> Operations in Texas have stumbled because temperatures are low enough to freeze oil and gas liquids at the well head and in pipelines that are laid on the ground, as opposed to under the surface as practiced in more northerly oil regions. The big question now is how quickly temperatures return to normal.
> First, Representative Gene Wu, Texas House of Representatives District 137, walks us through the “cascade” of problems that caused multiple generators to go out without back-ups in place. Including, water vapor inside natural gas generators that condensed and froze shutting down the machines and nuclear power plants whose cooling ponds froze, setting off automatic shutdowns. Rep. Wu also advocates turning off all non-emergency electronics to reduce the strain on the energy grid.
Imagine the fun of having those pipes freeze (this is the cooling loop - not the reactor loop so "just" power down the reactor - it's not the loop that deals with the water that passes through the core).
I have a colleague where an upstairs neighbor had a pipe freeze and leak because of a crack in the outside brickwork. Had to move out for a year. And, for many people, insurance won't really fully cover this sort of thing.
I often debate if I should get a generator for outlier events in a house.
Its... yea. That's going to be rather expensive.
Also, part of the power problem is frozen pipes - and not just water pipes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/texas-pow...
> Operations in Texas have stumbled because temperatures are low enough to freeze oil and gas liquids at the well head and in pipelines that are laid on the ground, as opposed to under the surface as practiced in more northerly oil regions. The big question now is how quickly temperatures return to normal.
For nuclear... the cooling ponds froze: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/town-squar...
> First, Representative Gene Wu, Texas House of Representatives District 137, walks us through the “cascade” of problems that caused multiple generators to go out without back-ups in place. Including, water vapor inside natural gas generators that condensed and froze shutting down the machines and nuclear power plants whose cooling ponds froze, setting off automatic shutdowns. Rep. Wu also advocates turning off all non-emergency electronics to reduce the strain on the energy grid.
Imagine the fun of having those pipes freeze (this is the cooling loop - not the reactor loop so "just" power down the reactor - it's not the loop that deals with the water that passes through the core).