Texas: gone with the wind power
There’s weather trouble and resultant power trouble in Texas.
Here’s what’s going on there:
Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.
Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
Apparently there’s no back-up system to cover such an occurrence, and 23% of Texas power is ordinarily generated by wind.
Wind power and solar power sometimes don’t work. Duh. Texas doesn’t have enough back up spinning reserve to handle this extreme cold snap.
Did everyone see the Babylon Bee item about how California refugees in Texas finally feel at home now that the power is out?
… 23% of Texas power is ordinarily generated by wind.
I wouldn’t have thought Texas would drink so much of the green Kool-Aid.
T Boone Pickens (the oilman) shrewdly understood the tax breaks that such investments carry. That’s one of the reasons that wind power enjoys such a big footprint, both in West Texas and along the Gulf Coast.
But I suspect there’s a lot more to this story when it’s fully peeled. There were good links at Marginal Revolution today (below). I know also that there’s quite a bit of gas production shut in statewide because of frozen wellheads and production facilities, and I can understand from my past experience with frozen drilling rigs how this could easily happen – it’s crippling to a standstill and not easy to remedy while it’s still cold. Equipping a rig to handle ongoing frigid conditions is expensive to do, and costly to maintain.
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-texas-have-its-own-power-grid/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/texas-power-grid-crumples-under-the-cold/
Funny Kate.
I think we caught only about one hour of power outages in the summer, being a bit south of the greater SF bay area.
huxley, T. Boone Pickens is a big part of the explanation. He was a big wealthy Texas oil man and took up the mantle of promoting wind energy in TX later in his life. He actually had a somewhat comprehensive plan with some genuine science in it. He noticed that average wind patterns in the TX plains are big positives for wind energy there. But averages are dangerous quantities and ideas when considering grid reliability.
Apparently there’s no back-up system to cover such an occurrence
Because everybody knows that solar/wind power don’t need no steenkin’ backup. That’s the ‘everybody’ who can’t even pronounce the word ‘dispatchable’, and believes in the Easter bunny.
Progressivism, and the environmentalism that goes along with it, really is a blind-faith religion. It’s far easier to get mobs of voters declaring for green power than learning the elementary facts of power generation and distribution. Such as, when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow, something unsustainable must generate the power, and that can occur under the worst possible conditions, viz. Texas blizzards.
And the false economy of green power contributes. The money’s being made from the Federal subsidies – your taxes and mine – and all those advertised economies of generation are cancelled by the need for backup power and a stronger distribution system.
I went for 16 hours without power; it is now 2 hours off and 45 minutes on. Not too bad for me, house dropped to 53° and I still had water and a propane cooktop. Stepson has been without power for approximately 30 hours and his house is down to 39° and all water pipes are frozen. He said most everyone in his neighborhood is the same way as they are all electric homes. Many, many families in San Antonio with no power and no water for over 24 hours. City public service provides electricity to almost 900,000 people. Today, almost 300,000 were without power.This is one of those once in a century events for which most people do not prepare. I hope, but do not expect, that this will open the eyes of those who push for wind and solar power thinking it is a panacea for our ills. Unreliable energy results in people dying.
Most of Texas gets bulk electricity from ERCOT.
ERCOT has most of the “green energy generation” in the state of Texas.
The company I retired from is Entergy. Entergy operates across 4 states and has Nuke plants all over the US. They belong to MISO.
MISO at this time has been mostly able to keep up with “some” rolling outages but nothing like the ERCOT problems.
This is bad …very bad. Heads should roll for this mess (but I doubt they will)!
PS … so far I don’t know of anyone in my area that has experienced the rolling outages. Of course it could happen at anytime. We did get text from Entergy that it could happen but it looks like we made through last night so the worst part is behind us. Another 24 hrs like the last 24 hrs and it’s possible.
It has been minus twenty or lower for the last five nights here in Central Minnesota. My house is two miles from a coal-fired generating plant and seven miles from a nuclear generating plant. Neither one has ever been shut down, except once in a while they have to re-charge the nuke.
Our governor is promoting 100% renewable energy by 2035.
When I first heard the story, I thought maybe they were suggesting that the giant hub bearings on the turbines froze up. Then I thought; Oh, those turbine blades are moderately sophisticated air foils and probably they can ice up like an airplane wing.
Naturally, it is hard to know because all journalists are required to be scientifically illiterate. Here is a line from Breitbart which came from an Austin periodical.
But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
I suppose bearings can be iced, but I vote for the blades themselves.
And now there is pushback from the greenies. We only lost wind power equal to 13% of the total. Is that all? (cough) Here is an example.
The main factors: Frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities, as well as limited supplies of natural gas, he said. “Natural gas pressure” in particular is one reason power is coming back slower than expected Tuesday, added Woodfin.
Frozen instruments?? What does that mean? Is that a Fukushima level of stupidity?
Low natural gas pressure is interesting. A typical major nat. gas pipeline has giant gas compressors drawing megawatts of electricity to pressurize the gas up to hundreds of psi of pressure and injecting it into the pipeline. More pressure equals more throughput and more electricity consumed.
I don’t hate to say it:
WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.
I only regret that you didn’t have the sense to listen
If what’s going on right now doesn’t open these peoples eyes about renewable energy … nothing will.
Even reliable fossil fuels systems are under strain to stay up and running … 100% renewable energy under these conditions would be 100% of customer outages!
That’s the facts … jack!
