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#526 2021-02-19 21:39:09

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

SpaceNut,

We still have snow on the ground here.  In all of my years, I've never seen such a thing in Texas.  My father hasn't either, and he's lived here longer than I have.

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#527 2021-02-19 21:52:03

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Glad you are ok this should have happened days ago Biden says he plans to visit Texas and declare major disaster

hope that help gets there soon

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#528 2021-02-20 03:29:52

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

This article may be interesting regarding the Texas grid failure
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021 … exas-trip/


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#529 2021-02-20 10:36:32

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

All I can say is that we out here on the farm,  powered by the rural electric cooperative from smaller power plants,  had little in the way of rolling blackouts to deal with.  That seems to be the case with most of the small rural coop power systems:  they seem to have proved to be more reliable than the giant power companies.  I'm not sure why that is,  but the coops also generally use smaller generating plants,  too. 

My farm shop is unheated.  I put the faucet on drip,  cut off and drained the toilet (adding antifreeze to the bowl),  and turned on some warm lights and a small heater,  aimed at the piping.  I had no troubles with anything freezing in there.

The tap on my beer keg refrigerator in the garage did freeze,  but a few hours exposure overnight to a small incandescent light fixed that. 

One grey water outfall suddenly froze up when my wife stopped the faucet that was dripping through it.  That required a few pot-fulls of hot water,  and about an hour's abuse of my wife's hair dryer,  to fix.  Being an unpressurized drain,  the pipe fortunately didn't crack,  despite being plastic. 

Other people apparently did not fare so well.  There must be some line breaks somewhere on our country coop water system,  because the pressure is low,  although still adequate.  A whole lot of folks around these parts apparently do not know how to protect water lines by dripping the faucets and adding heat sources. You have to start long before things begin soaking out cold. 

Near-collapse of the Texas electric grid:

What ERCOT did instituting rolling blackouts that became widespread instead of rolling,  was stop a cascading emergency trip-out of very large generating plants when demand exceeds supply.  That would have caused catastrophic damage to those plants,  requiring months without power to repair. They did the right thing.

What ERCOT could not do was require any of the natural gas suppliers,  or the transmission pipeline operators,  to install well-known "best practices" for resisting sustained severe cold weather.  Because of ideology,  those were made voluntary,  not mandatory,  years ago by the state government.  And that is why this current disaster was pre-ordained.

The proximate cause was natural gas wellheads and pipelines freezing up with ices formed from the moisture in the natural gas.  Very high pressure compressible flow conditions are used to transmit natural gas.  The flowing gas can get very cold indeed, just due to localized expansion effects,  greatly compounded by the cold weather around the pipe. 

The moisture in the gas can form icy clathrates,  which aggravate the plain water ice formation.  Ices block the pipe,  and in bad snowy-and-icy weather,  the "fixit" crews couldn't travel to the affected sites very well.   

A bit over half of Texas's generating capacity is natural gas-fueled power plants,  and something like half of them went off-line for lack of fuel (a drop of about 30% in capacity).  Coal is second, wind power is third at about 20-25% maximum,  and fourth is nuclear. 

We had about half the wind generators not turning for some sorts of cold-induced problems, but ERCOT's own data showed the remainder producing about factor 2 more than ERCOT wanted from the wind farms.  I guess the wind has been better than average out in west Texas during this crisis. 

Regardless,  even the full capacity of the windfarms was less than the lost natural gas capacity.  And that should tell you where the real problem was.

It's hard to tell from the reports,  but it appears a few coal plants may have had cooling water main breaks in the cold,  so some capacity was lost there.

There was one unit at one nuclear plant that shut down for a bad sensor.  That seems to be unrelated to the cold.

The problem here is really one of bad utility management choices some years ago.  Primarily:  making cold weather hardening voluntary instead of mandatory.  Secondarily:  the business model does not incentivize adding capacity,  only making money selling electricity from what you already have in place.  (Added capacity would also greatly alleviate the summer demand problems we experience every year.)

