What he said.....
What you cnn'd and only relayed partially. And he wasn't talking about Norway.
To paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
- Start date
What he said.....
What you cnn'd and only relayed partially. And he wasn't talking about Norway.
You are both right, Texas acted PERFECTLY, as if God himself planned their power system l. There is no known solution to power in cold weather, and Texas has never had cold weather before, ever.
All green power went down. Some thermal power went down. I don’t know if Texas heated the halted wind turbines or not, but if they did that was a consumptive use of electricity. I explained this previously. The gas delivery system froze. That was the large part of the failure. Gas delivery isn’t even winterized in cold climes. They expect delivery interruption and they can cope. I don’t know what is involved with preventing freeze-ups of gas delivery, or if it is possible, but I would guss it involves electric consumption. Texas supplies the nation with gas. Mexico also was short because of the unprecedented freeze-up. Maybe Texas needs to be on a national grid, but that is a two way street.
I didn't make that comment at all. It's pretty obvious they were not prepared properly or this wouldn't have happened. As in anything, I expect Exec's to be held accountable, as I do in any justifiably preventable Business "screw up".
But that doesn't change that what Coh said was accurate and NOT what you are making it out to be. Had we not went through that last 5 years, it probably wouldn't be as big of a deal. But here we are.
Undies change on aisle 1! I need an escape porn fetishist to have clean undies on aisle 1!
To paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel
What does Texas GOP have to do with this? Nothing. The cosmickid persona is a troll.indiana.forums.rivals.com
Right. You aren’t gettin’ this. Argument is a product of one’s mind. Evidence isn’t. You do know I was talking about the former don’t you? Some use links as a surrogate for argument.
What bothers people about COH posting style, aside from whatever content he includes, is basic to communication. Humans communicate. It’s really The most fundamental aspect of our uniqueness as humans. Communication is the universal solvent. Understanding. Communication and understanding make people feel good. It’s satisfying.
So often with COH it seems he is intentionally not allowing communication to occur. His basic trick of sophistry is to prevent communication. But even with a disagreement communication occurs between normal people. I understand you, you understand me, and we disagree. That’s an act of communication. COH seems to intentionally undermine the very act of communication.
For those coming here to communicate, it’s frustrating.
So often with COH it seems he is intentionally not allowing communication to occur. His basic trick of sophistry is to prevent communication. But even with a disagreement communication occurs between normal people. I understand you, you understand me, and we disagree. That’s an act of communication. COH seems to intentionally undermine the very act of communication.
For those coming here to communicate, it’s frustrating.
This post is Exhibit A. The second sentence presumably follows the first in some logical way. It’s actually sophistry. I believe Marvin and Ranger took it as an implication that they were being accused of being weak minded.
The trick is in “Those who excessively.” D’oh! Too much is by definition too much. How do you define excessively? And so on. COH has essentially said nothing in this statement. It’s just a communication meant to be ambiguous and confuse and undermine communication. It is not meant to be understood. It’s stuck in no man’s land between an insult and some reasoned statement.
Thus is a a straw man. I don’t recall Marvin or Ranger using links as surrogates for argument. Marvin in particular is one of the most original-thinking people on this board and I suspect virtually everyone would agree with that. When he brings in substantiating information, it invariably dovetails neatly and intelligently into his reasoning. The link is not doing the thinking for Marvin.
Your implication otherwise, C0H, is specious and astonishingly insulting. That’s on you, man. You’re the one not showing respect here.
The worst roads I have ever driven on due to weather was.....Florida. Probably back in the late 80's. Driving down I-75 around Christmas time. Once you left GA into FL, the interstate was literally inch thick ice. The 2 lanes of traffic were basically putting their outside wheels onto either the median or shoulder, just to try to gain some traction. Trying to go up a simple grade, such as an overpass, was virtually impossible. Just exiting the interstate was virtually impossible. At times, with foot on the brake, the car would literally just start sliding. It took us 11 hours to get from the state line to Lake City, approx. 50 miles, if I recall correctly. We were going to the Tampa area, but ultimately had to stop in Lake City, a shacked up for the night in a church, sleeping on a pew, with hundreds of other people. That was 11 hours of driving hell.
