Octopus Overlords

Little Raven wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:05 pm That's fine. I just want to make sure I use the proper language going forward.

The leadership in particular should be pilloried for not preparing for this when they knew the storm was coming. They didn't prepare adequately for it and didn't communicate the risk. They also didn't course correct after the last series of winter related failures. 10 years is enough time to figure out how to steer the country's biggest individual energy market towards a more resilient path. The choice not to was deliberate.

Colorado City Mayor Tim Boyd has resigned.

Boyd acknowledged the resignation Tuesday afternoon while responding to criticism he received for a controversial Facebook post.

Tuesday morning, Boyd voiced his frustrations about residents who he said called him to complain about power and water outages.

"If you don’t have electricity, you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe," Boyd said. "Get off your ass and take care of your own family!"

A few minutes ago, former MSNBC journalist David Shuster confirmed on his Twitter handle that Cruz was flying with his family to Cancun for a few days. He wrote, "Just confirmed @SenTedCruz and his family flew to Cancun tonight for a few days at a resort they've visited before. Cruz seems to believe there isn't much for him to do in Texas for the millions of fellow Texans who remain without electricity/water and are literally freezing."

Little Raven wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:55 am Confirmed

A few minutes ago, former MSNBC journalist David Shuster confirmed on his Twitter handle that Cruz was flying with his family to Cancun for a few days. He wrote, "Just confirmed @SenTedCruz and his family flew to Cancun tonight for a few days at a resort they've visited before. Cruz seems to believe there isn't much for him to do in Texas for the millions of fellow Texans who remain without electricity/water and are literally freezing."

I've been trying to read along and follow it all still (the actual unfolding events) and days later, it's still mind-boggling to me. I legitimately have no idea how the average person is dealing with this.

THREAD: There are 9,000 people caged in the downtown Houston jail, most of them solely because they can't pay cash. The situation is getting dire: "We don't have any running water anymore." People are sleeping on floors, toilets are clogged and covered in plastic bags because of the smell. People report not being given drinking water. When asked about water, guards have said: "you shouldn't have f**ing gotten locked up."

Angel Garcia, a nurse from Killeen, Texas, told CNN that she and her family are monitoring their 5-month old son, who was born premature and is running out of oxygen supply.
The family, with no heat in their home, has resorted to burning their toddler's toy blocks as firewood.
"A lot of people don't know the severity of what's going on. People are tearing down their fences to burn," Garcia said, in tears.

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:22 am Texas is like a microcosm of the post apocalypse and El Paso with its stable power supply is like Bartertown.

Holman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:24 am

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:22 am Texas is like a microcosm of the post apocalypse and El Paso with its stable power supply is like Bartertown.

Or we could go with Snowpiercer for this one.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:33 am

Holman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:24 am

$iljanus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:22 am Texas is like a microcosm of the post apocalypse and El Paso with its stable power supply is like Bartertown.

Or we could go with Snowpiercer for this one.

Texas votes Republican and they don't care. Soon as this passes it will be big business as usual. Putting money in the pockets of the GOP who dont give a shit about their people and the people continuing to go with it.

There's tons of stupid getting press. See: Cruz, Perry, and Abbott.

Razzooz revealed that they had a newborn daughter, so they couldn't just cover her with a few blankets and go to bed in the house. He and his wife decided to spend the night in their Model 3, which could safely keep the whole family and their dog warm for the whole night. Razzooz was very pleased that he had this wonderful opportunity and the family spent this cold night comfortably and warmly.

"So my wife my dog ​​and my newborn daughter slept in the garage in our Model 3 all nice and cozy. If I didn't have this car, it would have been a very rough night."

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:09 pm Guy credits his Tesla for saving his family one night.

Tesla Car Saves Family with a Newborn from Freezing in Texas

Razzooz revealed that they had a newborn daughter, so they couldn't just cover her with a few blankets and go to bed in the house. He and his wife decided to spend the night in their Model 3, which could safely keep the whole family and their dog warm for the whole night. Razzooz was very pleased that he had this wonderful opportunity and the family spent this cold night comfortably and warmly.

"So my wife my dog ​​and my newborn daughter slept in the garage in our Model 3 all nice and cozy. If I didn't have this car, it would have been a very rough night."

So moral of the story is 'Genius can afford a $40,000 car thats useless without power but cant buy a $30 kerosene heater? Figures.

Daehawk wrote:Guy credits his Tesla for saving his family one night.

Tesla Car Saves Family with a Newborn from Freezing in Texas

Razzooz revealed that they had a newborn daughter, so they couldn't just cover her with a few blankets and go to bed in the house. He and his wife decided to spend the night in their Model 3, which could safely keep the whole family and their dog warm for the whole night. Razzooz was very pleased that he had this wonderful opportunity and the family spent this cold night comfortably and warmly.

