ERCOT Urging For Energy Conservation

[Nicole44 22030]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

I agree that getting China's cooperation (almost certainly under a future regime) is important.  But if you aren't coercing it at the point of a gun, you have to be persuasive.  And an argument of "we leaned on dirty power generation for decades to help build a modern economy, but we're pulling the ladder up after us because we now take the position that doing so is bad" is a tough fucking sell.  "We got to do it, and it yielded big benefits for us.....but you can't".....if you can sell that, I will hire you to sell anything, on the spot.

Is there a wine mixer and benefits with this job?

 

[utee94 15752]

If your competitive advantage in manufacturing relies heavily on complete disregard for global environmental considerations, then it's not really a competitive advantage.  China is already not considered a Low Cost Manufacturing Nation for much of the production that US companies originally moved over there.  There are other countries that would be happy to take on that manufacturing burden, cost less than China, and would actually adhere to global industrial modernization initiatives if US and the West insisted upon it.

Given the disruptions of COVID and the ensuing global supply constraints, there are already a lot of American companies making major decisions about changing their current supply chain models.  But it'll take time.  It took us decades to get to this point, and it will take similar to alter it.

[Dahobbs 17498]

China is also doing a whole lot to push renewables. And it had a huge push 5 years ago to clean up manufacturing in terms of environmental effects. People went to prison for polluting the water very quickly. China is investing in the future in a way that the US isn't. China is simultaneously 50 years behind us while looking 50 years in front of us. 

[FartingMonk 3606]

Just a great example of the closer the person is to be the end user of a product the bigger the hubris.  

[elfenix 34207]

recyclable turbine blades are now in use:

Quote

Separating the resin, fiberglass, and wood, among others, is achieved through using a mild acid solution. The materials can then go into the circular economy, creating new products like suitcases or flat-screen casings without the need to call on more raw resources. 

https://electrek.co/2022/08/02/worlds-first-wind-turbine-with-recyclable-blades-is-up-and-spinning/

[MissingInAction 24887]

Friend down at mopac and William cannon area lost power at noon

Cunts keep extending the resolution time by an hour every hour.

Edited August 9, 2022 by MissingInAction

[Biff Tannen 45600]

1 hour ago, MissingInAction said:

Friend down at mopac and William cannon area lost power at noon

Cunts keep extending the resolution time by an hour every hour.

He's 1 of 13 affected customers.  Equipment failure, according to the site.

https://outagemap.austinenergy.com/

Edited August 9, 2022 by Biff Tannen

[MissingInAction 24887]

42 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

He's 1 of 13 affected customers.  Equipment failure, according to the site.

https://outagemap.austinenergy.com/

Are you part of the ercot energy cabal?

[Captainant 27529]

Doesn't seem like something you'd be doing if everything was going good

From the article, apparently abbott has been interjecting himself into the CEO search process and causing more overhead for ERCOT. The operators and board had a guy selected but abbott vetoed on the basis the guy used to live in California (really). 

If this usually procedural administrative process is this fucked, I certainly don't have warm and fuzzy feelings for the grid next time major strain happens. We certainly won't have advance warning of it. From the article:

“The governor is not just reviewing and editing [ERCOT’s public statements]. He’s telling ERCOT whether or not they can release grid information at all,” said a former senior ERCOT employee who spoke candidly about the matter on the condition of anonymity. The source said “it means information is potentially not getting where it needs to go, and that means Texans aren’t hearing what they need to hear.”

Edited August 11, 2022 by Captainant

[Guest]

On 8/3/2022 at 1:50 PM, Brisketexan said:

Hell, we could just sign this "someone who grew up on the Texas coast and never saw a sea turtle or brown pelican, or came in from the beach without having to clean tar off his feet, till he was an adult."  That someone being me.

Many of our environmental changes have had huge positive effects.  The ones above are just about the Clean Water Act and getting rid of DDT here in the US.  I could talk about the differences in air quality between American cities and foreign cities (in Buenos Aires, things like metal bed frames had to be cleaned weekly, as they got a black residue from all the diesel and car exhaust fumes in the area - in my folks' nice apartment in a nice part of town.  That was all going into our lungs, too.)

Yes, burning fossil fuels has been a shortcut to some of our prosperity.  That shortcut has some significant additional costs.  So maybe we should re-evaluate the ACTUAL cost of fossil fuels, and look to get our energy in other ways.  I mean, slavery was a helluva shortcut to prosperity.  Sure as hell made the economy in the CSA work and be profitable.  But, you know.....it had some other actual costs that maybe we shoulda considered earlier in the game?

