SGaynor said:
Sorry, but the whole premise of that article (power shortages because coal fired plants weren't built) is just wrong. Plants went off line because they couldn't deal with the cold (for whatever reason). ....
Actually I'll call bullshit on
NORTH Texas plants not being able to deal with cold. What really happened?
The reality is that the issue IS policy driven. It is a combo of
not building capacity, which translates to margin, and some really dumb decisions precipitated by AGW policy/believers. Hey, the climate is warming so we don't need cold weather mitigation strategies!
Capacity example, from American Thinker article:
new coal-powered generating plants had been shuttered back in 2007.....construction of eight large coal-powered plants were scrapped in 2007.....wind and solar, which make up only 1% of power generation.....
AGW insanity example: (dirt=coal)
PRD
February 3, 2011
I’ve worked at a dirt burner and a gas burner in N. Texas and N. Louisiana, and visited many other plants in East and NE Texas. The pipe and air lines are wrapped and heat traced (that’s an insulated and heated line for the engineering professionals that are griping).
Guys, can you also tell me when the last brand new dirt burner went on-line in Texas? It was in the late ’80s. Again for the pro’s – a power plant water or air line that is insulated first has an insulated resistor wrapped around it or laid along it, depending on pipe diameter; then the pipe is wrapped in a few inches of fiberglass insulation; followed by aluminum “lagging” or a shield which keeps the insulation dry.
Now, the breakers to the freeze protection should be turned off in the summer, but usually aren’t because in the grand scheme of powerplant operations it is a rather small vampirical power use.
In a 30 year old plant, there can be spots along, for example, a 30′ line that is for a pressure transducer which is read to control a critical point in the whole power production process. This 30′ line is 30 years old and has never given any problems, but this year, the vibration finally eat’s through the heat trace insulation and the heat grounds out and no longer works. It freezes, the pipe either shows too much pressure and trips the whole unit or the line ruptures and trips on low pressure.
It can be that simple – I’ve seen it happen. A thirty year old afterthought finally gives way.
I worked in a water treatment plant in the Houston area – freeze protection funding was dropped by the GM because Al Gore said it would never be needed again (seriously). It snowed, froze up dang near every air exposed sensor in the plant, froze the water in the air lines so we couldn’t control pneumatic valves (funding for air dryer maintenance was also reduced). We had four hours of fun before the air temps finally came back up above freezing.
These plants were designed and built for the climate. The maintenance crews are first rate men and women. As the plants age, there is less time for checking the voltage on heat trace that has worked for 25 years trouble free than there is fixing major components starting to break due to age.
It’s “putting out fires” that may have caused this.
You read that correctly, Houston and North Texas plants were originally designed and built for cold climate.
