Weather

[billy.pilgrim]

I bet a lot of homes are gonna have wrecked plumbing.

Aren't a lot of houses down there on slabs? How will they fare when the pipes freeze in extremely cold weather? Wonder if the plumbing under the house is wrecked.

What a mess.

Under the slabs won't freeze, unless the house has no heat and the ground frozen to 10 or 12 inches.

Shitty solder jobs and concrete in contact with copper pipes will leak under slabs. The cheapest fix is usually to reroute through the attic.

[billy.pilgrim]

2020 Texas:
California has a bunch of idiots running the power grid to do all this rolling blackout stuff.
The federal damgummit is worthless. We want to secede.

2021 Texas:
Umm, can you send us some help, FEMA? We're a little cold down here.
We don't know how long rolling blackouts and outages will continue. The (state-run) power grid is over-maxed.

I remember seeing a tv show a few years ago about the electrical grid in the US and it talked about how there are three power grids; East, West, and Texas. I've never checked this out but also have never watched QTV

A really lazy stupid idea if we are ever in a real war.

[neoplacebo]

2020 Texas:
California has a bunch of idiots running the power grid to do all this rolling blackout stuff.
The federal damgummit is worthless. We want to secede.

2021 Texas:
Umm, can you send us some help, FEMA? We're a little cold down here.
We don't know how long rolling blackouts and outages will continue. The (state-run) power grid is over-maxed.

I remember seeing a tv show a few years ago about the electrical grid in the US and it talked about how there are three power grids; East, West, and Texas. I've never checked this out but also have never watched QTV

A really lazy stupid idea if we are ever in a real war.

I googled "how many electrical power grids are there in the US" and it does say three; just as I noted them above. I'm not sure if, as a war or emergency scenario applies, if it would be better to have only one grid or dozens of separate ones. To my mind, the biggest risk to the system is that it's computerized, and thus vulnerable to whatever fabulous new hacking methods may roll down the pike in the near or distant future. I'd feel safer if power plants ran the way they did in, say, 1960. Not the coal aspect of them but the control aspect of them. In 1960 you'd have to physically invade each and every generation facility to take control; today you just need to hit a few keyboard strokes. And I bragged too soon about the mild winter here in milk and honey territory.....it's cold as shit here now.

[GoCubsGo]

Cons can be very entertaining.

Tucker Carlson Doubles Down on False Texas Windmill Claims




https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-power- ... 17364.html

[Whack9]

I bet a lot of homes are gonna have wrecked plumbing.

Aren't a lot of houses down there on slabs? How will they fare when the pipes freeze in extremely cold weather? Wonder if the plumbing under the house is wrecked.

What a mess.

Under the slabs won't freeze, unless the house has no heat and the ground frozen to 10 or 12 inches.

Shitty solder jobs and concrete in contact with copper pipes will leak under slabs. The cheapest fix is usually to reroute through the attic.

That happened at the last house i owned. I didn't know until I sold the place.

Basicay the previous owner noticed the floor was nice and toasty whenever taking a shower. Turns out there was a slow leak under the slab so they rerouted through the attic.

That also explains why my kitchen had a tiny water heater under the sink. There was no way to route the plumbing from the attic to the sink since it was on an island of sorts.

My neighbors told me this when I got taken for a ride by the foundation company and they were inquiring about the stuff I was getting done.

Obligatory Fuck Cantey Foundation Services (and my own stupid ass ignorant brain. Lesson learned).

Also - the first year I owned the house I had a pipe freeze. The extra bathroom froze where the outside spigot was located, so the sink stopped working. I didn't put covers over my spigots or let my water drip when the temp got below 20.

The stuff you learn...

Luckily no leaks.

[Whack9]

Cons can be very entertaining.

Tucker Carlson Doubles Down on False Texas Windmill Claims




https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-power- ... 17364.html

Maybe I'm just a dummy but it seems that states that get wayyyyyyy colder than Texas have windmills that function just fine.

Iowa, North Dakota, etc...

https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php? ... 20Oklahoma.

More than two-fifths of Iowa's electricity net generation comes from renewable resources, almost all of it from wind.23 In 2019, the state was the third-largest wind power producer, after Texas and Oklahoma. Wind energy from about 5,100 turbines powered 42% of Iowa's net generation, the highest share of any state,

[Vrede too]

Cons can be very entertaining.

Tucker Carlson Doubles Down on False Texas Windmill Claims

https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-power- ... 17364.html
(The Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.)

First link:

... “Because politicians benefitted from it, wind turbines wound up generating about a quarter of Texas’ power.

Ummm, it's because utilities benefit from it. Fucker fails Econ 101. Abbott benefits from fossil fuels.

... “It seems to me again from an outsider’s perspective that we’ve allowed lunatic ideologues who know nothing about science or engineering to have a lot of control over our power grid,” Tucker mused later in the segment.

Fucker has a BA in history, but he never even used that. He went straight into con fake journalism. Abbott has a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Juris Doctor degree.

... Tucker began this very same episode with a lengthy screed about the news media lying to viewers, without even a whiff of irony.

