United States LNG Exports Reach Third Place

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

Mssrs. Maddoux, Nick, Nolan

 

Very brief, moderately urgent warning to all experiencing this cold snap with minimal/no heat  ...

Crucial to try to prevent frozen/burst water pipes (amongst several other major concerns).

Slowly running tap water non stop inhibits ice formation in pipes, with crawl space being especially vulnerable area.

 

If water does NOT flow - indicating possible ice blockage -  imperative to shut off main water inlet to structure.

I fear there may be countless Texans - and others - who will suffer frozen/burst pipes that may only become apparent after temperature rise/heat restored.

On a large enough scale of reduced/absent plumbing, health endangerment could rapidly follow.

(I have over a decade of experience in water flood restoration).

 

Will post more later.

Good luck to all.

[NickW + 2,714]

11 hours ago, Tom Nolan said:

I was without power (gas heat and electric) much of Sunday late night/early morning, and then again most of Monday until about 3 or 4pm.  It was 5 degrees F (-15C) at 7:30am when the power came on briefly this morning in North Texas. 

Texas Deploys National Guard As 'Grid Chaos' Leaves Millions Freezing In Darkness - 3.368 million Texans Without Power

(long article with graphs & images)

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/grid-chaos-2-million-texans-without-power-rolling-blackout-begin

 

Out of interest as you are slap bang in Hurricane alley I assume you make some provision for extreme weather events in terms of basic provisions for cooking / lighting / local heat source? 

Here in the UK pretty much absent of extreme weather or power cuts I have kit to hand to deal with such an event if it were to occur

• A couple of spirit stoves and 2-3 litres of bioethanol
• A wood  stove (outdoor use)
• A small Paraffin heater and 4 litres of lamp oil 
• LED lanterns and torch
• Small portable battery bank with a 17 a/h / 200w ac power supply. 

Aside from the battery the items above in total cost less than £100. I know power cuts are inconvenient but above  is enough to cook some food, heat water for drinks / washing / lighting and provide a little background heat. 

 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

Mr. Maddoux,

In a belated, brief response to your earlier, kind comment, I offer this.

While I am not too well versed in the Texas/ERCOT specifics, several commonalities with other areas and events might lead to the following observations ...

1. The fact that Texas/ERCOT is a quasi 'island' is touted as some as being a big negative.

This indicates an ignorance of the background to the 1965 Great Northeast Blackout which is - by far - the biggest blackout in US history (affecting 35 million people) and how the complex intertwining of vast grids played a big role.

2. There are reports that electricity cut offs are shutting down gas compressor stations which are preventing the fuel from reaching the gas power plants.

3. As several  of the gas power plants are used more and more as 'back up' providers to other generators, they depend upon spot pricing - and delivery - of fuel. There has supposedly been insufficient supply these past few days for their needs.

4. As happened during some Northeast US power drama in the past few years, frozen water ways restricted barge deliveries of fuel oil  for some power plants.

Frozen coal piles were sitting right outside the huge Brayton Point plant and were unusable in generating electricity.

These current  high stress circumstances will highlight vulnerabilities within existing systems.

 

Sadly, Mr. Maddoux, I suspect varied interests will focus on self serving particulars in this present situation to strengthen their own positions while weakening those of their perceived competitors.

A few weeks from now, as the data comes in and is objectively evaluated, clear eyed and competent decisions will be hopefully be made so as to learn from the current debacle. 

 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

 

IMAGE from -

3 Million Texans Without Power As Grid Chaos Continues Ahead Of Imminent Ice Storm

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/4-million-texans-without-power-amid-grid-collapse-second-storm-nears

 

Image from https://www.statista.com/chart/24201/customers-disconnected-in-us-blackouts/

Image from https://www.statista.com/chart/24202/texas-energy-mix-by-fuel-type/

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Texas Winter Storm Highlights The Importance Of Fossil Fuels

By Irina Slav - Feb 16, 2021, 5:00 PM CST

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Texas-Winter-Storm-Highlights-The-Importance-Of-Fossil-Fuels.html

The message that we need to electrify everything that currently uses fossil fuels to generate energy has become the dominant message of the energy transition. Solar, wind, and energy storage—perhaps with the help of hydropower and some nuclear—can handle the energy needs of mankind, the argument goes, and do it with a much lower carbon footprint.

Yet, the Arctic cold wave that is sweeping across the United States has seriously undermined this argument.

Natural gas prices exploded last week in many parts of the U.S. and are still rising higher, as are electricity prices. In Texas, a state unaccustomed to such weather, wholesale electricity prices hit $9,000 per MWh on the spot market, prompting at least one retail power supplier to urge its clients to switch to another provider to avoid huge utility bills.

