Thanks for the info Ken. The Generac unit I will be installing is about 8' x 4' and will power our whole house as if things were normal, 24,000 watts. My brother in law has one at his home in Ocala Florida an the has been really happy with it when hurricanes knock out their power.
It does seem that un green 'propaganda' on this photography site is OK.
It was not me that started the conversation. I and others pointed out that the diatribe was untrue and provided the evidence. That has sort of been admitted.
None of us are gloating at the travails of Texas, not like Mr Cruz did concerning California
Problems like that can happen anywhere.
Some what of a hostage to fortune that.
Another hostage to fortune, to rely on unreliable gas supplies, because if this event happened again, would not the gas deliveries also be affected as they were on this occasion.
Douglas Liu wrote:
Jim, Ray, Zayne (?) and other fine folks in the fine state of Texas, hope you will get over this weather mess soon! Take care!
Douglas
Thanks Douglas! We are beginning to see the end as of today. Still cold, very minimal melting, and it's headed back down to 13 tonight so the roads will be challenging. I've never seen The roads in Texas packed like this, and for this long. Gas and water is feeling a bit of a pinch at the moment, but we'll be ok.
Douglas Liu wrote:
Jim, Ray, Zayne (?) and other fine folks in the fine state of Texas, hope you will get over this weather mess soon! Take care!
Douglas
All's well at our house. It's been a bit challenging but our plight is much better than many in our area. We have not lost electric power at all.
We had a couple of faucets stop running, but I was able to thaw them with a hair dryer and put some heat on them to keep them from freezing again. Our water pressure dropped very low yesterday and the city issued a boil water advisory. So that's fun.
We have natural gas in the house so we were good there regardless.
Have not been out of the house since Sunday...
I built a LEGO monster truck that my son gave me. ( Yeah...I'm one of those perpetual kids)
The wife and I have been staying busy...going through closets full of family photos and scanning some slides.
How about a Kodachrome slide street scene from Tabriz Iran @ 1977? (My wife's dad worked for Bell Helicopter over there for a while)
Glad you are doing OK Zane, it's been a week hasn't it? I just finished replacing a 20 year old smoke alarm that decided to go toes up in the middle of this mess and began a low chirp about 2 am one night, and plugging a few places that I noticed a little draft. Going back to Tioga tomorrow morning to make sure the stock has food and water,.....................and to document a day of shenanigans before this is all gone. And hey, never apologize for being a perpetual kid, remember what Christ said about the children, it's the adults that are causing all the problems!
This guy doesn't seem to be bothered by it all...............
Sorry I haven't responded sooner. Been busy here on the farm plus the internet has been down.
Thank you Douglas and all the others for your prayers and wishes, they are working!
We have been without water for over 5 days, sleeping in 50 degree bedrooms, but the rest of the house is warm. Glad I planned two HVAC systems and a vent free fireplace, the warmest you can have in this weather, no electricity required. I have prayed to have the Big Guy Upstairs, not to stop this insanity, but to give me confidence and wisdom to support my wife and grandkids during this 75 year ice storm. No, this is not unusual for Texas, it happens every once in a while. 75 years ago and a 150 years ago. I can assure you those Texans/Texians were not calling for new ways for man to take control of the weather. Like me, they took care of their families, thanks to God's blessings.
I have shoveled over 500-600 lbs of snow (one of His blessings with the frigid temps) into our tubs to convert into usable water. I boil it, then run it through the coffee maker filter and set it aside to cool down. Water used for washing dishes is just boiled. Glad I had Boy Scout training, it has prepared this nearly 70 year old to survive this. Our country roads have over two inches of ice, so trucks are not getting to the stores. I can only get around in my UTV, and it is great for pulling grandkids on a sled through the ice and snow.
I have fallen about 7 or 8 times and my damn Apple Watch keeps wanting to call 911. It is hard to tell it "NO!" when you are wearing two sets of gloves. I have sprained my left wrist at least 3 times and it still works. So far so good, I am fine. All of us in this home are looking for solutions, not blame, along with a little fun. Aside from the sledding we have done baking, played chess and having outside fun with our German Shepherd and Lab. (Our Lab loves the snow and ice!)