Lol at the notion that there is anything everyone could to environmentally to make the Texas coastal water and beaches less brown. Please tell me you haven’t gone through life believing this?

[Captainant 27529]

2 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Lol at the notion that there is anything everyone could to environmentally to make the Texas coastal water and beaches less brown. Please tell me you haven’t gone through life believing this?

He wasn't talking about brown beaches and water, he was talking about Texas gulf coast animals and plants covered in oil and tarballs washing up on shore. In fact, nothing he posted in your quoted block supports what you're saying. You sniffing wellheads again?

There's absolutely a despicable degree of pollution along Texas coasts thanks to fossil fuels and petrochemical processing. Fuckin Formosa Plastics has been raping Matagorda bay and Pt Comfort for decades, and will continue to spread cancer for decades after whenever they decide to close up and leave

[Biff Tannen 45600]

19 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Lol at the notion that there is anything everyone could to environmentally to make the Texas coastal water and beaches less brown. Please tell me you haven’t gone through life believing this?

You serious Clark?

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Captainant said:

He wasn't talking about brown beaches and water, he was talking about Texas gulf coast animals and plants covered in oil and tarballs washing up on shore. In fact, nothing he posted in your quoted block supports what you're saying. You sniffing wellheads again?

There's absolutely a despicable degree of pollution along Texas coasts thanks to fossil fuels and petrochemical processing. Fuckin Formosa Plastics has been raping Matagorda bay and Pt Comfort for decades, and will continue to spread cancer for decades after whenever they decide to close up and leave

Formosa Plastics has nothing to do with my industry. When brisket insinuates he hasn’t seen sea turtles and had tar heels because of a lack of environmental regulations in the state, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

You serious Clark?

Totally. Why do you think the beaches and water look the way they do?  Do you think there is anything humans can do to change it?

[elfenix 34207]

"y'all need to argue my strawman!"

--totally not rex, probably

[Brisketexan 104806]

23 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Formosa Plastics has nothing to do with my industry. When brisket insinuates he hasn’t seen sea turtles and had tar heels because of a lack of environmental regulations in the state, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. 

Are you fucking insane?

Tar balls are the result of spilled oil.  The passage and enforcement of the Oil Pollution Act caused a variety of enterprises to materially change their practices (including transfers of petrochemicals by shipping) to avoid spills.  These weren't 100,000 barrel spills.  They were a couple of dozen barrels at a time, happening all the time.  And yeah.....the regular presence of petrochemicals in the water affects sensitive species.  And it is the exact thing that created regular tar balls/spots on the beach that I grew up with.

The Oil Pollution Act is a real thing.  I've filed suit to enforce it, and in fact obtained one of the largest penalties in US history (till BP blew our number out of the water).  It has had a real effect.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Are you fucking insane?

Tar balls are the result of spilled oil.  The passage and enforcement of the Oil Pollution Act caused a variety of enterprises to materially change their practices (including transfers of petrochemicals by shipping) to avoid spills.  These weren't 100,000 barrel spills.  They were a couple of dozen barrels at a time, happening all the time.  And yeah.....the regular presence of petrochemicals in the water affects sensitive species.  And it is the exact thing that created regular tar balls/spots on the beach that I grew up with.

The Oil Pollution Act is a real thing.  I've filed suit to enforce it, and in fact obtained one of the largest penalties in US history (till BP blew our number out of the water).  It has had a real effect.

Not always. There are natural seepages that occur all the time. In addition, there are a few currents that bring tar to Texas. One from the northeast (Louisiana) and one from the south. Those are (were?) always much bigger contributors. 

The look of the sand and water has nothing to do with pollution - oil industry or otherwise - and has everything to do with Mississippi River sediment deposits. 

[Captainant 27529]

lol maybe the guy who puts a roof over his head by financing oil projects ISN'T the most reliable narrator with respect to its negative externalities.

[Biff Tannen 45600]

[Brisketexan 104806]

25 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Not always. There are natural seepages that occur all the time. In addition, there are a few currents that bring tar to Texas. One from the northeast (Louisiana) and one from the south. Those are (were?) always much bigger contributors. 

The look of the sand and water has nothing to do with pollution - oil industry or otherwise - and has everything to do with Mississippi River sediment deposits. 

Yes, there have always been small/periodic amounts of tar on Texas beaches from natural sources.  But the ubiquity of tar on all of our beaches through the 70s and 80s was pollution related.  Since legislation and enforcement, the presence has dropped dramatically.