Now, should Florida go out and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase snow plows and de-icing equipment? I think not. What hit Texas was a once in a generation event, and they were not prepared for it. Yes, that is on them (whomever 'they" is).
Hell, California has rolling black-outs and power failures just last year, amid the worst heat wave in decades. Where was all the outrage then?
Once again, the hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
It's also important to note that it matters what you lie about. Making an extemporaneous misstatement in an interview about some esoteric point of government policy that few understand is quite a bit different than Trump's systematic disinformation campaign about Covid and election fraud.
Trump misjudged how much people cared about Covid in 2020, so he lied about it and got caught -- you know, it's a hoax, I blocked all flights from China, it's under control, it's not dangerous, it'll be cured by Easter, the scientists are all wrong, use bleach etc. etc. etc. This was a tactical blunder by Trump because people cared whether he was lying about Covid.
Also, it's clear Trump thought before the election that he might lose, because he started claiming before the election (around August or September) that his polls supposedly showed the only way he could lose would be if "they" stole the election. Trump's opponents became even more inspired to defeat him. Calling Biden a liar would not have helped him win because it does nothing to set Biden apart from Trump.
Instead, Trump should have campaigned on eliminating the automatic income tax hikes for 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027 that were enacted as a necessary part of the 2017 Tax Cuts act. Which is a more attractive candidate -- an obvious Covid liar or a tax cuts warrior?
It may be 15 years ago, I was in the locker room at HPER after playing ball and I heard a professor talking about keeping systems operational. He was saying how, as an example, if a projector in a classroom has a bulb with a 1000 hour mean time to failure, it should be tracked and replaced around 750 hours. There is no excuse that someone should turn on a projector and have a bulb fail. I made up the numbers, I don't recall his specifically. He then went on to whomever he was talking to say that is how power companies work. Power cannot work almost all the time. Loss of power = loss of life and tremendous economic damage.
Now I might disagree with him on bulbs, they don't cause loss of life. But let's ask spartan what his failure rate is allowed to be. How many prescriptions would he not properly fill if he filled with a 99.9% accuracy?
Texas new from 2011 this easily could happen, it did. They had a blackout from a winter storm. You ignore that in every comment to focus on windmills. I am curious, I will state flatly that Texas was far less dependent on turbines in 2011 and I know you will not try to prove me wrong because that would require sourcing. In fact, there is no doubt Texas had no windmills in 2011 (it makes argumentation easy if you don't have to back it up). So how did the 2011 blackout happen.
We know in 1930 Texas dropped to 5 degrees, in 1989 it dropped to 7. (look it up on Google). That shows this wasn't possible.
If you didn't read the links, in cold weather sprayers shoot a fine mist of hot water onto the gears of a turbine. It uses energy, but less than what the turbine produces. So a turbine can provide net positive energy in very cold weather.
You hate wind power, I get that. You are the mirror image of people who say they are a panacea and I don't think your disdain is any better than their fawning. It isn't a perfect solution, it isn't demon-spawn. Did a windmill hit your miniature golf ball one time?
A side story on that professor, he was a retired Marine general. One of my best buddies was a coworker and part of the lunchtime basketball group and was a Marine, though 12 years or so from active service. His reaction to a Marine general in the locker room was interesting, it was all that he could do not to jump up and go to attention when the guy came in.
I like Gates' ideas, solar and wind, and other items combined with nuclear. We have successfully tested a solar panel in space. Pentagon's space-based energy beam could one day power entire cities | Metro News
HUGE STRETCH INCOMING.
So the Feds are going to assist Texas with emergency funding. You agree Texas was not prepared for it. They didn't plan ahead for such a contingency.
How does this differ from Americans who have to declare bankruptcy due to compounding medical debt related to their own "once in a generation event" be it cancer, catastrophic injury, etc. Shouldn't Texas have to deal with their problem in much the same manner as those Americans without decent health insurance?
Ok, I'm done. Haha
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
This is the way. But lots of nuclear.