"So my wife my dog ​​and my newborn daughter slept in the garage in our Model 3 all nice and cozy. If I didn't have this car, it would have been a very rough night."

So moral of the story is 'Genius can afford a $40,000 car thats useless without power but cant buy a $30 kerosene heater? Figures.

noxiousdog wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:46 am 2) The delivery mechanism is the biggest issue. Someone(s) at the distributors decided to not do rolling blackouts, but decided to just let people freeze for days. This (theoretically) has been addressed. If rolling blackouts had been used, the amount of pain would be SIGNIFICANTLY less. Maybe 90% less.

3) This was a once a century event, depending on whether climate change is going to make this worse, which I suspect it is. It has not been this cold in February in 130 years. Generation is offline and in maintenance because it needs to be to prepare for summer.

5) This stuff still happens in other states with high regulation. California had the PG&E outages and there was a big Northeast outage a few years back as well. And of course thats just general items, let alone natural disasters.

That being said, there will be lessons learned, and the corporate/political interests decided not to take the recommendations out of the '89 incident. We'll see what happens going forward.

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:21 pm

Daehawk wrote:Guy credits his Tesla for saving his family one night.

Tesla Car Saves Family with a Newborn from Freezing in Texas

Razzooz revealed that they had a newborn daughter, so they couldn't just cover her with a few blankets and go to bed in the house. He and his wife decided to spend the night in their Model 3, which could safely keep the whole family and their dog warm for the whole night. Razzooz was very pleased that he had this wonderful opportunity and the family spent this cold night comfortably and warmly.

"So my wife my dog ​​and my newborn daughter slept in the garage in our Model 3 all nice and cozy. If I didn't have this car, it would have been a very rough night."

So moral of the story is 'Genius can afford a $40,000 car thats useless without power but cant buy a $30 kerosene heater? Figures.

You're absolutely right. He should have known at some point to buy a thing that is not widely displayed where for the one night in the future that he may need even though Noone since his great grandfather had need of one in his home. What a dipshit.

Lets ignore the fact that within 48 hours prior the SHTF kerosene was nowhere to be found.

He had a source of insulation and heat. He adapted. Good for him. We heated rocks and ceramic pots so my inlaws wouldnt sleep in freezing air.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

Lets ignore the fact that within 48 hours prior the SHTF kerosene was nowhere to be found.

Without power to run water treatment plants, city and state officials across Texas are pleading with residents to conserve water and are issuing boil-water notices.

The warnings not to consume water out of the tap began in many places as early as Monday, but as of Wednesday night many municipalities had expanded those orders as the state grapples with the ongoing weather, energy and water crises that have placed unprecedented strain on the state's entire power grid.

Multiple social media users have expressed complaints, claiming that wealthy regions of Texas have not been hit by rolling blackouts while many have suffered without power for over a day.

One Twitter user on Tuesday posted, "Hey @CityOfDallas care to explain why the wealthiest section of Dallas has not experienced any loss of power while all other areas have been down/had rolling blackouts for over 24 hours?" in a tweet that received more than 300 likes and 100 retweets.

One tweet also claimed Uptown, Preston Hollow and Farmers Branch as other Dallas areas that did not lose power.

"It's so wild that this is how we're living in our minority-majority communities, but Highland Park, Uptown, Preston Hollow, and Farmers Branch never even lost power. #texaspoweroutage."

"Highland Park, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Texas, has had power this entire time. Meanwhile my parents spent much of the day in their car staying warm and will be sleeping in sleeping bags tonight. I hope a million investigations are opened after all of this," Riley Stearns, a writer and director, tweeted Tuesday night.

stimpy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:50 pm How in the world will Cruz not be forced to resign after this unbelievable lack of common sense?
I dont care how fucking red you are, shit like this is just inexcusable.
The gall of some of these politicians is just appalling.
How far we have fallen that the politicians feel so bulletproof.

Daehawk wrote:

Lets ignore the fact that within 48 hours prior the SHTF kerosene was nowhere to be found.

I have a jug I keep. I used half yesterday and will use the other half perhaps in a few days. Its been here waiting on me to use it since 2018 or 2017.

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:03 pmFor 130years houston is far more likely to need a good evacuation vehicle than a heater.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:38 pm I saw there was a boil water advisory issued for ~7 million people in TX, which is (to repeat a phrase), mind boggling. 7 million people told their water needs to be boiled is...insane.

Without power to run water treatment plants, city and state officials across Texas are pleading with residents to conserve water and are issuing boil-water notices.

