Whats your weather right now?

Ford shut down the big F150/ van plant in KC cuz no gas. Better get out there and blow hard on the windmills. Go green.
 
Have long thought natural gas electric cogen for the home heating would make a lot of sense here in the great white north. I pay much more in a monthly line fee for the privilege of having gas to the house than I do for actual gas consumption.
Think Co gen is popular in Australia? Honda makes cogen plants. with IC engines.

Gaz, we have here in Australia an abundance of thermal coal and metallurgical coal to boot, so much so we export in bulk ship loads to our “friends” in China and India amongst others. Burn coal to generate power, yep clean coal technologies is advancing. We have plenty of solar farms (endless sunny areas), the bloody eye sore wind farms are starting to take hold and of course we have a few huge hydroelectric powers stations both on mainland (Snowy Mountain river Scheme) and in Tasmania (Tasmanian Hydro electric), with wind farms starting to explode everywhere. There are huge gas fields in the Timor sea, mainland Australia as well, something else we export from Barrow Island Western Australia 12.7 mt and the port of Gladstone in Queensland....22.7 mt
Nuclear power generation isn’t happening here, we don’t need it, We’ll dig the yellow cake out too and send it to you, mineral rich Australia, love it, its kept me in work (geotechnical engineering in underground mining for coal, metalliferous surface and underground mining) for most of my working life.
The greenies are always bumping their gums about coal but without coal were way to reliant on that source of power generation. Underground mining isn’t such an eyesore, the open cut (cast) is a bloody mess i my opinion.

And the reason that Texas is on it's own grid dates back to when the U.S. had to come save Australia and New Zealand from having to learn to speak Japanese.

Interesting comment, “the US had to come save Australia and New Zealand“....pretty sure my father (survivor of the conflict) and uncle (shot down and killed) were “saving us” from the Jap’s way before Pearl Harbor. I do however acknowledge without the US involvement we probably would, as you say, be learning to speak Japanese.......
 
Ford shut down the big F150/ van plant in KC cuz no gas. Better get out there and blow hard on the windmills. Go green.
They proactively shut it down in anticipation of a shortage.
"Due to unseasonably cold temperatures in the midsection of the United States, Ford was warned that the availability of natural gas could be restricted in the Kansas City area in the coming days," said Kelli Felker, global manufacturing and labor communications manager.
"To ensure we minimize our use of natural gas that is critical to heat people’s homes, we have decided to cancel operations,"
she said. Link.
Btw.... go blow your own windmills. :cautious: :poke:
 
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Amazing, I get net failures and timeouts, but the advertising and spam just pours right in.

We got a double whammy down here. First, frigid arctic air floods into this area, cooling everything well below freezing. Then moist pacific air comes in from the west, rains thru the arctic air, supercools, and instantly freezes on everything it touches. My Ford's antenna is now a 1.5" diameter ice rod, quite heavy.

Pretty serious ice storm.

Trees couldn't handle the weight, busted trees and branches everywhere. Much of that took out the power lines. There's over 500 busted power lines poles in our portion of the grid.

Our CTEC grid is just north of, and adjacent to Jack's (Team Junk) grid.
20210218_IceStorm-PowerOutage01.jpg


The outage rates are quite high.
20210218_IceStorm-PowerOutage02.jpg


A lot of physical damage out here.
The pundits can argue all they want, but I tip my hat to all the crews and linemen working 24/7 in these frigid, demanding conditions trying to clean up this mess...
 
Back in '99 we had a really bad ice storm that knocked out the power in the North Country of New York state. They called it "The Black Triangle". Pole lines were down for miles. Phones lines could be be down, but as long as they weren't broke, they still worked (as long as Central offices were on generator power, which they all had). When we went up there to fix phone lines, they called us "heroes", but the people themselves were the heroes. A lot of them had almost nothing, but they were willing to share what they had. Everywhere we went, people would offer us a cup of coffee, or hot soup, cooked on a Coleman stove, wood burner, or some such. People pulled together to survive, such that it brought tears to our eyes, that during the worst, they were at their best. Weeks of sub-zero temperatures (one night. coming back to the hotel we were staying at, it was -22*F). We would fill up our trucks on the way back, so we could leave them running all night, so they wouldn't gel. Resourceful people will survive and thrive through this. Better days are coming. Be strong, be resilient, be creative, be careful, and take care of each other. Don't rely on anyone but yourselves, cuz that's all you might have. May God have mercy on us all. I count my Blessings, because here, the power is on, and the house is warm. Rant over.
 
Well, that has been a long eight days!

We lost our internet connection. Mrs deals with buying our phone and broadband, shopping around for best deal to suit our needs. We were with TalkTalk, the package ended 11th February, best package she found was also TalkTalk so she went ahead on that.

