Been hot in Texas

I've of course seen the Southwest heat wave in the news.
We had high eighties here early in the week, but it's cool enough now not to need AC and is forecast to get down to the upper fifties overnight, so good for sleeping with the ceiling fan in our bedroom.
We do see real heat here now and then and humidity here is typically high.
Highest I can recall was 40C, or 104F recorded on the air temperature display of my old BMW.
Drove it about 100 miles top down Columbus to home that afternoon.
Drank a liter of water bought at a gas station on West Broad, where gas at the time was always cheaper. Bought another liter at a rest area about fifty miles west on I-70 and drank it down as well.
No need to pee, LOL!
 
Well, this doesn't look promising:
View attachment 223826
The operative word is "COULD". They say it every year. I think its a disclaimer, and an effort to urge people to conserve. Too many people want to jump on and bash TX and our grid without knowing the reality of it or any of the politics behind it. Nor is it "climate change", sigh. How about some real insite:

1) TX wanted to enhance our grid for many years. Inner city mayors like the one in Dallas fought it vehemetly, hoping it would fail at some point, to get some mileage out of it to blame and point fingers at our governor. These types are rotten to the core. They caused trouble.

2) TX is undergoing massive population growth. Its a challenge for ANY grid to keep up. You can't build it out overnight.

3) EV's are exacerbating the challenge. Crypto mining is adding to the demand.

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining such as Bitcoin consumes vast amounts of energy as millions of computers race to solve a complex algorithm and win digital currency. Cryptocurrency mining companies in Texas filed applications to connect new facilities to the grid with a projected demand of nearly 42 GW of electricity in 2027, enough electricity to power more than 8.3 million Texas homes during periods of peak demand.

But lets blame the Texas grid, of course. Thats fun to do.
 
I saw a news clip yesterday that talked about how many thousands of people would die if a major city in a hot western state suffered a major electric power grid failure for 5 to 7 days. It pointed out the fact that soooooooo many dwellings are not designed to be able to maintain a cool enough living temperature on hot days if they did not have electricity.

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And sorry, but I just have to tell you about my day today. I took my steel string acoustic guitar, my nylon string clasical guitar, and my violin to a local park today with food in a small cooler. 78 F & 40% humidity, light wind, clean air, no rain. Truly a beautiful day. Sometimes a summer day in south west Pennsylvania can be spot on perfect weather. At the end of the day I walked in the park with 2 flashlights while I wore a safety reflective vest. No bugs bothering me ( usually bugs after sunset don't get annoying until fall and even then there not that bad unless your near a body of water).

If everyday in Pittsburgh was like today, people would be moving here to retire.
 
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The operative word is "COULD". They say it every year. I think its a disclaimer, and an effort to urge people to conserve. Too many people want to jump on and bash TX and our grid without knowing the reality of it or any of the politics behind it. Nor is it "climate change", sigh. How about some real insite:

1) TX wanted to enhance our grid for many years. Inner city mayors like the one in Dallas fought it vehemetly, hoping it would fail at some point, to get some mileage out of it to blame and point fingers at our governor. These types are rotten to the core. They caused trouble.

2) TX is undergoing massive population growth. Its a challenge for ANY grid to keep up. You can't build it out overnight.

3) EV's are exacerbating the challenge. Crypto mining is adding to the demand.

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining such as Bitcoin consumes vast amounts of energy as millions of computers race to solve a complex algorithm and win digital currency. Cryptocurrency mining companies in Texas filed applications to connect new facilities to the grid with a projectedf nearly 42 GW of electricity in 2027, enough electricity to power more than 8.3 million Texas homes during periods of peak demand.

But lets blame the Texas grid, of course. Thats fun to do.
So, maybe shutting down cryptocurrency sites might actually be a first step to maintain the power grid when it is pushed to its limits. Interesting, I can hear them screaming and threatening the lawsuits already.
 
Summer in Texas. 95° each day? Whodathunk.


Not really possible. That would put the heat index over 150°F.
Many years ago in August the day of the family picnic the temperature was just below 100 F and the humidity was soooooo high that there was a decently thick fog in the air (visibility about 1/2 a mile) and no wind at all, even at mid-day. The only good thing was the fog significantly reduce the effect felt from the heat of the suns rays. The hottest with super humid day I ever saw.

