgot AI. The robots and transhumans will take care of everything.
You got that right.
It will operate at peak efficiency by shutting down everything except itself.
Bi-partisan = double penetration (no jpgs allowed).
Be careful what you wish for. Indeed, mother nature is a bitch, but people are being told that magic fairies from the government can keep them safe. Hard knocks is a bitch of a school, but people used to learn from it….even if it meant learning the lesson after the funerals.
A survival expert named Ferfal Aguirre wrote a book on surviving the collapse of Argentina and he described how cities were like organisms: When freezing, the appendages are sacrificed to preserve the organs within the torso for as long as possible. It means the affluent and influential people and politicians are spared until the bitter end.
So plan on that, OK?
The real reason for the misery was the fact that most people DON’T plan and don’t think. They rely on the government to provide and do their thinking for them. There was plenty of warning ahead of this weather system and people could have prepared. Hurricanes aren’t unusual around S. Texas and preparing for a hurricane would have covered the bases for what went down recently.
The other factor here is no common sense. I can understand an apartment dweller not being able to turn off a water meter, but not a home dweller, even a renter should know how to do that. Turning off the water and emptying the pipes goes a long way to prevent major plumbing problems.
Yes, indeed. I have read all about fingers and toes actually falling off. Have seen pictures of it.
But, I have a serious question for you …. why don’t dicks freeze and fall off?? At least fingers and toes have neighbors, but that Glorious Appendage is hanging out there all alone … and his closest neighbor is an asshole. Yet, they never, ever, just fall off. Weird, man.
Phallic Humor
Silly, with the cold that precious appendage shrivels up like a raisin and becomes so small that it might as well be missing. Over time the shrinkage is such that the body absorbs the tiny thing or else it gets scratched off from clothing.
Shrinkage. Ask George Costanza, he knows all about it.
Easier to keep them warm. And it feels good doing it.
Expose it to bitter cold, and it runs and hides inside like any smart thing would.
Texas just got a small hint of what could happen…
https://www.onesecondafter.com/
I think we read the same books. That’s a good one, although, I think it was a bit too rosy.
After I read it I bought 10 buckets of freeze dried staples…and I already had a pallet!
1 second after is a good example of why nobody should know about your food supplies–
remember the part where they confiscated everyone’s food & executed the holdouts–
Well Tampa…living on a farm is pretty hard to hide the reality you grow/have food…but all I can say is remember the part when everyone was shooting everyone…
I have already been an extra in a real life Mad Max movie…so there is that.
And one second after that will start…I’m ready as anyone for return violence and killing and dying as anyone can be.
Anybody can be over-run…but at least I won’t die on an empty stomach stealing from somebody else….
Whata ya gonna DEW when they come for you?
mark,
i didn’t direct that at you as much as i did other people–i’m willing to bet that you have your food in several different areas of your property so that you could hand some over w/nobody the wiser–
what am i gonna dew?probably die,it’s tough to prep when the wife thinks she’s married to a nut b/c he wants to prep–
i envy you guys who have a wife w/an old fashioned mindset–
Tampa,
My DEW reference was tongue in cheek…no matter the evidence presented many refuse to believe what TLPTB are doing to people with Direct Energy Weapons at night disguised as forest fires. (I have put up a couple of posts with indisputable evidence of mass murders by this secret technology…yet many mocked it. Same with weather control and Chemtrails.
&f=1&nofb=1
&f=1&nofb=1
I don’t see a ONE SECOND AFTER EMP happening, possible of course, but it seems obvious to me what is coming is a slow motion controlled demolition…leading to their so called Great Reset…Agenda 21/30, UBI, depopulation (also called mass murder) eventual Civil War (sooner rather than later I hope) that is why they have to have a sock puppet like Biden in power…and get Trump out of the way…no matter who he really was/is in his heart’s heart.
As far as your wife, being unequally yoked when it comes to survival/prepping/core beliefs…I feel for you. I have sat my wife down and shown her vids, gave her links to read, even books, and explained to her what I was doing and why. I don’t make any major moves/$ without bringing her in.
Try the education route.
I work in manufacturing, specifically equipment reliability.
I lived in Houston in the 80’s, can’t remember the year, but temps got down to ~10 degrees over Christmas holiday. People left Houston to go home to visit family, many folks had moved down from MI then since the car industry tanked.
As a young engineer, the plant where I work, equipment cooling water lines froze up. Yes they were insulted, but not to withstand that level of cold. Shutting down the operating units, furnaces crashed down, had to be rebuilt.
Thousands of houses’ water lines in the attic froze while people were gone. When power came back on, pipes unfroze, houses flooded, water running out the doors. (plumbers had to come in from out of state.