Here is my story, posted on a friend’s site earlier today, it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
What a frick’n mess this Texas Power Outage crap is, I had friends in the DFW area who went days without power, one good friend finally got the power on late last night and it thawed out his pipes enough to flood his kitchen. I don’t think he had the drippy thing going like I do with my faucets. Another good buddy lives right up the road in a big gated community on the North side of Kerrville and he and his wife were without power for a couple of days and at the end of day one they ran out of water because the community water tank that takes care of over a hundred houses did not have a back up generator for the pump, now they have power back on but the pump evidently got screwed up with power surges. So they are kind of screwed, they do have rain water barrels, 500 gallons each that they can use to flush their toilets, refilling with a garden hose but they are going to have to get a lot more drinking water with no idea when the community pump will be repaired.
Meanwhile we were feeling real good until our power went out between 3 and 4 in the morning and did not come back on until almost noon. Eight hours without power and we were about ready to go over to our daughter’s home, she lives three miles from us and she had power. I also have a generator I was going to hook up for my refrigerator if the power stayed off all day but thank goodness it came back on. Holy Crap I do like living with electricity and all of the electric stuff, our whole neighbor hood is all electric and I wish it was not. We had another short outage between three and four pm this afternoon, who knows what will happen tonight.
Maybe this will be a wake up call, come to Jesus moment for Texans and we will get our coal burning plants back on line and forget about those ugly windmills or better yet nuclear power plants.
neo
The backup system is to buy from MISO or another provider. Right now there is NONE for sale. Even if there was it would at an exorbitant price … and who pays that price … the customers!
The people in this country have been told for years that you can replace concentrated, high energy density, reliable power sources with dispersed, low energy density, unreliable power sources and they believed it. This is a lie.
This is a great example of why 21st century American politics is broken. In virtually any previous era, this Texas power fiasco is something the party out of power would use like a cudgel to beat the incumbents to death at the ballot box. But I’d bet that not only will Democrats fail to use this issue statewide but Republicans in blue Texas cities will probably shy away from it as well.
Mike
We need to take a page from the Left’s playbook and start re-defining things: it’s NOT “green” energy or “renewable” energy, it’s WEATHER DEPENDENT energy. That explains it all; easy to understand.
Not surprised at all this happened. It’s been building for decades from greenies who have absolutely no sense of how energy is generated, what efficiency really means, what a kWh is, what is peak load, etc etc. As I have stated before, what was really frightening about this past year is how all the nuttiness on campuses suddenly exploded into the main stream. I dealt with these people before I retired on the campus environment committee. When I would try to explain the physics they would just get mad and said I was a terrible person who just stood in the way of saving the planet. Asking them about the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics, and those other questions I listed above was just met with silence.
Where are the engineers who know better???
T. Boone Pickens is a big part of the explanation. He was a big wealthy Texas oil man and took up the mantle of promoting wind energy in TX later in his life. He actually had a somewhat comprehensive plan with some genuine science in it. He noticed that average wind patterns in the TX plains are big positives for wind energy there. But averages are dangerous quantities and ideas when considering grid reliability.
I agree completely.
physicsguy
“WEATHER DEPENDENT energy.”
Talk in terms they understand … Climate DEPENDENT energy.
Odd, here we have a whole darn thread discussing the problems inherent with Green -cough- Renewable -cough- Clean Energy and nobody has said Global Warming or Climate Change, not mentioned even once. Now that’s funny, right there.
Re the nat gas shortage. The nat gas pipeline has pumps to move the gas downline . In the past these pumps were powered by nat gas bled from the line. As I understand it , in an effort to green up the distribution system, these pumps were switched to electric.
Does anyone else see the problem here ?
This is how the rolling outages work.
When load starts to get close to demand ERCOT contacts the Transmission Operations Centers of the different companies and gives them how many megawatts to shed when the call comes.
TOC gets with the Distribution Operations Centers and alerts them to be ready to shed load. DOC already has plan in place for which feeders to drop to meet the needed amount to keep the system from crashing. When to call comes DOC drops feeders offline till system is stable. These feeders are predetermined. No hospitals, police, fire, water plants and the Mayor (but don’t tell anybody about the Mayor)!
Then usually 1 to 2 hours they drop another feeder and then put one that was off back on rotating them on and off as needed. This goes on until the event is stable by buying more MW or bringing on more generation.
We only had to do this once in my 36 years. It was in the summer … and never had a problem in the winter.
physicsguy: “Where are the engineers who know better???” They’re working for companies whose CEOs have drunk the green energy kool aid. My own physics guy, with forty years in the power industry, is apoplectic about this.
Look deeper at the history here. It is my understanding that it was under the Bush Governorship that electric companies were first required to build a percent of their capacity from wind, yet the Texas electric market is called “ deregulated” by the media.
Kate … We had a CEO that wanted to do one stop shopping!
Electricity, nat gas, phone, cable TV and even water!
Board finally ran him off. He got golden parachute and made out like a bandit!
I’ve heard that most residential new-builds in TX are required to have all-electric heating? Is this so, or is it just strongly encouraged by various factions?
We have nat-gas forced air heating which uses considerably less energy to run the blower than to heat the whole house with Mr. Franklin’s magic juice.
Maybe it’s actually true that a lot of people don’t know where electricity comes from?
Next, we need a mandate that all new vehicles be electric.
Does the Green Religion generate-ahem–an urge to self-flaggelate? Or flagellate others?
Richard …
I’ve never heard that at least in my area.
I did read somewhere that in Cali all new builds had to have solar at some date in the future.