Yes, California has blackouts and conservatives REGULARLY blast California. Do you miss that?
Power has to work. More than roads. As they said, they were minutes away from the grid crashing and requiring months of being down.
This was not a generational event, it happened in 2011 almost exactly the same. 10 years is not a generation.
Long ago we had debates on computer security for the power grid. Some argued that the power companies are fine on their own. I argued we needed investment in computer defenses. Can you imagine the US losing all power for 2 months? We need to defend the power grid as well as we defend anything, better even.
There was tremendous outrage about the CA blackouts.
Ted Cruz called California government incompetent and said that CA officials ought to learn from Texas about how to manage a power grid. Trump tweeted about it. So did Don Jr. and others. It was all over the news for several days.
It is precisely one of the reason why Cruz got so much heat over the Cancun trip: his hypocrisy that knows no bounds.
I have no problem with lots of nuclear, I like Gates' idea of liquid sodium as it sounds even safer. I have no issue with wind, solar (including orbital), and even some NG. Oil and coal can be largely phased out.
We do much more than “communicate” on a board like this, at least I do. Unless we are talking books, movies, food or beer, my mind goes beyond the satisfying aspects of small talk communicating—which I also enjoy. “Sophistry” is your favorite word whenever you address me personally. That has never been accurate. I admit to being provocative on occasion, not to cause anger, but to cause a deeper discussion. Sometimes that works out, most of the time it doesn’t. I think part of the reason it doesn’t is because a single poster will write a wise crack that will take down a whole thread.
California and Texas are opposite sides of the same coin. I have no doubt California over-regulates. By how much might be a debate, but I'll easily concede it over regulates.
Texas clearly under regulates. They only care the power is as cheap as possible, no other concern.
Your last sentence is the cancer that afflicts the entire board
Sodium cooled reactors are not Gates’ idea. The engineers have been fooling around with different ways to cool a reactor for decades, sodium is one of those. Scaling down the size is also helpful and would eliminate the need for those huge hourglass cooling towers. From an engineering standpoint, we are in the cusp of important breakthroughs in reactors. Unfortunately we are not there as a society, partly because our political class only focuses on undependable renewables or “all the above”. Both are mistakes.
I think wind is a boondoggle and the sooner we get rid of it, the better. Wind is okay for your Antarctica and other remote applications because that might be the best way to provide power.
Carbon recapture technology is becoming feasible. But coal might be too badly stigmatized to allow it to work.
everyone speaks of regulations as if it's a "how many" or "how few" thing.
regulations are just another name for "rules".
it shouldn't be about the number of rules, but each individual rule itself, and whether it is a net gain or loss when taking in the both positives and negatives most rules have.
debating the number of regs is idiocracy.
what should be debated is each reg, or need of, individually.
Ha. Now you sound like goat. You know what I was talking about because you said what I was talking about. Evidence is one thing, argument is a different thing. I’m not the one escaping here.
Exactly. I was going to make a similar point but marv and I have trouble “communicating” these days. The idea that Texas doesn’t regulate for any purpose except cheap energy is simply ignorant.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
Links, when provided by quality posters, are usually to evidence. Yet in your War on Links, you don’t account for this.
I had to get my one obligatory dig at the other side. Otherwise, no one would respond to my post.
Ranger most links are to garbage. Twitter. Some random opinion article from the NYT/Wapo etc. Rarely do we see links on here to actual sources. Gov agency websites etc. The posters that are constantly looking for links usually link bullshit. I keep thinking about the mccloskeys and their neighborhood and the endless links that were provided that were wrong. every last one of them.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
I said quality posters. And sometimes those Twitter or journo links are to experts digesting and informing on real sourced information for which we need their expertise to understand.
i edited to cite the absurd links that were posted regarding the mccloskeys and their neighborhood. endless links. every single one incorrect. part and parcel to shoddy journalism is what now passes as quality links and "evidence."
The worst ice and snow storm i ever drove through was coming home to Indiana from San Angelo, Texas, in 1973. This was almost 48 years ago.