Again, I can't thank you enough for your prayers, hopes and wishes, I will pass them along to Texans who continue to suffer.
Maybe check to see if your local food banks could use help in distributing food this weekend? That's what I think of when a disaster strikes, what can I do to help those less fortunate. Lord knows I've had enough in my lifetime.
Now to think about a trip to the museum for part of the day, I've not touched a camera in several months, and I'm on my last day of vacation, after working 60-75 hours a week since August. I've shoveled my neighbor's house out this week as well as my own.
Love the video Jim! Oh to be that young again. I am afraid I would not be able to move the next day if I tried that. By the way I love Chandler's truck!
My take is that this is not primarily a left/right or wind/gas issue. Politics do play a role in the design and construction of energy networks, and that's a fact: but voters and politicians of all stripes should fight for their preferred sources of energy while making absosmurfly sure the damn network works, and works well, even under huge stress.
Texas had bigger problems than natural gas vs wind energy during this storm. Texas had:
* insufficient reserve generating capacity to handle the interruptions in power production
* insufficient fuel storage capacity to handle the interruptions in fuel supply
* insufficient energy storage capacity to handle the interruptions in energy delivery
* too many energy suppliers who got crushed in storms a decade ago but still hadn't hardened or improved their systems so they could make a bigger short-term profit, so they got crushed again
* regulators who hadn't ridden herd on said greedy energy suppliers
* and Texas had decoupled from the broader regional/national grid a long time ago, for reasons I currently don't recall and on which I won't speculate.
The systems failed. Yes, the energy generation/transmission/delivery systems, but most importantly the regulatory systems. Texas should have been able to generate power with any mix of methods, and still be protected from massive failure. Heads should roll, because people died needlessly.
Please note that I'm not putting Texans down, nor making light of their suffering. Far from it! It bothers me that a few people doing the regulating, did such a poor job and hurt so many people. And that story is not just a Texas story, it's been seen in a gazillion places this week and many other times.
Since I already do too much talking overall, I'll go back to photography myself. Here's two late-2017 shots of my son, then 8 years old (I think?) and playing goalie on his school's U9 soccer team:
I would say that your analysis was very balanced and fair.
The problems had almost nothing to do with failure of green energy, but pretty much as you describe.
It is a problem in the UK also. We in essence have a privatised and foreign owned energy market, with quite loose regulation and almost no redundancy, when things go wrong as they do sometimes The largest investment seems to be wind farms in the North sea and again mostly foreign owned and constructed. The profits do not come to the UK. I have no problems with wind farms or any kind of green energy, but these really must be matched up with very large scale storage. That kind of backup is at the moment not being invested in much as far as I can see.
The advantage of gas is that it can be switched on quickly, but is like all fossil fuels very polluting.
Green energy which in the end is limit less, together with storage is going to be the future.
We know this because a lot of the old oil companies have just caught on and are try to play catch up, by belatedly buying up at really unsustainable prices the new North sea contracts.I imagine that will also be working on storage, at least i hope so.
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
My take is that this is not primarily a left/right or wind/gas issue. Politics do play a role in the design and construction of energy networks, and that's a fact: but voters and politicians of all stripes should fight for their preferred sources of energy while making absosmurfly sure the damn network works, and works well, even under huge stress.
Texas had bigger problems than natural gas vs wind energy during this storm. Texas had:
* insufficient reserve generating capacity to handle the interruptions in power production
* insufficient fuel storage capacity to handle the interruptions in fuel supply
* insufficient energy storage capacity to handle the interruptions in energy delivery
* too many energy suppliers who got crushed in storms a decade ago but still hadn't hardened or improved their systems so they could make a bigger short-term profit, so they got crushed again
* regulators who hadn't ridden herd on said greedy energy suppliers
* and Texas had decoupled from the broader regional/national grid a long time ago, for reasons I currently don't recall and on which I won't speculate.
The systems failed. Yes, the energy generation/transmission/delivery systems, but most importantly the regulatory systems. Texas should have been able to generate power with any mix of methods, and still be protected from massive failure. Heads should roll, because people died needlessly.