One of the problems with “green” energy is that it is low power and diffuse. You need a lot of windmills spread over a very large area to replace a fossil fuel or nuclear power generator. Besides the intermittency you have to connect all those windmills together to transmit the energy to its destination, i.e., there are lot more power lines needed to get the energy to its destination. With a cold spell and ice storms, lots of power lines are going to fall down too causing a nightmare to fix. Oh, the windmills also freeze up.
https://twitter.com/lukelegate/status/1361149723072208896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1361149723072208896%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdirectorblue.blogspot.com%2F
There are indeed plenty of problems with intermittent power sources such as solar and wind, but in this specific case, it appears that a lot of the problem is with the fossil fuel plants. The ERCOT (Texas) numbers show wind generation for January, pre-deepfreeze, as 7700 GWh, versus 11600 for gas, 6800 for coal, and 3800 for nuclear, so, only about 1/3 wind. There are apparently problems with equipment in gas plants freezing because it was located outdoors rather than indoors (or with effective heaters) as would be done in a more northerly climate; here’s a link from 2014, provided by someone at AVI, which describes the likely problem.
https://www.powermag.com/prepare-your-gas-plant-for-cold-weather-operations/
TommyJay, it’s the turbine blades which are freezing. They are fiberglass, and must be carefully balanced. When they get iced unevenly, the thing doesn’t work. See this for a picture of an attempt to de-ice the blades, just like airplane wings.
https://twitter.com/lukelegate/status/1361149723072208896
I would not be surprised to hear that turbine blades have suffered stress damage once the ice has melted.
Been to West Texas, a land of few people? It is ranch country, with oil production on it if the owner was lucky. So to lease your ridges for windmills was a no-brainer, like found money, especially in the days when this whole windmill business was supported by federal subsidies (right, Barack?).
There are windmills everywhere in West Texas. Drive along I-10 for maybe a hundred miles; the number of mills you see from the highway will astound you. And there are more, beyond view.
The cows don’t mind the rhythmic whump-whump, but these things are licensed avian predators.
I am with John Kerry on only one thing: I do not want to see or hear them.
@Richard Aubrey: “I’ve heard that most residential new-builds in TX are required to have all-electric heating? Is this so, or is it just strongly encouraged by various factions?” I pay about $0.11 per kilowatt hour for electricity. I get pretty low prices for propane, too. We don’t have city mains here – but I doubt it would be cheaper in Texas to heat with gas. This is heat-pump country, the climate is right to have these instead of the Air-Conditioner + Furnace combinations. For me, it looked cheaper to just install a good heat pump, and it has turned out well over the last decade. I know of no ordinances that require electricity over hydrocarbon. I have read that California requires it, though.
At least some localities in California are banning gas stoves, gas heating, etc, in new construction.
With electricity used for these applications, and if gas or coal is used to generate the electricity, you get the ‘benefits’ of the thermodynamic and other losses in generation…at least 35% with a brand-new combined cycle plant, more like 50% for an older gas or coal plant. Plus, the losses of 5-10% in transmission and distribution.
I am sitting in the dark at the in laws. They had power until 5:30p. We lost ours yesterday at 5:30p. Everyone is right about the load issue and wind farms and strategically hampered gas lines. The bigger problem is ERCOTS idea of rolling blackouts. Jack above nearly has it right, except they shutdown a load and then don’t come back for 12 hours. By that time, real damage is done. Rolling needs to be 2 hours or less.
In my case, they blew a transformer at restart and well, another 12 to 24 hours. We don’t have pets. Not worried about food spoiling since the house is colder than the fridge. But it is hard to keep the pipes warm when the house is reaching outdoor temps in the teens. Good news is we should warm above freezing tomorrow for most of the day. Bad news, this will be preceded by precipitation making roads slick again.
As for the greenies, the answer for many now is to get emergency home generators. They are cheaper than a flooded home, or sick and dying love ones sitting in the cold. These individual generators are not as efficient as a large multi MW power generator. Yet they work after in bad weather or when the sun goes down. Wind farm blades ice up in humid and frigid environments, or blow off in hurricanes.
Tucker Carlson gives an impassioned take on the Green Deal disaster in Texas’… he’s on fire.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/tucker-carlson-fantastic-opening-statement/
I can hear the climate fanatic’s response already; “Sacrifices must be made now, if we don’t switch to clean energy, we’re all going to die! Humanity is facing extinction!
OldTexan,
“… or better yet nuclear power plants.”
Amen!
A miracle of technology and discovery yet ignorant luddites rage against it.
The Pacific Northwest doesn’t have a problem with wind turbines icing up (if they do, they probably do every year). Got the opposite problem in that in the spring when the wind output is strong, the hydroelectric plants are also at full capacity because the snow is melting and the salmon is migrating. Bonneville Power Administration is legally obligated to purchase wind power (so the producers can get their tax credits) and so has to pay people to take the extra power.
The upshot is that wind power displaces hydro power and also requires natural gas for back up, so carbon emissions went UP in Washington State when green energy was mandated. (Hydro was explicitly excluded–as Washington was 80% hydro there would have been nothing to do if hydro counted as “green”.)
The sad fact is that if wind energy was used to pump water uphill, it wouldn’t cause nearly so much problems. Water in reservoirs is the cheapest way to store huge amounts of energy.
However, the tax credits only pay for power put on the grid. And so you have the situation in Texas and in the Pacific Northwest.
Wind Power is just another branch of the giant money laundering tree which exists to channel public money to connected private individuals through subsidies, incentives, etc.
If I had to come up with a shibboleth in the coming Civil War to decide ‘Lives or Dies’ on the spot, one method might be to check whether or not the interviewee grasps apparently deeply esoteric concept that energy production and energy storage are two separate issues. Put the @#$%er up against nearest wall and he/she/it gasps out ‘Base Load’, I’d be inclined to commute sentence to Life in the Mines. Baby Steps.
FWIW: Through typhoon direct hits, heatwaves, civil disturbance I have not experienced a single power outage in the last 8 years since moving back to Hong Kong. There are a few decorative wind turbines tucked out of the way, but base load is coal, gas, and nuclear. Coal only because that plant went in before the great Natural Gas Boom of the Nineties/Noughties.