Texas has winter storms - it's not a 'once in every 100 years' type of thing. You're right - it's cost/benefit analysis and Texas has chosen to ride out a storm, rather than spend the money to prepare for a rare winter catastrophe like they just experienced. They do have bad weather - just not bed enough and often enough to justify, in their minds, the winterizing of their energy sector.
Acting like hypocrisy is a left thing is hypocrisy, especially when the GOP is caught being hypocrites quite regularly.
the irony.
Did people die in Cali's rolling black-outs? Did the Cali Senator fly to cancun in the middle of it? Is this an apples to apples comparison?
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I don’t disagree.
I generally don’t demand or provide links that restate the obvious. When marv posted links that confirmed that windmills work in Norway and Antarctica, I didn’t open them first because that is obvious and second it has no application to the discussion I was trying to have. Yet marv thinks that is important. Then everything went to hell.
Really, I know you won't read anything from but for others:
A federal report after the 2011 outages urged hardening electric generators against extreme cold, but neither the commission nor Ercot required plant owners to do anything more than file the weatherization plans. There are no standards for what must be in those plans.
Ercot staffers conduct spot checks at a small portion of power plants every year to, among other things, check on their progress at protecting equipment. But, Bill Magness, Ercot’s president, said: “These are not inspections.” There is no regulatory authority to issue fines or penalties.
NO ability to issue fines or penalties. Hmmmmm. I wonder, why would you not have ANY ability to issue fines or penalties to electrical utilities? How many other states follow that? In anti-government Texas, catastrophic storms prompt calls for regulation | Texas | The Guardian
If you don't like that, here is a site touting Texas' deregulation:
The main benefit to an energy deregulated market is that the rates for electricity lower (over time). While the years following 2002 saw an increase for residential customer electricity rates, the years between 2010 and 2015 have seen a significant decrease. Texas rates during this time fell well below the national average.
Introducing competition to the electricity market is also a significant benefit to Texans. Naturally, when you have more companies with similar products to choose from, those companies need to ensure that their products (and rates) are the best in the business. If a customer is not satisfied with their rates with one REP for example, they can switch to another REP with relative ease. Overall, energy deregulation prevents companies from turning into monopolies that have complete control over the cost of electricity.
Read their link, The Ultimate Guide to Texas Electricity Deregulation – Electric Choice . See how often "reliability" is mentioned. Interesting that they never make the claim that deregulated energy is more reliable, isn't it? And as to that decrease in rates from 2010-15, I wonder if we carry that out to 2021 how that works. A single bill of $7000 for a homeowner would probably offset all the savings of the rest of the period.
There aren't claims I have seen that deregulated energy is more reliable, greener, more colorful with better flavor. It is cheaper. That is the claim for having it, cheaper. Simple logic that Texas deregulated simply for cost and that's it.
I answered CO, but the same answer applies. Texas has no power to fine its utilities for not following the rules. It isn't about a number of rules. It is about having NO rules that are enforceable.
You are right. "Weak" was a poor choice of words. I meant something like lackadaisical and I should have been more precise. I don't think people here have weak minds, but posting style can be weak. I include myself here.
See, this is the problem we've had for more than a year. I make a comment and you throw it back as an overstatement. If you have a point with that, let me know.
Texas I believe is the only state that allows competition for rates and providers in the way it does. I made this point many posts back and pointed out that this method of rate setting combined with having to compete with heavily subsidized wind rates, deprived Texas utilities of an ability to raise a lot of capital for needed infrastructure investments. The upside of course is cheap energy, which isn't a bad thing and is part of the reason Texas had a vibrant economy.
As I also said many posts back, you were correct in pointing out that Texas had a reserve capacity of only 10% of 2020 maximum (See, that was linked information which was important and I used) which was obviously less than 10% in 2021 and probably disappeared entirely with the unprecedented and historically high demand on the system.
Once again, Texas could probably have muddled through with much less damage if the pipeline infrastructure hadn't froze. I'm not sure there is a fix for that since gas pipelines in cold climes, like North Dakota, are expected to freeze anyway.
