Cool Dude!

[gearhead]

18F in the metropolis of Liberty Texas. The beach in Galveston has disappeared under snow and ice. Traffic cameras in Houston are showing no one on the roads. We had sleet that is being covered with snow. Will stay below freezing until Wednesday.
We still have electricity and water, but there has been rolling blackouts in some parts of Houston. Our 20K watts of Generac backup generator has just done its' Monday morning test run so we should be good whatever.
Y'all hang in there wherever you are.

[CedarCreekWoody]

Not any better here in North central Texas either. 9 degrees.

[Life-in-Him]

A balmy -35F here in easterm Colo when we got up this am. Actual -29f.

Cattle still wandering around the feed lot but non standing on the pile 😅
Working on window insulation project on the RV so we can head south ⚒️🤣😩

[sourdough]

Brent, hold on...there's more to come!!

Well, as we saw with advent of covid, the shortsightedness of our fellow humans is sometimes astounding.

Just got a call from my son at Lake Whitney TX. He was going to make tacos and burritos for dinner tonight so ran to the local Brookshire's in Whitney...it's cold there too. Said the shelves were bare. Folks were lined from the registers to the back of the store, some with multiple baskets full of.....just "stuff", like the end of the world!! The insanity may be coming to a store near you. Of course the weather is going to clear up in a day or 2; makes you wonder what these folks think they're going to do with all that junk when it gets nice.....maybe overstock.com???? Heaven help us.

[Cbrez]

It’s lousy here in Sarasota, FL. 82 deg and sunny but with the wind it only feels about 80. Brrrr.

My son is going snowboarding tomorrow in WV. Should be great skiing conditions so good for him.

[Laredo Tugger]

[QUOTE=Cbrez;434423]It’s lousy here in Sarasota, FL. 82 deg and sunny but with the wind it only feels about 80. Brrrr.

I'm passing a note around class here: "Hey let's beat this kid up at recess"

Just kidding Cbrez! Good for you, somebody has nice weather. Enjoy.

RMc

[Cbrez]

Ha!!! I deserve that. I think of myself as a smarta#%. DW just says I’m a dumba#%. She’s right as always.

[gearhead]

Originally Posted by sourdough

Brent, hold on...there's more to come!!

Well, as we saw with advent of covid, the shortsightedness of our fellow humans is sometimes astounding.

Just got a call from my son at Lake Whitney TX. He was going to make tacos and burritos for dinner tonight so ran to the local Brookshire's in Whitney...it's cold there too. Said the shelves were bare. Folks were lined from the registers to the back of the store, some with multiple baskets full of.....just "stuff", like the end of the world!! The insanity may be coming to a store near you. Of course the weather is going to clear up in a day or 2; makes you wonder what these folks think they're going to do with all that junk when it gets nice.....maybe overstock.com???? Heaven help us.

Too late it's here. I did a grocery pickup at our local Walmart yesterday. No parking spots open. Had to wait. When the kid came to my car window asking who I was we talked a bit. I said something about not having any bread or green onions the day before. He said they have run out of bacon, ramon noodles, jalapenos and all kind of stuff. People are paniced by the media.
Watching our ex governor on Tucker Carlson, he says we have so much power outages because Texas relies on wind turbines too much. Seems they are iced up and out of service. Hopefully we may have learned a lesson. Crank up those "flamethrower" nat gas turbines. So much for Texas going hippie.

[travelin texans]

Originally Posted by gearhead

Too late it's here. I did a grocery pickup at our local Walmart yesterday. No parking spots open. Had to wait. When the kid came to my car window asking who I was we talked a bit. I said something about not having any bread or green onions the day before. He said they have run out of bacon, ramon noodles, jalapenos and all kind of stuff. People are paniced by the media.
Watching our ex governor on Tucker Carlson, he says we have so much power outages because Texas relies on wind turbines too much. Seems they are iced up and out of service. Hopefully we may have learned a lesson. Crank up those "flamethrower" nat gas turbines. So much for Texas going hippie.

Texas has plenty of natural gas, fire up those generators.
Like most states these days getting way too many Californians hauling a## out that state after ruining it showing up trying Californize everywhere else.
Texans fought off Santa Anna & won, now maybe should fight off those from Santa Anna.
Having trouble now with keeping up with power needs yet want to eliminate fossil fuel vehicles & replace with electric, where do these tree huggers plan on charging all these EVs? Other than wind & solar (that they bitch about the appearance of both on the landscape) where/how do they think power is generated?
Sorry for the rant, but coming from 3rd generation, 120+ years total,(grandfather spent 61 years in the oilfield working everyday) that made a great living & retired from oilfield related businesses.

[gearhead]

There's a lot of issues going on here. I don't mind a few windmills but obviously (now) they can't be relied on. Having worked 35 years in a large petro chem complex, it's the small things that will bite you in the butt. There will be a piece of 1/4" pipe that is not freeze protected and be the cause of a shutdown. A lot of attention and a lot of manpower has to be directed towards it. We went to 12 hour shifts around the clock for freeze protection. Of course operations is always on around the clock.
I'm guessing that the windmills are controlled remotely. Maybe a pilot here would know, but does the low pressure side of a propeller freeze easily? I don't see why they don't have cooling system heaters and oil reservoir heaters. But what do I know.
Don't California my Texas.