Seriously, that we are arguing this point means that people will argue ANYTHING.  In 1978, no beach house on the upper Texas coast was without multiple bottles of alcohol, mineral oil, turpentine, what have you, to clean the tar off your feet before you went inside, which you definitely needed to do.  I spent hundreds of days at the beach in the 70s and 80s, regularly had to clean off tar.  Now.....functionally NONE of them do.  I can't remember the last time I had to clean tar off my feet after a day at the beach.

And, yes, water quality (not how pretty it is, but how contaminated it is) has improved INCREDIBLY since the 70s and 80s.  And that affects the flora and fauna in the area.  Yes, other things do too -- turtle exclude devices on shrimp nets, overfishing of some species (I used to catch a basket full of eating-size croaker in the 70s now....none).  But it is beyond dispute that Texas gulf water quality has improved a shitload after the implementation of a stack of environmental regulations.

[Scheiss Meister 8406]

Lol at the argument that if a little pollution happens naturally, then a lot of pollution caused by man is a-ok.  Moron.

[texasdago 7553]

So, definitely remember the tar ball situation being worse and it has improved but the general "brown-ness" of Texas beaches is thanks to silt from rivers and gulf currents.  The water could be pristine and it will still look like Chocolate Yoo-Hoo.  I do agree that the water quality could be better... definitely... but the brown pelican thing is odd since they're not hard to find.  As for turtles... yeah, never seen one on the Texas coast but then again, travel overseas has soured me on much of the Texas coast TBH.

[Brisketexan 104806]

6 minutes ago, texasdago said:

So, definitely remember the tar ball situation being worse and it has improved but the general "brown-ness" of Texas beaches is thanks to silt from rivers and gulf currents.  The water could be pristine and it will still look like Chocolate Yoo-Hoo.  I do agree that the water quality could be better... definitely... but the brown pelican thing is odd since they're not hard to find.  As for turtles... yeah, never seen one on the Texas coast but then again, travel overseas has soured me on much of the Texas coast TBH.

The return of the pelicans is due almost entirely to the elimination of DDT.  Again, our environmental and conservation laws are a web, not one single thing.  Elimination of DDT, Oil Pollution Act, requiring Turtle Exclude Devices, requiring reduction of certain industrial emissions.  They all add up to make an undeniable difference.

I mean, the Cuyahoga river hasn't caught on fire in a LONG time.

[texasdago 7553]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

The return of the pelicans is due almost entirely to the elimination of DDT.  Again, our environmental and conservation laws are a web, not one single thing.  Elimination of DDT, Oil Pollution Act, requiring Turtle Exclude Devices, requiring reduction of certain industrial emissions.  They all add up to make an undeniable difference.

I mean, the Cuyahoga river hasn't caught on fire in a LONG time.

Yeah but no law will fix the existence of Cleveland

[Brisketexan 104806]

1 hour ago, texasdago said:

Yeah but no law will fix the existence of Cleveland

We're just very lucky that the Japanese mini-sub mission to sink Cleveland in WWII failed......

[atomheartbevo 89523]

11 hours ago, Captainant said:

He’s telling ERCOT whether or not they can release grid information at all,” said a former senior ERCOT employee who spoke candidly about the matter on the condition of anonymity.

Is this why ERCOT notices virtually disappeared after the start of the summer?

[atomheartbevo 89523]

This was the last notice we got.  Those with knowledge, has the grid been humming along just nicely since then?

 

[Scheiss Meister 8406]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Is this why ERCOT notices virtually disappeared after the start of the summer?

My first thought.  Abbott would rather we be surprised by the misery than hear how close to the edge we are week to week.

[utee94 15752]

This place never ceases to amuse me.

From earlier this year there are pages upon pages of people complaining about getting too many alerts and how they become meaningless and you ignore them, or even intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.

But now it's a conspiracy and you're being left in the dark and you want those alerts back, by God, even though you completely ignore them or worse, intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.

Never change, surly, never change!

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by utee94

[Updawg 2263]

Well I think we are just pissed at the mis- management by the governor and lege. But that’s just me

[atomheartbevo 89523]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

But now it's a conspiracy and you're being left in the dark and you want those alerts back, by God, even though you completely ignore them or worse, intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.

I’d rather they err on the side of caution and send them out, than just keep their fingers crossed because they don’t like bad publicity.