There are valid excuses for outages in extreme climates due to transmission line or substation problems… but nothing short of an act of war excuses insufficient base load capacity. Even real Third World Countries get this right. I don’t recall lights ever going off in Bangkok or Jakarta.
There aren’t enough lamp posts to hang those in the West who have done this to us.
What angers me beyond words are the legions of Little Old Ladies who have frozen to death or died of heat stress because their power bills went up to subsidize kickbacks to wind turbine operators or upper middle class wankers who humble brag about their tax deductible Tesla Batteries and solar roof panels
fugly things…
Currently, Thorium Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors appear to overall, offer the best solution. Lots of advantages over conventional nuclear reactors. “Walk away safe”. Much less nuclear waste with a very short radioactive decay of the fuel.
https://www.thmsr.com/en/the-thorium-molten-salt-reactor/
Apologies to the Thais. Wouldn’t call them Third World.. Rhetorical Incontinence caught me short. Who woulda thunk!?
Fredrick:
Not to worry, the Green lunatics in Olympia have put Natural Gas into their next power source to be cast into the outer darkness. And of course the Snake River dams must be taken out. For Earth justice or something.
I just went through two days without power due to an ice storm here in NC. I have camping gear that includes a Coleman lantern and camp stove, and a Mr. Heater Buddy that all run off 2lb cans of propane. I also keep 25gal of stored tap water on hand for toilet flushing (no power equals no well pump equals no flush water). I normally drink bottled water because what’s in the well tastes bad enough even the cat (who likes to drink from mud puddles) won’t go near it.
Geoffrey Britain:
Thorium metal salt is the could have, should have, could be IMO. I don’t know of any that have been licensed or approved.
Check out Nuscale technology, more likely to succeed.
https://www.nuscalepower.com/
If you have the money a https://www.generac.com/ is worth the investment. 24kw unit will easily run all electric 2,000/2500 sqft home.
Thing is you won’t recoup all that money if you sell but it is a great selling point. If you are looking at 2 similar homes … which one are you going to buy?
Couple of comments: In Michigan, and other places as far as I know, most whole-house generators depend on a steady supply of nat gas.
It takes a lot of gasoline to run even the most minimal requirements for a home. We usually have no more than a couple of days–tops–due to summer storms taking out trees and thus power lines. Still, if you want the refrigerator and the water pump–if you’re not on city water–that’s a lot of juice to be generated out of gasoline which you have stored since forever. If the power outage is general, maybe your nearest gas station doesn’t have the power to pump the gasoline and….is probably empty anyway if it did.
And if you want to run forced-air heat and the igniter controls for hot water…. Forget it.
Saw an interesting option on FB. Couple of cinder blocks maybe ten inches apart. Atop them, one to the other, is a large inverted ceramic flower pot. Under neath it are several candles. The pot warms and radiates heat. Not much, but far better in a small room than nothing, and it won’t kill you with CO.
Jack,
I have a 20kw one with an automatic switch. Comes on after 30 seconds. Switches back to utility power seamlessly. Longest I have been on it was 7 days 24×7. Mine is connected to a 250 gal propane tank.
Does anyone here know what is the catch with closed loop home geothermal systems? A bit like Brazil always has been and always will be the country of the future, one hears every few years about how geothermal systems will do the trick.
So why aren’t they ubiquitous? Presumably some icky details/schmetails issues like difficulty of keeping deep drilled infrastructure unblocked and uncorroded?
No expert but my understanding is that a closed loop home geothermal system operates on electrical power. It just uses much less electrical power to operate.
@Richard Aubrey … I don’t know your situation but for me I never have to listen to it again about the lights being out … well worth the money!
Richard,
I once saw something like that. Duck, duck go’d it and…
DIY Flower Pot Heater
https://www.budget101.com/prepared-living/4411-diy-flower-pot-heater/
4 unscented tea candles will keep a small room comfortable for about 3 hours.
GB, we have a closed loop geothermal system in our house. When we built I went that way as heating oil prices were higher cost than electric rates. That was 20 years ago and I couldn’t foresee fracking and then Connecticut having the highest electric rate in the country at 22 cents/kWh.
I also didn’t quite understand that New England is not quite the right climate. The system is not real efficient in winter but does a fantastic job for cooling in summer. I think even just a bit further south like Philly, the system would work very well.
Generac stock was up 7.25% today.
As mentioned earlier, I have both coal and nuclear electric plants nearby, but our power lines are all overhead. There is always the possibility that something would take them down. Maybe a too-adventurous crop duster? I probably need a stand-by generator. I’m intrigued, however, by the idea of a steam-engine powered generator, which could be fed from our six-acre wood lot (the exercise would do me good). Y’all might find this company’s little steam engines an interesting idea.
And of course the Snake River dams must be taken out. For Earth justice or something.
I have suggested a few times that blowing up the dam that creates the Hetch Hetchy reservoir would do some good. That is where San Francisco gets its drinking water. Sierra Club has been in favor for 100 years. At least those who don’t live in SFO.
We had rolling power outages in Omaha and Lincoln. Over 20% of Omaha’s power is from renewables.
The Governor said this was unacceptable. He said we needed to add more coal and nuke power. The funny thing is that before the Governor spoke, I sent a draft resolution making that very point to the elected Omaha Public Power District Board.
I rode the former chairman of OPPD hard on Twitter well before this happened, A hard Left nut who pushed wind power. He blocked me.
Nothing will change at OPPD. The Dems will get re-elected at OPPD.
People on Twitter said I was a nut.