[JRTJH]

Back in the 70's when we lived in Denver, the "mantra" was "Don't Californicate Colorado". The last time we spent any amount of time in Denver was 2 years ago and it looks to me that the "mantra failed"....

That said, icing forms about equally on propeller leading edges, with a bit more ice formation on the inner leading edge because of the lower pressure there.

The "problem" with ice formation, along with the fact that it exists and changes airflow dynamics, is when it "flies off the blade". That creates an extreme unbalanced system. From what I understand, it's the "shedding ice" that causes the most damage to a wind turbine. When thick ice sheets fly off one blade on a 3 blade "balanced turbine system" the falling ice can break or damage the other two blades along with causing the entire system to "sling through the air unevenly" which can lead to destruction of the turbine drive as well as to the entire 3-blade mechanism.

So, not only does ice alter the airflow, making the wind turbine less able to turn the turbine, when the ice starts to break off the blades, it can "cause enough damage to actually bring the turbine system down"... So, at the first signs of icing, they "shut it down rather than risk destroying it"...

[B-O-B'03]

Work on day two of "rolling blackouts" here... which is working out to an hour or so of power and then 4 to 6 of nothing.

I have decided to just leave the Champion connected with my littl jumper and forget about Oncor for the foreseeable future.

The DW told me my grid is more stable and at least we can run things like one furnace, coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven, lights, TV, etc.

Power came back on last night around 11:30, after being off since 7:30 so I unhooked the genny and went to bed around midnight, the power went off around 30 minutes later and when I woke up a little before 6 AM it was 53 in the house. I hooked the genny back up and it is staying until the power is stable or it dies.

We had similar conditions back in 2011, but I do not remember power issues like this.

-Brian

[Javi]

Originally Posted by B-O-B'03

Work on day two of "rolling blackouts" here... which is working out to an hour or so of power and then 4 to 6 of nothing.

I have decided to just leave the Champion connected with my littl jumper and forget about Oncor for the foreseeable future.

The DW told me my grid is more stable and at least we can run things like one furnace, coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven, lights, TV, etc.

Power came back on last night around 11:30, after being off since 7:30 so I unhooked the genny and went to bed around midnight, the power went off around 30 minutes later and when I woke up a little before 6 AM it was 53 in the house. I hooked the genny back up and it is staying until the power is stable or it dies.

We had similar conditions back in 2011, but I do not remember power issues like this.

-Brian

That's because the % of power generated by the wind turbines and solar was less than 10% in 2011... now it's 40% they shut down the nukes and the coal plants so nothing to fall back on...

[jasin1]

Can you imagine if you all had electric cars as well? I guess that’s what the future holds..no electric for home or transportation...where are all the guys on this forum that said green energy is the greatest? it’s a shame how things are getting.....

Edit.. no laughing matter

[gearhead]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

Back in the 70's when we lived in Denver, the "mantra" was "Don't Californicate Colorado". The last time we spent any amount of time in Denver was 2 years ago and it looks to me that the "mantra failed"....

That said, icing forms about equally on propeller leading edges, with a bit more ice formation on the inner leading edge because of the lower pressure there.

The "problem" with ice formation, along with the fact that it exists and changes airflow dynamics, is when it "flies off the blade". That creates an extreme unbalanced system. From what I understand, it's the "shedding ice" that causes the most damage to a wind turbine. When thick ice sheets fly off one blade on a 3 blade "balanced turbine system" the falling ice can break or damage the other two blades along with causing the entire system to "sling through the air unevenly" which can lead to destruction of the turbine drive as well as to the entire 3-blade mechanism.

So, not only does ice alter the airflow, making the wind turbine less able to turn the turbine, when the ice starts to break off the blades, it can "cause enough damage to actually bring the turbine system down"... So, at the first signs of icing, they "shut it down rather than risk destroying it"...

I would imagine they have vibration sensors that could automatically shut the turbine down. We had them on all critical equipment and a lot of smaller spared rotating equipment.
I wonder if the blades could be heated internally to prevent icing.
About 8 years ago my son worked at the huge generating station southwest of Houston near Rosenburg. They could burn coal or nat gas. Usually just kept one boiler hot so they could get on line ASAP. They found it was cheaper to buy power from someone else. They had a few gas turbines there and also another site north of Houston that was nothing but gas turbines. The gen plant near Baytown was a nat gas boiler that was kept at low rates. Heck they had to reduce rates after they had a crane drop one of the units turbine rotors.
I'm all for reducing carbon but not at this cost. Nat gas boilers and nat gas turbines are incredibly clean burning. Those flamethrower gas turbines can be pulled and/or overhauled in a fraction of the time a conventional steam boiler can be overhauled.
We are being lead by idiots. Heads should roll for what is happening in Texas, but I ain't holding my breath.

