Texas forced to have rolling black outs, primarily because of large declines in output from fossil fuel power plants

[turbguy + 1,540]

19 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

You seriously have not seen wind turbines?  Alberta, a plenty cold place, is loaded with them.https://earth.google.com/web/@49.62205466,-113.79708326,1108.27365078a,1939.77908936d,35y,160.40788351h,45.01433081t,0r

Everything is shut down by a bad enough ice storm...  Roads become slippery when covered with ice, people crash and die, should we not use roads or cars?  Logic, try it sometime.

Yup. Ice storms an be really nasty to recover from.  Who you gonna call when...

Awww...sh*t!

Edited March 9, 2021 by turbguy

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

16 hours ago, Symmetry said:

You seriously have not seen wind turbines?  Alberta, a plenty cold place, is loaded with them.https://earth.google.com/web/@49.62205466,-113.79708326,1108.27365078a,1939.77908936d,35y,160.40788351h,45.01433081t,0r

Everything is shut down by a bad enough ice storm...  Roads become slippery when covered with ice, people crash and die, should we not use roads or cars?  Logic, try it sometime.

 

 

Your speaking to logic look at your own thought process. Equating a sub zero environment to freezing rain? Being raised in the northern plain states i do believe snow is the precipitation that Alberta's farms would brave, along with the cold effecting the mechanics inside the actual turbine itself. Which by the way is the cold weather pkg is designed to accomplish.. keep the internal mechanic's in operating temp zones.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

16 hours ago, turbguy said:

Yup. Ice storms an be really nasty to recover from.  Who you gonna call when...

Awww...sh*t!

Yes it would seem that network had flaws built into to, the reporting point's to insulators failing bring down that entire line system. Do you wonder if they used the same insulators to rebuild that network?

Edited March 9, 2021 by Eyes Wide Open

[turbguy + 1,540]

4 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Yes it would seem that network had flaws built into to, the reporting point's to insulators failing bring down that entire line system. Do you wonder if they used the same insulators to rebuild that network?

I imagine Hydro Quebec used whatever they could get their hands on after that ice storm.

[Symmetry + 109]

20 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Your speaking to logic look at your own thought process. Equating a sub zero environment to freezing rain?

I'm not spoon feeding this to you any longer.

You started: " Frankly at this point it no longer matters, wind turbines can be paralyzed at any point in a ice storm."

I pointed out that is not an argument against wind turbines, as all things fail under sufficient ice.

You asked for example of turbine working in real world winter conditions, I provided them.

You continue to put all the blame on wind even though that has been clearly been shown not to be the case.

You have no argument, only preconceived notions and attempts to please the peanut gallery.   Feel free to insult me, it pleases the cult and might get you an upvote!  Facts don't matter.

 

[Symmetry + 109]

27 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Yes it would seem that network had flaws built into to, the reporting point's to insulators failing bring down that entire line system. Do you wonder if they used the same insulators to rebuild that network?

The towers fell under the weight of ice. Nothing to due with electricity as that has shorted after the first tower fell...  The trees fell down too, did they have flaws?

Whatever "seems" to you is usually wrong. 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Symmetry

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

59 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

The towers fell under the weight of ice. Nothing to due with electricity as that has shorted after the first tower fell...  The trees fell down too, did they have flaws?

Whatever "seems" to you is usually wrong. 

Have a read. https://www.inmr.com/ice-storm-blackout-98-act-god-act-insulator/

According to White, a proportion of insulators in-service on the affected networks were sub-standard, relying on a formulation of cement containing an aluminium oxide additive intended to significantly reduce cure times. But, he insisted this reduction was matched by a similar reduction in mechanical performance. In fact, he claimed that there were clear indications from testing that these insulators were beginning to lose mechanical strength even while still in the warehouse. White then produced a photo of a failed double V-string on a 735 kV line using these same inferior insulators and that he stated demonstrates that they were failing at only half their rated load. “All the available evidence from this disaster,” stressed White, “supports one simple conclusion: bad insulators in any dead-end assembly just cannot be tolerated.”