Please note that I'm not putting Texans down, nor making light of their suffering. Far from it! It bothers me that a few people doing the regulating, did such a poor job and hurt so many people. And that story is not just a Texas story, it's been seen in a gazillion places this week and many other times....Show more →
All contributing to the "Perfect Storm"! Mother Nature knows no politics and is uninfluenced by human errors! She is her own yielder of consequences!
Hope my Texas and SW brothers/sisters are now safe, warm and getting back to some kinda of normal..whatever that may be!
Dan
Jan-Arie wrote:
With that music just like comedy capers
I may have missed your "update" on health "JA"...You doin' ok now??
Maryland is the epitome of a"charlie-foxtrot" concerning this whole virus situation and anything associated with it!
Dan
Ray Swindle wrote:
Sorry I haven't responded sooner. Been busy here on the farm plus the internet has been down.
Thank you Douglas and all the others for your prayers and wishes, they are working!
We have been without water for over 5 days, sleeping in 50 degree bedrooms, but the rest of the house is warm. Glad I planned two HVAC systems and a vent free fireplace, the warmest you can have in this weather, no electricity required. I have prayed to have the Big Guy Upstairs, not to stop this insanity, but to give me confidence and wisdom to support my wife and grandkids during this 75 year ice storm. No, this is not unusual for Texas, it happens every once in a while. 75 years ago and a 150 years ago. I can assure you those Texans/Texians were not calling for new ways for man to take control of the weather. Like me, they took care of their families, thanks to God's blessings.
I have shoveled over 500-600 lbs of snow (one of His blessings with the frigid temps) into our tubs to convert into usable water. I boil it, then run it through the coffee maker filter and set it aside to cool down. Water used for washing dishes is just boiled. Glad I had Boy Scout training, it has prepared this nearly 70 year old to survive this. Our country roads have over two inches of ice, so trucks are not getting to the stores. I can only get around in my UTV, and it is great for pulling grandkids on a sled through the ice and snow.
I have fallen about 7 or 8 times and my damn Apple Watch keeps wanting to call 911. It is hard to tell it "NO!" when you are wearing two sets of gloves. I have sprained my left wrist at least 3 times and it still works. So far so good, I am fine. All of us in this home are looking for solutions, not blame, along with a little fun. Aside from the sledding we have done baking, played chess and having outside fun with our German Shepherd and Lab. (Our Lab loves the snow and ice!)
Again, I can't thank you enough for your prayers, hopes and wishes, I will pass them along to Texans who continue to suffer.
Glad to hear you and all family members are fine Ray!!!
Yes those BSA merit badges saved my "six" before and still!!!! Once a scout, always a scout!
At 74 I HAVE to deal with all things and it is not fun!!! It takes more time and waaaayyyy more energy!..In fact just lost commercial power for a second here!
Dan
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Thanks for the info Ken. The Generac unit I will be installing is about 8' x 4' and will power our whole house as if things were normal, 24,000 watts. My brother in law has one at his home in Ocala Florida an the has been really happy with it when hurricanes knock out their power.
Jim, my son-in-law has one..a big un!!! He is an electrician and he loves it! Has not had to use it in 20+years..Generac are great generators!!!
Stay safe brother!
Dan
Spent the day up on the ranch yesterday, all the livestock survived, we got in a few hours of sledding behind the four wheeler, put a few rounds through my AR, photographed puppies in the snow, just a generally fun day. I'm thinking the pool is going to need a couple more days to thaw enough to run the pumps and see if anything is broken. We've been fortunate, helped a number of neighbors with their broken pipes and caved in ceilings, I'm thankful we were spared those joys.
Thanks Joe, Chandler love his truck, he has it all tricked out, it's good to be Chandler...............
Yesterday was an unexpectedly happy day for me. I watched my Grandchildren as they enjoyed each other, worked around the ranch, took care of a myriad of animals, played with puppies in the snow and built a snowman. They love God, each other, their animals and the Texas countryside, I couldn't ask for more than that.
It's not for everyone, but when I drive out to the ranch I feel like I'm dropping a trailer load of garbage at the Collin County Line, it's peaceful, it's beautiful, the people are kind, and respectful. If I didn't have to go back into the fray for a bag of money every once in a while, I don't think I'd ever leave.