“Imagine if lying was your job,” Tucker said, completely seriously. “Imagine forcing yourself to tell lies all day about everything in ways that were so transparent and so outlandish that there is no way that people listening to you could possibly believe anything you said. Then imagine doing that again and again and again every day of your professional life for your entire life.” ...

"without even a whiff of irony." Fucker.

[GoCubsGo]

My vote has and still is let Texas secede.

[neoplacebo]

To make it complete they need to have a nighttime shot of it.

[Vrede too]

Be on the lookout on Thursday. Ice storms were always the worst nightmare.

.25 inch was the magic number. Hit that and I'd be without power for five days.

I was sure that you had jinxed me out of spite from your polar zone. Dinnertime news put Hooterville right on the border of high ice risk and maybe. It is raining now but 2 weather sites say the low will be 32, then just rain tomorrow. We may have dodged the bullet.

[GoCubsGo]

Be on the lookout on Thursday. Ice storms were always the worst nightmare.

.25 inch was the magic number. Hit that and I'd be without power for five days.

I was sure that you had jinxed me out of spite from your polar zone. Dinnertime news put Hooterville right on the border of high ice risk and maybe. It is raining now but 2 weather sites say the low will be 32, then just rain tomorrow. We may have dodged the bullet.

Not according to Jason. He's got Henderson County getting from a quarter inch to three quarters of an inch. That's major trouble.

Sorry, been there done that.
https://wlos.com/news/local/gallery/wed ... ea#photo-1

[GoCubsGo]

Cruz and Texas deserve each other.

[Vrede too]

Not according to Jason. He's got Henderson County getting from a quarter inch to three quarters of an inch. That's major trouble.

Sorry, been there done that.
https://wlos.com/news/local/gallery/wed ... ea#photo-1

Still raining, no sleet or snow, 33 and warming, power on, whew. Might be a few degrees and worlds worse in Asheville.

[Vrede too]

Maybe I'm just a dummy but it seems that states that get wayyyyyyy colder than Texas have windmills that function just fine.

Iowa, North Dakota, etc...

https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php? ... 20Oklahoma.

More than two-fifths of Iowa's electricity net generation comes from renewable resources, almost all of it from wind.23 In 2019, the state was the third-largest wind power producer, after Texas and Oklahoma. Wind energy from about 5,100 turbines powered 42% of Iowa's net generation, the highest share of any state,

White House rebuts claims that green energy is to blame for Texas power outages

... Asked to comment on former Energy Secretary Rick Perry's assessment that too much reliance on wind and solar power was at least partly responsible for the blackouts that have left millions of Texans in the dark, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the opposite was true.

“There have been some inaccurate accusations out there — I’m not sure if former Energy Secretary Perry made these — that renewables caused failures in Texas’s power grid,” Psaki told reporters. “Actually, numerous reports have actually shown the contrary — that it was failures in coal and natural gas that contributed to the state’s power shortages. And officials at Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, have gone so far as to say that wind and solar were the least significant factors in the blackouts.”

... Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, threw cold water on those claims Tuesday in a conference call with reporters.

“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” Woodfin said....

Texas sized idiots along with Brokeback Perry:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas
Tucker Carlson
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
Sean Hannity

[GoCubsGo]

Not according to Jason. He's got Henderson County getting from a quarter inch to three quarters of an inch. That's major trouble.

Sorry, been there done that.
https://wlos.com/news/local/gallery/wed ... ea#photo-1

Still raining, no sleet or snow, 33 and warming, power on, whew. Might be a few degrees and worlds worse in Asheville.

Looks like you skated, congrats! Some scattered outages in Asheville and Maggie Valley.

Snow is just 24 hours of inconvenience, ice is a week of misery.

[Vrede too]

Cruz and Texas deserve each other.

TV commentary: This is not just about green energy vs fossil fuels, but also about the privatization and deregulation of Texas utilities.

Opps.

[billy.pilgrim]

Cruz and Texas deserve each other.

TV commentary: This is not just about green energy vs fossil fuels, but also about the privatization and deregulation of Texas utilities.

Opps.

Cruz in in cancun

[Vrede too]

Cruz in in cancun

viewtopic.php?p=134234#p134234

[Whack9]

El Paso was spaired from extended power outages because it's part of the Western power grid, not ERCOT (the texas power grid).

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/ ... 774067002/

In 2011 a winter storm busted them up badly, so money was spent on winterizing infrastructure.

Also, Rick Perry suggests Texans voluntarily go without power to fend off the scourge of sOcIaLiSm!!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02 ... wer-outage

“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” Perry is quoted as saying. “Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off of having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically, and strategically.”

Idk, it seems like the ERCOT grid is not that resilient given that El Paso is fine and most of Texas got wrecked.

[O Really]

Cruz in in cancun

Another example of just how tone-deaf and uncaring those assholes are. True, there's not much Cruz could actually do, but flying off to Cancun is just beyond the pale. Even without the power crisis, most everybody else is in restricted travel because of covid. Cruz, whose house surely has a back-up generator, couldn't even manage to stay around and toss a few towel rolls?