[JRTJH]

Yep, For the foreseeable future, I'd want a 100% "backup fossil fuel capacity" and consider the "green energy" to be a plus that allows reduced fossil fuel burn. But, the old "standard source" is there as a backup.

It "should" (IMHO) stay that way until we've learned a helluva lot more than we know about "green energy production"... We'd never rely on a child in kindergarten to plan our family budget, why do we allow someone with "5 years of energy production experience" to plan our "grid requirements" ??? Once we know more about the pitfalls (through experience, not computer models) then we can start relying more heavily on "green"... Until then, for the sake of mankind (literally) we need to maintain a 100% fossil fuel capacity...

I'd further say, THANK GOD WE AREN'T RELYING ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES FOR OUR EMERGENCY TRANSPORTATION REQUIREMENTS !!!!!

ADDED: As for vibration sensors and blade de-icing systems, I'd suspect there is more than a little "technology available" ... We've got wind farms around here and they operate 24/7, so the icing you're seeing is "common for us all winter"...

My guess would be that the "de-icing technology" costs more and whoever built the systems in southwest Texas wrote that part off (to save money or sell bigger packages) as not being needed.... Texas: Nah, we don't need no stinkin' de-ice stuff".... Yeah, right, another "green new deal position gone TU"....

[notanlines]

Probably more blade info than you bargained for: https://www.windpowerengineering.com...urbine-blades/

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by notanlines

Probably more blade info than you bargained for: https://www.windpowerengineering.com...urbine-blades/

I read that article a couple of years ago when I was researching a wind turbine for our house. There's lots of considerations, most on the negative side of the page. The big ones for me was the cost of cold weather operation and the noise pollution from the turbine system 60' up in the air, directly behind the house, which is the only place high enough to install it. To be honest, given the cost of the turbine, the installation and the reimbursement for "excess energy" rates (what they buy from me) would mean that I'd have to own it for about 15 years without it needing anything except routine maintenance for it to break even. Given the average lifespan before upgrade being less than half that 15 years, I decided not to donate my time, property or money to a guaranteed loss investment. So, I'm still buying my electricity, heating with natural gas and have a heat pump air conditioner system that's probably overkill for the amount of "cooling needed in this area"....

Anyway, yep, I read that article quite some time ago, not much has changed in the past couple of years, so as old as it is, it's still current information.....

[sourdough]

I had deleted the post below earlier because it was too long and addressed non relevant issues. After reading the above posts, and just now receiving a call from TXU electric about the power situation back in TX, I decided to post it in an edited form.

The issue with the turbines, and every other "green" energy source, as I see it, is the fact that ideology, insisting the world go "green" at the expense of mankind...and without any coherent plan or rationale, completely ignore common sense and logic - always. Turbines don't run when there isn't enough wind, and most times there isn't. They freeze up as we are witnessing now causing large drops in power production. Solar arrays don't work when they are iced up or it's cloudy. Hmmm, so how exactly does all this "green" power help us in times like this? It doesn't. How do you deal with it? You do without power. That's a no go for me.

We're 1500 miles from home and TX has instituted rolling power blackouts. Why? As I mentioned somewhere else (I believe on this forum), TX is the leader in wind energy production and now depends on it for a substantial portion of the power supplied to its grid - whoops - that's gone. Add to that the solar they are putting online. Add to that all the nuclear, coal, natural gas power plants that have been shut down to say "we're green". Holy batcrap, do we get the picture? Now, TX is swimming in oil and natural gas but it's not PC to put it to use for the benefit of mankind.... back to the blackouts;

We were advised by our neighbor that the power went out in our neighborhood yesterday evening. Don't have a generator there and haven't needed one since we built the house decades ago. No forewarning; no idea how long it would last - nothing, just that the power is out on a near zero degree day. We didn't even know if it was a planned outage or if ice caused a tree to fall. Well, tough luck. The power company does not/will not take service calls so that you can even report you are without power via phone, leave message, email etc. Any/all efforts to report you have no power are met with "we aren't taking calls now, call back another day", "this webpage is not operational" etc. Infuriating since I just paid 3k+ for a new fridge that was destroyed by a brown out when we were gone this summer. I was just told by the TXU representative that they cannot contact the power distribution company either - is that crazy or what?

Sorry for the long rant but these things could be prevented if we somehow could keep our heads and use common sense vs running off the cliff chasing nonsensical, ideological fantasies. Oh, and I'll be looking at installing a fixed generator when we return so that it can kick on (using good ol fossil fuel) and take care of business when all the "green" alternatives fail again; which they will - a very expensive solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.

[gearhead]

Dang it. Galveston is requesting refrigerated trailers. For bodies.
Power has been off.
Houses catching fire in Houston from people using BBQ grills indoors, etc. People are running their cars in the garage to warm up. Surge of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Meanwhile the downtown buildings in Houston are lit up like Christmas trees. Citizens outraged after us commoners were told to conserve.
Gov. Abbott's road to the White House is getting bumpy.