Blackouts are now a fact, with two million households across Texas without power at the time of writing. Authorities, meanwhile, are urging people to conserve energy by limiting their consumption. ERCOT has said the blackouts will be rolling, lasting for 45 minutes per area. This may not be a lot, but it does indicate the presence of a problem.

Texas, the Wind Capital of the U.S.

Texas is the biggest producer of wind energy in the United States.

Unfortunately, the state saw half of its wind turbines frozen by the icy winds blowing from Canada to parts of the U.S. that were unaccustomed to such temperatures. Of a total 25 GW in wind power capacity, 12 GW were knocked out by the freezing spell. At the same time, there is a shortage of natural gas, likely because of the sudden spike in demand. And it could get worse.

The cold spell has hit the oil and gas industry in Texas as well. Oil wells are being shuttered, and refineries are being shut down amid the blackouts caused by the deep freeze and a shortage of gas. Pipeline operations have also been affected by the blackouts, which could compromise gas supply further.

Related Video: To Pump Or Not To Pump: Big Oil Diverges On Production Strategy

“Attempting to electrify everything would concentrate our energy risks on an electricity grid that is already breaking under the surge in demand caused by the crazy cold weather,” wrote veteran energy journalist Robert Bryce in an article for Forbes this week. The current weather situation, Bryce said, shows very well why it would be highly risky to put all our eggs, as it were, in the electricity basket. If we electrified everything, he argued, it will only a matter of time before a much more serious blackout hits.

Indeed, a blackout of massive proportions almost hit Europe earlier this year. The fact that the catastrophe was avoided was lucky, but the event highlighted two problems: over-reliance on intermittent solar and wind power, and a possibly excessive interconnectedness of the continent’s national grids.

Cost of Electrification

Speaking of Europe, its solar power production has dropped to zero these days. No country except Slovenia is producing solar power right now, and Slovenia’s production is a meager less than 1 percent of its total generation. Wind power is going strong in most of Europe, but solar is out.

In Sweden, even wind power production is low because wind activity is low. So Sweden, which has ambitions to become all-renewable by 2040, is seeing a jump in electricity prices to the highest since 2011 and is urging people to conserve energy by reducing their consumption. Incidentally, it is also importing electricity from countries such as Poland and Lithuania, which generate it from coal, compromising Sweden’s green commitment.

This is telling us—in no uncertain terms—that the lack of diversification is the opposite of wise. It is as true of electricity supply as it is of economies and businesses. Total electrification and the shutting out of fossil fuels completely will mean blackouts. It’s as simple as that.

Because while the energy generated by the Sun and the wind comes free, it cannot be summoned when you need it, and even combined with energy storage, it will be insufficient. That’s what fossil fuels are for.

Incidentally, a report from last year forecast that the Earth was entering a cooling period because of a phenomenon called a Grand Solar Minimum that could last until 2053 and lead to a “noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature.”

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com   

Books By Irina Slav

https://www.amazon.com/Irina-Slav/e/B00N2V4USC%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

 

 

 

Tom Nolan's NOTE:  Here is the title from Irina's link at the National Institute of Health...

Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7575229/

 

 

[Marcin2 + 726]

On 2/13/2021 at 7:03 PM, NickW said:

That wasn't the question - nice diversion. 

Your premise is that  anti fracking campaigners in Europe are commie stooges ( I except some could be) rather than being residents concerned about having fracking operations underneath or near their houses.

Stands to reason then that your fellow anti wind farm / solar protesters are commie stooges too? 

I do not know how it is in the rest of EU, but in Poland fracking would be impossible from the point of view of environmental laws (and simple common sense).

How much is worth polluting of underground water for 10,000 years ?

I do not know the rationale in the United States. Could anybody explain it to me ?

I know the rationale in China (we are commies and can do anything)

 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

Thanks for posting all of above. Taken as a whole, they tell the story well. 

Ironically, Texas hasn't really "winterized" its above-ground natural gas pipes. There's enough condensed water in methane to cause problems . . . under enough pressure and low enough temperatures. The small amount of water in methane is of course removed at the LNG train, so as more and more NG became converted to LNG for exportation, some of the basics were considered too mundane for normal operating procedures. 

Obviously, there is so much excess natural gas--almost pure methane--in Texas that if all 54% of energy from other sources (wind, nuclear, solar, coal) were to be lost completely, ERCOT should be able to fill the void quite handily with natural gas. The problem will be looked for, covered up, argued over, politicized, argued over some more, and then, finally, Texas will winterize its natural gas gathering, treatment and distribution systems to withstand such a vicious weather event. 

Part of the problem has to be attributed to the fact that, as Coffee pointed out, natural gas utility plants have been relegated more and more to "backup" systems, subservient to wind especially--even thought the thousands of towers/turbines are pockmarks upon the prettiest part of the Texas face. Maybe just sell all the wind energy to Florida and rely on the tried and proven: natural gas, which, thanks to the extreme lack of discipline shown by the Texas Railroad Commission, is being flared to the tune of several million dollars worth per day. 