People in Texas died so that someday the planet will be saved. Destroy the village in order to save it. American lives are just collateral damage for the Left.
More people have died (and it’s far from over) than the DC insurrection!
@Jack.
Yes, but Little People.
Bill Gates and the Sage of Omaha sleep warm tonight.
Regrettably, Little People Must Die… so that the offspring of Gates et al. can thrive and reign as Transhuman Lords of Creation down through the ages.
It’s not too late to put their heads on pikes, but it soon will be.
Thanks Kate and David Foster. That powermag article was very good.
Outdoor built power infrastructure in southern climates probably part of the problem. Much of it seems to center around water lines and drums and steam drainage lines that can freeze. They did mention circuit transformers and sensors freezing, but those shouldn’t be a problem with a modicum of attention to the issue. But it does require that attention.
I had to laugh that they mentioned a power station in Faribault, MN as an example of a station that’s never had a problem because they are prepared for cold. That’s a medium short drive from my old hometown. You can expect -25 deg. F temps every winter and the occasional -35 deg. winter day.
It does strike me as being a Fukushima mindset. If a tsunami or a severe ice storm only happens once every 40 or 50 years, why worry about it?
@Zaphod: “Does anyone here know what is the catch with closed loop home geothermal systems? “
These are shallow connected wells that circulate a fluid, usually water, that is cooled to temperature and then run through a heat exchanger on surface to either warm or cool. I’m not aware of any ‘catch’ – I’ve seen one done with a boring machine using plastic pipe to establish the circulating boreholes. But the thing was complex, not very efficient, and cost prohibitive compared to a regular heat pump – eventually it was decommissioned.
Deeper geothermal wells normally go to mine heat to fairly extreme temperatures to create steam on surface for power generation turbines. The problem here is often mineral scale that is deposited in the pipework, or associated corrosion.
However I did happen to read today about a system that has attracted investment from a couple of majors: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/this-technology-could-transform-renewable-energy-bp-and-chevron-just-invested/ar-BB1dIj4R
The drilling technology required for this is well within the envelope of existing technology. Depending on what the rest of the system is comprised of, I think this might be a pretty neat innovation.
In my system there is not any connected wells. The closed loop is about a quarter mile of plastic tubing buried 10 feet down in our yard. The tube is filled with water/antifreeze. At the coldest point in the winter the incoming fluid is about 40 degrees. What is more important is the compressors extract a delta T of about 4 degrees. That energy is then transferred to the house. Vice versa in summer.
@physicsguy:
Is it feasible to use that deltaT to self-power it as well as do the heat exchanger bit?
@Aggie:
Thanks for that info. I asked original question because can vaguely remember seeing ads for home geothermal systems in back of New Yorker small adds alongside Lands’ (sic) End, and other then-quirky stuff like powered lap pools way back in the day. Figured there must be some catches if it’s still a bit like Flying Cars.
Re Eavor Loop: One of my Managerialist Bugmen acquaintances was waxing lyrical about getting subsidies to put in an updated type of geothermal power for a gentrified London stockbroker belt village. Part of the spiel was along lines of oil/gas drilling techniques being adapted to geothermal energy production. Being me, the word ‘subsidies’ stuck in my head and probably adversely affected my ability to get the big picture.
It is hard to keep a big stack of natural gas or wind next to your generators. The company I work for does keep a six months stack of coal next to its power plants after a miners strike 35+ years ago nearly ran us out of coal.
Wind has perverse incentives for companies and gas comes with massive uncertainty about supply and cost.
The left hates fracking and there is some non zero chance someone might show it to be dangerous. Either way it may come to a sudden end causing the price of gas, which has been low, to shoot up overnight. Fuel cost are directly applied to your bill in most states and your regulated rate will not stop you from paying those costs
This is my stupid comment and does not represent the views of any other person or company.
@Martin:
Is Natural Gas that bad? Perhaps not always the greatest for inland locations, but out here in the Other World Where Big Things are Still Possible, all they do is build a honking great undersea pipeline straight from the rigs to the power station(s).
Works Like a Bought One.
Failing that, LNG Tankers seem to do the trick.
Not in the industry, just casual observer. Doubtless LNG prices do fluctuate in the market, but is it not the case that the ramp up in supply (new drilling tech, etc.) has made LNG the bargain of the century as far as energy is concerned?
Wind and solar need 4 things:
– Numerous, massive, high capacity battery centers across the US;
– Greatly enhanced electrical transmission capability;
– Improved medium range weather forecast models out to at least 15 days;
– Massive, dedicated supercomputering capability to ingest weather information, and apply machine learning (AI) to anticipate emerging power requirements days in advance and how to address them.
Cost? At least $50T in 2021 dollars? Timeframe? Unknown, but at least 15 years if it was the nation’s unwavering priority. Cost to the customer compared to today? HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
@Gen Bara:
It’s all upside for the Parasite Classes.
Now how do I get to wet my beak in that $50T river of gold?
Another report from Ground Zero:
https://www.kimdutoit.com/2021/02/17/better-and-better-2/
“Is it feasible to use that deltaT to self-power it as well as do the heat exchanger bit?”
No. That would be a direct violation of the 2nd Law. Or to quote a song: “money for nothing.”
“I love my delta T.” Dire straits indeed.
@physicsguy:That would be a direct violation of the 2nd Law.
Zaphod’s got a point that delta T can power something. But the system is trying to move heat “uphill”.
An analogy: if I have water flowing downhill I can run a turbine with it. I could use the turbine to pump water back up, but if I did I’d get less energy out of it for other things, and if I pumped all the water back up the best I can do is get zero. (In practice less of course…)
Now you can use water flowing downhill to pump water uphill but you throw away a great deal of the water. There’s hydraulic rams, and water wheels dating back to the Byzantine Empire that raise water uphill by using downhill-flowing water.