I assume the gas and coal fired power plants had lines freezing up, of course wind mills were iced over.
Week prior to this, I was in the Panhandle area, power lines were iced over, drooping from the weight. The windmills were too far away to see if they had ice on them.
My other point, don’t know anything about ERCOT, however, I expect they have statistically ‘modelled’ this event. They have the RPN ‘Risk Priority Number’ calculations somewhere. Of course the Probability (likeness) of an weather event like this is very small, but can happen. The Consequence, severe.
https://fmea-fmeca.com/fmea-rpn.html
That stuff will never see the light of day due to lawsuits.
It is not so much the cold weather as it is the duration of the cold. We can handle a night of zero temps with few problems, but going a week with temps in the single digits and teens takes a toll on the infrastructure that is not designed for extended cold weather.
You are correct about the RPN or the “acceptable loss” number.
If we are going into a little ice age cycle as some believe, then it will not be isolated. It will occur every winter.
We are actually going into a solar minimum, global warming be damned!
At the same time we have all these pinheads talking about this or that scheme to cool the planet. They are insane and the idea they follow science is the biggest joke of all.
They are not insane, diabolically evil yes but insane no.
In any FMEA, it still takes well-informed and educated folks to put in all the numbers, including the “severity” number and “likelihood” number. If money is involved in mitigation, those numbers have a tendency to “magically” fall to make the RPN “ok.” This is especially important if one is only looking at the severity of the impact to local operations, damages, etc. rather than the widespread implications like people dying, being without water, etc. for miles and miles. Been there, watched that, spoke up, told to shut up.
I also was working outside too and the coldest two years were 1977 (a whole month, I had ice on the inside of my windows in ND) and 1983 ( right at Christmas & New Years, wells froze and ranchers stacked cattle like logs).
1983, December I believe.
Reposting here and from this article:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241623
Seems to me the EPA is a joke. Why replace a perfectly functioning pump, where failover is limited to the facility, with an electric pump dependent upon miles of “green” and power lines?
P.S. I know the answer. If you don’t or you haven’t guessed, just read the first half of the first page very closely.
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-06/documents/ll_glycol_pumps3.pdf
Surprised this hasn’t already been flushed down the memory hole.
Great find, thanks for sharing.
Another good one AoC. The “plan” is to collapse the system by over whelming it with politically correct, incompetent managers, in all areas of .Gov, business.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/power-bills-moon-chaos-shock-electricity-prices-across-us-explode
This is a prime example of how interdependent, fragile and tenuous our system truly is and how one crazy unforseen event can bring down the whole house of cards locally, nationally or worldwide.
Wildcards such as this can come out of nowhere at any moment.
This wasn’t a wildcard, this had plenty of forecasts in advance of the event and most folk should have had some preps prior just because.
AOC just posted some compelling information re electric pumps. If you have no electricity because the ‘renewables’ aren’t working, and you’re forced by ignorant ideologues into using technology that is woefully inadequate for the situation at hand, then you have recipes for disaster. Seems our ‘greenies’ aren’t too bright but those fools are who issue laws and rules and mandates that create these disasters.
I think the upper echelons are very bright. It’s time for folks to reassess their opinions of Mabus and his Shadow Government.
It’s the middle layers of the Party that are useful idiots. Lots of MBAs in this crowd, looking to pinch pennies with visions that stretch only as far as the next fiscal quarter. The remainder are True Believers who’ve never so much as run tilthy soil through their fingers. If they had, they’d know there’s an easier and “greener” way of sequestering carbon, if they’re so inclined.
I’m not so inclined, but every year I sequester more carbon than the average American does in a lifetime of virtue signaling. Fact.
This is Texas, a desert Gulf state. The magnitude and longevity of it is unprecedented. Us northern folks expect it they don’t.
If you can’t afford A manual wood or coal stove A large canister kerosene heater, 50 gallons of kerosene a few 20 pound propane tanks and propane camp stove, some good water filters and cold weather sleeping bags will get you through 10 days or so of it in a pinch on a tight budget.
Don’t forget to crack the window and have a working CO alarm handy
…And some extra cans of baked beans
Then you should invest in a methane detector as well. 🙂
Beans beans the musical fruit the more you eat the more you toot.
Europe is having miserable cold weather but not one of the MSM is reporting on that little factoid or if they do then it is tied to climate change. It’s wonderful how climate change is the best catchall for any weather anomaly.
No, our wonderful media is full of tales of covid vaccine and Bad Trump /Cruz and Biden’s latest bout of hand waving and the rest of the propaganda agenda so it has no time to actually report on real news in an unbiased and agenda driven manner.
