I remember, when I was a kid and Dad was stationed at Webb, during the summers we'd all go to the pool. Officially, it was the Officer's club pool, but since there wasn't an NCO club pool or an Enlisted pool, nobody asked too many questions. In any case, one of the big kicks was to be chosen as the "First In". The lifeguard would pick one person and they'd get to jump from the high dive and be the first one in the pool. That privilege would rotate daily. I always thought it was so cool to hit that glass smooth surface in a cannonball position, then resurface and watch the waves reverberate as they hit the sides of the pool. That was the signal for the rest of the kids to jump in.
Yes, Beans, that was also the signal for "Marco Polo" to begin also. The only time it stopped was when it was adult swim time. We'd have to get out for 15 minutes and allow the Mom's to swim without getting their bouffant hairdo's wet.
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| A picture of a picture of my Mom ,and her bouffant, when we were at Webb |
Course the Student Pilots (AKA marginally older children) would all be doing Cannonballs off the high dive during this period, so....
Good times. One knew who the "Good Guys" were and who the "Bad Guys" were. Now?
Week before last was a tough one for most of Texas. Primary cause was failure to plan. Maybe that's an incomplete statement. Perhaps, "failure to properly plan" is better. It seems to me if your normal power production need is X kilowatt hours and you have planned for an emergency by building in Y more kilowatt hours, that common sense would dictate you have reliable capacity to produce X+Y kilowatt hours on short notice.
Well, the Electrical RELIABILITY Council of Texas (ERCOT) mandated that Wind and Solar provide more of the electricity. According to this article ~40% of Texas' total power production capability is provided by Wind. Ostensibly this was to reduce prices, however, there's some shady looking shenanigans here. None of the members of the Council are elected, 5 of them don't live in the state, 3 of those don't live in the US, and 7 have resigned since the uproar has begun. So...this looks ripe for abuse.
Back to the Math, juvat!
Sí, mi muy, muy viejo sargento de la fuerza aérea
So, while Texas has the capability on a normal day to produce 48000 KWH, 18K of them are wind powered. Last week, we needed quite a few more total KWH (I can't find a good source for the actual need), the state couldn't produce even what was needed on a regular day. We couldn't produce X much less X+Y, we could only produce 60% of X.
So back to my "failure to properly plan". I'm all for cheap electricity, but it seems to me that proper planning would call for building the capability to produce X+Y with highly reliable plants (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, and Nuke), then put them on some form of reserve status and fill normal need with renewable. When URI-2 hits, and it will, you use the 10 day advance notice given in this storm, to bring the reliable electricity back on, keep the wind running, or shut it down to protect the equipment as needs be. Power outages may still occur, but, I'd bet it wouldn't have been as bad as it was.
The next Co-Op membership meeting should be fun to attend.
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| Power started failing on the 14th and was out until the 18th |
We just got our electric bill for February, evidently, even though nothing electrical was working in the house and we had no water because the pump is powered by electricity from Feb 14 through Feb 18, we consumed 40 kwh each day. This is more than we consumed daily for virtually all the previous 6 weeks.
They are billing us for something they did not provide (and still aren't providing for some folks in the area). Great work if you can get it! "Hey, Sarge! Here's the bill for all that electricity I provided you last week. But, juvat, you didn't provide me any electricity! I know, but pay me anyway!"
In a related reverberation, the well guy arrived on Thursday as scheduled. Took a look at the new well and pronounced it intact. Thank you, Lord! Then we went down to the old well and had a look. He confirmed the crack I had detected as well as the one that "John in Philly" had noticed that I had not. Unfortunately....
There were a few other cracked pipes. Took him a couple of hours to fix and the water came back on. In an abundance of caution (I HATE that saying), I visited the Guest House and checked the sink and toilet, all is well. Checked my sister's old house, Ok there also except for a leak when the sink is turned on. No big deal as we've got some renovating to do there. Went to my sister's new house (Yes, Beans, phase 2 of Operation "Everyone move one house clockwise" is complete.) water's on also.
I had to bring a few things over to my sister's new house (she had been bunking with us while electricity/water was off) and noticed her dogs were a little wet. Did another walk through, couldn't find anything wrong. An hour of so later, she called saying the Dogs were playing in a puddle outside.
Nuts! I'd forgotten about the waterline to the old horse trough. Since I'd installed the new trough, no big deal the horses had water, so I just turned off the waterline at its source.
At this point, I'm starting to feel like we're doing ok. Got some plumber issues to take care of, but we already knew we'd need a plumber to finish hooking up the kitchen sink at my sister's new house.
