Texas power issues. Wind farms getting iced up (Part II)... 38

[Alistair_Heaton]

How much work is it to winterise the gas wells and other must have sites? I presume they don't need to do all of it if they have a proper plan for for next time to have rolling blackouts.

I can't see them getting much of the cash generated by peak price anyway. It seems that a sizable proportion of the customer retailers are going bust so won't pay anyway. The largest and most financially robust co-operative filed for chapter 11 last week. And if it can't sink the 3 days of peak charge then the others won't be able to anyway. So quiet who will cough up the cash to the suppliers is anyone's guess.

 

[davefitz]

There are some hidden problems that do not appear to be addressed aequately, which implies that there is a risk a serious interruption in supply may occur in the medium term.

The first issue is that every single large US central station ( fossil fired) has had its boiler/ steam generator built according to ASME section I, which has no defined provisions for fatigue damage of pressure parts. These large plants were assumed to startup once per year, and shutdown only for annual inspection, but now are required to startup once per day,incurring about 365 times more fatigue damage than originally assumed.Fatigue failure of a major pressure part can imply an extended outage for replacement, lowering the reserve margins.

The second issue is that the buildup of new wind farms in the central states of the US will require several large UHVDC transmission lines to transmit the power to the coastal cities, and these DC lines are vulnerable to disruption due to solar CME coronal mass ejections, as occured with the canadian DC transmmission lines from newfoundland hydropower that led to a nationwide blackout in march 1989.

The third issue is that relying primarily to gas fired peaking and cycling power plants in the eastern half of the US is raising the stakes for the consequences of a failure in the natural gas supply system, such as the 2015 aliso canyon faiure in california that led to months of forced outages for the area's gas fired power plants. In particular , the northeast is highly dependent on the gas reservoir in pennsylvania, and a similar failure in the winter would be catastrophic to residents on the east coast.

The fourth issue is that the mechanical reliability of wind farms is not all it was cracked up to be, with failures of the bearings and gear reducers leading to faster retirement of wind turbines than originally assumed in the financial calculations for rate of return. Apparently the 20 yr MTBF spec'ed for each part implies an overall MTBF of about 8 yrs for the composite mechanism considering the many parts that can individually contribute to failure of the turbine. Online monitoring of vibration and temperatures may improve the overall relaibility, but there will also need to be a large increase in the maintainence staff to address field repairs.



"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick

 

[waross]

I don't think that chapter 11 bankruptcy will save the consumers.
Chapter 11 allows the companies to continue to operate and collect receivables from the customers over time.
Even if some utilities are sold, the debts receivable will be part of the assets passed to the new owners.
Chapter 11 may also be a legal maneuver to avoid statutes of limitations on the filing of liens that may otherwise wipe out some debt.
And the rich got richer.

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Most of the ones that have gone chapter 11 are fixed rate supplier's so the consumers won't get hit.

 

[1503-44]

FacEngr, and all

Determining Rational Design Criteria

Granted that large hurricanes have occurred in the past and these latest ones may not have been the worst, but there are two other things you must also watch out for too. Are there changes to frequency and are there trending tendencies? Are the averages, or better "moving averages" of either of those changing over your time history? Both could indicate that some causation factor is at work, maybe not. For example, a rising moving average wave height, a max wave height, max wind speeds, or max flood stage river levels can cause us trouble. Changes in either may affect our design conditions. A rising moving average of max wave height would suggest that we think about increasing the design criteria of the minimum height between the lower deck and the highest mean sea level. An increasing frequency of high wave data suggests that our present 100yr and 1000yr design wave heights might be too small.

Say we have offshore platform with following design criteria,
Wave Criteria #1, Any offshore platform should be built such that the lower deck remains above a wave height with a return period of 100yrs or less and not experience any significant damage.
#2 is that a platform should survive a wave height with a return period of 1000yrs or less. If the frequency of either the presently defined 100 or 1000 year wave heights are observed to be increasing, the probability of their occurrence is increasing, meaning that the return periods of those wave heights are decreasing. 100yr waves might now have 86yr return periods. 1000yr waves may have 737yr return periods. Decreasing return periods of existing criteria implies that the criteria's present values are too low and they must be revised upwards to reflect new wave heights that will have the same expected frequencies of 100 and 1000yrs.