 

[turbguy + 1,540]

10 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Have a read. https://www.inmr.com/ice-storm-blackout-98-act-god-act-insulator/

According to White, a proportion of insulators in-service on the affected networks were sub-standard, relying on a formulation of cement containing an aluminium oxide additive intended to significantly reduce cure times. But, he insisted this reduction was matched by a similar reduction in mechanical performance. In fact, he claimed that there were clear indications from testing that these insulators were beginning to lose mechanical strength even while still in the warehouse. White then produced a photo of a failed double V-string on a 735 kV line using these same inferior insulators and that he stated demonstrates that they were failing at only half their rated load. “All the available evidence from this disaster,” stressed White, “supports one simple conclusion: bad insulators in any dead-end assembly just cannot be tolerated.”

 

That particular insulator appears to have "survived" quite well. The towers were mechanically overloaded.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

1 hour ago, Symmetry said:

I'm not spoon feeding this to you any longer.

You started: " Frankly at this point it no longer matters, wind turbines can be paralyzed at any point in a ice storm."

I pointed out that is not an argument against wind turbines, as all things fail under sufficient ice.

You asked for example of turbine working in real world winter conditions, I provided them.

You continue to put all the blame on wind even though that has been clearly been shown not to be the case.

You have no argument, only preconceived notions and attempts to please the peanut gallery.   Feel free to insult me, it pleases the cult and might get you an upvote!  Facts don't matter.

 

I do not believe i have stated this grid failure was due to wind, but i have eluded to a hodge podged  system setup to accommodate green energy, it would seem grid frequency has yet to be harnessed in a manner that is reliable and acceptable. Yet at the same time we do seem to agree that wind turbines are a bit to fragile to be relied upon to provide a grid of this size and nature reliable energy production.

Sincerely 

The Cult.

 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

8 minutes ago, turbguy said:

That particular insulator appears to have "survived" quite well. The towers were mechanically overloaded.

Did you bother to read the article, written a life long field engineer...maybe fake new however.

[turbguy + 1,540]

4 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Did you bother to read the article, written a life long field engineer...maybe fake new however.

Nope.  Just looked at the photo of an intact stand-off insulator and the crumpled structures than used to hold the up.

[Symmetry + 109]

7 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Did you bother to read the article, written a life long field engineer...maybe fake new however.

Of course some insulators failed.  Everything failed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Symmetry

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

Just now, turbguy said:

Nope.  Just looked at the photo of an intact stand-off insulator and the crumpled structures than used to hold the up.

Here...

White contrasted these problems with what can happen if there is a failure of the overhead wire system on a transmission line. If this critical system is interrupted, he said, there will be longitudinal loads that will almost inevitably lead to cascading. He noted that certain type of structures, for example guyed V towers, may be able to resist this up to a point. But with heavy ice loads on the conductors, such a cascade would become virtually impossible to stop, no matter what the tower type.

White cited the example of the elaborate dead system for a 735 kV line consisting of four parallel chains of 36 insulators each and yoked together. He stated that if one insulator in any of these chains fails mechanically, tremendous shock is transferred to the entire assembly – an energy release that he estimates is the equivalent of dropping a good sized car a distance of several meters.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

Just now, Symmetry said:

Of course some insulators failed.  Everything failed.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm

 

White contrasted these problems with what can happen if there is a failure of the overhead wire system on a transmission line. If this critical system is interrupted, he said, there will be longitudinal loads that will almost inevitably lead to cascading. He noted that certain type of structures, for example guyed V towers, may be able to resist this up to a point. But with heavy ice loads on the conductors, such a cascade would become virtually impossible to stop, no matter what the tower type.

White cited the example of the elaborate dead system for a 735 kV line consisting of four parallel chains of 36 insulators each and yoked together. He stated that if one insulator in any of these chains fails mechanically, tremendous shock is transferred to the entire assembly – an energy release that he estimates is the equivalent of dropping a good sized car a distance of several meters.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

8 hours ago, turbguy said:

That particular insulator appears to have "survived" quite well. The towers were mechanically overloaded.