Our first guests in 2+weeks arrived Saturday, so we're pretty relieved that revenue has begun flowing again. Every day in that period had been booked and we'd had to cancel. Later that evening, we get a phone call. It's the guests. Seems they'd wanted to take a shower, but the water was coming out of the controls rather than the shower head.
I'm looking forward to the end of reverberations caused by Uri's cannon ball dive on the state.
Or maybe I should just be reincarnated as a Cat.
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| Schmedly |
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| Mouschka, or Mooschka, chillin' |
I thought I read somewhere that Texas had reserve power set up, but that the Feds denied the request to fire up those generators - have to stop global warming doncha know.
ReplyDeleteFrank
That would be an interesting article to read, Frank. I hadn't heard that.
DeleteIt has now entered the chaos region. Some are saying that the Feds denied the request; while the Official Fact Checkers are saying it was ERCOT that denied the request, not the Feds.
DeleteSchroedinger's cat may have the answer, but he/she/it is not talking to me :)
Frank
People evidently do not understand the concept of deregulation. You CANNOT plan! If the PTB know there will be a great need for future generation, they cannot hire someone to build it. They must HOPE that the price incentives are enough to encourage private industry to build it. Price incentives are created from SCARCITY, and scarcity occurs, as we've just seen, about once every ten years. Texas needs to change their paradigm or get used to shortages.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your second comment below. After reading that, I had a much better understanding of the point you made in this one.
DeleteI'm hoping the shower problem will be minor. But the words minor and plumbing almost never turn out to be true.
ReplyDeleteI especially feel that way because we spent considerable time this weekend at my sister's house removing brand X single knob shower control valve, and replacing it with brand Y single know valve.
The job was interesting and at times, challenging. (The word "challenging" is brevity code for "When are we going to stop going backwards and make some progress!")
It's good to see that you are moving forward.
I see the petio is getting used and the photos made me smile.
"...single know valve." Is supposed to say, "....single knob valve."
DeleteObviously, we hope it's minor also, and I have come to realize minor and plumbing are rarely used in the same sentence with out a "not" in it with them. We shall see.
DeleteIt's interesting that the eyes see what the brain wants them to see. I had to re-read your comment to see the typo. Not that I EVER make a tipo of course!
DeleteWater where it's not supposed to be and no water where it's supposed to be....biggest headaches a homeowner can get. Plus getting a bill for services NOT provided.......grrrrrr!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Nylon. As I said, the next membership meeting should be very interesting.
DeleteIt's my understanding that reliable power needs to be operating close to it's 100% range to be reliable. The unreliable energy can ramp up to fill in quite quickly, as it's unreliable. So the paradigm should look like: Gas, Coal, Nuke available to reliably deliver the 100% load of the mid Feb spike, and wind and solar to fill in the gaps. But I have the same fear my old Physics Professor did. There won't be enough qualified technical types to run that infrastructure. Not because of a "back to nature" that he foresaw, but because of the intentional sabotage of our education system by the mass murder set.
ReplyDeleteI didn't lose anything, thank God!. I had the tools, parts and experience if I had. But the fallout infuriated me anyway. The 'elite' are playing games with our lives. And that is not a game I want to play.
I think you and I are in agreement on your first para, STxAR. It was interesting talking with the well guy. Apparently, he's a well design engineer normally. His Boss asked if he would handle field work for a while due to the demand. I asked him if he had any recommendations/considerations for a well house. He said electricity, insulation and heat. He also said he had all that at his place and his well still froze once power was lost. Which brings me back to last week's discussion, an alternate energy source.
DeleteYeah, reading about the ERCOT shenanigans really gets my blood boiling.
Renewable energy providing some of the generating capacity while fossil fuel and nuclear power plants making up the difference is inefficient and uneconomical. Power plants run most efficiently at 100% capacity but in the above scenario operate at something less than 100% Yet they have to have to have the capacity to supply 100% of demand when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine or you get hit with a 100 year storm.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't like them, I don't see how the power's that be are ever going to let them go away. I used to love the drive to Big Bend, one could see for miles. Now all you can see are those f'ing windmills. And 2 or 3 sets of the block long blades go down our main street every day. Traffic is bad enough with all the tourists, it really gets fouled up when the blades arrive.
DeleteYour last sentence is an apt description of the issue. By ERCOT edict, wind and solar provide ~40% of normal demand. when they can't the "reliable" producers must make up the difference. But, due to economics, there isn't enough capacity for them to do that.