Plus, in the overall scheme of the world, these windmills aren't going to do much to change the direction Mother Nature has decided upon. It may be, as the very erudite article above stated, that we're entering a Grand Solar Minimum with a downtick in temperatures each year. Okay, say that's right, then Texas might be in for more of this extreme winter weather. If so, those windmill blades aren't going to last long and will freeze up when needed most, but if they winterize the above-ground natural gas pipes, and also bury their electric lines, they'll have reliable electricity. I'm sure this will be the ultimate end result: they have to be exceptionally humiliated right now, no matter how good a face Gregg Abbot tries to pin on the Texas spirit.

Some are acting like this is an exceptionally bizarre event. Yes to this degree but no to its occurrence. The polar winds have been breaking through the jet stream for as long as I've been alive. Those northern polar winds are counterclockwise and vicious, held in place by the encircling jet stream, which becomes weaker at the peak of winter. When the polar winds rip through the outer boundary there's nothing to stop them from leaking down over the heartland, and the bigger the hole in the encasing jet stream the bigger the storm. 

In short, Texas, this may be the new norm. And there is an obvious fix.   

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

3 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Thanks for posting all of above. Taken as a whole, they tell the story well. 

Ironically, Texas hasn't really "winterized" its above-ground natural gas pipes. There's enough condensed water in methane to cause problems . . . under enough pressure and low enough temperatures. The small amount of water in methane is of course removed at the LNG train, so as more and more NG became converted to LNG for exportation, some of the basics were considered too mundane for normal operating procedures. 

Obviously, there is so much excess natural gas--almost pure methane--in Texas that if all 54% of energy from other sources (wind, nuclear, solar, coal) were to be lost completely, ERCOT should be able to fill the void quite handily with natural gas. The problem will be looked for, covered up, argued over, politicized, argued over some more, and then, finally, Texas will winterize its natural gas gathering, treatment and distribution systems to withstand such a vicious weather event. 

Part of the problem has to be attributed to the fact that, as Coffee pointed out, natural gas utility plants have been relegated more and more to "backup" systems, subservient to wind especially--even thought the thousands of towers/turbines are pockmarks upon the prettiest part of the Texas face. Maybe just sell all the wind energy to Florida and rely on the tried and proven: natural gas, which, thanks to the extreme lack of discipline shown by the Texas Railroad Commission, is being flared to the tune of several million dollars worth per day. 

Plus, in the overall scheme of the world, these windmills aren't going to do much to change the direction Mother Nature has decided upon. It may be, as the very erudite article above stated, that we're entering a Grand Solar Minimum with a downtick in temperatures each year. Okay, say that's right, then Texas might be in for more of this extreme winter weather. If so, those windmill blades aren't going to last long and will freeze up when needed most, but if they winterize the above-ground natural gas pipes, and also bury their electric lines, they'll have reliable electricity. I'm sure this will be the ultimate end result: they have to be exceptionally humiliated right now, no matter how good a face Gregg Abbot tries to pin on the Texas spirit.

Some are acting like this is an exceptionally bizarre event. Yes to this degree but no to its occurrence. The polar winds have been breaking through the jet stream for as long as I've been alive. Those northern polar winds are counterclockwise and vicious, held in place by the encircling jet stream, which becomes weaker at the peak of winter. When the polar winds rip through the outer boundary there's nothing to stop them from leaking down over the heartland, and the bigger the hole in the encasing jet stream the bigger the storm. 

In short, Texas, this may be the new norm. And there is an obvious fix.   

And there is an obvious fix.  

Yes it would seem these wind farms need a rather large battery bank to buffer there output to the grid.

When looking at all the issues it seems some body of governance needs there deck reshuffled. Wind turbines may be considered a modern marvel, perhaps they are.

However as a continuous power supply they are dismal. Just the mere fact the turbines rely on wind demonstrates as much. 

If one looks at the design of a the turbine a automatic transmission/gearbox is used to stabilize there output..again a very bad concept in stability.

It would seem rather than buffering the farms output for reliable constant the grid itself was made to compensate for these wild swings.

There is a old comedy about such events, Don't let the Tail Wag the Dog.

Then again that does seem to be a rather popular concept in today's world.

It would be Intresting to see the contracts of service liabilities these wind farms have with the state of Texas...A echo of what are you talking about comes to mind.

Then there is the Act Of God clause. 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

There is an outstanding article today from RBN Energy (dated 2/16) describing the technical issues surrounding freeze offs and gas pipeline difficulties in these abnormally low temperatures currently in Texas and Mid Con.

 

Of particular note, apparently over 30 pipeline companies have either declared force majeure or issued operational orders restricting transportation volumes on their systems.