So I can see why Zaphod might think so.
The problem is that in this analogy your house is the uphill source of “water” (i.e. heat) and if you let most of the “water” run “downhill” it means your house is overall getting colder.
I think you could use the delta T of your geothermal system to run your refrigerator or maybe heat your water tank and not run afoul of the 2nd Law, but not if you want to warm your entire house, because you are trying to move ALL the heat flow the wrong direction.
As usual with arguments about physics it hinges on quantities. You could in theory self-power a refrigerator or hot water tank purely on the heat leaving your house, but you can’t warm your whole house that way because it is the whole heat flow you are trying to redirect… and the same applies to cooling your house of course.
Fredrick:
physicsguy is a retired PhD professor of, wait for it, Physics, in Conn.
Meanwhile back in the Texas Hill Country where it never snows, but it did. We still have snow on the ground, that started Sunday evening, today is has warmed up to 33 degrees but back in the teens tonight with more snow/ice mixture tomorrow, this ain’t right. Last 24 hours approximately one and a half hours of power and then 20-30 minutes without and we expect more days of this thanks to the frozen wind mill thingys. Oh what a week !
The events in Texas will just cause the enviro wackos to double down on the use of more wind “power” and solar.
For these ideologues, their belief system IS a religion.
The lunatics have been in charge of the asylum for may years now, and this is the result.
Zaphod,
I don’t have deep knowledge on your questions but … Nat. gas is a tremendous bargain here in the U.S. largely because of fracking tech etc. But LNG conversion probably adds at least $1 per MMBTU to the cost (maybe $1.5 to $2.0 ?). Here in the U.S. we’ve been mostly bouncing around $2 to $2.5 per MMBTU until this cold snap. Currently, it is $2.9/MMBT.
So if you add $1.5 to a $2.0 commodity that would be a big jump for us, though not a killer. A bigger problem perhaps is that it takes something like a decade to permit and build the LNG infrastructure. We’ve done some of that already in the US but it is for the wrong way, for exporting not importing. If I understand your comment.)
Also, if gas production in the US were really clamped down, the global price would go up greatly, before you add the LNG costs. OPEC pricing power is low now, but it might strengthen in that scenario.
For contrast, The UK probably pays 3 to 5X compared to us, and Japan might be 5 to 10X. Ballpark guesses.
(MMBTU is the industry standard notation for 1 million BTU. Horrible notation physicsguy!)
OT: Rush Limbaugh has died. RIP.
John Tyler –
Right on cue, Alexandra Occasional Cortex has tweeted: “The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal.”
A lot of people seem to think the natural gas generation is the old technology, so question why it failed here in some cases.
It isn’t old technology- I am old enough to remember natural gas being too expensive for electrical generation. The combined cycle stuff is almost as new as the windmills. Also, as someone above pointed out, you can’t easily store natural gas at the powerplant for those times the pipelines fail for whatever reason.
If you don’t want these kinds of blackouts, you need to have coal burning plants available in quatity enough, and able to cycle up quickly enough when you get exactly these kinds of spikes in power draw. These kinds of storms in Texas are unusual, but not unique- what is unique is that the power infrastructure isn’t built to to deal with such an event. It will only get worse as coal burning and nuclear plants get shuttered going forward.
Yes, Wind Turbines froze up, BUT that appears NOT to be the primary reason for the blackouts. Record electricity demand coupled with gas fired power plants being offline is apparently the primary cause. It seems that there may not be enough gas pipeline capacity to meet both the record heating demand using natural gas and the demand from gas fired power plants. I say may, because it appears that some of the gas fields were also offline, so it could be an input issue rather than transport. However, it appears that a number of gas fired power plants remained idle and unable to meet electricity demand. For planning purposes, something less than half of the wind mills would be assumed available for electricity generation — at any time. If they were on line, it would help. But if the gas fired capacity had been on line, the blackouts may not have occurred. Note that there apparently were idle coal plants too, but it takes days to bring a coal plant online — which would have required pre-planning — something that might not have been done if the gas plants were expected to run — which can be brought on line in minutes to hours.
Yancy Ward:
You can also burn (shudder) oil to generate electrical power. It can be stored in big round tanks, tank farms they were called. That is old technology even worse than burning coal I’ve heard.
This is coming too: “This is exactly why we have to stop fossil fuel use through the Green New Deal. These episodes of extreme weather related to climate change wouldn’t occur and create these problems in the first place.”
“These episodes of extreme weather related to climate change wouldn’t occur…”
So say those pushing ‘Climate Doom’.
They say we can affect the weather if only we observe environmental pieties.
Gaia sees this hubris and says, “Hold my Beer”.
@om:physicsguy is a retired PhD professor of, wait for it, Physics, in Conn.
I’m a physics PhD too, which is why I am agreeing with him. I’m filling the gap between what Zaphod asked and his answer, in case Zaphod didn’t find “that’s impossible” to be a satisfactory explanation, by using an analogy that no one needs a PhD to understand.
David, holding a beer is so Trumpist, so populist and uncouth, and Senator Warren couldn’t handle it.
Maybe “Gaia” will say “hold my Pinot Grigio” instead.
But whatever we are drinking, let’s raise a glass to Rush.
Another public conservative with a thicker than normal hide. RIP
Everyone keeps talking about backup systems. This sort of implies the backup systems are more robust than the primary systems because they can take the hit and keep on going.
I have an idea. Why not trash the so-called “primary” systems which are really only good for tax deductions and feeling good (at least for some) and go with the backup systems?
And no this does not mean destroying the world.