(Don McCollor)...I believe that coal plants are happiest when base loaded (constant, but not necessarily 100% load). Efficiency is only one aspect. Constant rapidly changing load (some plants manage with daily load swings) stress the steam piping (carrying 1000+F steam at 2000+ psi pressure) and steam leaks develop. The plant has to go down more frequently for non-trivial maintenance. The cost is worse than any reduced efficiency. Not only is the plant not selling power, they are having to buy it to meet their power delivery contracts, and paying the repair contract team to fix things...
DeleteMost people don't realize how polluting wind and solar actually is as a power source. Aside from the manufacturing, the operation of these units puts a lot of carbon emissions into the air. You must realize that according to physics, generation must equal load at all times. When the wind fluctuates or the sun goes behind a cloud, the output of these units also fluctuates. To compensate for the erratic output, gas and sometimes coal must be constantly ramped up and down to keep the generation equal to the load. As you have no doubt seen on the highways, a semi's engine bellows smoke on acceleration (ramping up), but seems to be clean at cruising constant speed. So too are the fossil generators - they don't stay at a constant speed due to this green energy compensation.
ReplyDeleteHadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. But, I think it also makes sense not to include Wind and Solar in the X part of my equation. X being the amount of energy you know you're going to need day to day. The wind and solar contribute as able to the Y part, extenuating circumstances. As I understand our situation, because of the weather (Icing), the wind couldn't contribute much and so the whole system couldn't handle the normal daily load, much less when people started cranking up thermostats etc.
DeleteTake a look at ChicagoBoyz. There is a very interesting post from last week about the Texas power problem. The comments are very enlightening.
ReplyDeletehttps://chicagoboyz.net/archives/65316.html
Thanks, Jeff, good info. Fifth comment from the top by Gavin Longmuir says what I attempted to say, much more clearly and succinctly.
DeleteWind and solar, the alleged green alternatives. Not really green, just well-meaning idiots imposing their will on society.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, it's for the children, or something.
Bastiges.
They're green for the people building and selling them. Greenbacks count don't they?
DeleteAgreed.
(ERCOT)
ReplyDeleteBet those members don't "work" for free. Welfare for the well connected.
No, you're absolutely right, WSF. I think the Head Mo'Fo 2019 Salary was $876,334.
DeleteRegarding wellhouses and freezing. My well is enclosed by a wooden structure with insulation on the walls and ceiling..It has exposed pipes from the well coming out of the ground and passing thru various valves before returning underground to run to various buildings. A 100 watt bulb on a drop light keeps the exposed pipes warm.
ReplyDeleteWhen power goes out, an oil lamp provides heat. Works well as long as you pay attention.
Thanks RC, The Well House is high on the priority list as in next when we finish dealing with leaking water. Other than paying attention, which my attention span is dramatically shortened lately, what steps do you take to minimize the chance of fire with the oil lamp?
DeleteFirst off, don't let the cats knock the lamp down.
DeleteGood point.
DeleteHow about a Dyna-Glo heater in there instead of an oil lamp? If it tips over, the flame goes out. Kerosene heaters work well, we used one for a couple of years when we bought our first home from Hubbie's Grandma as the wind was (literally) blowing through the place and caulk and plastic can only do so much. Used a kerosene heater in the deer blind, and it got TOASTY PDQ in there. So I would think that putting in it the (insulated) well house, and lighting it up when power goes out should work just great. The 2 that I had over the years would hold about 3 gallons of fuel and would run for hours on low...I remember only having to refuel every other day or so...
DeleteA cousin keeps 2-3 gallon cans of cooking oil (Crisco) and some lantern wicks on hand. Says a can will last 24 hrs and keep a small space above freezing. Put a clay flower pot over it to better spread the heat.
Delete(Don McCollor)...Put the lamp in an metal oil drum. Set on bricks. Away from anything flammable. Possibly with a layer of sand in the bottom to soak up spilled fuel and slow the burning (I have not tried the sand, but it works for making a gasoline cooking campfire), Smaller metal containers for any oil lamp, candle, or Crisco can burning in the house. If it leaks or tips over, the fuel (probably burning) is contained and not leaking on the floor or table. And watch them like a hawk...
