Massive Texas power outage
- Thread starter Subdood
- Start date
lexio
feel the balance 3.65
try to translate that and you will be shocked
sorry, these are the rules in Holland
Citlalatonac
New Member
Prop B
HFD has been too busy playing silly buggers with pay contracts. Here's how it works, agree to a contract with much better benefits in lieu of pay increases, introduce pay parity ballot action, action passes easily cause paying firefighters the same as cops is an easy win, surprise Pikachu when mayor starts laying off 30% of the department.
Then the police unions sues because they'rebeing treated unfairly. Amendment gets overturned by court, reinstated by appeals court, struck down by supreme court and they have to actually come and negotiate with the city.
Citlalatonac
New Member
With FL insurance rates getting raised to reflect actual risk that might soon be the case there.
Bonus Florida fact, the CIA was Miami's #1 employer in the 60's.
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ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
Microburst, small tornado, weather and wind can be weird. There was a posting here on this forum where a guy had a single panel in a line of panels get yanked out and tossed by the wind. Direction and new ground patterns from construction events can amplify. I was driving down I-8 I saw a microburst wreck a small structure that looked like it had been there for years. I wouldn't look at conspiracy unless you have something definitive, the wind can do strange things.
We only get windy nights before trash day. Winds last night out of the southwest 10-15 mph, and yet it whistled down the street and knocked over a few cans. I heard it, woke me up. Just because the winds were clocked 70-80 at the airport, doesn't mean there wasn't an intense one-off shear 40 miles away.
It's actually aliens from outer space goofing with us.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
Citation? My grandparents lived in Homestead, and Miami was pretty big even back then, I'm struggling with believing there were more CIA agents in Miami than city employees just for starters, thus I believe your 'fact' is a fictional embellishment of the fact that the CIA had a lot going on down in Cuba and the like.
DPC
Solar Enthusiast
When you consider the size of the USA and population density and the shear amount of infrastructure you have to ask what is the cost and how much are you prepared to pay in taxes and user fees to have kid of reliability of... say Japan ( very dense and easier to keep up, built to higher standards because of earth quakes... FUKASHIMA DOH!!!!! )It's almost like the USA is so used to having crappy infrastructure people defend it.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
Not fair at all. We are just generally a bit more frugal. I for one would rather not pay for "Five nines" of reliability for things that are not critical. Things break, they can be repaired. This is usually dramatically less expensive than trying to engineer something that cannot break.It's almost like the USA is so used to having crappy infrastructure people defend it.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
Cost of fixing the infrastructure? It's not just a Texas problem, the cost of disasters has been increasing tremendously over the last few decades (ref):
Pretty obvious the growing green bar needs some attention paid to it. Pay now or pay later many times. But a lot of politicians seem to be opposed (ref1, ref2). It's hard to pay for infrastructure fixes when you're sure there are no problems. There's always the fall elections.
DPC
Solar Enthusiast
You do suck at bridges...
Your roads are better than ours...
Utilities like power and water? Hmm.....
I wouldn't drink the water in Flint, but I would would think long and hard before I drank the water in Walkerton too..
Electrical seems to be at least as good as ours, maybe better/cheaper in places.
You get exactly what your willing to pay for.
Citlalatonac
New Member
From book, Covert City.
I do belive thier count was very much including dissidents in training, paid informants, and the like; far above and beyond the official payroll at JMWAVE.
Covert City
Secret operations, corruption, crime, and a city teeming with spies: why Miami was as crucial to winning the Cold War as Washington DC or Moscow. The Cuban M...
www.hachettebookgroup.com
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
That model got horrible reviews... besides, we're DIYers and you can now do fusion at home... (yup... this isn't fake ... it's really real home fusion, you just can't get actual power out it)...
DPC
Solar Enthusiast
In 1980 the post war built infrastructure was at its oldest 30.Cost of fixing the infrastructure? It's not just a Texas problem, the cost of disasters has been increasing tremendously over the last few decades (ref):
Pretty obvious the growing green bar needs some attention paid to it. Pay now or pay later many times. But a lot of politicians seem to be opposed (ref1, ref2). It's hard to pay for infrastructure fixes when you're sure there are no problems. There's always the fall elections.
Today that same stuff is in its 70s....
Its that stuff thats killing us all, that massive building boom meant something were done more Uhmmmm Cheaply?
And its at the end of its working life in many cases.
DPC
Solar Enthusiast
Well....