[Updawg 2263]

The article says the interim guy only wanted it for a little while but he he is stuck with it longer than he wants. Even his fixer Phil doesn’t want it


There seems to be a good Texan candidate but he unfortunately got the stank of California on him so he’s out

All news / updates / press info has to go through the gov office

I don’t blame ercot at all. The bigger problem is PUC and the gov/lege. Ercot is a scapegoat

[Brisketexan 104806]

Say what you will about Phil Wilson, the man has the touch. He gets things straightened out that often seem intractable before he gets there (he’s bailed Abbot out more than once).
If he won’t touch the ERCOT job, that should tell you something. It’s not ERCOT that’s the problem. It’s the system they’ve been tasked with operating. They’re being asked to do the impossible with a system designed by the lege and performing exactly as designed.
It isn’t the driver. It’s the car. It sucks.

[dcar00 14086]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

This place never ceases to amuse me.

From earlier this year there are pages upon pages of people complaining about getting too many alerts and how they become meaningless and you ignore them, or even intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.

But now it's a conspiracy and you're being left in the dark and you want those alerts back, by God, even though you completely ignore them or worse, intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.

Never change, surly, never change!

 

the grid didn't crater so there's gonna be a lil' bit o' disappointment round these parts...

[utee94 15752]

47 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

the grid didn't crater so there's gonna be a lil' bit o' disappointment round these parts...

surl gonna surl, same as it ever was.

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Scheiss Meister said:

Lol at the argument that if a little pollution happens naturally, then a lot of pollution caused by man is a-ok.  Moron.

I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. I thought brisket was talking about the sand color and water color, which have nothing to do with past offshore pollution.

Brisket I am younger than you (born in ‘78) but grew up going to Port Aransas in the 80s. I definitely remember tar on my feet. There were a lot of reasons other than Texas offshore production. I am not disputing anything else you’re saying about actions that precipitated the Oil Pollution Act and other similar legislation. I defer to your….age and experience.  

[Dahobbs 17498]

6 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. I thought brisket was talking about the sand color and water color, which have nothing to do with past offshore pollution.

Brisket I am younger than you (born in ‘78) but grew up going to Port Aransas in the 80s. I definitely remember tar on my feet. There were a lot of reasons other than Texas offshore production. I am not disputing anything else you’re saying about actions that precipitated the Oil Pollution Act and other similar legislation. I defer to your….age and experience.  

Like? 

[Steel Shank 9417]

This place never ceases to amuse me.
From earlier this year there are pages upon pages of people complaining about getting too many alerts and how they become meaningless and you ignore them, or even intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.
But now it's a conspiracy and you're being left in the dark and you want those alerts back, by God, even though you completely ignore them or worse, intentionally crank down your A/C thermostats in spite of them.
Never change, surly, never change!
 

I’m going to change just to spite you, then change BACK just to double spite you!

I have to laugh!

[utee94 15752]

17 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

I’m going to change just to spite you, then change BACK just to double spite you!

I have to laugh!

Steel Shank wins again.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Like? 

I mentioned them above. Natural seepages. Currents moving crude southwest from LA and MS offshore production.  Currents moving crude north from Mexico. 

[Biff Tannen 45600]

On 8/11/2022 at 8:28 PM, dcar00 said:

the grid didn't crater so there's gonna be a lil' bit o' disappointment round these parts...

Well a few hundred deaths in Feb of 21 would say differently.  And then the government doing fuck all to fix anything leading to cries from ERCOT to conserve on 85 degree days this spring.  I don't know man.  Just doesn't inspire confidence.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

On 8/11/2022 at 9:28 PM, dcar00 said:

the grid didn't crater so there's gonna be a lil' bit o' disappointment round these parts...

I was in Colorado most of the summer, but my clocks weren't blinking when we got back, so I guess things worked okay while we were gone.

Overall, the Texas grid works well and is very reliable notwithstanding Winter Storm Uri, which was remarkable not only in how cold it was but how cold it was over such a large area of the state.  And we pay about 25 percent less per kwh than the national average.

Maybe we should go with the heavily regulated California model and pay more than double per kwh and have brownouts when it's 85 degrees.

[Okie State 3789]

Or maybe we could be rational adults, recognize there are problems that need to be addressed, and hold those responsible for addressing those problems accountable? Nah, fuck that let's play teams so nothing gets done.

[davidg 4034]

Like? 

Wasn’t the ixtoc oil spill down in Mexico responsible for a big portion of that early ‘80s beach tar balls that everyone remembers?

[Horn of Gabriel 1612]

5 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

I was in Colorado most of the summer, but my clocks weren't blinking when we got back, so I guess things worked okay while we were gone.