DeleteThe leadership and senior planning staff outright failed. Having said that, kudos to the crews that actually run the power plant down here on Calaveras and Braunig Lakes. Those folks were working 16-19 hours straight and, rather than driving home, would sleep in their pickup trucks there on the job site. They were putting up tents and pulling in any heater they could find to keep the natural gas flowing. One of the crew showed me a video a few days after the cold left the area; one of the coal-fired boilers had the exhaust fan fail. This fan provides the air flow to blow the coal ash out of the boiler and through filters to the exhaust stacks. When the fan motor failed, all of that coal ash remained in the boiler and was piling up. Normally calls for a shut down but the decision was made to keep it running to provide power to the populace. Afterwards, they were literally driving a front-end loader into the boiler to remove the coal ash. (Trivia, did you know they use dynamite and shotguns to literally blow the ash off of the boiler tubes?) The workers performed yeomen's work. - Barry
ReplyDeleteYeah, I mentioned last week that one of my former co-workers was a shift supervisor for the co-op and had at that time already put in 8 16 hour shifts. I doubt they've dropped down any. It's still not unusual to see line trucks along roads around here. So, I've got nothing bad to say about them, nor will I tolerate someone else saying it. I also only have a couple of gripes against the co-op itself. One, keeping people informed when the outage was going on, sucked. "We're expecting 12-24 hours" on the web site for 4 days? Second, charging for power we didn't receive? YGBSM!
DeleteOOOOHHHH, can I get the dynamite and shotguns job? Sounds like fun, well, except for the ash anyhow! ;-)
I'd heard of the shotgun cleaning, but it turned out they use industrial sized guns.
Deletehttps://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/06/22/winchester-8-gauge-industrial-shotguns/
I do not want to shoulder and 8 gauge shotgun and pull the trigger.
This article mentions using dynamite to clean boiler slag.
The coal fired days of the Navy passed long before my time.
I think it was this article about using explosives to clean ash and slag.
Deletehttps://www.powermag.com/using-explosives-for-boiler-deslagging/
ERCOT is the problem and not the solution. We really can't tolerate this "green" energy solution as it doesn't work. We will probably see rolling blackouts this summer because of demand. The problem is that the Democrat EPA will not let there be an expansion of fossil fueled power plants which are the fastest to bring on line and any form of nuclear energy will not happen. I think I said this elsewhere, the idea of "green" energy is to create energy shortages so the the elite can better control the "proles". The prevention of nuclear energy is for the same reason; if we could get nuclear fusion in the next decade we would have lots of inexpensive energy which is intolerable to the elite.
ReplyDeleteI am awaiting my bill from my Electric CO-OP which is just south of Juvat's. We had off and on power from Monday night till about Tuesday noon. After that we had constant power for whatever reasons. So we will have some usage. I will be protesting if there is a excess charge. I will throw in the BUT here, the charges may be a way for them to recoup the excess energy charges that occurred. Someone in the DFW area got hit with a $17,000 electric bill because of the charges.
As I mentioned before, I think the only thing that saved our well house was the saltwater tank for the water softener that kept it warm until I got the emergency generator hooked up and put the heat lamp to work.
Yeah, I think it's likely there'll be changes, at least on the surface. According to the salaries article I cited above, Gov Abbot is "irked" about ERCOT and is pushing the Utilities Commission to make some major reforms. We'll see. Thanks for the info on generators you gave me last week. Money is being set aside, but I'm going to try to wait until the panic buying settles down.
DeleteWell, to assuage some of your anger, your electric planning board, a week before the storm hit, saw what was coming and politely asked the FedGov, through it's various agencies, if they could have permission to bring more conventional power-plants on-line (because, when you have a power plant, you often have 3 plants in one - one active, one for peak demand only and one being worked on - it's that peak-demand plant that's only on for a portion of the time that is critical and serves to backup 'green energy') or, more precisely, bring on more boilers/turbines/generators at existing plans and were politely told by the new FedGov to "Copulate Elsewhere."
ReplyDeleteTexas had the conventional ability to back up at least 95% of the loss, and from what I read, could have easily generated 100% or more, but weren't allowed by FedGov.
So there's that. Everyone's screaming about lack of planning and lack of preparedness but, like Houston flooding during a hurricane, the authorities weren't allowed to do what they could do, because of the environment (in the Icemaggedon, it's because of too much 'greenhouse gas' creation. In the case of Houston, it was releasing the water out of the surrounding rivers, lakes, water retention system that were already at max height which wasn't allowed because 'too much fresh water was bad and could cause damage to the environment.' Yeah, not kidding at all on that one. So, instead, an environmental disaster caused by flooding Houston was better than thinning the water in estuaries, which happened anyways...)
Yes, 'green energy' doth sucketh the biggeth oneth, but in this case all y'all in Texas had the ability to git er dun but had your hands tied around your back, a noose put over your neck, and the feckless bureaucrats and those bureaucrats operating for the new admin were more busy kicking the stools out from under your feet than actually doing their damned jobs.
Sucks.
As to the juvat planetation, (see what I did there?) glad your water situation is getting better and the 'musical houses' is working. Did your plumber guy fix the shower in the guest quarters, too?