How do we rationally decide to revise our design criteria, or not? We get out our old wave data and look at all the waves ever recorded. We calculate the probabilities of each wave height in our old storm data and plot those against wave height. We calculate the expected return periods for all the waves in our old data and plot return periods against wave heights.

Now we do the same thing, but this time we include the new data recorded over, say the last 10 years that include some very large storms that we had never seen before. We plot the new curves and see that all our old wave height values now have a higher probability of occurring. We also see that the same return periods now show they have greater wave heights.

Yes, perhaps there were even bigger storms in the past that we were not aware of, but as the saying goes, "what you don't know can't hurt you" and that was fine until now, but now we do have an indication that some really big waves might have occurred in the past and we simply failed for some reason to have gotten them recorded into our old data base. We still do not know if they actually occurred, but everything points to their probable existence in the past. Logic follows that, if they probably existed in past storms, they probably exist today and we should think about including those waves in a revised design criteria based on all the new data and whatever foreseeable implications that may have on our designs. If we don't, some good lawyer with a consulting PhD in statistics at his side will surely beat us to pieces, if it turns out that some foreseeable event capsizes our platform. So we ask ourselves how much risk do we want to avert and set our design criteria accordingly, or API RP 2A adopts it as and we build the next platform according to that new recommended practice.

The additional problem that trends in the data can present to us is the possibility that there is causation of some kind taking place, or not. If we think there might be a cause, we might be able to foresee that and add some additional criteria to account for trends in our design, or we can just accept some risk doing nothing while realising that those trends might continue and quickly surpass even our new criteria. How much risk will we accept? We could also account for any trending in the latest data by working with moving averages of our data that would reduce any effects of old data while strengthening any affects of newer data. Including simply discarding the first 50yrs of 100yrs of data, if we thought that including all data would unduely bias our design to the low side and result in undersigning our work in the face of conditions we view as more prevalent in today's environment.

All of those questions raised in the above are answered, not by believing in climate change, or not, what causes it, or doesn't, it just boils down to the day to day practicality of quantify risk as best you can and finding out how much risk your CEO is willing to take, or not. At home, I can take whatever risk I think is appropriate for me.

I included the IExplorer vs Murders graph to make it obvious that you must be aware of what your data is, or is not going to tell you. I'm happy that the humor was appreciated.

Apologies to all those I bored writing stuff below pay grade.

I have a spreadsheet showing an example of how a typical design wave height criteria is made and revised according to the method I outlined above, should anyone be interested in the math.

 

[1503-44]

Fisch, others
Definitely. One does have to believe that batteries will come, or if not, something else will. Pumped storage, H2. We just need to build some experimental works, hopefully sooner than later. Roll up our sleeves.... I hear that a large scale H2 system is being tested in England.

davefitz, all true to my limited knowledge. Nothing is all roses here, including the current impossible state of affairs. Checkmate in all directions and getting worse daily.

waross, true as ever, if not more so.

Alistair, we keep our fingers crossed that part works out. I'd recommend that they consider buying solar rooftops and their own batteries, if they still have any money left.

Gas wells vulnerable to water or gas hydrate freezing need one or both of these heaters, or methanol injection packages. The pipes connecting wells to gathering pipelines pass through a flow meter before reaching heating or injecting equipment, so if the temperature of the gas exiting the wells is not high, the pipe and meters will need insulation. Usually exit temp is high enough to make it to a heater, but not always, so meth injection may be first. Of course the injection pumps need a local electric source when city lights are out. Fuel cell gas to electric converters could work, but I have not done it that way. The equipment needs to be operating before plugs form, or you won't likely get up operating again until air temp rise. If gas is hot enough to get into underground pipelines, they might continue to flow as ground in South TX usually does not freeze and might remain warm, but you need to know ...
Lots of small gas wells, esp South of Austin, would not normally support the additional equipment and run costs, so they do not have that on site. Ever large flow wells might not. A lot of wells are owned by small time operators and they only worry about nothing until the bank calls.

https://www.exterran.com/Products/production-equipment/gas-conditioning/indirect-line-heater

https://www.lewa.com/en/applications/methanol-injection/

 

[LionelHutz]

Why are you telling me that 21 cities with record lows is normal and snowing in in TX while its mild in MN apparently is totally normal? Can you blame me for thinking that you don't believe? But sorry for my confusion.

