Re:The Texas Power Grid Is Hanging on by Its Fingernails
by tzs on Thursday August 12, 2021 @12:20PM
(#28158196)
I was in Seattle for about 7 years, and then about 15 miles west of Seattle for 20+ years. In Seattle I only had maybe two or three outages, only one of which laster more than an hour.
15 miles west of Seattle, there are maybe 2 or 3 a year almost always during high winds or heavy (for this area) snow. Those are usually fixed within an hour or two, but every few years there is a storm big enough to cause so many outages that it might take several hours for mine to get fixed.
I did have a 24 hour outage once when a tree took down a line on my street.
The important thing though is that none of these outages covered the whole region. They were all collections of local outages spread around the region, with plenty of places spread around the region where power stayed on.
In every case I could get in my car and drive a few minutes and find someplace where power is fine. The only time where it looked like that might be possible was the one with the tree down on my street, because the tree blocked the street. But there was a neighbor with a half loop driveway with the ends of the loop on different sides of the blockage letting people further down the street bypass the tree that way.
Most importantly, I've always been able to easily find a gas station somewhere that still has power. If I fill my tank and go back home I can stay in the car until power comes back on. Idling in the driveway with the heater running sufficiently to handle the coldest day, listing to the radio or using my phone charged via the car I've got over 24 hours of run time before I need to go get more gas.
I don't know how well that would work in summer since I've never checked the fuel consumption rate idling with the air condition on. Most multiple outages here are in Winter (storms) or Spring (wind) when heating, not cooling, is the concern. Summer outages are usually of the "transformer blew up" or "someone hit a pole and knocked it over" type which can get a repair crew assigned and onsite quickly.
15 miles west of Seattle, there are maybe 2 or 3 a year almost always during high winds or heavy (for this area) snow. Those are usually fixed within an hour or two, but every few years there is a storm big enough to cause so many outages that it might take several hours for mine to get fixed.
I did have a 24 hour outage once when a tree took down a line on my street.
The important thing though is that none of these outages covered the whole region. They were all collections of local outages spread around the region, with plenty of places spread around the region where power stayed on.
In every case I could get in my car and drive a few minutes and find someplace where power is fine. The only time where it looked like that might be possible was the one with the tree down on my street, because the tree blocked the street. But there was a neighbor with a half loop driveway with the ends of the loop on different sides of the blockage letting people further down the street bypass the tree that way.
Most importantly, I've always been able to easily find a gas station somewhere that still has power. If I fill my tank and go back home I can stay in the car until power comes back on. Idling in the driveway with the heater running sufficiently to handle the coldest day, listing to the radio or using my phone charged via the car I've got over 24 hours of run time before I need to go get more gas.
I don't know how well that would work in summer since I've never checked the fuel consumption rate idling with the air condition on. Most multiple outages here are in Winter (storms) or Spring (wind) when heating, not cooling, is the concern. Summer outages are usually of the "transformer blew up" or "someone hit a pole and knocked it over" type which can get a repair crew assigned and onsite quickly.