Frederick, physicsguy, I have two friends with PhDs in physics. One cannot explain what he does without reference to jargon understandable only to people working in his direct field. Even my husband, a physics major, couldn’t make head or tail out of a paper. The other had a distinguished career in space physics research. She gave a talk in which she was able to make me, an educated non-scientist, understand the gist of what her research was doing.
I tend to believe that scientists who can explain the general idea to non-technical people are the ones who really understand their fields.
Fredrick:
Zaphod is not a dummy nor are most here. What would be the point of disagreement? It is the law after all. Lots of PhDs where I live some without a lick of ….
@Kate:I tend to believe that scientists who can explain the general idea to non-technical people are the ones who really understand their fields.
I’m not totally sure about that. Some people dumb things down too much and create the illusion of understanding, or misunderstanding. And some people who can’t seem to bring it down to earth are the ones who are really out in front that everyone else in the field is trying to keep up with.
I think what you might be picking up on is that there are people who can “do” physics without really knowing what they are doing or why it works. I’ve collected empirical evidence of that and there’s a good body of physics education research on it.
I think physics is a craft. Some craftsmen are creative and innovative, and some are checking off boxes. The box-checkers are probably good enough to get good work done as long as they don’t run into anything surprising…
There is much good sense and outrage here. But what about the Control Knob-CO2 and The Planet is Doomed mythomania which drives this?
How about some actual science? The key statistic concerning Global Warming is ECS or Estimated Climate Sensitivity to added (or doubling of) CO2.
This figure fell throughout the past decade, below the 2C degrees we’ve been lectured to worry about. (Note: the ECS here is “Equilibrium” Climate Sensitivity, not the same ECS I’ve mentioned; likewise TCS or Total Climate Sensitivity. These are both technical and theorised sub measurements of ECS.)
https://landshape.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/climate_sensitivity5.png
This fact became so devastating to the movement that the 5th IPCC report had to employ two deceits. It widened and lowered its prediction of future temps from 2 to 5C to from 1.5 to 5C; and, unlike in the past, they failed to report any expected median future temp.
Do you see the slight of hand? It’s like the old lawyer’s trick: if the facts (or science) are with you, then argue the facts. If not, argue against the law.
Thus, a new advocacy group was born: instead of demanding 2C degree limits for the future, DEMAND 1.5 degree limits! https://1o5c.org/
From last year, covering two neglected evidence based critiques of global warming theory: “Falsifying Climate Alarm” by John Christy
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/05/JohnChristy-Parliament.pdf
THESE DECEITS MUST BE EXPOSED!
Some further data based falsification for your friends. A new book on climate science and politics by a geophysicist, presents details on my first graph above
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2020/11/12/modern-climate-change-science/
Climate models are wrong for 40 (really 60) years. More John Christy
https://i1.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/clip_image005.jpg?resize=580%2C434&ssl=1
And for you green duped friends, Greenpeace founder and the last scientist-board member to resign from it (PhD, ecology, University of British Columbia) Patrick Moore hates the anti-humanism of the climate alarmists.
And Moore is a Canadian – the coldest nation on earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1bDmcNpa8
Wind turbines did ice up and shut down in Texas, but thermal plants went down as well. Apparently Texas does not winterize well, so all kinds of ancillary equipment failed. I gather they manage this sort of thing better in Minnesota, where the thermal power plants hum along even if the temperature stays below zero for weeks at a time. We know how, but it’s hard to get people to budget for it when it happens only every 30-40 years, with a few near-misses in between that cause only fairly manageable short-term rolling blackouts, as in 2011 and 2014. Also, natural gas pipelines froze up. My husband tells me (narrative conformity alert: not fact-checked yet!) that gas plants burn just-in-time inventory, and that the old-style fossil-fuel-fired warming units were replaced in recent years with eco-friendly electric warmers, which failed.
The strongest link to the Green Nude Eel I’ve seen so far is the argument that federal subsidies for wind and solar power cause the thermal plants to be constantly powering up and down, as if they were merely backup for the green energy instead of vice versa. That’s wasteful and expensive; if you add in the need to compete with subsidized green power, the thermal plants are hard pressed to find the money in the budget to pay for expensive wintering for locally unusual events. Well, the legislature is on the warpath now. Maybe they’ll make some changes in the name of resiliency.
Even the South Texas Nuclear Plant shut down one of its two units, because some kind of safety sensor failed in the cold. That plant is not far inland from the Gulf of Mexico and very rarely is exposed to temperatures in the low 20s or teens. It sailed through Hurricane Harvey without reducing power output.
A little further south down the coast from the South Texas Nuclear Plant, my small rural county for some reason didn’t get many “rolling” blackouts; instead power went off in randomly patchy areas and stayed off for 3 days (so far). Those who had power mostly kept it. Those who lost it didn’t get it back. A combination of power problems and broken water mains has introduced the additional problem of shutting down the local municipal water and sewage systems. Now the local town is hoping to have at least some water pressure during the days, but will have to shut it off at night to fill the pressure tanks back up. They’re under a water-boil advisory, no fun when you have no power for boiling. For that matter, so is Houston, and so are a dozen or more Texas towns of various sizes. Turning off the water and power pretty much ensures that almost no businesses can stay open. Gasoline has almost disappeared–no power for the pumps. Icy roads have interrupted deliveries of gas, food, etc. It’s an incredible mess.
We live in the boonies outside town. We are fortunate to have a back-up generator, a large propane tank, a rainwater cistern, and septic tank. In addition, ironically, our power hasn’t gone off at all. Oh, man, are our citrus trees toast, though.
Thanks to all who answered my questions about LNG and Home Geothermal Energy!