For what its going to cost everyone should have a back up generator. ( in this case a serviceable LK probably set you back 100 bucks from a yard sale )
You guys are probably tired of me talking up old KOhler and Onan products but no one will steal an LK205...
And it will burn any grade of gasoline ( as long its filtered clean and has no water in it and if your really stuck that old girl will burn up to 50% diesel or K1 cut into gasoline with no complaint ).
It was designed at the end of the.... questionable gasoline era when you could not be sure what you were buying in some places.
So it can burn gas down to 80 octane and of questionable volatility...
Nice old LK manual from the 50s here lol.
Remote Start-Stop Switch; Load Wire Connections; Remote Control; Double-Throw Transfer Switch - Onan LK Series Operator's Manual And Parts Catalog [Page 9]
Onan LK Series Manual Online: remote start-stop switch, Load Wire Connections, Remote Control, Double-Throw Transfer Switch. Load Wire Connections Set Nameplate Shows The Electrical Output Rating Of The Set In Watts, Volts, And Hertz. The Set Wiring Diagram Shows The Electrical...
www.manualslib.com
No one wants these anymore....
But put a Natural gas or propane carb on it and it will run a long long time.
I would love to see someone try and quietly steal one from a mount too lol...
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DIYrich
Solar Wizard
I would like to see a comparison of how publicly owned utilities did compared to private company owned utilities. With the publics, it us purely what the public is willing to pay for what level of service.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
To this end I think the MTTR is important, and like the Japanese car companies in the 70's and 80's you need to make incremental improvements as the same things break over and over you take steps to re-engineer the infrastructure to improve repair times, with an eye on costs. If you can repair it in 4 hours for $50K, but it costs $1M to bury it's not worth it. OTOH if you have a stretch where it's getting knocked down 10 times every year, perhaps you need to re-think. If it was easy we wouldn't have this thread talking about it.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
Regarding gasoline generators... The last time I needed to run a generator the telephone lines and power was out over a very broad area, so no electricity to pump gas and no way other than cash to pay for it if you found one that had a generator.
If you're concerned about a long term outage, solar/wind with ESS (e.g., battery) is nice because no noise or refilling. Now adays my generator is the backup to the solar/battery backup.
I don't believe the public gets much of a say as to what the $/kWh is, their only recourse to control $ is by austerity. They also don't seem willing to pass savings to the consumer. For example, all that solar and ESS California has installed replacing $$$ peaker plants hasn't lowered the rates or eliminated TOU and by now it seems it should have.
This is the nice thing about living in hurricane alley, it's like natural selection in that the weak die off and is constantly being replaced. Texas had decades of nice weather prior to the OP incident and despite being warned multiple times (to the point they cut themselves off from the national program rather than follow their guidelines) chose not to upgrade. I'm pretty sure it was done under the auspice of saving consumers money, but I bet the increases were along the lines of pennies per year for the average homeowner. Penny wise, pound foolish? Or bonuses to execs and profits to investors?
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
After all you deserve absolute perfection in your utilities at no real cost to you. How sad that someone else is unwilling to make sure you never have to do without so you can get on with your busy life and other interests. The rest of the world should go out of it's way to make sure you can do what you want how you want whenever you want.
It is unfortunate that our schools do not teach self-reliance any longer, and people think that the government is wholly responsible for their well-being and should provide for them. When my grandparents couldn't afford something they did without. They lost power all the time, and they did without. God help you if you if you can't get enough power to hop on the internet, and run your microwave the earth may end.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
ROFL, other than the school of hard knocks I haven't heard of any public school that teaches that. If you learned that at school, it was probably on the playground during recess standing up to bullies.
And some of them died because of it. No heat in the worst of winter storms killed many a settler. Ditto heat, mosquitoes, lack of antibiotics, etc.
It's wise to be prepared, but no man is an island.
If you think your grandparents were tough, my parents had to walk to school through the snow uphill, both ways! ; -)
Q-Dog
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TOO LOUD!Well....
For what its going to cost everyone should have a back up generator. ( in this case a serviceable LK probably set you back 100 bucks from a yard sale )
You guys are probably tired of me talking up old KOhler and Onan products but no one will steal an LK205...
And it will burn any grade of gasoline ( as long its filtered clean and has no water in it and if your really stuck that old girl will burn up to 50% diesel or K1 cut into gasoline with no complaint ).
It was designed at the end of the.... questionable gasoline era when you could not be sure what you were buying in some places.