Once all this crap melts (I have several feet of snow on everything) it will be back to the utter canard of “this has been the hottest year in history.” I guarantee they will trot that out very soon. It has become an annual event at this point. “Hottest year in history.”
Leopards cannot change their spots, “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” for the narrative! By the way, cold weather is responsible for more deaths than hot!
Warm periods in history are called “optima.” Things like food grow. Swamps dry up and reduce insect borne diseases etc. If you are a Prog shit for brains apparently that is all bad.
That’s not too much of an outlier there, I think the Acropolis is covered in snow at least once a decade…
Well, one thing is sure about the Great Texas Power Outage. Democommies down there in Houston, Austin, and various other Texas Big City Democrat Shitholes are sure bitching the most. And, the first thing they jump at is claiming that “their” wind mills and solar cells aren’t to blame for this mess.
Instead of robust and flexible, plus nimble and well-mixed, power generation systems, the jeenyusses-in-charge decided to make the one fucking thing that makes modern civilization happen – ELECTRICTY – on the cheap. And not robust; nor well mixed; nor protected.
Texas, and the millions of great people there, got what a corrupt system could best engineer and they have and shall continue to, pay and suffer for the greed and stupidity. (As will most of us wherever we live.)
Years ago I was working at some hole in the wall comedy club on the Mississippi River up north- Quad Cities area. There was a huge flood and since the show was cancelled and I had time on my hands I went down and helped fill sandbags (who said the infantry was a waste of time?) to protect some houses along the river. There was a lot of folks going at it, prisoners from a nearby penitentiary, Mennonites, National Guardsmen, people from the area filling and stacking as the water level rose. One of the guys working next to me had lost his house the day before and in talking with him I discovered that it was his third flood loss. Three times his house had washed down the Ol’ Mississip. And the entire time he kept repeating the same refrain, I can’t believe it.
That’s why nothing will ever improve. There is no understanding, no wisdom gained, no lights going off over people’s heads, no insurance companies willing to say Yeah, no. Just an endless loop like Groundhog Day where people keep doing the dumbest shit they can think of hoping that next time it will be different.
Anyone who was alive during the Oil Embargo in the late 70’s who lives in a grid tied home without an adequate supply and alternative means of heat/electric/water for their primary residence isn’t really in the game of life. They’re playing on easy mode expecting someone will pop out a titty every time they need something.
Large complicated systems are inherently fragile under the best of circumstances.
Let me repeat that.
Large complicated systems are inherently fragile under the best of circumstances.
We no longer live under the averagest of circumstances and if that isn’t a word, it should be. Everything from here on out is part of a systemic collapse and if you do not plan for that eventuality, you will wind up standing on the edge of a proverbial floodplain, filling rhetorical sandbags while your archetypal house floats downstream saying I can’t believe it.
I remember in the 70’s and early 80’s, many people bought wood and coal burning stoves. I remember several occasions from that time when we had no power but the house was sure toasty warm. It’s like that’s been forgotten, and how many people would burn their house down if they had to light a stove for the first time?
But in the end, Bill Murray gets Andie McDowell….so hope springs eternal….right??? LOL.
Never forget that national flood insurance programs incentivize that stupid, misguided, repetitive behavior. If he had to put up every penny, it likely would have only been twice (maybe).
And it does so at the expense (at least theortically) of taxpayers who don’t live in flood plains.
I thought in the end Bill Murray gets shot and dies.
Oops that was Zombieland
I live an hour from there. It’s a regular feature with Downtown Davenport flooding. In ’94 there was a 500 year flood and that was indescribable. The river was out of its banks in some places for miles. My folks had been persuaded by my sister to buy a house/cabin with her and her husband about 30 miles upstream from the QCA. It was two stories and completely under water. So, of course they built a new one. The bottom floor is open to allow water to run in and out if it floods. About half the time it is inaccessible due to the access roads being flooded. Some years you cannot get there at all. Not my idea of a good time. Only a politician could invent flood insurance.
Only a politician getting HUGE kickbacks/payoffs/campaign contributions from REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS. Also include the greed of the local politicians in wanting more and more property tax revenues for more and more homes in areas nobody should be living in.
“As natural gas fired plants, utility scale wind power and coal plants tripped offline due to the extreme cold brought by the winter storm…”
Many natural gas and coal plants did not “trip offline due to cold”. They were shut off for “greener” pastures.
That Zero Hedge quote is certainly loaded with disinformation. I don’t believe anything they have to say since they went whole-hog for censorship. No one can quote how many coal plants went off line, and I’m curious if there would have been a power shortage had those they scrapped still been in operation.