Back to my usual pessimism. I have a bad feeling, nay, certainty, that this Texas Blackout will result in the creation of new and innovative perverse incentives; ostensibly to ensure this never happens again, but… Well you know what comes next…
Here is an analysis of the wind power crisis in Texas:
http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2021/02/the-propaganda-campaign-to-convince-us.html
Texan99: but THINK of the children who’ll face record hot heat!
Every years we get nonsense about “HOTTEST YEAR EVAH! Few realise that such claims are created artefacts, not measured facts beyond dispute!
One independent fact is all-time record high or low temperature by state. You’ll find that two-thirds of these high records were set before 1960; only about one-third set since then.
In the new century of the past 20 years, more all-time low temp records by state have been set than highs. Including an new all-time US low temperature record (2011), to complement the US record high in 1913.
The the two dirty secrets about temperature and “global warming” are these. First, in the US, it was warmer naturally between the 1880s and the 1930s. The recording of temperature records in nature (called paleoclimatology) show this.
Thus, there are no temperature proxies supporting the notion that our lifetime’s climate is unusually warm — contrary to the standard alarmist message.
The popular impression otherwise began with the Hockey Stick debate (early 2000s), culminating in Climategate at the end of 2009. (See the short, lucid documentary review here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8xd0LCeRQ.)
But politics prevailed over science. Scientists deliberately lied about conflicting data of science to please their institutionally supported, gang-driven paymasters.
Indeed, our age of Fake News began with Fake Science coming from the Left in the “climate wars” of the 2000s, in the narrative contest over global warming. The fact that “Climate change” by added man-released CO2 has replaced the more objective “global warming” signalled their triumph.
They can lie without any punishment. On the contrary, extremism over climate change gets little Greta Thunberg a fortune in financial support and international celebrity!
And thus for 20 years, at least, the authorities have been re-shaping the surface temperature records to support their poorly, in fact falsified, theory of man-made global warming. (See “Is The Global Temperature Record Credible?” https://newtube.app/TonyHeller/NbiK6Wr)
Narrative uber alles!
This shit kind of reminds me of the theme song for the old TV series ‘Rawhide’, Rolling, Rolling, Rolling keep those Black-Outs Rolling Rawhide !
I had just finished cooking our pasta and pork medallions this evening, getting ready to plate up and the power went out, power on lasted longer than usual and power out for about the 12th time, I don’t know when but there we were, beautiful wife and I eating a nice dinner by candlelight and just as we finished the power came on again. Bad weather predicted for tomorrow but we are learning how to live with this stuff and it makes us appreciate the life we have when all of the pieces come together and work ever so well.
So, there’s that.
I found this to be a very interesting article.
If you want to understand what just happened to the electricity in these parts, read this.
https://www.hefner.energy/articles/the-failures-of-government-power
It’s not just about failed wind power – but it is about the mindset of people that want us to use more of it. And as a consequence, the Powers That Be subsidize the crap out of it, allowing wind investors to turn a tax-break profit at negative electricity prices – thus driving fossil fuel power gen straight out of business, and nuclear not even answering the phone.
The section about the IT sector’s electricity consumption is mind-boggling.
What isn’t mentioned here is that alternative energy’s supreme weakness may be found by looking no further than its name: “Alternative”. As is in, Not Primary. It’s a fashionable parasite, an expensive symbolic toy dependent on the system that is already maintained for the grownups.
Also not mentioned, is that this same dynamic plays out in California every year, for the same reason. I’m all for science and all for innovation, and accept that society and industry should partner to support it. But we have policy makers around the world who are lunatics; They are -right now- proposing policies like abolishing internal combustion engines in a few years, and they have no plan – read, NO plan, not even conceptual, for doing this.
We cannot accept policy makers who wish-cast. Policy is based on need, and is bounded on all sides by reality.
Some numbers (from a BBC article) on power loses in Texas: 30 GW from thermal plants ooc, 16 GW from Green power loss. Total power loss about 41 GW.
Also the picture of the frozen wind turbine blades being deiced from a helicopter is not from Texas but rather Sweden. It was used in a sales brochure by the helicopter company.
Here’s the link (sorry its from my phone): http://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-56085733
You woud think people around Amarillo, Texas, would be used to ice storms and freezing weather. I drive interstate 40 to Albuquerque and the highway from Texola to the New Mexico border is lined with windmills as far as you can see. Most of them not turning. A few years back I was driving from Albuquerque to the east coast and got caught in an ice storm after leaving Clines Corners, NM. We joke that once you reach Clines Corners, at about 8000 feet, it’s all downhill after that. Took me all night to reach Oklahoma City and the car was covered with ice when I arrived. Everything was covered with ice.
@Ray:You would think people around Amarillo, Texas, would be used to ice storms and freezing weather.
They do, nothing between Amarillo and the North Pole but a wire fence, which blew down.
It’s Austin and Houston that aren’t… where the population is more concentrated.
Travelled across the country this summer. Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa were full of wind turbines on every ridge. And, I would estimate, a third to a half of them were not spinning. Typical late-summer weather, so what the heck? Woops.
I just had my attention drawn to the fascinating energy infrastructure maps at https://atlas.eia.gov/pages/maps . Interesting stuff! Year installed, manufacturer, graphs of net output… yummy.
Interesting to see what a forest of wind turbines is now populating, in particular, IA and southern MN. I would have expected the hotspot to be the Dakotas, but really not so much, except for that little part next to MN. The turbine blades get shipped in through Duluth/Superior oftentimes. (I watch the freighters when I can.)
Surellin, yes, there is a pronounced periodicity to the output charts of those wind farms. Looks like troughs happen in Jul/Aug a lot. That is curious.