Last first, Beans, No. He was the well guy. His expertise stopped at the well head. (His words). So, Mrs J is trying to find a plumber who'll answer the phone right now. Fortunately, we don't have guests scheduled until Friday, so we've got a couple of days to get it done.
DeleteAs to "Planetation", We desperately need to get out of here for a bit. Trips to the supermarket and Lowes just ain't cutting it any longer.
As to the rest of your comment, well...It frickin' figures! Not that I doubt you, but do you have a site? I don't think my blood pressure is high enough right now, so I'd like to read the article myself. Elon Musk asked me to carry a few of his starlink satellites into orbit next time I blast off.
Here's one of the articles
Deletehttps://www.usasupreme.com/images-texans-froze-to-death-because-biden-admin-ordered-ercot-to-throttle-energy-output-by-forcing-it-to-comply-with-environmental-green-energy-standards/
Thanks.
DeleteI, too, remember Adult Swim Time in the base pool. We young jerks hung around in the deep end and would sink down to the bottom, swim to the other side, and then surface. Repeat over and over again until the lifeguards told us to stop.
ReplyDeleteNext day, repeat...
Next day, repeat...
Yeah. Good times, good times...
And it was cool, at Kwaj, that the family pool was right across the street.
DeleteThat underwater swim thing must have been AF wide at a minimum. The deep end was easy to swim across underwater. The shallow end was considerably wider. I finally managed to make it. All the girls sighed (at least in my imagination).
DeleteIIRC, in previous posts you indicated pretty much everything on Kwaj was right across the street.
DeleteWell, the 3-6th grade was across the street on the right corner, the pool was directly across the street, the big empty field between the pool and the base commander's house was forward left, and then the base commander's house was forward more to the left. The big empty field was highly useful for the yearly base commander's picnic, otherwise it provided us a view and access to the ocean side of the island so we could watch breakers break on the reef, or go play on the reef, or chase rats in the sea wall, or try to play 'catch the mudskipper' on the anti-tank blocks the Japanese placed on the reef to stop, well, tanks...
DeleteIt was a couple blocks to the shopping district (a post exchange, a post exchange extra building that handled seasonal stuff, the Safeway commissary...) A block or more past that to the hospital. then the athletic fields and church and walk-in open air theater, then the base buildings and then the air field. That's all going south-east.
The other direction, northward, was, in the middle of the island, the kindergarten to 2nd grade school, the indoor theater, then further north was the junior/senior high school, past that was 'silver city' composed of basically airstream trailers and then the end of the island.
So, when was your Dad stationed at Webb AFB? I grew up just to the south in Glasscock County (Garden City). We saw the T-37's and T-38's flying over us all the time and it was especially neat to hear one of the T-38's go supersonic an=d rattle our windows. We used to average a new teacher every year in the GC schools whose husband was stationed there either as an instructor or student.
ReplyDeleteJoe, '65 to 71. He went to Vietnam from there, got assigned to Columbus MS. I stayed to graduate HS in 73, went to Tech, then Del Rio for Pilot Training. Other than gas stops, that was the last time I was in the State until I retired in 98. Got back here as fast as I could.
DeleteDamn, sorry to hear that. And that 'power use' is...rather interesting...
ReplyDeleteThanks Old NFO. Yes it is.
DeleteJuvat, do you or any of those folks charged thousands for power have any recourse? Seems like ERCOT could have claimed the right of self defense (keeping people alive) and fired up those generators, or the Govnuh declaring a state of emergency and given the Fed the finger.
ReplyDeleteJust finished reading Beans cited article. Basically, the feds said yeah you can fire up the gens, but as much as possible keep it within the pollution limits. Then they get to decide after the fact what was possible. Hindsight being 20/20 and woulda/coulda/shoulda. Besides, as I pointed out 5 or the ERCOT members are not from nor live in Texas, and I've heard rumors that some of the members are former Green Energy experts.
DeleteI don't think Gov Abbott is done with this yet. We'll see. I certainly hope a few heads will roll.
Glad you got out (relatively) okay Juvat. The well would have been a crusher.
ReplyDeleteIn the small town pool of my youth, there was always a scramble to be the first one off the high dive.
The plumber is coming back today to work on the guest house. We'll see how we actually did with regard to the shower.
DeleteReally good to hear things are returning to what passes as "normal" these days, juvat.
ReplyDeleteYeah, actually having a plumber on property last evening, even if he only shut off the water, did relieve quite a bit of concern. We'll see today what the problem is.
DeleteThanks DrJim.