Zero hedge is not the most reliable place to find facts. They take a generally good tone, and you can find more stories there than most places, especially about stuff the mainstream suppresses, but there is still lots of bias.
Everything has a bias. What you do is glean as much as you can on whatever the topic is from as many viewpoints as possible and then set your mind to work it out.
Usually you’ll come pretty close.
It’s like The Jellybean Average.
Indeed. I enjoy Zero Hedge because at least they bother to mention the topic even if there is some messed up bias in some of the stories. I can get through that. Other places you never even know that something is going on because of their willful coverup/suppression.
And Iran has been weeks from getting The Bomb for more than a decade. These sort of headlines are meant to discredit the opposition.
In this case Team Red clearly mismanaged the resources they were entrusted with. Now, either Team Blue will either use that to flip Texas or force them onto that national grid that is managed by DC for the benefit of DC.
Neither outcome is good but like Rahm said, “Never let a crisis go to waste”
ALL forms of power are safest when decentralized. Putting power in the hands of a government monopoly or government-protected monopoly is the worst of all moves.
Especially when real science expects and prepares for Maunder Minimums with the same level of preparation as preparing for abnormal heat. Politicized science is dogma, not science. It cost them plenty. Imagine if this stuff happened in California? Their idiot grid goes down all the time but so far not when people could freeze in large numbers.
Instead they turn off the power when its 110F and people die from the heat in numbers. The numbers just aren’t as large, and the coverup is far more widespread. And you can’t take pics from the air showing all the “heat” like you can show all the snow.
Enron v2.0? those good ole boyz are at it again? maybe feeling left out of all the ‘free’ money flying around?
RELIABILITY
https://www.infowars.com/posts/the-temporary-collapse-of-texas-is-foreshadowing-the-total-collapse-of-the-united-states/
I’m just now getting back online after this chaos here in TX. My power and heat were out from Sunday at 5PM until after 7PM yesterday evening. Luckily my water worked the entire time, many around this area didn’t have that (but some of them had power). Though the sun is shining and snow/ice melting, it’s still going to be until tomorrow, hopefully, before I can get my SUV — which is in my front yard — out of there, the ground is frozen solid. It’s been crazy.
So, my 80 year-old mother and I spent four days in front of the fireplace, cooking our food with cans of Sterno for heat. We didn’t have to get into the stored food because our neighbors and I all helped each other out, and we used our tractors to tow peoples’ cars when they couldn’t make it up our street, as there’s a rather steep incline at its entrance, and when the weather is bad traction is almost impossible (not even in my 4×4 Toyota). It’s great to have a community at times like this, and I’m happy to be a part of it. I know how rare it is.
But as far as ENRON, sorry, ERCOT goes, they can all take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, you can’t tell me that our power grid is so fragile that in the event of an emergency this sort of shit happens, there are so many things wrong with their excuses. Grids are built-in with redundancies which are there by their very natures to stop overloads and preventing total failures, just like in a computer, and since the grids are all computerized, and the computers never failed, I’m finding their logic wanting. This was all an exercise in control, plain and simple. They wanted us all to know who, literally, has the power, and what it’s like when they take it back; and so my elderly mother and I were part of “the greater good” as we suffered? BULLSHIT. You’re telling me the system is so vulnerable that nobody knew, and could have fixed it? That all these so-called experts with all their doom scenarios didn’t build the infrastructure needed? How did these people get these jobs?
I live near an airport and am within a half-mile radius from a reserve armed forces depot; neither of them were ever without power. I have friends who live in town in the “good” part — only a few lost their power. The point is, this was not a complete blackout, it was a pointed one. I guarantee Bill Magness and Leslie Sopko and their families were never without.
Personally, I enjoyed the time spent at home, with bare essentials. One can entertain some deep thoughts whilst staring into a roaring fire. The longer we were living spare I realized I didn’t really miss the outside world. Most important, however, I was able to be there to help my mother survive this hell. It made me believe that maybe, just maybe, I’m right where I needed to be.
Oh yeah — and it’s gonna be fun when TXU sends me my electric bill for this month. I hope there’s a survey in there.
Wonderful on the spot update Captain! Good for you and Mom!
We went two days and nights without power. The second day it was 2 degrees outside. We got through it because we were prepared. This doesn’t mean that we didn’t suffer somewhat from the cold weather but our preparations made it possible for us to manage the situation.
Those who could think and use reason suffered the least. Those who did not think and use reason to prepare suffered the most.