This is an especially forboding sign in regards to prompt "getting back to normal" vis a vis electricity generation in Texas.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

^

Thanks for pointing out the RBN Energy article. It was well-written, as usual, and entertaining, also as usual. 

However, they make it sound as if there was no chance to do anything to prevent what may yet turn into a humanitarian crisis--this freeze-off. And there actually was plenty of time and warning for the operators to employ methanol infusion into the production stream. It doesn't take much methanol, nor much equipment either. 

Once those weird crystals--methane within water, known as hydrates but really clathrates--form, church is out. They are very hard to deconstruct, because the cage of one molecule within another molecule is a very unusual chemical configuration. So despite words to the contrary, there should have been every reason in the world to make some calls (to the Bakken, or better yet, Canada) to learn how to handle this oncoming ice storm. 

Hubris prevented this, if I had to guess. Well, the cost of flying down a gang of experts on managing something like this would pale with the cost of restarting gas through Christmas Trees at the wellhead and gathering plants. I'm not piling on, but this "unprecedented weather event" rings hollow to me. The methanol infusion has to be adjusted according to the water content within gas, but heated pipes past the Christmas Tree work very well. The Bakken uses this every winter. 

I suspect they'll be ready next time.

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

RELATED THREAD

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/22677-texas-forced-to-have-rolling-black-outs-not-from-downed-power-line-but-because-the-wind-energy-turbines-are-frozen/

 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

1 hour ago, Coffeeguyzz said:

There is an outstanding article today from RBN Energy (dated 2/16) describing the technical issues surrounding freeze offs and gas pipeline difficulties in these abnormally low temperatures currently in Texas and Mid Con.

 

Of particular note, apparently over 30 pipeline companies have either declared force majeure or issued operational orders restricting transportation volumes on their systems.

This is an especially forboding sign in regards to prompt "getting back to normal" vis a vis electricity generation in Texas.

 

Terminal Frost - Extreme Cold Wreaks Havoc with Natural Gas Producers, Power Generators, and Everybody in Between

Play this Blogcast

Tuesday, 02/16/2021Published by: Sheetal Nasta

https://rbnenergy.com/terminal-frost-extreme-cold-wreaks-havoc-with-natural-gas-producers-power-generators-and-everybody-in-between

EXCERPT...

As we said, both freeze-offs and power outages are contributing to the production losses. We’ll take those by turn, starting with freeze-offs.

Natural gas wellhead freeze-offs — a phenomena where low temperatures crystallize the water produced along with natural gas, forcing blockages at the wellhead — happen when outside temperatures drop below freezing in producing fields. The consequences range from minor inconvenience to major reductions in natural gas production and power outages affecting millions of customers. From a scale of 1 to 10, you could say Texas’s trouble has been turned up to 11 in terms of gas supply and power failure.

What exactly causes production freeze-offs? We first elaborated on this back in 2012 in our Cold As Ice blog, but here’s the Cliffs Notes. The production stream from a gas well contains raw gas mixed with various amounts of water and oil condensates that have to be promptly separated before the gas can be placed in a gathering‐system pipeline and sent to a processing plant. Since the advent of the Shale Revolution, two trends have increased the magnitude of freeze-offs. The first is that over the course of the last decade, production has increasingly focused on plays that feature wet gas containing higher quantities (measured as gallons per Mcf, or GPM) of natural gas liquids. The higher the liquids content of natural gas, the higher the risk of hydrates forming and causing freeze-offs. Moreover, as drilling activity has shifted toward targeting oil and NGLs in the Permian and SCOOP/STACK, the gas streams in those regions are particularly “wet” and susceptible to freeze-offs when temperatures do get below freezing for extended periods of time.

The second freeze-off risk factor is because hydraulic fracturing involves pumping thousands of gallons of water into the well — a proportion of which remains underground and rises to the surface with production (see Tales of the Tight Sand Laterals). The presence of that water increases the likelihood of freeze-offs in cold weather. For these reasons, freeze-offs are more typical in deep offshore wells and wells in northerly production regions and are a headache for oilier/wetter product streams.

Further, hydrates — the ice formed in the presence of low temperatures, high pressures, water and condensates — proliferate in well chokes, pipelines, and valves. The molecules encapsulate each other in a diamond shape and lock up, making them much harder to melt or dissolve than everyday ice-from-water. No question, this is the stuff of production and pipeline operators’ worst nightmares and it’s become reality across the Permian and Midcon basins in recent days. These southern production regions are ill-prepared for what’s unfolding. Deep offshore and northern production regions regularly experience lower temperatures during winter and are equipped to combat hydrates using a number of techniques, including bleeding methanol into the product stream. That’s not something the Lower Midcontinent and Texas producers typically have had to deal with, at least not to the extent required by a freeze of this magnitude....ARTICLE CONTINUES

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

(90 seconds)

https://youtu.be/EZZYYmHC0tI

Taken from Irina Slav's article ...