So it can burn gas down to 80 octane and of questionable volatility...
Nice old LK manual from the 50s here lol.
Remote Start-Stop Switch; Load Wire Connections; Remote Control; Double-Throw Transfer Switch - Onan LK Series Operator's Manual And Parts Catalog [Page 9]
Onan LK Series Manual Online: remote start-stop switch, Load Wire Connections, Remote Control, Double-Throw Transfer Switch. Load Wire Connections Set Nameplate Shows The Electrical Output Rating Of The Set In Watts, Volts, And Hertz. The Set Wiring Diagram Shows The Electrical...
No one wants these anymore....
But put a Natural gas or propane carb on it and it will run a long long time.
I would love to see someone try and quietly steal one from a mount too lol...
I started with the quietest Honda I could find, and I still wanted quieter. But for us the biggest issue was finding fuel once the power goes out.
Our Honda is now just a backup if we don't get sun, or used out in the way back if we are too far from a power outlet. Since increasing our solar my neighbors have used our generator more than I have in the past year.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
Now we are getting to a discussion, Bartender! another round. I agree here, and I think there are two targets with solar: 1) Save some money on your electric bill. 2) Get off the grid as much as possible
This is not accurate. As I stated before this is generally controlled by commissions and co-op boards. Simply find out who is running yours, go to the meetings and get involved. You can look at the books and participate in the decision process. People would rather bitch than learn about the financial aspects.
As far as solar goes it is still kind of expensive. I had a (late) friend who was the finance director of Boulder City for a while. They did a large scale Solar project 10+ years ago now, you will not find a more ideal spot, close to a grid, great synergy with the dam. At the time the people who lived there were paying around $0.03/kwh, based on agreements made when the dam was built. With a 20 year amortization the solar project was going to produce power at ~ $0.35/kwh or something. So all the local folks and town council said "We want to make sure we use the solar power!", to which my friend responded: "Nice, how much do you want to raise everyone's bill?". Puzzled looks. "Well do you want to double, triple, or quadruple your electric bills, its pretty simple math should I explain"?
For example blending 10% of the more expensive power: (.03 * .9) + (.35 * .1) = 0.062, over doubles the rates. F*cking bean counters!
Funny how alarmists and do-gooders tend to not remember the past. The Colorado river projects here based water estimates on a prior 30 year average. Unfortunately, it turns out a little deeper research reveals that this was a particularly wet time period. Start moving more and more people and industry into Texas, and the infrastructure is bound to lag behind a bit. Nature of the beast.
So what exactly were the excessive bonus payouts and profit margins for the mentioned utilities over that time period? People always talk this talk, rich fat-cats smoking cigars in a back room stealing money from the masses, but I'm not seeing any numbers just vague accusations. And yet we want to give Pfizer a pass . . .
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
Cost of fixing the infrastructure? It's not just a Texas problem, the cost of disasters has been increasing tremendously over the last few decades (ref):
Pretty obvious the growing green bar needs some attention paid to it. Pay now or pay later many times. But a lot of politicians seem to be opposed (ref1, ref2). It's hard to pay for infrastructure fixes when you're sure there are no problems. There's always the fall elections.
Interesting. Something about figures don't lie but, ...
The problem with putting a "CPI-Adjusted" dollar figure is: While it's a somewhat useful number, it can distort reality. The exact same storm rolling thru the exact same spot 40 years apart are going to have dramatic cost differences. Peoples standard of living goes up, and the average person today lives in much nicer more expensive digs, and the population density and infrastructure multiplies.
So what we are doing is putting more stuff in the path of these storms, but we all want to live on high dollar property on the coast now don't we?
I grew up for a time in Virginia Beach. In the 1970's Green Run was a huge area with a smattering of homes, and horses. Driving thru it today it is wall-to-wall square miles of houses and schools and businesses. A storm rolling thru in 1980 would only do modest monetary damage. Today that exact same storm could wreak minor havoc on 20,000 homes, increasing the dollar figure by orders of magnitude. Pesky math.
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DIYrich
Solar Wizard
$/person would be more comparable.
Bad idea.
There are economies of scale in sharing public infrastructure. That's why societies evolved this way around the world for centuries.
Besides, there aren't enough cheap, used generators in the world for Everyone to get a deal on one. That's a pyramid/ponzi scheme. Any solution proposed must work for the whole society, not just the lucky few hobbyists.
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