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Post by missouriboy on Feb 19, 2021 15:34:15 GMT
Granted. But since we live in the present, the question becomes what will our near-term future look like. Let's say the next 10 years or so.
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Post by missouriboy on Feb 19, 2021 15:36:35 GMT
Naut. What is code depth on exterior water pipes in Central Florida?
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 19, 2021 16:08:28 GMT
Naut. What is code depth on exterior water pipes in Central Florida? As you would suspect freezing is not something that is really expected that much in most of Florida. However, there is a building code for pipes in a 'Winter design temperature of 32F or lower.... P2603.6 Freezing. In localities having a winter design tempera- ture of 32.0 F (O.OC) or lower as shown in Table R301.2(1) of this code, a water, soil or waste pipe shall not be installed outside of a building, in exterior walls, in attics or crawl spaces, or in any other place subjected to freezing temperature unless adequate provision is made to protect it from freezing by insulation or heat or both. Water service pipe shall be installed not less than 12 inches (305 mm) deep and not less than 6 inches (152 mm) below the frost line. The rest of the codes are more concerned with damage to pipes from vehicles or foot traffic so detail depths that the pipes should be buried.
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Post by missouriboy on Feb 20, 2021 0:44:32 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 2:14:50 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 3:18:26 GMT
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 20, 2021 11:54:59 GMT
Reading this thread, the system was set up to fail as the wrong people are ensuring there is backup. The power generators should be the ones responsible for backing up there power. So of course they can go offline for maintenance but while you are down you have to have a contract with another generator to provide that power. The other issue of course is complete lack of cold weather preparedness. Again this is a contractual issue as the contract should have severe penalties for unplanned lack of power supply. That is enough to get the beancounters worrying about reliability in drought and cold even if it is a 50-100 year probability; so they will not refuse reliability engineering for cold and drought. The worst position to be in is the person who has to make the decision to allow resource to go offline. I never liked that kind of decision.
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Post by glennkoks on Feb 20, 2021 13:30:44 GMT
"Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from months long blackouts" Texas Tribune.. Sounds like a really scary headline framing the producers and grid managers in Texas as hero's because they "saved the grid for months". I am no electrical engineer, but when I overload my generator it trips a breaker and shuts off. It does not catch my house on fire. I am very skeptical of these claims. There were probably dozens of factors that came into play with this fiasco. Two of the biggest factors outside the fact Texas was not prepared for a once in every 30 year or so event was: 1.) First and foremost ERCOT allows producers to charge a maximum rate of 9.00 a KwH when the grid is facing high usage in rare situations. They call this "scarcity pricing". It has been my experience in life that when regulators offer economic incentives people find a way to meet these incentives. Texas is a de-regulated state, which means power is bought and sold in a quasi free market. The thought process behind this is it would strongly discourage usage in rare situations where demand is about to exceed supply. In reality it is a goal for producers to meet to hit the jackpot. 2.) ERCOT has very low capital requirements for REP's (Retail Electric Providers). These REP's buy electricity on the futures market normally for around .02 cents a KwH. They mark it up to around .12 cents and sell it to residential customers. What happened in this instance was many of these fly by night REP's did not anticipate this once every 30 or so year event and were forced to buy electricity on the spot market at "scarcity pricing". These REP's were almost instantly insolvent because for days their residential customers are burning through electricity at 9.00 a KwH and were locked into fixed rate billing at .12 cents. Now here is the situation Texas is in. Up to 22 REP's face insolvency. They owe millions of dollars and someone is not going to get paid. The producers normally work on very narrow margins can simply not afford to "not get paid". They have paid for the gas and coal to fire these plants in advance. So the only logical scenario since you guessed it the Texas Grid is clearly too big to fail is the tax payer picks up the tab for this. But it's good to know Texas was "seconds" away from month long black outs and these hero's saved us. www.energychoicematters.com/stories/20210218aa.html
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 13:40:03 GMT
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Post by youngjasper on Feb 20, 2021 13:59:56 GMT
After reading the numerous articles posted (thanks) and commentary, much of which is spot on, there seems to be insufficient risk analysis for points of failure both on the logistics/delivery side and on the business/regulatory side. The goal should be to deliver power consistently even in extreme weather situations. ERCOT, the producers, and the REPS need to go back to the drawing board with all potential points of failure identified and addressed, especially how "trades" are handled in such a crisis, either in a preventative manner or temporary manner.
