TexasCHLforum.com

Pawpaw wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:39 pm Energy expert debunks green narrative on Texas

SPOILER ALERT: Wind power let us down, bigtime.

I think that it's a reminder of what role renewables play: they're free energy, but they are not reliable. We have sufficient fossil fuel backups on paper, but every type, including the nukes, failed. We can and should have the ability to meet our energy needs in the dead of night in a dead calm, but because an alarming fraction of the natural gas and nuclear plants weren't protected against a 10 year event, the backup went down.

puma guy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:34 pm

MaduroBU wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:00 am

puma guy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:15 pm

E10 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:57 pm

puma guy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:15 pm The areas Texas not covered by ERCOT were barely affected. Most outages were short: minute to a few hours. Very, very interesting.

El Paso was one o’ those areas, but it wasn’t as cold and it didn’t last as long as the cold in the middle of the state. There were public warnings and requests to conserve power from El Paso Electric Co. Also, I don’t think we’re as dependent on wind and solar.

ERCOT outages affected the entire area of coverage regardless of temperatures and conditions. The non ERCOT providers weren't relying on 42% wind generation that virtually disappeared ( down to 8%) putting the entire load on the remaining mostly natural gas and some coal generating plants which became overloaded. You can't loose 34% of your power generation all at once and survive. The crap about natural gas freezing is just that -crap. The freeze point of Methane (natural gas) is -295°F and the vapor point is -258°F. Frozen natural gas didn't happen. There could have been issues with the system controls, but that's not what is being stated as the problem. It's all spin to take the heat of green energy sources. AOC is too ignorant to realize her comment about Texas rejecting the Green New Deal is probably the stupidest utterance in her career. Texas leads the US in all Green Energy and we have 30% of all wind generation in the entire United States.

My understanding is that the amount of water vapor in the natural gas going through the pipelines was high enough to be a problem at very low temperatures, thus the clogs were dependent upon the freezing temperature of water, not the gas itself.

I haven't seen that information. Do you have a link to any info regarding that? The refinery I worked in imported billions of cubic feet of natural gas in weather ranging from 105° to 8-9° and never had problems. I worked in the utility department that monitored the entire fuel system of a 325M Bbl/Day refinery and we never have any occurrences such as the ones you describe. I'm trying to understand why water in methane would be vaporized. I don't know about power plants, but every refinery I've been in has knock out pots to catch any condensates in gas systems. Our system combined gas produced during the refining process with natural gas and there was a much greater possibility of having condensible constituents and no fuel control valves ever froze up/clogged up in sub freezing weather. But I am interested in learning if what occurred.

I'll look for the link and try to post it, though the source was not sufficiently technical to provide good details. My assumption is that the circumstances that you encoutered are exactly what happens in chemical plants and refineries, but that unscrupulous producers who knew that their product would go straight to a combined cycle plant that wouldn't know or care allowed them to take short cuts. I.e. "we got most of the water out, and it's going straight into a turbine regardless." If the walls of the pipeline are even in the 20sF that is probably fine, but if you get that pipe cold enough then the water vapor starts condensing and can lock valves and block pipes. The really odd parallel to that is the USS Thresher: The use of silver brazing vs welding caused a critical pipe failure near test depth, but the sub was unable to blow its tanks because the valves froze due to water vapor in the pressurized air tanks freezing on the control valves.

puma guy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:15 pm

E10 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:57 pm

puma guy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:15 pm The areas Texas not covered by ERCOT were barely affected. Most outages were short: minute to a few hours. Very, very interesting.

El Paso was one o’ those areas, but it wasn’t as cold and it didn’t last as long as the cold in the middle of the state. There were public warnings and requests to conserve power from El Paso Electric Co. Also, I don’t think we’re as dependent on wind and solar.

ERCOT outages affected the entire area of coverage regardless of temperatures and conditions. The non ERCOT providers weren't relying on 42% wind generation that virtually disappeared ( down to 8%) putting the entire load on the remaining mostly natural gas and some coal generating plants which became overloaded. You can't loose 34% of your power generation all at once and survive. The crap about natural gas freezing is just that -crap. The freeze point of Methane (natural gas) is -295°F and the vapor point is -258°F. Frozen natural gas didn't happen. There could have been issues with the system controls, but that's not what is being stated as the problem. It's all spin to take the heat of green energy sources. AOC is too ignorant to realize her comment about Texas rejecting the Green New Deal is probably the stupidest utterance in her career. Texas leads the US in all Green Energy and we have 30% of all wind generation in the entire United States.

My understanding is that the amount of water vapor in the natural gas going through the pipelines was high enough to be a problem at very low temperatures, thus the clogs were dependent upon the freezing temperature of water, not the gas itself.