I get really sick of hearing this type of "lowest recorded temperature so it must be climate change" argument. I'd bet any day that those areas had lower lows then the recorded values before modern day temperature recording started. ~130 years of recorded data certainly doesn't prove what could happen and is far from enough data to actually know what 100 year weather events will be with any certainty. Yet, any bad weather event is called climate change. You can go ahead and call me a denier too now.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Well by all accounts they are looking like it is going to be a bumper market for solar installations this summer in Texas along with islanding and generator backup.

To the tune of whole numbers of % drop in residential demand.

Which of course will have knock on consequences for paying for the upgrades which are being considered.

But I am sure they will pass some new law to make it harder for people to escape.

 

[cranky108]

I think there is something that we are missing.

Wind farms, solar panels, and batteries are short term assets, and are we to expect them to replace long term assets like coal and gas plants?

So what will we be changing to next? What of all those old short term assets? What will they look like in 25 years?

And if solar and wind are so cheap, why do we need tax breaks?

I also doubt oil, coal and gas will go away completely. They may be reduced in importance. After all lube oil, and plastics demand are not dropping very much.

 

[1503-44]

My argument was not about temperature so much as it was about TX being cold when MN was "mild", not to mention that was reversed within the week.

Its not the lowest lows or the highest highs that are important in the climate change argument anyway. 30 million years ago the temp everywhere could have been much hotter, for all I know, or 250,000 years ago much colder over some ice sheet. The highest highs or lowest lows ever present, known or unknown to us today are a problem but not the big problem. Plenty of plants and animals managed to live and prosper. The biggest problem is the rate of temperature change. Many species cannot adapt to rapid changes to temperature and the current predictions suggest the rate of temperature change will be more and more rapid. Even if I heat my volcanic stone briquetts too fast in my BBQ, even they explode. If I heat them slower, no rock bits get embedded in my burger. 50 yrs ago there were glaciers on the mountains that have been there since recorded history began, yet during the last 20yrs many have almost disappeared and the surrounding vegetation has changed. The old mosses are gone or retreated with the ice and different ones now take their place. Thats temperature change effect. I hope the new species turn out to be more advantageous for the world, cause if they're not, we may be in for a bad ride.
Not important how any one of us believe. Belief is just someone's perception of things they see and have experienced. Mine will be different than everyone else's to a large degree, just as yours might be too.
It isn't really important what anyone believes. The environmental changes from epoch to epoch are know through many diverse areas of research, from the thickness of tree rings, even petrified trees, and frozen bubbles of air and chemicals falling from the atmosphere a million years ago are there in the soil and ice cores contained in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and types of plants contained in many soil corings, onshore and off. Evidence of change is all around us, but you need to know where to look and you have to look for it.

 

[1503-44]

Cranky,

And if solar and wind are so cheap, why do we need tax breaks?

BECAUSE WE THINK WE NEED MORE CLEAN. Do you really want more smokestack?
Their fuel costs NOTHING. If you got money to pay for dirtier fuel. Buy a gasoline gen and run it 24/7.
If there is tax for you, there's road tax in that gasoline, it doesn't bother me if you have to pay. Your dirtying up my air. Smokers pay high tax for burning tobacco. Seems fair.

 

[dik]

and for the good news...

"Texas officials said they do not plan to reverse an estimated $16 billion in electricity overcharges incurred during a deep freeze that roiled the state's power grids and left millions without power last month. "

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[cranky108]

Most gas generators sold at local stores would not last three months. I'm not fool.

My point is that I believe there is a problem ahead that we were not expecting.

That may not be true for thermal solar units, but most of what is being built now is silicon based.

Nucular may be a better option, than solar.

 

[1503-44]

There's always problems ahead, any way you look. That's why there are engineers. All the new grads will have work. They might even solve some. Take nukes for example. We once thought there would be nukes everywhere by now.

If the US started building nukes now to cover all expected demand for the next 100 years, they would always be well behind the required capacity. They just take too long to plan and build. They can't keep up with demand. Not that anyone would seriously propose that in the USA at this time.

Why not buy yourself an industrial gen package and try to sell Japan, Ukraine and Germany on those nukes. It'll at least be good sales practice for the US, when or if ...