Oil Prices Soar As U.S. Oil Production Plunges 30%

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Prices-Soar-As-US-Oil-Production-Plunges-30.html

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[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Texas Bans NatGas Exports Out Of State, 7 Million Under 'Boil-Water' Notice

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/real-size-texas-blackouts-could-have-plunged-15-million-people-darkness

Update (1730ET): In a lengthy press conference, Tex as Governor Greg Abbott said that he has issued an order forbidding Texas gas producers from selling to power producers outside of its borders through Feb. 21.

one minute

https://youtu.be/AzcSNDg4bRo

This action comes after TCEQ warned that the water crisis will worsen in coming days, which is shocking since almost 7 million Texans are currently under a "boil-water"-order notice.

*  *  *

Update (1503ET): The Houston Chronicle reports ERCOT declined to give an estimate when the power will be restored to millions of customers. The grid operator warned controlled blackouts would continue as 40% of generation capacity remains offline. 

"We're unable to give any real specific because of the variables we've identified around the resources and the weather," ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness said.

"We're optimistic we'll see some today as we see some warming trend … and get it down to a level where even if we're not finished, at least you can see the rotation of the outages, so that the people who've been without power for so long can get some relief," Magness said. 

Temperatures across the state are expected to rise by the weekend, bringing an end to Artic conditions that triggered one of the worst controlled blackouts in the country's history. 

 

As of this update, 2.995 million Texans are without power as the grid remains under stress. 

However, there is some good news.

The Southwest Power Pool (SSP), which manages the electric grid and wholesale power market for the central US, including Kansas, Oklahoma, portions of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska, said there is no need for blackouts today as "generation is currently sufficient to serve system-wide demand across the region and to fully satisfy operating reserve requirements."

* * * 

Update (1245ET): Texas grid operator ERCOT says 40% of generation capacity remains offline Wednesday morning. The operator states every fuel type for power generation has been impacted. 

As of this update, PowerOutage.us reports 3.345 million customers in the Lone Star State are without power. 

There's no word from ERCOT when all generation systems will be back online. 

* * * 

Millions of Americans are without power Wednesday morning as winter storms and freezing temperatures batter the country. At least 20 people are dead due to weather-related incidents. As for Texas, the state with the most power outages, millions are still without power heading into the fourth day. 

Bloomberg makes an interesting inquiry into the blackout's actual size across Texas in recent days. Considering utility companies count outages by "customers" and not actual people - the real number could be north of 15 million people who have been plunged into darkness amid frigid temperatures. 

Texas power grid operator ERCOT, which manages 90% of the state's electric load, serving more than 26 million customers, was forced to cut power to millions of customers as Arctic air spilled into the state, freezing wellheads that impeded the flow of natgas to power stations, triggering electric shortages as demand overwhelmed the grid. 

The high concentration of natgas generation on ERCOT's grid makes it vulnerable to power disruptions if fuel flow is disrupted. 

What's worse is that ERCOT is a separate grid than the rest of the country. This means ERCOT had limited abilities to pull power from other grids which was the resulting factor of why blackouts occurred. 

The highest amount of power outages in the Lone Star state occurred on Tuesday when PowerOutage.us recorded 4.423 million customers were without power. Bloomberg makes the point that since a customer is not factored into the number of people in a household, the number of people left in the dark could be "at least 15 million people." 

Data compiled by Bloomberg shows more than 26,000 megawatts of load have been wiped off the grid since Sunday. ERCOT warned customers over the weekend that rolling blackouts were needed to prevent a grid-wide collapse. For some context, a megawatt powers roughly 200 average homes in Texas.

Source: Bloomberg 

The blackout's real size remains a mystery, but it's undoubtedly one of the largest forced ones in the country's history. In the last several days, Texas has been transformed into a third-world country, with rolling blacks, controlled power outages, cellular networks down, water treatment facilities offline, and millions of people freezing in their homes while the state's economy grinds to a halt. 

PowerOutage.us shows 2.965 million customers are still without power in the state on Wednesday morning. With millions of Americans in other states battered by winter weather and also suffering power outages, at least 75% of the Lower 48 states are covered by Snow. This week, at least 20 people have died from the wicked weather across the country. 

ERCOT wholesale electricity prices topped the grid's price cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour several times in the overnight session. Reminding readers, ERCOT prices are usually around $25/MWh.

The mystery remains - how many total people were thrown into darkness (and remain there) by ERCOT's failures to weatherize its grid against a cold blast.

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

My internet connection has been extremely slow all day.  I believe it is that way for many other Texans.  It was hard to trade with my brokerage also, because the connection was slow.