Overall, the Texas grid works well and is very reliable notwithstanding Winter Storm Uri, which was remarkable not only in how cold it was but how cold it was over such a large area of the state.  And we pay about 25 percent less per kwh than the national average.

Maybe we should go with the heavily regulated California model and pay more than double per kwh and have brownouts when it's 85 degrees.

Nice straw man fallacy. NO ONE is suggesting the California model.  That doesn't mean the Texas deregulation model is perfect, as Uri showed.  Our 25% lower rates than the nation have us with a working reserve of  a few percentage points.  The amazing free power of the market, which I am a believer in BTW, can't deal quickly with externalities like the storm.  The way we have it setup with ERCOT actually dis-incentivizes  production investment because the ideal spot for our grid is right on the edge of blackout.  Unfortunately whether you believe in global warming or not, those edge cases are getting less edgy every year.  How many times are you willing to keep rolling the dice? Keep in mind that literally hundreds of people died in Uri as a result of the power failing.  I'm willing to pay more to harden the grid; maybe I'm the exception for that?

Props to whoever recommended the Disconnect pod upthread - good stuff.

[Biff Tannen 45600]

7 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

I'm willing to pay more to harden the grid; maybe I'm the exception for that?

You're not the exception.  Sadly, there are more people than I ever thought that just don't give a flying fuck about anyone else or society in general.

[fattyflattie 4637]

10 hours ago, davidg said:

Wasn’t the ixtoc oil spill down in Mexico responsible for a big portion of that early ‘80s beach tar balls that everyone remembers?

Yes. 

[Brisketexan 104806]

9 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Nice straw man fallacy. NO ONE is suggesting the California model.  That doesn't mean the Texas deregulation model is perfect, as Uri showed.  Our 25% lower rates than the nation have us with a working reserve of  a few percentage points.  The amazing free power of the market, which I am a believer in BTW, can't deal quickly with externalities like the storm.  The way we have it setup with ERCOT actually dis-incentivizes  production investment because the ideal spot for our grid is right on the edge of blackout.  Unfortunately whether you believe in global warming or not, those edge cases are getting less edgy every year.  How many times are you willing to keep rolling the dice? Keep in mind that literally hundreds of people died in Uri as a result of the power failing.  I'm willing to pay more to harden the grid; maybe I'm the exception for that?

This.  It really is this simple.  The ERCOT grid is designed not to have, and incentivizes investors not to install, additional generation.  That is a "no duh" result of having an "energy only" market (generators only get paid for generation actually dispatched to the system, and gets paid the highest prices when the system is on the edge of running out of generation).  We can add a capacity market for a moderate increase in cost to act as "insurance" against periods of exceptional need/downtime of other assets.  Lots of grids do exactly that.

Bragging that our power costs are "25% lower than the rest of the nation" (and by the way, to the extent that number was remotely accurate.....not anymore, now that we're all going to pay off the many billions of extra costs incurred during the 2021 crash for years to come) is like bragging that your monthly housing cost is 25% less than your neighbors because you don't pay for home insurance.  Yes, your monthly carrying cost is cheaper.....until you suffer a calamity.  Then, you have NO backup (so, no insurance to pay for alternate housing after your house burns down).  AND, you will pay the costs of that calamity out of pocket, for years to come -- rebuilding your burned down house is all on you, take out a new big-ass mortgage to pay for that.  That is EXACTLY what happened to Texas.  We didn't have insurance (a capacity market). As a result, 1) people died because there was no backup, and 2) we're going to be paying off those extra costs out of pocket for decades.

The answer is not "be California."  It's......be functionally any one of the OTHER states in the lower 48 that has a capacity market function.

[Armybrat 40768]

When the Texas Power Grid was designed and ERCOT created, were those designers/creators anticipating normal or explosive growth?

It has been pretty mind-bogglin’ these past few decades.

[Brisketexan 104806]

1 minute ago, Armybrat said:

When the Texas Power Grid was designed and ERCOT created, were those designers/creators anticipating normal or explosive growth?

It has been pretty mind-bogglin’ these past few decades.

Growth was at best a tertiary thought/concern.  The #1 concern was -- and I know this will come as a shock to you -- profits for private power generators/marketers who contributed millions of dollars to the legislators who crafted the exact market those people asked for.

It was SOLD as "cheaper power for everyone."  But they left out the big * at the end of "but, ummm, maybe not very reliable, and SUPER expensive if the market gets too constrained."