The warnings not to consume water out of the tap began in many places as early as Monday, but as of Wednesday night many municipalities had expanded those orders as the state grapples with the ongoing weather, energy and water crises that have placed unprecedented strain on the state's entire power grid.

For reference, in emergencies like these, having access to safe, clean drinking water is paramount. People are already stressed mentally and physically (cold, lack of electricity). And now they might not have water to drink? It's absolutely a humanitarian crisis.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:36 pm This kind of stuff makes me wonder yet again why we dont have wireless power. Tesla could do it 100 years ago.

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:28 pm Demonstrably not true. Failure to roll was a factor but the biggest issue was that demand outstripped generation by 20 GW system-wide for several days. They stopped trying to maintain 60 Hz when they issued their EEA3 directive on Sunday night/Monday early morning. That is a big deal btw. One power trader mentioned they saw a slight blip below 55.8 Hz and they suspect some of the forced outages were a result of bulk electric system desynchronization that luckily didn't cascade, but in effect the whole grid almost fell over. (I think ERCOT has even acknowledged they nearly completely failed).

In any case rolling black outs would have spread the pain out but would not have helped "90%" whatever that means. The problem is Texas has had a prolonged, profound Forced Outage generation shortfall that hasn't been seen anywhere in the United States. Maybe someone can find something like this during the energy crisis but I doubt it.

The weather facts might be are true but the bit about summer prep is a stretch at best that they are throwing around. At the root of that, ERCOT can not mandate winterization or approve/disapprove scheduled outages unlike *every other* ISO in the United States. As Elon accurately said, the R is totally absent in the their mission but it isn't their fault. They don't have the power to ask for it. That lack of capability to mandate reserve coverage is in the design of the system. The architects of the marketplace expect the market to essentially provide for it through pricing mechanisms and incentives. It didn't work...like it didn't work in 2011 and to a lesser extent in 2018. It has been an epic market failure. They can argue that the system would have had failures but this scope is well beyond this type of excuse making.

This is very, very, very different from the NE outage which was much shorter in duration and had a totally different (and btw fixed) problem. A single transmission line failed. PJM, NYISO, and NE-ISO directed transmission operators to cross-connect critical links about...15 years ago after that happened in 2003 IIRC. In anticipation of climate change impact they've also directed system-wide transmission upgrades. But that is because they have the authority to do so. At the street level we have utilities that are still a huge mess though for some balance (JCPL in NJ, O&R in NJ/NY are good examples of shit shows). Still we made fixes to that failure years ago.

California's outage was localized as well. It didn't involve more than 25% of the state for almost a whole week. In other words, the scales are not comparable. This is easily the worst power failure in modern history after the energy crisis by...a lot.

That being said, there will be lessons learned, and the corporate/political interests decided not to take the recommendations out of the '89 incident. We'll see what happens going forward.

FERC issued a 400 page report after the 2011 incident. I remember when my former employer, an NRG company in Texas, basically said the upgrades weren't worth it since we would make more in a failure. Not quite that blunt obviously but that was the message. In any case, that 2011 incident has remarkable overlap "system-wide" to this one. To acknowledge it again, this event is pro-longed and hit harder but the market essentially made very few changes based on shortcomings raised in the 2011 report. They said the market will fix it. It didn't.

That said, I expect the report on this to hit in the August/September time frame. Hopefully, it'll open enough eyes to get some of these gaps closed because you have a hell of a problem down there.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:33 pm Potable water came up again last week.

noxiousdog wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pm Are you saying that every grid in the US maintains a 30% generation buffer at all times? I'm skeptical.

noxiousdog wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:28 pm Demonstrably not true. Failure to roll was a factor but the biggest issue was that demand outstripped generation by 20 GW system-wide for several days. They stopped trying to maintain 60 Hz when they issued their EEA3 directive on Sunday night/Monday early morning. That is a big deal btw. One power trader mentioned they saw a slight blip below 55.8 Hz and they suspect some of the forced outages were a result of bulk electric system desynchronization that luckily didn't cascade, but in effect the whole grid almost fell over. (I think ERCOT has even acknowledged they nearly completely failed).

In any case rolling black outs would have spread the pain out but would not have helped "90%" whatever that means. The problem is Texas has had a prolonged, profound Forced Outage generation shortfall that hasn't been seen anywhere in the United States. Maybe someone can find something like this during the energy crisis but I doubt it.

Are you saying that every grid in the US maintains a 30% generation buffer at all times? I'm skeptical.

Of course it is. It's a natural disaster. We just set 130 year old temperature records across 270,000 square miles and 30 million people. Also, not almost a whole week. 36 hours.