Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Tue Feb 16 18:00:34 UTC 2021

Last time I looked - admittedly a while - Texas made it VERY difficult 
for municipalities to set up broadband utilities, even in areas where no 
commercial player was interested.  Maybe that's catching up to them.

Miles Fidelman

Brandon Svec wrote:
> Mismanagement and poor planning are primarily to blame.  One can't 
> just blame the weather.  We know weather will be bad and have extreme 
> variations.  I am sure Texas politicians are considering what they 
> could have done better right now.. 
> https://twitter.com/blkahn/status/1361682089310052354
> *Brandon *
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 8:53 AM John Von Essen <john at essenz.com 
> <mailto:john at essenz.com>> wrote:
>
>     I just assumed most people in Texas have heat pumps- AC in the
>     summer and minimal heating in the winter when needed. When the
>     entire state gets a deep freeze, everybody is running those heat
>     pumps non-stop, and the generation capacity simply wasn’t there.
>     i.e. coal or natural gas plants have some turbines offline, etc.,.
>     in the winter because historically power use is much much less.
>     The odd thing is its been days now, those plants should be able to
>     ramp back up to capacity - but clearly they haven’t. Blaming this
>     on wind turbines is BS. In fact, if it weren’t for so many people
>     in Texas with grid-tie solar systems, the situation would be even
>     worse.
>
>     And of course, the real issue is Texas’ closed grid - any other
>     state could pull in more power from neighbors.
>
>     -John
>
>>     On Feb 15, 2021, at 11:34 PM, Cory Sell via NANOG
>>     <nanog at nanog.org <mailto:nanog at nanog.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Ercot has already released actual documentation of the outputs.
>>     Wind is NOT the biggest loss here. Even if wind was operating at
>>     100% capacity, we’d be in the same boat due to gas and fossil
>>     fuel-related generation being decimated. Estimated 4GW lost for
>>     wind doesn’t make up for the 30GW+ estimated being lost from
>>     fossil fuels.
>>
>>     I only interject because people are already pointing their
>>     fingers at renewables being the cause here and trying to pawn off
>>     the blame to wind/solar to further their agendas to reduce
>>     renewable energy R&D and adoption. Sure, wind isn’t perfect, but
>>     looks like solution relied on failed in a massive way.
>>
>>     Sent from ProtonMail Mobile
>>
>>
>>     On Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 10:17 PM, Robert Jacobs
>>     <rjacobs at pslightwave.com <mailto:rjacobs at pslightwave.com>> wrote:
>>>     How about letting us Texans have more natural gas power plants
>>>     or even let the gas be delivered to the plants we have so they
>>>     can provide more power in an emergency. Did not help that 20% of
>>>     our power is now wind which of course in an ice storm like we
>>>     are having is shut off... Lots of issues and plenty of politics
>>>     involved here..
>>>
>>>     Robert Jacobs
>>>
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>>>     -----Original Message-----
>>>     From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+rjacobs=pslightwave.com at nanog.org
>>>     <mailto:nanog-bounces+rjacobs=pslightwave.com at nanog.org>> On
>>>     Behalf Of Mark Tinka
>>>     Sent: Monday, February 15, 2021 10:06 PM
>>>     To: nanog at nanog.org <mailto:nanog at nanog.org>
>>>     Subject: Re: Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     On 2/16/21 04:14, Sean Donelan wrote:
>>>     >
>>>     > Poweroutage.us <http://Poweroutage.us> posted a terrific map,
>>>     showing the jurisdictional
>>>     > borders of the Texas power outages versus the storm related power
>>>     > outages elsewhere in the country.
>>>     >
>>>     > https://twitter.com/PowerOutage_us/status/1361493394070118402
>>>     >
>>>     >
>>>     > Sometimes infrastructure planning failures are not due to
>>>     "natural
>>>     > hazards."
>>>
>>>     I suppose having some kind of home backup solution wouldn't be
>>>     too bad right now, even though you may still not get access to
>>>     services. But at least, you can brew some coffee, and charge
>>>     your pulse oximetre.
>>>
>>>     Mark.
>>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
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