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Photos and short VIDEOS from TEXAS

Wednesday Feb 17

Is Texas Facing A Humanitarian Crisis?

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/texas-facing-humanitarian-crisis

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

^

This is definitely going to become a humanitarian crisis. 

What a shame!

I know this makes me sound like a caveman but in a state that's flaring several million dollars worth of natural gas a day, it seems to me like they should be selling all the wind energy they can harness to Florida and work to restore a reliable ERCOT grid based on winterized wellhead Christmas trees and pipe heaters at gathering stations and downstream. That, coupled with methanol infusion into the production stream, would quickly repair this mess. 

If they insist on depending on more and more wind energy, paying no heed to the needed changes to their natural gas production, Texas will quickly reverse its image as a place to go to become financially and emotionally secure. The problems with methane hydrate/clathrate formation in the natural gas pipelines can be easily mitigated. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

2 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

^

This is definitely going to become a humanitarian crisis. 

What a shame!

I know this makes me sound like a caveman but in a state that's flaring several million dollars worth of natural gas a day, it seems to me like they should be selling all the wind energy they can harness to Florida and work to restore a reliable ERCOT grid based on winterized wellhead Christmas trees and pipe heaters at gathering stations and downstream. That, coupled with methanol infusion into the production stream, would quickly repair this mess. 

If they insist on depending on more and more wind energy, paying no heed to the needed changes to their natural gas production, Texas will quickly reverse its image as a place to go to become financially and emotionally secure. The problems with methane hydrate/clathrate formation in the natural gas pipelines can be easily mitigated. 

No Cave Man Mr Maddoux, Courage Intellect and common sense are a badly needed commodity, one only needs to cast a glance across this country. Analytics need to leave the building.

https://www.rt.com/usa/509242-musk-tesla-mba-business/

Elon Musk provokes heated debate on corporate strategy after lamenting ‘MBA-ization of America’

Edited February 18, 2021 by Eyes Wide Open

[Boat + 1,325]

On 12/22/2020 at 1:31 AM, ronwagn said:

Not much difference. 

So coal at 66% in 2012 going down to 58% in 2019 is not much difference. What a bunch of gobblebygoop. Trumpism and chart reading go hand in hand. Dyslexia popularized.

[NickW + 2,714]

13 hours ago, Tom Nolan said:

 

Update (1245ET): Texas grid operator ERCOT says 40% of generation capacity remains offline Wednesday morning. The operator states every fuel type for power generation has been impacted. 

As of this update, PowerOutage.us reports 3.345 million customers in the Lone Star State are without power. 

 

The highest amount of power outages in the Lone Star state occurred on Tuesday when PowerOutage.us recorded 4.423 million customers were without power. Bloomberg makes the point that since a customer is not factored into the number of people in a household, the number of people left in the dark could be "at least 15 million people." 

Data compiled by Bloomberg shows more than 26,000 megawatts of load have been wiped off the grid since Sunday. ERCOT warned customers over the weekend that rolling blackouts were needed to prevent a grid-wide collapse. For some context, a megawatt powers roughly 200 average homes in Texas.

Source: Bloomberg 

One of the biggest benefits of having interconnects in a country with different time zones like the USA  is that you can take advantage of the variance in peak demand times and utilise each others peak load capacity. 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

RELATED THREAD - Long discussion about a variety of topics.

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/22677-texas-forced-to-have-rolling-black-outs-not-from-downed-power-line-but-because-the-wind-energy-turbines-are-frozen/

 

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

TEXAS ONCOR OUTAGE MAP - Real time (Oncor manages the transmission lines)

https://stormcenter.oncor.com/?c=control-a09f84af-bac6-465f-af1e-1b3fded43574&o=option-256e4c69-c3df-471f-9080-0cc66a9c644f

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

This article was mentioned earlier.  It bears a re-post, because it demonstrates the interconnection of infrastructure and energy sources and available manpower (remember the layoffs of oil workers).

Terminal Frost - Extreme Cold Wreaks Havoc with Natural Gas Producers, Power Generators, and Everybody in Between

Play this Blogcast

Tuesday, 02/16/2021

https://rbnenergy.com/terminal-frost-extreme-cold-wreaks-havoc-with-natural-gas-producers-power-generators-and-everybody-in-between

EXCERPTS

...As we said, both freeze-offs and power outages are contributing to the production losses. We’ll take those by turn, starting with freeze-offs.

Natural gas wellhead freeze-offs — a phenomena where low temperatures crystallize the water produced along with natural gas, forcing blockages at the wellhead — happen when outside temperatures drop below freezing in producing fields. The consequences range from minor inconvenience to major reductions in natural gas production and power outages affecting millions of customers. From a scale of 1 to 10, you could say Texas’s trouble has been turned up to 11 in terms of gas supply and power failure.

