Life Safety is not "politics"

Remember airships? Well in the UK they built two, one by the guvmint, called the Government Airship and 'tuther called the Capitalist Airship. Former was R101. Latter was R100. One made it to Canada and back. The other made it to France. One came and returned with the full crew the other killed everyone but two on it.
No prizes for correct answers.
Now, to be fair, when the power companies were private but highly regulated by government, prices were high but crews were local and service was good. When "deregulation" came prices went down but service was no longer local and service was poor especially if the problem was large. This is when I got an APU in addition to the woodstove.
You have to look out for yourself.
 
alans said:
yep, its called hydro and they can also import from France's nuclear power stations
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Denmark is rather (!!) flat, hence a very small hydroelectric production - the largest one can supply about 2500 houses....
Import from France is zero, but we do import from Norway (hydro - they have mountains :cool: ) and Sweden (mixture, but not a lot of nuclear).
We do however also export quite a lot to Germany, and most of that is from windfarms.

I suspect there is a bit of geographic confustication going on here...
 
A lot of energy issues might depend on who is funding the political parties in which countries. Wealth is globalised - it moves to where it can grow..
 
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Onder said:
Remember airships? Well in the UK they built two, one by the guvmint, called the Government Airship and 'tuther called the Capitalist Airship. Former was R101. Latter was R100. One made it to Canada and back. The other made it to France. One came and returned with the full crew the other killed everyone but two on it.
No prizes for correct answers.
Now, to be fair, when the power companies were private but highly regulated by government, prices were high but crews were local and service was good. When "deregulation" came prices went down but service was no longer local and service was poor especially if the problem was large. This is when I got an APU in addition to the woodstove.
You have to look out for yourself.
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You are talking about statistics related to two incidents and drawing a general conclusion. Recently in Australia there was an outbreak of Covid 19 in Victoria and one in NSW. The one in NSW seemed to be handled better. But the idiots in our community are drawing a general conclusion from the comparison. Statistics need to based upon much more that that. When you compare a couple of incidents, that might constitute anecdotal evidence. It might mean something or it might not. Politicians do not care, they will use any argument to promote their cause, even arguments which are based on the false premise.
 
...as will most people most of the time. We are humans. You know how that goes....
 
I have trouble understanding how a power grid that runs all the ac units in Texas in the dead heat of summer could be overworked by a little cold weather.
 
Danno said:
I have trouble understanding how a power grid that runs all the ac units in Texas in the dead heat of summer could be overworked by a little cold weather.
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Maybe because natural gas pumps, the instruments, gauges and valves don't freeze up from sub freezing temps and shut down the nuclear, coal and gas fired generators and freeze up half the wind turbines in the summer time.
 
Danno said:
I have trouble understanding how a power grid that runs all the ac units in Texas in the dead heat of summer could be overworked by a little cold weather.
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lack of preparedness, despite having been warned
 
acadian said:
lack of preparedness, despite having been warned
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I just read that the Texas Legislature was busy passing laws on mandating the National Anthem be played at all public events and that people use restrooms according to their gender while a report urging the winterization of their power grid died on some bureaucrat's desk.

KInda hard to totally avoid politics when discussing another political boondoggle.
 
The Texas senator took his family south to Mexico, before changing his mind and came back to see if he had abandon a sinking ship, the politicans can't do much about the weather. . . . . .
 
Bernhard said:
The Texas senator took his family south to Mexico, before changing his mind and came back to see if he had abandon a sinking ship, the politicans can't do much about the weather. . . . . .
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He abandoned a sinking ship, then blamed it on his daughters...
 
Danno said:
I just read that the Texas Legislature was busy passing laws on mandating the National Anthem be played at all public events and that people use restrooms according to their gender while a report urging the winterization of their power grid died on some bureaucrat's desk.

KInda hard to totally avoid politics when discussing another political boondoggle.
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"Woodfin, of ERCOT, acknowledged that there’s no requirement to prepare power infrastructure for such extremely low temperatures. “Those are not mandatory, it’s a voluntary guideline to decide to do those things,” he said. “There are financial incentives to stay online, but there is no regulation at this point.”

"Texas politicians and regulators were warned after the 2011 storm that more “winterizing” of power infrastructure was necessary, a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation shows. The large number of units that tripped offline or couldn’t start during that storm “demonstrates that the generators did not adequately anticipate the full impact of the extended cold weather and high winds,” regulators wrote at the time. More thorough preparation for cold weather could have prevented the outages, the report said."

www.texastribune.org

Texas leaders failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable to winter extremes, experts say

Texas officials knew winter storms could leave the state’s power grid vulnerable, but they left the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies — many of which opted against the costly upgrades. That, plus a deregulated energy market largely isolated from the rest of the...
www.texastribune.org www.texastribune.org
 
ERCOT board members stepped down before they could be called to task.

Yeah, that.
 
Bernhard said:
The Texas senator took his family south to Mexico, before changing his mind and came back to see if he had abandon a sinking ship, the politicans can't do much about the weather. . . . . .
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Politicians should manage the risk. It is the responsibility of any leader - 'duty of care' ? We have two politicians in Australia in one party who have said 'we should address issues as they arise and NOT on the basis of what might happen'. To me that expresses intent to be reactive rather than proactive. Situationalist management usually leads to crisis management . Many politicians will refuse to comment on hypotheticals -, they are not systematic.. Most blow with every breeze.
 
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If you pray a lot and use the right words, you probably do not need to manage the risk. Are they religious in Texas ?
 
Honestly living where I do it has never occurred to me that the power coming into our house could fail from source failure , here we have coal, wind and no doubt bunker C , plus several small scale hydro sources , when power goes out , cause is often weather related though , like fallen limbs , drunk drivers and booster station trouble are other listed causes never a system wide thing , we enjoy wide range of weather conditions here that can test a man and most infrastructure ... however most folks understand that and are prepared for most events ... forgot to mention the too numerous Gov. sponsored bio-mass GE ration stations , they clear cutting our Crown land to burn for power .... nobody freezes to death here , usually die in house fire trying to keep warm ....
 
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I've read different figures in some articles regarding Texas and their failures in wind and power grids. From what I've read is Texas is #1 in the US generating power with wind turbines at 23%. Who'd have thought from and oil producing state. Kudos for that. Simply put, as stated, unprepared for that kind of weather. Half the US experiences sub freezing temps without failure. Why?? The windmill blades have heaters. In freezing precipitation, sensors shut the windmill down, heaters in the blades dislodge the ice, allows it to drop straight down. (makes sense. That ice could get flung pretty far) and restart when clean. Its a cost thing. An expensive upgrade. So....they took the cheap route, got caught with their chaps down even experiencing a similar yet not as catastrophic experience in 2011. Senor Cruz hopped the icy
wall to join Chris Christie on a beach.;)
 
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