 

[JohnRBaker]

And if solar and wind are so cheap, why do we need tax breaks?

And I'm sure that back in 1916 people were asking the same thing about the 'oil depletion allowance', which is still in place today and which continues to allow American oil companies to reap millions of dollars in tax credits every year.

And an interesting bit of trivia, despite the name 'oil depletion allowance', which is the official term for this particular tax break, it applies to more than just oil. In fact, for virtually ALL extraction industries, including mining, foresting, etc, there is a depletion allowance, running from as low as 5% for sand, gravel, and shale, to as high as 22% for sulfur and uranium, but gas and oil are still the big winners at 23%.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[LionelHutz]

Fair enough, why spew that crap about a cold snap was climate change then? I didn't yet point out that in the dam thread you posted rather vehement arguments against dams then mentioned pumped storage as an energy storage possibility here. For me, I start skipping over what you write when write nonsense like this. Starts to smell like baiting and arguing only for the sake of arguing.

 

[1503-44]

dik, all the golden boys have already called their Farrari dealers. No going back now. If FERC, TX Att Gen or SEC don't move on it soon, the gov and PUC officers will have to be recalled before that will happen. As it is, they obviously don't give a damn.

The old gas company I used to work for down in Laredo was named TransTexas Gas, but it was known locally as "Transylvanian Gas". Why? Because it sucked gas, oil and blood out of the rocks and everyone that got close enough. I used to say that if they paid us once a month, we'd all have enough cash to buy a full tank of gas and get the hell away. You had to have a full tank to put Laredo in the rear view mirror. Otherwise they'd just find us on the shoulder and tow us back in.

 

[1503-44]

Lionel,

Thanks for your honest comment.

My intentions are to try to recognise and make use of the good advantages in all things and to try to recognize and solve the bad points of all things. I see every (engineering) problem as finding optimum solutions, so everything for me is always a trade off. To do that you have to be as objective as possible. If a thread is going down one path, I will often point out negative consequences of that path and advantages to an alternate path. Likewise the converse. I think that is what objectivity is all about. Seeking an optimum balanced solution might even require me to change my perspective in the same thread. I dont usually, but sometimes I might need to. I know I will never find optimum solutions unless I can recognise all the the good and all the bad consequences of my decisions. Is that not so? Sometimes maybe that seems like trolling, but I think it more as opening up an opportunity for further discussion and my trying to understand if there is simply someone's loosly formulated opinion, or solid logic behind the points in question. I always try to explain the reasons behind whatever I am discussing at the time, or will if questioned about it, so others can find fault or inconsistencies and I can correct my logic, if I think I need to. Will that be a problem? Nobody else has objected so far. I appreciate anyone's reading of what I write. That often takes a lot of my time and I hope I am not wasting that, or the time others take to read it, but that is their decision and maybe you do want to skip it. Up to you. At least I try to answer all serious questions with serious answers to my best ability, but I admit that I might throw a barb or two at flippant responses and those I think do not appear to be serious, or do not further a more complete understanding of the questions at hand. Not so unlike many others here. Sorry if you don't see it so.

 

[Fischstabchen]

Lionel

Pumped storage storage is the most cost effective means of storing energy and it scales well. Look up Raccoon Mountain for a pumped storage facility here in the states that has been running since the Carter administration. Round trip efficiency for pumped storage can be 85%+ which kind of blew my mind. Raccoon Mountain is used like a daily peaker unit. Uses electricity at night to pump and it generates during the day. The only thing that is hard about pumped storage is that it is geographically specific.

There is a TED talk on pumped storage on steroids about lifting rock instead of water. What they do is find an area with a large rock formation and cut a big deep circle and lift this column up and down with hydraulics. The numbers get better the larger the column because the ring increases only linearly with its radius but the column volume increases by its square. No one has bit on it as far as I know.

 

[1503-44]

John Baker, people are still asking that same question, the one about depletion allowances. With some justification if I may add. IMO a complete rewrite of the US tax code is long overdue. How many pages is it now?

Fisch,
there is another version of that gravity storage scheme where a crane stacks massive concrete blocks higher and higher to store solar power. I doubted that it would work next to a wind farm, for obvious reasons , but I find no other busts in their logic. No water, no head available, why not?