On 11th Feb, we found . . . no internet. No phones. Nada. Used her mobile to call the company. 'Oh, that's right, your new package kicks in today. Leave it till midnight (!) at the latest and all will be back to normal.' They said.

But that was bollocks. Next day, still nothing. So she called again. And very reasonably asked, how has renewing our package led to no connection? They had to think about that one. Lots of irrelevant questions. Have you ever had the internet? Have you used that PC/ those devices before? Irrelevant suggestions - try using a different electric socket.

It was the next day again before she spoke to somebody with a bit more sense. Apparently the new package was offered by TT as an 'upgrade'. We would benefit from super-dooper-fast-fibre-optic broadband.

Mrs pointed out that we ain't got fibre down our street. Oh, but our system shows that fast fibre is available in your postcode.

Uhm, it comes into our village, but only goes to the Local Authority HQ. Goes past the end of our street. Nobody in this village has fast fibre to a private address. Can we go back to what we had before?

Apparently, No. I don't know why, there was no comprehensible explanation. But we cannot go back from our 'upgraded' package to what we had before.

Eventually, they decided that they would send us a new router. Is that designed for fast fibre? Yes. Will it work on a copper network? Don't know. Hopefully, yes.

Then there's the weekend. Then they post the new router. Which arrived in our street yesterday. But the delivery driver couldn't find our house.

Today, at last, we have the new router. Well, it seems to work . . . but I digress.

The weather here? Much warmer, the snow has melted, rivers very high as expected.

Well, it’s good to have you back online Raymond.

I find dealing with internet companies like dealing with the tax authorities:
- there is a game;
- you must play;
- you are going to lose.
What fun!
 
Good to see folks coming back online...Here in NC its been raining again..Luckily we arent in a flood zone but our property is completely saturated. Water has pooled to form a lake .. it then starts to flow down the driveway..which is good...away from the house...Other parts of NC have been affected more adversely than us... A tornado on the coast killed 3 people and destroyed some homes..Further north and west of here got ice and power outages..None of that here...
 
Back in '99 we had a really bad ice storm that knocked out the power in the North Country of New York state. They called it "The Black Triangle". Pole lines were down for miles.

I remember that storm. I think what might have save many during that time is first the fact that houses and people were built to handle the cold temps. Second the number of people who heat at least as a back-up with wood.

I know if we were to loose power for several days in sub-freezing temps the biggest problem we would have might be the loss of internet or cable TV service. We have a small generator that can handle the well pump and anything else we need power for and would just have to hit the wood shed for another load of heat.

Technically when we built the house it was an all electric house but the electric heat was just installed as a back-up for when we might be gone on a vacation in winter. Did kind-of cheat and installed propane heater in detached garage but have enough in that tank to last till summer so can still work out there if the ambition hits me!
 
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As I said in my post you are reading the fake news from the liberal media. There have been many days when the windmills in west Texas produce more than half the power generated in the state .

Texas has come to rely increasingly on wind power in recent years. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts said last August that the state's usage of wind power has "more than quadrupled" since 2009, with wind rising to supply 20% of the state's total energy needs in 2019
From https://justthenews.com/politics-po...ata-indicate-wind-turbines-played-significant
 
Power restored this afternoon.
Slowly getting back to normal.
Mucky, mush, slush mess out there.

Took some pics, but had to wait for net stability.

Monday, February 15, 2021
Crack of dawn, 3°F, 3" snow atop 1" ice.
20210215_IceStorm01.jpg


This is the coldest I've ever experienced, and a record for here.

About 4 miles out yonder, on the horizon, is a ridgeline that I've never been able to see before. Busted down trees cleared the view.

Tonight will be the last sub-freezing temp for the foreseeable future...
 
More exploring the ice storm damage.

Monday, February 15, 2021
The path to the back acreage is completely blocked. A track shows where a deer had to turn around to find another way.
20210215_IceStorm02.jpg


My tractor is in there, somewhere.
20210215_IceStorm03.jpg


More busted-down trees.
20210215_IceStorm04.jpg


Glad I trimmed back those oaks, a year and a half ago. They would've taken out my power loop.
20210215_IceStorm05.jpg
 
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Ice covered oaks.
Kinda purdy, tho'.
20210215_IceStorm06.jpg


Even the tinyist twig is at least 1" diameter ice.
20210215_IceStorm07.jpg


My poor antenna.
20210215_IceStorm08.jpg


All this may seem ho-hum to our northern members, but is terribly unusual for down here. Many records were broken. Many folks are calling this "historic".

Think I'm getting snow blindness.
My fingers are numb...
 
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