Texas
Related: About this forumThe Texas Electric Grid Failure Was a Warm-up
Anthony Mecke had drifted to sleep in the break room when a loud knock roused him at 1:23 a.m. We just got the call, a coworker said.
Mecke, a moonfaced 45-year-old, is the manager of systems operation training at CPS Energy, the city-owned electricity provider that serves San Antonio. He started at the company not long after high school, working at one point as a cable splicer, a job he performed in hot tunnels beneath the sidewalks of San Antonio. He thought hed seen it all. But when he hustled from the break room, where hed sneaked in a power nap after an all-day shift, into the companys cavernous control room, housed in a tornado-proof building on the citys East Side, what he witnessed unsettled him.
This was Monday, February 15, 2021. A winter storm had brought unusually frigid temperatures to the entire middle swath of the United States, from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande. In San Antonio, it dropped to 9 degrees. In Fort Worth, the storms icy arrival a few days earlier had led to a 133-vehicle pileup that left 6 dead. Abilene and Pflugerville had advised residents to boil their water, the first of thousands of such warnings that would eventually affect 17 million Texans. Across the state, families hunkered down and did anything they could to stay warm. The overwhelming majority of Texas homes are outfitted with electric heaters that are the technological equivalent of a toaster oven. During the most severe cold fronts, residents crank up those inefficient units, and some even turn on and open electric ovens and use hair dryers.
Mecke could track the spiking energy use in real time. One wall of the control room is covered in enormous computer monitors displaying maps and data. He scanned for one particular piece of information. The states electricity reserves, which are tapped to prevent emergencies, were already depleted. The problem wasnt just surging demand. Power plants all across the grid were shutting off, incapacitated by frozen equipment and a dearth of natural gas, the primary source of fuel.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-electric-grid-failure-warm-up/
EYESORE 9001
(25,921 posts)What will it take for people to demand better from heir ostensibly public utilities? After last years deadly debacle, youd think people would be raising ten kinds of hell.
3Hotdogs
(12,360 posts)Commie, lib'ril regulations is what's keeping our country from being great again?
St. Donald's first regulation was a regulation that any regulation passed by an agency, must be accompanied by eliminating another regulation off its books.
Yes. He really did that.
LetMyPeopleVote
(145,046 posts)I ordered a generator back on July 31 and I am still waiting.
LetMyPeopleVote
(145,046 posts)Link to tweet
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