What Happened at the Sandy Creek Power Plant? (Effect to Texas Electrical Grid)

[TexasTowelie]

The Sandy Creek Power Plant is located near Riesel (southeast of Waco) and was set to come online later this year and produce 925 megawatts which would provide electricity to about 900,000 homes. When they started to bring the plant online a problem developed with the boiler at the plant.

An accident at the plant means one thing for its operators, who might prefer that the information stays protected. But what does it mean for the state of Texas? Before the accident, ERCOT thought it would be getting more than 900 Megawatts of new power from the plant in 2012. That was energy that Texas couldn’t afford to lose.

“Last summer, when we had very hot weather it was the hottest summer in recorded history, and we had very high loads, we came very close to rolling outages,” Saathoff says.

After the Sandy Creek accident, the state was worried it wouldn’t have enough capacity to buffer itself in times of peak electricity use.

Geoffrey Gay, a lawyer who works on electric rates, says there wasn’t much the state could do about it. “Deregulation means that the regulators have given up their right to control the supply of power,” he says.

The plant is now scheduled to come online in 2013. If this summer is similar to what occurred in 2011, then power outages may become commonplace. Meanwhile...

Back in Reisel, the failing of the plant might illustrate something more. Potatoes are boiling in the kitchen of Lorrain and Lewis Pulley. They have a view of the power plant through their window. And they can watch parts of it being disassembled.

“The public’s gonna pay for everything,” Lorrain Pulley says. “I don’t see any way around it.”

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/01/24/what-happened-at-the-sandy-creek-power-plant/

[sonias]

1. I just read that article

Wow! Freaking amazing - what a coinky dink huh? Last year's power outages during the cold snap are just the beginning. This summer it's going to boil over, everywhere.

Plant boiler goes kaput and the whole Texas electric grid is total chaos. And nobody has to answer any questions the public has. Why this is a private enterprise - it's none of your business!

Geoffrey Gay, a lawyer who works on electric rates, says there wasn’t much the state could do about it. “Deregulation means that the regulators have given up their right to control the supply of power,” he says.

Deregulation - it's the root of power outages. Plain and simple. Texas gave control of the supply to the private sector and they're so greedy that things are just going to get worse. More expensive and less reliable.

[TexasTowelie]

3. So when the grid had brownouts during the summer of 2010,

was that an extreme weather event? Guess what--the temperature often passes 100 degrees during summer throughout the entire state.

So do you intend to claim that some power plants were down for maintenance back in 2010? Well in that case, the utility industry gets the Triple-P (Piss Poor Planning) award. Well, probably not since the utility industry was able to hike their charges during the peak consumption hours thereby making more money!

Power Generation,
Thank you for taking your ignorance and writing it on the internet for the world to see. Why don't you get back to work instead of trolling the Internet? And in case I forget--bye, bye now.

[sonias]

4. +100

You called it - "power industry troll"!

[TexasTowelie]

6. Actually you are the ignorant one because I didn't hide your post.

I did alert on your previous post because you were rude to another DUer. Why don't you read the policies for this site so that you don't show your ignorance again? You will learn that your prior post was hidden by a jury vote with a unaminous 6-0 decision and I was not a member of the jury.

Therefore, I think it is reasonable for me to ask you to use your brain, stop insulting other members and learn the policies of this site. It is also the reason why I'm going to alert on this post since you cannot make your point without insulting others.

As for your assertion that you have no reason to lie--that is pretty transparent. First, I never made any accusation about you lying. Second, you admitted that you work in the power industry; therefore, I expect that you are also getting paid by someone in the power industry. That seems like a very pertinent reason to lie since it affects your livelihood.

I won't address any of your questions because they are none of your business. I will admit that I was wrong about summer 2010, it was actually during April 2006 when unusually warm temperatures caused rolling brownouts. There were also times during summer 2011 when several warnings were issued about rolling brownouts. Are high temperatures considered to be an extreme condition in Texas?

By the way, I did take physics and had a couple of friends that worked for the electric utility when I lived in Austin so your assertion that I know nothing about generating electricity falls flat. I am also aware of how the power industry manipulates the market to increase revenue by having shutdowns of generating stations. That means that I do rely on the Internet and by word of mouth--but if comments are restricted to only those who are employed within a specific industry, then there would never be any discussion of the issues.

Why did you change your username?

[TexasTowelie]

7. To power generation2:

In an effort to be fair to a new author on this site, I am relaying the jury results of your post under "power generation2". FYI, I did not mark the post as a TOS violation as juror #3 noted.

[font color=red]YOUR COMMENTS:

Rude post by author who had a previous comment hidden. (Alerted by TexasTowelie).[/font]

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Wed Feb 22, 2012, 01:53 AM, and voted 4-2 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: Rude post by an author who thinks that creating a new username will give him/her carte blanche in promoting the policies of his/her employers.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT and said: The poster apparently created a second account to get around being locked out of the thread when his post was hidden with his previous account. That violates community standards, and gaming the software is a TOS violation. (I don't know whether the alerter checked the TOS box or not).
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: This is a tough one because the DUer who is posting is offering personal experiences that are relevant to the discussion but mixes in very offensive personal insults. I would leave it but explain to the DUer who posted this that future posts with similar insults will be removed not because of the point of view or factual content but because they destroy the sense of community on DU.

[sonias]

8. Power Generation Zombie

For all DUers reading this thread and wondering what is going on with the hidden comments. We have an industry troll who keeps resurrecting themselves and spewing vile comments on this thread. Feel free to hit alert on their posts when they cross the line. Which so far has been every one of their comments. (consider it whacking a mole fun).

He/she will get tired and slink back under their rock. Periodically we get these zombies pop up.