PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Old Crow on February 16, 2021, 02:54:14 PM
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Got this from another web site can anyone verify this?
Sorry this is long, but maybe I can help with an explanation about the rolling blackouts. I worked 30 years and retired from controlling the power grid. I know climate change people don’t want to hear the truth but here it is. Due to government regulations, Southwest Power Pool located in Little Rock, now controls what happens in their power pool area which is the central and south central United States. The SPP area is short 12,000 MW of capacity to produce power. That’s 12 billion watts of power in demand that they cannot produce. In fact, for a power company that can’t produce enough energy to supply its demand, it normally ranges around $30/MW to purchase from another company, but to buy power from another company today it is now $4000-$5000/MW. Some companies take advantage and gouge those that are hurting, but even at these prices power is unavailable. Why is there not enough power available? Many reasons, but mostly it’s due to climate change initiatives and environmental over-regulations. These initiatives and regulations have made it so expensive for power companies to operate and upgrade coal fired power plants that they have been forced to shut down about 40% of them, losing much power producing capacity over all. Coal plants are by far the biggest power producers. On top of that, during extreme cold weather such as we are currently experiencing, power plants freeze up. The coal freezes and makes it almost impossible to run on conveyer belts and run thru hoppers and feeders that feed the coal into the boiler. Water lines and drains freeze up. Rivers and lakes that feed cooling water to the plants freeze. It is an extremely difficult job and extremely hazardous to keep everything going with people working 16 hour shifts busting frozen coal in the extreme cold. Most plants are very limited to what they can produce, if at all, under these conditions. With 40% of the coal fired plants gone, there is no backup to pick up the losses and increased power usage caused by the weather. Of course solar panels don’t work at night or on cloudy days or when snow and ice is covering the solar panels. Solar is very minimal anyway. Wind turbines don’t turn with no wind or when they are frozen up or have ice/snow on the blades and many of them are unavailable now. What about gas fired power plants? Well, President Biden shut much of the pipelines and production down so guess what? There is a shortage of natural gas. Workers in the industry have already been cut. Power companies buy natural gas in the future. They estimate what they will need in a given period day by day and purchase it ahead of time. There is only so much available at any given time and you only get what you prepurchased. They use many forecast models with many variants including weather forecasts and historical records under similar conditions. And what do you use a lot of in this weather? Right, electricity and natural gas/propane. With a shortage of gas already, you mix in homes using massive amounts of gas in this weather and a problem has been created. So when you look at all of the above, a perfect storm has been created for rolling blackouts. It has nothing to do with your particular area. It’s SPP wide, and SPP makes the decision on who gets cut and for how long. They try to make everybody feel the pain some instead of any one area feeling all the pain. Hence, cut power for an hour or so, then another area for an hour or so, and so on. It may be many hours, it varies, but they try to keep it minimal. Yes, down power plants in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or Kansas, it doesn’t matter, if there is not enough generation available SPP wide, most everybody will feel it, even in Miami, Ok. Just another point, wind and solar power is way too expensive to build and operate, and is NOT cost effective by any means. Power companies did not build them because they are a good thing, it is because the Obama administration (aka taxpayers) paid them huge subsidies to build them. In recent years due to Obama’s regulations, my former company alone was forced to close several coal fired power plants that would have contributed to preventing these power outages. Obama forced the closing of reliable coal fired power plants while at the same time paying companies to build solar/wind plants that don’t work well. So, if you support the climate change initiative, don’t complain about your power being cut in extreme hot or cold weather. Don’t complain because your electricity and gas bills increase. It is a consequence of your own making and is already getting worse with Biden. You are feeling that pain today. People in the industry have been warning about this but when the government forces the hand of power and gas companies, this is what you get. Never take electricity for granted, it’s not guaranteed to always be there, especially when the government gets involved. Do you still want them to control your healthcare?
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An excellent summary. Except most of Texas isn’t included in the national grid. The little corner where I live is though. Also you have to remember distance is an issue, you can only transmit power so far. You need generating plants locally. Closing down fossil plants right and left and not building nuclear is a national travesty and directly responsible for most of the problems we have meeting demand. Everything he says about Obama and Biden is correct. The Democrats are trashing our grid, just destroying it.
This part is what I’ve been trying to say about the current situation:
during extreme cold weather such as we are currently experiencing, power plants freeze up. The coal freezes and makes it almost impossible to run on conveyer belts and run thru hoppers and feeders that feed the coal into the boiler. Water lines and drains freeze up. Rivers and lakes that feed cooling water to the plants freeze. It is an extremely difficult job and extremely hazardous to keep everything going with people working 16 hour shifts busting frozen coal in the extreme cold. Most plants are very limited to what they can produce, if at all, under these conditions.
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An excellent summary. Except most of Texas isn’t included in the national grid. The little corner where I live is though.
I think that's done on purpose. Only Texas in the Texas grid so no interstate commerce regulations to deal with. And it makes secession much easier when it comes time.
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I think that's done on purpose. Only Texas in the Texas grid so no interstate commerce regulations to deal with. And it makes secession much easier when it comes time.
Oh yes.
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An excellent summary. Except most of Texas isn’t included in the national grid. The little corner where I live is though. Also you have to remember distance is an issue, you can only transmit power so far. You need generating plants locally. Closing down fossil plants right and left and not building nuclear is a national travesty and directly responsible for most of the problems we have meeting demand. Everything he says about Obama and Biden is correct. The Democrats are trashing our grid, just destroying it.
This part is what I’ve been trying to say about the current situation:
We have coal powered plants throughout Wisconsin and throughout the upper Midwest. Somehow they make it work in sub zero temps for days at a time.
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The Democrats, Progressive Communists, are destroying our standard of living and quality of life purposely to create more government and more dependency and hence control.
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We have coal powered plants throughout Wisconsin and throughout the upper Midwest. Somehow they make it work in sub zero temps for days at a time.
They are indoors.
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