what did you do today?

[Midnitemack]

Aw gee, bet you had the AC on in your truck.   Why dont you rub it in...?.?

Cos we can  , it’s a hot dry summer down here , I have experienced a North Dakota winter back in 2001 when I did a couple of harvest seasons back to back . I understand what you are facing  at the moment, and we will never experience that here in NZ.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rural53]

I can't comprehend living and working in 0F, let alone what some of you are getting at the moment. I was listening to the radio on my way back and they were interviewing a Kiwi living in Houston. She was talking about how the power companies were turning power off to some areas, in some cases for days at a time, due to lack of generation capacity.

[DeadNutz]

Texas was literally minutes away from their electrical grid crashing and they had to start the blackouts. Part of the problem was the frozen windmills and part was the natural gas power plants not receiving gas through the pipelines due to pumping stations freezing up. They don't store the gas onsite and use JIT delivery. Their large percentage of solar and wind power cost them dearly.

I hope this is a wake up call for the green energy only advocates but I doubt it.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/

[walrus]

Texas was literally minutes away from their electrical grid crashing and they had to start the blackouts. Part of the problem was the frozen windmills and part was the natural gas power plants not receiving gas through the pipelines due to pumping stations freezing up. They don't store the gas onsite and use JIT delivery. Their large percentage of solar and wind power cost them dearly.

I hope this is a wake up call for the green energy only advocates but I doubt it.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/

Texas wants to be on an island with their grid so they can't buy any power from neighboring states.  Shit hit the fan and they went down. Their elected leaders made that choice and now they have to live with that choice. Lack of wind power is nothing compared to base load supplied by Nukes and Natty gas. 

[slip knot]

I like how everybody has the answer for Texas. They're wanting to be own their own or like an island is the MSM new catch phrase. Well yeah as the second biggest state we are a grid on our own. The biggest issue to Texas energy is ERCOT and Federal bureaucracy on power generation. Some years ago their was an "oil embargo" in this country. the feds came in and said you must diversify your generation capacity and made us put in a coal fired plant the next county over. They train coal from wyoming to south texas for electrical power. The obama administration did everything they could to get that plant shut down. Now the biden admin is on the same track. the electric co-op I'm in owns two gas fired plants. every year we spend millions keeping them compliant with the clean air act. Just try getting a permit for a new plant. aint gonna happen

Everyone keeps harping on Texas not learning their lessons during the big ice storm 10 years ago. Well some of the mandates were for more localized generation capacity. The community I work for has 3 mega watt unit in the area that are grid tied. they can push power into the grid if needed. All 3 have been run very sparingly during this outage. We're seeing widespread outages yet these sets are idle. I asked one of the service techs about it and he said ERCOT isnt calling for it to run.

So theres more to the story than just Texas is being bull headed. but after seeing some of the crap that went on during this freeze I expect some big changes to ercot. And expect Texas to get screwed again on it.

BTW if it was up to me Texas would be better off back as its own country again.

[walrus]

. Just try getting a permit for a new plant. aint gonna happen

Yet they(powers to be) think Electric cars are the way to go. Wait till the grid goes down and cars can't move.

[DeadNutz]

This tells the story about the mess slip knot is talking about and it looks like they are in cover their ass mode right now.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/02/18/texas-ercot-removes-board-members-from-website-as-their-residencies-are-questioned-n1426475

[Rural53]

From the interview I was listening to it sounds like the rolling black outs weren't handled very well either. She was saying the power was turned off to Galveston Island for four days. A number of deaths are being attributed to this decision and a local judge is calling for the DA to investigate the the power companies in relation to these. In the article above it is interesting to note that a nuclear power station could operate because its cooling system frozen up. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the post mortem/investigation/whitewash of the event.

[fatfillup]

Darn, didn't know all this drama was going on in Texas as I don't watch news, Knew of the freezing, none of the finger pointing.  Sadly, I doubt the best solution will be used as politics will be inserted and the best will be compromised

Good luck SlipKnot and other Texans

[hickory n Steel]

I put a new passenger side mirror on my dads truck, surprisingly easy and only took about 10 minutes.

I went with him on a trip up the 101 " aka redwood highway " on his birthday Tuesday,  and at the drive-thru tree park he forgot to fold the mirrors in 
They folded themselves in but he was a hit too far on the right and damaged it a bit.

[Rural53]

At lunch time picked up the club fire extinguishers from annual testing/service.


I dropped them back up to our track, mainly because I wanted to see how the guys were getting on with the preparation work for the national round in March. One of our club members is the GM of a landscape supply company so brought in some of their gear to do the work.







The loader is a brand new Hyundai 760 that they have just bought and was delivered to our track instead of to their yard. It is not quite ask dodgy as it sounds as the big boss/company owner/father in-law is driving it. They will be on site for three days spreading a layer of the brown ash material over the areas of rhyolite that has broken down into sand size particles and turns very dusty when it drys out.

[Rural53]

Interesting start to the day. Magnitude 8.1 earthquake 100km offshore at 3:40 this morning. Followed by a swarm of earthquakes between
Magnitude 3 and 5 that is still going on twelve hours later. I've only felt a few. The biggest issue is...





The threat of tsunami is taken very seriously and they are evacuating low laying areas over quite a large area. We have had to shut down one of the roading jobs I'm looking after for the day because it is on an evacuation route.

[Rural53]

Evacuation map, the areas in black are were they evacuated people in low laying  coastal areas.



Earthquake map for the last 24 hours.

[J.A.F.E.]

I saw that on the news and was wondering how you were faring.

Hope no damage and everyone is OK.

[slip knot]

Those tsunamis are pretty rough. I think i'll stick with the hurricanes..

Hope everyone heeds the evacuation call.