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 14:06:44 GMT
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 20, 2021 14:18:59 GMT
"Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from months long blackouts" Texas Tribune.. Sounds like a really scary headline framing the producers and grid managers in Texas as hero's because they "saved the grid for months". I am no electrical engineer, but when I overload my generator it trips a breaker and shuts off. It does not catch my house on fire. I am very skeptical of these claims. There were probably dozens of factors that came into play with this fiasco. Two of the biggest factors outside the fact Texas was not prepared for a once in every 30 year or so event was: 1.) First and foremost ERCOT allows producers to charge a maximum rate of 9.00 a KwH when the grid is facing high usage in rare situations. They call this "scarcity pricing". It has been my experience in life that when regulators offer economic incentives people find a way to meet these incentives. Texas is a de-regulated state, which means power is bought and sold in a quasi free market. The thought process behind this is it would strongly discourage usage in rare situations where demand is about to exceed supply. In reality it is a goal for producers to meet to hit the jackpot. 2.) ERCOT has very low capital requirements for REP's (Retail Electric Providers). These REP's buy electricity on the futures market normally for around .02 cents a KwH. They mark it up to around .12 cents and sell it to residential customers. What happened in this instance was many of these fly by night REP's did not anticipate this once every 30 or so year event and were forced to buy electricity on the spot market at "scarcity pricing". These REP's were almost instantly insolvent because for days their residential customers are burning through electricity at 9.00 a KwH and were locked into fixed rate billing at .12 cents. Now here is the situation Texas is in. Up to 22 REP's face insolvency. They owe millions of dollars and someone is not going to get paid. The producers normally work on very narrow margins can simply not afford to "not get paid". They have paid for the gas and coal to fire these plants in advance. So the only logical scenario since you guessed it the Texas Grid is clearly too big to fail is the tax payer picks up the tab for this. But it's good to know Texas was "seconds" away from month long black outs and these hero's saved us. www.energychoicematters.com/stories/20210218aa.htmlThe problem is synchronizing the grid AC normally Electrical Grids rely on a big baseload generator and the smaller inputs then synch with that. This is what ERCOT meant by 'saving the system' they had to avoid the grid going down as the only way to restart would be to get one of the baseload power stations back up from maintenance to provide the synchronizing power input. There is research in progress as everyone is finding that the unreliables are destabilizing the grids (even when they are intermittently working) and they all have the fear of how to bring the system back online after a blackout. See> "Can Renewables Restart the Grid? The UK Investigates
A British initiative is looking to dismiss the argument that renewables could topple the grid — by using distributed energy resources for a black start. If successful, the U.K. National Grid’s Distributed ReStart project should prove that assets such as wind, solar and battery plants can work alongside synchronous generators to restore power following a countrywide blackout. “The project is exploring how distributed energy resources can be used to restore power in the highly unlikely event of a total or partial shutdown of the national electricity transmission system,” said National Grid in a report published last month."More here: www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/u-k-looks-into-whether-renewables-could-re-start-the-gridSo ERCOT (in this case) were not being untruthful - there may well be no way to bring the Texas grid back up online without one of the stable power supplies running - and they were all offline or going offline.
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Post by gridley on Feb 20, 2021 15:04:26 GMT
Perhaps there were insufficient requirements for power stability in Texas because those requirements would have ruled out "renewables"? (Here referring to wind and solar, not real renewables like hydro.)
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 15:24:52 GMT
Its all about subsidy harvesting. The dollars spent on windmills would have hardened the gas supply resulting in enough electricity.
When the upside in price is $9,000MW, you try to create conditions to harvest those prices. Texas exposed a known flaw in their energy model.
MISO, which services eastern Texas, almost had catastrophic grid failure. This is now 3 years running. This is not acceptable. I am part of MISO in North Dakota.
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 20, 2021 15:38:54 GMT
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