The scriptures say that the poor will always be among us. I realize this word “poor” really means poor in mind power. The reality is that the majority; even the poor, got through this.
I don’t blame anyone for this. Shit happens. This occurrence has exposed the weakness in our electrical infrastructure and the apathy in the minds of the men that manage it all the way up to the people responsible for the financial resources to maintain it. Hopefully this apathy will abate and money will go into bringing this infrastructure up to the standards we expect so we don’t go through this again.
In the days ahead we are going to find out about all the damage caused by this power outage like broken pipes in apartment buildings and structures that house irrigation pumps & equipment and pumps that run our water features of all types including swimming pools. It is going to be an expensive endeavor to repair all this equipment. It will keep all our tradesmen busy.
What has really opened my mind about all the poverty out there is when the news showed all the people in lines going into the supermarket needing to purchase food. So many people without extra canned food in their homes nor a one burner propane stove to cook it? In critical preparation these are cheap items to have on hand. In this day when the economy is tanking all around us one would think people would be prepared for hard times. If people think the government is going to save them they are in la la land. The government is only thinking about saving itself.
Just looking at this response by so many people during this minor occurrence of inconvenience during this power outage in unusually cold weather I am convinced many people are going to die when this coming economic depression goes full blown.
I recommend everyone who is not yet prepared for what is coming to do so ASAP. This latest occurrence is a wakeup call for those not yet prepared.
“I am convinced many people are going to die when this coming economic depression goes full blown”.
By the millions…depopulation plans have been long announced. Most people can’t hear them because their mooing has drowned out the warnings.
Stupid individuals, don’t know they’re stupid, now add an exponent. A paraphrased quote “citizens follow whatever the government says into total chaos and destruction, but they only recover individually on their own”. It’s going to get much worse!
It is as if they are saying “Testing, Testing… Testing, Testing” and no one realizes that we are part of the test, not watching it.
2 words…WHALE OIL. Natural AND renewable. I should talk to Uncle Joe about this. Snark aside, no power outages in my central Texas community but I burned through about a half cord of oak that I was saving for smoking dead animals. (such are the sacrifices we have to make). Son in Huntsville just got power back (out since Monday). Maybe I’ll get a granbebe out of this
24/7/365 power for decades, but for three of those thousands upon thousands of days, upwards of 30% of customers were subjected to power outages when confronted with a 100 year event. Currently less than 1% of customers are experiencing an outage. One thing confirmed again for me is how unreliable the ‘sustainable’ energy sources were, and required the base, dirty fossil fuel plants to take up the slack. On 14 Feb, wind generation collapsed from 10,000 MW to less that 2,000 MW the following day. NG and coal fired plants went off line consequently failing to generate enough to cover the green energy source deficits. Remember while the ax grinders are actually blaming NG/Coal generation, Texas has the highest percentage of wind generation in the nation, and both solar and wind production collapsed during the height of the outages. I’ll leave a link to the US EIA link to track the power generation by source over those few fateful days.
I was watching the local DFW news last night and in Ft. Worth alone, the water authority reported approx. 225 water mains broken and suspected an add’l 200 have burst. Maybe these municipalities should be also raked over the coals for failing to spend billions for being unprepared for this level of extreme cold.
https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/ERCO
https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas
Ok the really smart energy guys got caught with their pants down and the preppers compared to chicken little were sitting toasty warm eating hot food with the lights on watching sat tv .
Owning the gear in case of emergency is not a joke it’s intelligence . You don’t buy a gun or a fire extinguisher because your going to be attacked or have a fire but if you do or are you have tilted the odds in your favor !
Lying bastards.
Our kids hear us yammer’n about being prep’d for emergencies all the time. One said they’d be ok in an emergency so I challenged them. Go turn off the breaker in your electrical panel for two days and NO going out for dinners, the whole city is out of power. Now see how well you are prep’d.
So far none have done this, to much trouble.
BTW, this article just happens to leave out that 37 or so coal fired generating plants have been taken off line and shut down in order to allow solar and wind generated units to play in the sand box. So, we’re reaping what the lobbyists have sewed in Texas and that is an inadequate power supply system that should not be. If the coal fired plants had been left on line and even cut back and allowed the solar and wind units to produce we would have been just fine. But NO! We had to suffer the consequences in order to learn this lesson. Now, who in Austin is paying attention? I guess we’ll find out shortly because the “crowd is going to roar” over this fiasco. Millions and millions in unnecessary damages due to lack of power to homes and businesses. Hell! The insurance companies should be lining up to sue the state, the Public Utilities Commission and anyone else who might have any connection to causing this atrocity. And yes, it IS an atrocity.