“That doesn’t solve the problem of getting LNG from the GoM to the NE Coast.
But if there were US flag VLNGCs carrying export LNG to Europe they could carry Arctic Russian or Norwegian LNG back to Boston. At least they’ll save on ballast voyages and total GHG emission.”
That is why I’m for a waiver on the Jones Act “build” requirement for the LNG tankers for a temporary period of time. They must be US Crewed. A similar exemption was granted years ago for cruise ships in the Hawaii trade.
Weren’t there a few US-built Moss-type LNG carriers laid up somewhere in Norway?
I recall they were really well built and incredibly expensive. But they’ve got to be going on 45 years old. Not sure anyone would insure or charter one going to a US Port.
Correct, but they were not flying US flag and I’m not sure if they are still afloat and operational (??)
There is no such thing as a “national grid”.
There is a western and eastern interconnect which serves most of the US and Canada and also some smaller interconnects such as the Texas and Quebec interconnects.
Feel free to get off your high horse about Greg Abbot and “free markets”
Blame game is just beginning. Stay tuned. There will be many excuses for “Not Our Fault”.
Fu@$ing Obama!!
I don’t think this horse is that high. The PUC, under the stated authority of the Gov, held an emergency meeting and specifically raised the $rates to their statutory cap because they felt they were too low on account of limited supply and massive demand. I find it hilarious that the Gov said he’s going to investigate the high rates! That’s the problem with under-regulated free-market utilities.
You don’t say…
A "free market’ is a relative term. This is from Investopedia:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A free market is one where voluntary exchange and the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system, without government intervention.
- A key feature of free markets is the absence of coerced (forced) transactions or conditions on transactions.
- While no pure free market economies actually exist, and all markets are in some ways constrained, economists who measure the degree of freedom in markets have found a generally positive relationship between free markets and measures of economic well being.
In the case of the market for electricity the Texas grid run by ERCOT was constrained in that the market is limited to electricity produced in Texas.
The way the market was designed consumers can’t cross state lines to purchase electricity produced out of state at lower prices or higher quality, (more reliable in cold weather for example).
I am guessing it was the one for Navigation Road. The only lift bridge that I can recall in Corpus. It has since been removed and not replaced.
Cmakin, you are correct, yes, Navigation Road. Haven’t heard mention of that road in decades. Sparked a cylinder in my old ass brain. Only lift bridge in Corpus limiting access to the meat of the oil business there. Wasn’t aware it had been removed. It was a pain in the ass. I retired in 2003. What year (If you know) did they make that smart change? Not important, just curious.
It was called the Tule Lake Lift Bridge. They removed the span and towers in 2008, then in 2017 started removing the underwater portions to widen the waterway.
My understanding is that there is no “interconnect” to the Texas system from either the Eastern or Western Interconnects, thus they could not ‘buy or borrow’ any assistance. Also understand that the Eastern and Western can share power, so different from the “we don’t need anyone else” Texan approach.
I feel very bad for the citizens who were ignorant of the system they were tied to, or enrolled in, but don’t think FEMA should be paying the bills. Just fattens the fat cats. Texas owns this self-made problem.
It was a narrow spot with a bit of a bend, Got the name right (Tule Lake). Thanks for the update.
Well with all due respect your understanding is wrong. There are multiple DC ties and at least 1 AC tie that I don’t believe is in regular usage.
So if you think Texas “owns” the problem, should other states be held to the same standard when they have outages? If CAL ISO creates a “self-made” problem as you say, should they get federal help?
Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding. But it doesn’t appear that any support was received from outside the state.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/02/19/texas-cold-early-warning/
Well I respect that you concede that point. Unlike most of the people in this thread spewing fake news, I’ve actually worked in the utility transmission industry and hove SOME knowledge of how it works. That being said I’m actually fact checking what I’m saying. How many people in this thread actually did that before regurgitating something from a “news” article.
Having read through those two articles I don’t see any data on how much power was flowing into the Texas interconnect from the east or Mexico. So I’m not sure what you mean by support? Even at full power the DC ties only provide a small amount of power.
FERC wrote a huge paper on the 2011 winter outage so if you actually want to know what’s going on start with that, it will give much more knowledge that an article from WaPo.
It seems to me that the problem stems from the usually working system that pays power companies only as they supply power and not in any way for additional capacity that might not be in use but may be required. The incentive for power companies is thus to provide power by the cheapest means and actually look forward to times of power shortages because the price they receive rises considerably.
There is no incentive to have additional capacity ready to make more power and so lower the price they receive. Why build a power plant that may sit idle most of the year and whose only effect when in use is to lower the peak price they receive when demand is high and reaching their capacity to supply?
A simple blackout starts a cascade of effects as people switch to alternative energies to heat their houses. Gas heaters turning on at the same time slows supplies down (in addition to frozen well heads etc) and pressure drops allowing the possibility of air to bypass valves which prevent this at normal pressures. Texas avoided explosions as well as freezing and blackouts by sheer luck as pressure falls were allowed to continue in the hope it would all work out. It was assessed that a few blown up neighbourhoods was less damage than shutting off the gas early. Shutting off gas could take weeks to restart. Frozen houses get burst pipes, basements flood, things ice over, then every furnace and gas line needs to be individually cleaned and inspected…
I’ve read Texas was seconds and minutes away from a catastrophic failure which would have taken weeks or months to restart. Venezuela had one that took weeks to restart.
Lots of interesting lessons in this one. I hope we all learn from it. Wind power did this to Texas. Be very afraid of a Green New Deal.