What exactly causes production freeze-offs? We first elaborated on this back in 2012 in our Cold As Ice blog, but here’s the Cliffs Notes. The production stream from a gas well contains raw gas mixed with various amounts of water and oil condensates that have to be promptly separated before the gas can be placed in a gathering‐system pipeline and sent to a processing plant. Since the advent of the Shale Revolution, two trends have increased the magnitude of freeze-offs. The first is that over the course of the last decade, production has increasingly focused on plays that feature wet gas containing higher quantities (measured as gallons per Mcf, or GPM) of natural gas liquids. The higher the liquids content of natural gas, the higher the risk of hydrates forming and causing freeze-offs. Moreover, as drilling activity has shifted toward targeting oil and NGLs in the Permian and SCOOP/STACK, the gas streams in those regions are particularly “wet” and susceptible to freeze-offs when temperatures do get below freezing for extended periods of time.

The second freeze-off risk factor is because hydraulic fracturing involves pumping thousands of gallons of water into the well — a proportion of which remains underground and rises to the surface with production (see Tales of the Tight Sand Laterals). The presence of that water increases the likelihood of freeze-offs in cold weather. For these reasons, freeze-offs are more typical in deep offshore wells and wells in northerly production regions and are a headache for oilier/wetter product streams.

Further, hydrates — the ice formed in the presence of low temperatures, high pressures, water and condensates — proliferate in well chokes, pipelines, and valves. The molecules encapsulate each other in a diamond shape and lock up, making them much harder to melt or dissolve than everyday ice-from-water. No question, this is the stuff of production and pipeline operators’ worst nightmares and it’s become reality across the Permian and Midcon basins in recent days. These southern production regions are ill-prepared for what’s unfolding. Deep offshore and northern production regions regularly experience lower temperatures during winter and are equipped to combat hydrates using a number of techniques, including bleeding methanol into the product stream. That’s not something the Lower Midcontinent and Texas producers typically have had to deal with, at least not to the extent required by a freeze of this magnitude.

There are several points at which freeze-offs are common and can block the gas flow, including: right at the wellhead pipe-and-valve “Christmas tree,” in the inlet scrubber or separator that splits out the gas, water and condensate streams, and again just as the gas exits the separator and flows into the gathering system. There are processes to keep the wellhead operational, including the removal of water and condensates that accumulate in limited onsite storage breakdown. But these systems can automatically shut down production flows if those storage tanks don’t drain and fill to capacity. Similarly, freeze-offs can worsen if operators aren’t able to replenish the chemicals that prevent condensation in the gathering systems.

You can bet that maintenance crews are in overdrive right now, working 24/7 to keep valves operating where possible, both at the wellhead and between gathering systems and downstream pipelines, assuming road conditions allow access and assuming downstream pipelines are still able to move the volumes (more on the transportation roadblocks in a bit). However, these sub-freezing temperatures make it very difficult to keep separators and heater treaters hot enough to separate water from gas and crude and then stabilize the crude streams to meet Reid vapor pressure (RVP) limits. Even just keeping the heater treaters lit is a challenge in conditions this cold. Heater treaters burn gas from the lease, but if you can’t get the gas separated from the water and oil, the gas stream won’t stay lit. We can imagine that water tanks are no fun to keep flowing either in these frigid conditions.

In the oil- and liquids-driven basins, as gas output freezes off, so do crude and NGL volumes. (Yesterday, Occidental Petroleum, the second-largest oil producer in the Permian, became the first to officially declare force majeure, telling customers that freezing weather conditions caused transportation disruptions, according to a Bloomberg news report.) And, once volumes are affected, it can take days and a stretch of consistently warmer weather to remove hydrates with methanol, hot fluids, and pigs in the field, especially when all equipment and resources are stretched thin across several states and crews are working in dangerous conditions.

So how long can we expect production losses to persist? Well, there’s really not a good historical precedent here — it’s never gotten quite this cold in the Lower Midcontinent and Texas regions, and even when it has gotten anywhere close, there wasn’t as much gas being produced as there is now. But if we go back to another cold wave in recent history — during the winter of 2017-18 — we can get some context (Figure 2). During that period, population-weighted temperatures fell below 40 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Day (meaning that some areas experienced much colder temperatures) and continued lower with the national average temperatures dropping below freezing on December 31, 2017, and bottoming out around 28.5 degrees on January 1, 2018 (blue line). It wasn’t until January 3 that the population-weighted national average rose above the freezing point (purple line). All told, overall average U.S. temperatures remained below 40 degrees for 14 days, and it wasn’t until January 11, 2018, that they returned to 50 degrees, just briefly. That was followed by another, five-day sub-40-degree period in mid-January 2018. That Arctic outbreak affected much of the Eastern and Central U.S. including parts of Texas. Lower-48 production (navy-blue area in Figure 2) fell from around 80 Bcf/d to about 72 Bcf/d over a period of about six days and remained there for a few days before climbing as temperatures rose back above the freezing point. About half the offline volumes returned within days. But it took another two weeks or so of sustained higher temperatures for volumes to reach 80 Bcf/d again....