AS of today, the month of February has cost me $150 for 267 kwh. $12 of that is a Visa fee (Griddy will only take credit card payments, and I'm using this rough patch for them to beat the drum for ACH again). Given the challenges that others have faced, I consider myself very lucky.

I'm focused upon the temperatures in Midland, since I assume that once temps in the Permian Basis stay above freezing, natural gas will start to flow and energy prices will come down. That's a wild guess, so anyone's insight is more than welcome.

Blaming heat pumps is not exactly correct or fair. Heat pumps are the overhwelming best choice for heating/cooling, but not the way that they are commonly (read "cheaply") done in Texas. I learned about them because my relatives in Nebraska, very old farming people, used one to heat their house through winters wherein every day for 4 months looked like our past 3 or worse. The major difference in types of heat pumps is the heat sink/source. Air is the cheapest thing to move heat to and from, and the object that we commonly call a home AC is really the heat exchanger or condenser coil. That noisy fan and radiator outside of everyone's house moves heat from the inside of the house to the air outside against a thermal gradient to cool the home and moves heat from the outside into the home to heat it against a thermal gradient to heat the home. That process uses evaporation and condensation to achieve this, and uses a large pump to do so, typically a ~5kW electric motor. This process is often efficient because each watt of power can move at worst 2 or at best 4 units of energy for every one consumed.

However, the efficiency falls apart as the thermal gradient becomes too large. As the hill that the air conditioner/heat pump must climb grows, it can start moving less than 1 unit of heat energy for every unit of electricity expended. This is a big problem for several reasons. First, had the heater just burned gas in a furnace, it is guaranteed to always get the same one unit of heating value from the gas; it will never get 2, but it will always get one. Second, a new combined cycle natural gas power plant is about 58% efficient and you're likely to lose ~5% of that in the transmission lines, so that each unit of natural gas burned at a power plant and then used to move heat at your house is only a net positive if you move (1/(0.58*0.95=) 1.8 units of heat for each unit of eletrical energy used by the heat pump. In very cold temperatures, you'll move a lot less than that. This is why people are suggesting that natural gas heating is more efficient: the statement is only true sometimes, but under those circumstances it's VERY true.

Heat pumps have a "solution" for this issue. If the outdoor air that the heat pump is trying to remove heat from is too cold, then why not warm it up with a resistance heater? This is very inefficient, as you're applying an electric heater directly to the atmosphere (albeit right in front of your outdoor heat exchanger), but it is better than an efficiency of zero. So your heat pump is now pulling 5kw for the condenser motor and another 3 for the heating strips, giving you far higher load than even at the height of summer. When one person does that, it's emergency heating. When a bunch of folks do it it's a demand spike that happens once a decade.

Now, you'll recall that I said that heat pumps are wonderful, but the paragraphs above don't really support that conclusion. If you have a heat source/sink that stays basically the same temperature year round, a heat pump is phenomenal, and can move over 4 units of energy into or out of your house for every unit of electricity that it uses. Air is absolutely terrible for that: it is always hot when your AC wants it to be cold and cold when your heat pump wants it to be hot. If only such a thermal battery existed.....and yet one does. It is known as "the earth", and if you dig a hole about 2 feet deep in Texas, you'll find a giant thermal battery that varies between 65-75F depending upon geography and varies about 8F over the course of the year. Ground source heat exchangers instead of the air heat exchanges fix this problem. It is common practice to cheap out and use the air unit like everyone else, which is fine....right up until it isn't.

Like so many things, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

Really interesting experience. I'm the odd Griddy customer that didn't leave. I'm stuck at the hospital regardless, so I just want my house warm enough to keep my plants alive. I have a network thermostat, so I can monitor my house from work, and my plan is to watch the ERCOT spot price and run the heater (mercifully, that's gas, so just the blower using juice) when it's "low". My landlord and I stuffed a LOT of insulation in the attic and I have pretty good blinds, so my house actually doesn't lose heat that quickly despite it being a 1950s ranch house. For comparison, I ran the temperature up to 75F around 1600 and have left the heat off since, with the temps only dropping to 54F as of 0400. I straight up unplugged my fridge and moved the contents of my freezer into an ice chest that I placed outside....I figure that God will refrigerate my turkey stock and deer sausage for free.

I had 2 days of ~$8 power for the day, but today it shot up to $30 due to me leaving my fridge on. As of 0400 on 2/15, I've paid $85.14 for 259 kwh of power, with the vast majority of that cost over the past 2 days. I'll keep you updated as to the final toll, though I'm still fairly confident that I can limit the damage to what happened yesterday with the fridge kicking on.