The problem I has was thinking that an "insulator failure" is a failure to electrically insulate, Since that is not a reasonable cause of a tower collapse, I rejected the whole idea.  But that's not what the paper is about.

The paper that @Eyes Wide Open cited is quite interesting. The towers failed in a "cascade failure" that started at a single failure point. I think that everyone agrees that this was a cascade failure. All of the towers and wires were under very heavy ice load, and then a single failure threw a dynamic impulse load that overloaded a tower, which propagated the dynamic impulse. the question is: what was the initial failure? This analyst thinks the failure occurred in one of the insulator strings  from which one wire is hung from a tower. Each wire is supported at each tower by a set of four of these insulator strings. The analyst claims that when the wire is very heavy due to ice, the failure of any one insulator in any one of the four strings will cause that string to fail to carry its share of the weight, which will increase the weight on the other three strings, causing then to fail in succession. This causes the wire to drop, which propagates the dynamic impulse to the neighboring towers. Ouch. This is at last plausible. I have no way to know if it is correct.

[turbguy + 1,540]

8 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

The problem I has was thinking that an "insulator failure" is a failure to electrically insulate, Since that is not a reasonable cause of a tower collapse, I rejected the whole idea.  But that's not what the paper is about.

The paper that @Eyes Wide Open cited is quite interesting. The towers failed in a "cascade failure" that started at a single failure point. I think that everyone agrees that this was a cascade failure. All of the towers and wires were under very heavy ice load, and then a single failure threw a dynamic impulse load that overloaded a tower, which propagated the dynamic impulse. the question is: what was the initial failure? This analyst thinks the failure occurred in one of the insulator strings  from which one wire is hung from a tower. Each wire is supported at each tower by a set of four of these insulator strings. The analyst claims that when the wire is very heavy due to ice, the failure of any one insulator in any one of the four strings will cause that string to fail to carry its share of the weight, which will increase the weight on the other three strings, causing then to fail in succession. This causes the wire to drop, which propagates the dynamic impulse to the neighboring towers. Ouch. This is at last plausible. I have no way to know if it is correct.

Oh, it's quite probable.

And it probably would not have occurred without the severe icing conditions.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

36 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Oh, it's quite probable.

And it probably would not have occurred without the severe icing conditions.

The wired and towers were grossly overloaded by truly exceptional icing, approximately four times higher by weight than any previous or subsequent event. Something was going to fail and cause the cascade, and it is reasonable that the insulator failure did it this time, but any system stressed far beyond it design limits will eventually have have a component failure. The new engineering problem became how to prevent a cascade. Apparently, it's not easy.

[Symmetry + 109]

14 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

The problem I has was thinking that an "insulator failure" is a failure to electrically insulate, Since that is not a reasonable cause of a tower collapse, I rejected the whole idea.  But that's not what the paper is about.

The paper that @Eyes Wide Open cited is quite interesting. The towers failed in a "cascade failure" that started at a single failure point. I think that everyone agrees that this was a cascade failure. All of the towers and wires were under very heavy ice load, and then a single failure threw a dynamic impulse load that overloaded a tower, which propagated the dynamic impulse. the question is: what was the initial failure? This analyst thinks the failure occurred in one of the insulator strings  from which one wire is hung from a tower. Each wire is supported at each tower by a set of four of these insulator strings. The analyst claims that when the wire is very heavy due to ice, the failure of any one insulator in any one of the four strings will cause that string to fail to carry its share of the weight, which will increase the weight on the other three strings, causing then to fail in succession. This causes the wire to drop, which propagates the dynamic impulse to the neighboring towers. Ouch. This is at last plausible. I have no way to know if it is correct.

Yes, something had to be the last straw that broke the camels back.     It is possible a weak insulator was the breaking point, a strong wind gust, heck, even some birds landing on the line may had been the final trigger.  Impossible to tell, but the weight of ice was clearly the main problem.

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Symmetry

[turbguy + 1,540]

AND NOW, more back-up generation will be purchased!

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-water-systems-now-must-plan-for-power-16277851.php

Hey, who designs a coupled equipment train with that much misalignment (see the photo in the link)?   They are just asking for trouble/high maintenance,