Sometimes hot and very humid do happen together.
 
Maybe build a nuclear reactor somewhere in Texas ?

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I did Air Force basic training in Texas during the summer and we had people not used to the heat dropping like flies.
 
The operative word is "COULD". They say it every year. I think its a disclaimer, and an effort to urge people to conserve. Too many people want to jump on and bash TX and our grid without knowing the reality of it or any of the politics behind it. Nor is it "climate change", sigh. How about some real insite:

1) TX wanted to enhance our grid for many years. Inner city mayors like the one in Dallas fought it vehemetly, hoping it would fail at some point, to get some mileage out of it to blame and point fingers at our governor. These types are rotten to the core. They caused trouble.

2) TX is undergoing massive population growth. Its a challenge for ANY grid to keep up. You can't build it out overnight.

3) EV's are exacerbating the challenge. Crypto mining is adding to the demand.

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining such as Bitcoin consumes vast amounts of energy as millions of computers race to solve a complex algorithm and win digital currency. Cryptocurrency mining companies in Texas filed applications to connect new facilities to the grid with a projected demand of nearly 42 GW of electricity in 2027, enough electricity to power more than 8.3 million Texas homes during periods of peak demand.

But lets blame the Texas grid, of course. Thats fun to do.
I mean, there have been two major blackouts 🤷‍♂️ But both of those were in the winter, which was due, primarily, to a lack of winterization of gas network equipment, coupled with VRE not showing up (which it wasn't expected to).

There has been a trend of grid fragilization, not just in Texas, but in many energy markets like California and Alberta where the margin of available firm generating capacity is in decline or has declined while the share of variable non-dispatchable capacity has increased. This means unplanned losses of capacity can, instead of a nuisance, be potentially catastrophic events. Both Cali and Alberta have had to undertake rolling blackouts to prevent a grid black recently.
 
I mean, there have been two major blackouts 🤷‍♂️ But both of those were in the winter, which was due, primarily, to a lack of winterization of gas network equipment, coupled with VRE not showing up (which it wasn't expected to).

There has been a trend of grid fragilization, not just in Texas, but in many energy markets like California and Alberta where the margin of available firm generating capacity is in decline or has declined while the share of variable non-dispatchable capacity has increased. This means unplanned losses of capacity can, instead of a nuisance, be potentially catastrophic events. Both Cali and Alberta have had to undertake rolling blackouts to prevent a grid black recently.
VRE would have been backed up by fuel power during the winter but woke enviro agendas by opponents blocked it. People froze because fuel power was not allowed to back up the VRE. This was self inflicted for an enviro cause. See #1 above.
 
VRE would have been backed up by fuel power during the winter but woke enviro agendas by opponents blocked it. People froze because fuel power was not allowed to back up the VRE. This was self inflicted for an enviro cause. See #1 above.
There were definitely issues with unwinterized equipment, which, for Texas, that doesn't have real winter, explains it, but doesn't excuse it. Even STP briefly had a nuclear outage due to a pressure sensor line freezing because the turbines are on slabs outdoors:
Screen Shot 2024-06-09 at 7.45.38 PM.webp

The main issue being seen in market systems right now is a lack of investment in additional firm capacity to meet demand, while considerable investment is made in VRE due to REC's and tax credits and the like, making them attractive due to these government programs.

This table shows the impact of the gas outages:
ERCOT SARA vs actual.webp

There was supposed to be 51,523MW of capacity, but what was available was, on average, 32,108MW, and, this hit a low of 27,542MW due to the supply issues. You can see the STP outage as well.

It's a complicated topic, but I find it endlessly annoying when VRE advocates will trot out VRE showing up as "saving the day" but if it doesn't show up, they have wave that away and blame the backup capacity.

We saw a similar situation in Alberta this past winter where they had multiple EEA-3's and wind and solar were at like zero. Well, three days later, the wind picks up a little bit because the weather improves (it's no longer -40C) and dullards are crowing about how wind "saved the day". Like, it was completely absent for the entire period, it didn't save a bloody thing. The problem was a lack of firm capacity, which the investment in wind capacity, that didn't show up, avoided the investment in, it's pure idiocy.
 
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