Texas007

Should have informed the cop he was wrong and instructed them to learn the transportation code: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm It is not illegal to cross a single solid white line or to pass on the shoulder (for given circumstances),

Ding Ding Ding. Probably only need a couple inches of overlay. UT Research paper discusses further: https://ita.sika.com/dam/dms/itgen/c/giannini paper.pdf

Concrete Cancer is the common term used for ASR. Problem is with the aggregate used in the mix. Inclusion of Class F fly ash helps limit the problem. Fly ash is the a byproduct of burning coal (i.e. power plants) which is now becoming limited. There are advancements in alternate materials (i.e. pozzolans) but are not readily available in abundant supply. Key is locating and using non-reactive aggregate sources.

Holy shit, I said it could take weeks. India connected their different grids and it took 2 - 3 days to synchronize. Lubbock is one relatively small load and they may be able to sync in short succession. Every time a generator comes online it has to sync and does so in minutes. However, to join the whole state with another grid would require bringing on load in pieces and if oscillations started to occur they could lose it and have to start the process all over. People were freaking out over frequency during the winter event because they were worried about losing the grid. They were worried because they knew losing the grid would take at best case days to restore. People have been advocating for decades to increase resiliency and connect the grids. Yes, the technology is there to do it but there are significant hurdles to accomplish that.

Frequency loss is exactly why we had rolling blackouts and almost lost the grid. Yes, a fraction of a Hz fluctuation (~0.1) would have catastrophic affects. Why do you think we have an eastern and western grid?

A full connection of the Texas grid with the western or eastern grids would require a matching of the frequencies. This could only be accomplished by dropping load and slowly bringing it back online and would be no small task. We already have DC or variable frequency transformer connections to the other grids that alleviate the need to match frequencies but it is severely limited (5 connections at ~1100-MW). There was talk of building a "super station" out west that could transmit 5-GW but I think that was scraped or significantly scaled down. Point is it would take billions of dollars to build enough connections that wouldn't require matching frequency.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed on this thread. It has been a great read. The system did perform as intended. It is set up to financially incentivize generating units to stay online during these type of events. A generator who tripped offline not only lost out on a huge pricing profit opportunity but were also responsible for buying back the power they failed to deliver. If a South Texas 1.2-GW unit trips offline while prices are at $9K/MW-hour it is essentially losing $360,000 every minute it is down. Over 30-hours that adds up to $648,000,000! Most, if not all, companies made weatherization improvements after the 2011 event. Some obviously did better and more than others. Some were just lucky (i.e. able to maintain fuel supplies). However, the open energy market operated in Texas is volatile and that means making a profit is difficult and margins are tight. A "low" probability event doesn't always add up to taking additional action in spite of the high consequences. Especially if your already having a hard time maintaining a profit. That is why a lot have sold off, shut down, and/or filed for bankruptcy. Removing the $9K cap would increase consequences of a trip and make weatherizing more of a priority (i.e. higher consequence = more risk mitigation). Removing the cap would also seemingly cause increased volatility. Market volatility also means investors are hesitant to dump funding into bringing on new generating units. A breakthrough in batteries would be great but if you really think it could happen in the next ten to fifteen years why would you even think about building a new combined cycle plant? There is no guarantee of short term profits and it could be mothballed before the loan is paid off. One last thing: connecting our grid to the national grid is almost a non-starter. It would require a massive infrastructure upgrade and even more important a system wide shutdown and black start. The grid would potentially be down for days if not weeks.

I know I shouldn't engage... but trying to explain how a team that didn't even make the playoffs can somehow still claim a top 4 finish is very aggy. Do you want to know how I know? Because aggy morons have been trying to claim that very fact in baseball for 30 fucking years! The 1989 greatest aggy baseball team of all-time finished #2 in the FINAL Baseball America POLL. However, that very same team lost in true aggy fashion in the regionals to LSU. Only an aggy would try to claim top 4 finish in a year they didn't even make it to Omaha. Same applies to all sports including football beginning with implementation of the CFP system (i.e. post 2014). Stop encouraging aggy reasoning.

Sho'nuff