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Bloomberg Wednesday 17th

Jerry Jones-Owned Gas Driller Hits ‘Jackpot’ on Price Surge

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jerry-jones-owned-gas-driller-192238198.html

(Bloomberg) -- The natural gas producer owned by Dallas billionaire Jerry Jones is cashing in on a surge in prices for the fuel as a brutal freeze grips the central U.S., leaving millions without power.

Comstock Resources Inc. has been able to sell gas from its Haynesville Shale wells in East Texas and northern Louisiana at premium prices since Thursday. As demand jumps amid the cold, gas at some regional hubs has soared past $1,000 per million British thermal units.

Gas from Comstock’s Haynesville wells was sold on the spot market for between $15 and $179 per thousand cubic feet, chief financial officer Roland Burns said Wednesday on an earnings call. That translates to between $15.55 and $186 per million British thermal units.

“This week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices,“ Burns said. “Frankly, we were able to sell at super premium prices for a material amount of production.“

Gas production has tumbled to a four-year low as a polar blast triggers blackouts across Texas and other central U.S. states, freezes liquids inside of pipes and forces wells to shut. Producers may take until March to fully restore supplies due to equipment damage, according to Charles Nevle, senior director for North American gas at IHS Markit.

At the Henry Hub in Louisiana, the delivery benchmark for futures in New York, spot gas traded at $20 or higher on Wednesday morning, according to two traders. That compares with a settlement of $16.13 on Tuesday and just $3.73 a week ago.

Supply for next-day delivery at the Oneok Gas Transportation hub in Oklahoma traded at $1,250 per million British thermal units on Wednesday, according to David Hoy, a trader at Dynasty Power in Calgary. That’s up from $999 on Tuesday, and just $9 a week ago.

(Adds Wednesday’s natural gas prices in sixth, seventh paragraphs)

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/texas-failed-winterize-nuclear-plant-leading-reactor-shut-down

Texas Failed To Winterize Nuclear Plant Leading To Reactor Shut Down

by Tyler Durden

Thursday, Feb 18, 2021 - 9:15

A polar vortex split dumped Arctic air into Texas, along with multiple winter storms, created havoc on the state's power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). What happened, and why, more specifically, how did one nuclear power plant which provides power for two million homes shutdown? 

How is it possible that a nuclear power plant in Texas had to shutter operations due to freezing weather, but nuclear power plants can operate without disruption in Russia? 

The answer is simple - the South Texas Nuclear Power Station failed to winterize its facilities. After all, whoever thought Arctic conditions would be seen in on the Gulf of Mexico?

On Monday, the nuclear power plant had to shut one of two reactors down, halving its 2,700 megawatts of generating capacity. The plant, which operates on a 12,200-acre site west of the Colorado River about 90 miles southwest of Houston, provides power for more than two million homes. 

According to Washington Examiner, the nuclear power plant was not winterized to withstand cold weather. 

"It's very rare for weather issues to shut down a nuclear plant," said Brett Rampal, director of nuclear innovation at the Clean Air Task Force. "Some equipment in some nuclear plants in Texas has not been hardened for extreme cold weather because there was never a need for this."

On Monday, South Texas Nuclear Power Station posted "Event Number: 55104" on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission website explaining low steam generation was due to the loss of water pumps. In response, reactor one was shutdown. 

"It was the connection between the power plant and outside systems," Alex Gilbert, project manager at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told the Washington Examiner.

The reactor's shutdown only represented 1,280 megawatts of the 30,000 megawatts of outages on Monday. Nuclear power provides about 11% of ERCOT's power. 

Much of the power generation loss was due to freezing wellheads that impeded the flow of natgas to power stations, triggering electric shortages as demand overwhelmed the grid. 

The high concentration of natgas generation on ERCOT's grid makes it vulnerable to power disruptions if fuel flow is disrupted. 

What's worse is that ERCOT is a separate grid than the rest of the country. This means ERCOT had limited ability to pull power from other grids, which was why blackouts occurred.

The reactor's return would boost the grid and help in restoring power. Overnight, ERCOT tweeted that they "continue to restore power, electric companies continue to bring generation back online." 

Arctic air is expected to leave the Lone Star State by the late weekend. This means power generation could be mostly restored as various fuel types of generation come back online. 

But even as power returns, Texas is facing a humanitarian crisis as unintended consequences of a several day power grid collapse have left many people hungry, emotionally distraught, local economies ground to a halt, skyrocketing power bills for some, broken pipes in residential and commercial structures, water main breaks, and a major embarrassment for state leadership.