Both of those choices seem to be serious mistakes for operating a public utility,  because it demonstrably kills people. Ideology-driven utility management choices is quite clearly not the right way to do this.


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#530 2021-02-20 11:01:19

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For GW Johnson re #529

Thank you for your report on less-troubled life away from the larger cities.

On the subject of water ... I was amazed to see how many apartment owners failed to provide for draining the water from their pipes.

However, in their defense, I reflected on the likelihood I would have forgotten to drain the water in my home if a similar disaster had struck.  kbd512 has provided comprehensive detail lists of how to prepare for an emergency if a family has to leave home for some reason.  A similar list for a home owner who is planning to ** stay ** at home during an event like this would (presumably) include draining water lines.

The drip process might work as well (come to think of it) but the refinement I think might make sense (for urban homes) is to set up a hose away from a spigot on the side of the house (assuming one exists) so the exiting water will freeze well away from the house.

A procedure to flush commodes regularly might make sense as well.

There were reports of water lines from commodes freezing in prisons, although I am sketchy on details of those situations.  ** That ** is a challenging situation for the officers responsible for the welfare of incarcerated persons!

There were reports of emergency situations at several hospitals.  One I recall in particular involved assistance from the local fire department to pump water from a low pressure hydrant up to the storage tanks at the top of the hospital.

Regarding the political climate in Texas .... I don't expect that to change ... the people who live in Texas (or at least the voters) seem to prefer the responsibility that comes with self-governance and a desire to keep costs low and to do without reserves for emergency.

A possible benefit is incentive for people living in such a State to decide they can't count on the central government, and to take matters into their own hands.

A friend who lives in Houston told me that in his particular case, despite living in the middle of a dense neighborhood, he was drawing well water, so was not impacted by the outages others were experiencing.  I was (and still am) surprised, because wells like that are discouraged where I live.  However, Houston is in Texas, so I guess that must be OK.

My friend chose NOT to run a gas line to his house, which is all-electric.  In conversation, I thought I detected hints he'll be rethinking that policy, although in Texas, even a supply of gas is NOT guaranteed.  It is possible to run a generator from propane, but maintaining a tank of propane for the rare emergency seems (to me at least) to present it's own challenges.

Congratulations on the success of your prevention steps and emergency procedures.

Edit#1: Setting pipes to a slow leak may not be the best option for a large community, such as a city ...

Water pressure dropped after lines
froze and because many people left
faucets dripping to prevent pipes from
icing, said Toby Baker, executive direc-
tor of the Texas Commission on Envi-
ronmental Quality. Abbott urged resi-
dents to shut off water to prevent more
busted pipes and preserve municipal
system pressure.

This report was from a local paper ... it points out that if everyone sets faucets to a slow flow to prevent freezing, then it follows that pressure will fall in the system. 

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-02-20 12:31:05)

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#531 2021-02-20 13:01:16

tahanson43206
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For GW Johnson (and others who may be interested) ...

The quote below comes from an email from a gent who lives in Houston ...

They aren’t explaining it in the news but the basic reason so much of Texas is without power is this:

1) SEVERE cold temps for all of Texas has resulted in peak Electrical AND peak Natural Gas demand. 
2) Peak residential gas furnace demand at the same time as peak gas fired generation demand in conjunction with state gas production falling off due to cold & ice tripping many facilities in the field offline has resulted in a shortage of natural gas pipeline supply which has resulted in reduced gas pipeline supply and line pressures.
3) These reduced gas line pressures caused by supply shortages have caused the largest industrial users of natural gas - Gas Fired Power Plants - to trip offline because they require near normal  gas grid off take pressures to feed their turbine intake manifolds or they can’t run. 
When they Trip offline many cannot restart even when gas line supply has improved because the lack of waste heat from their operating turbines and electric heat tracing of pipes mean that while they were offline their water cooling and control systems have frozen!!!
4) So nearly half of Texas key gas fired power plant capacity (at least 25,000 Megawatts) has gone offline when it is most needed, ironically because the residential and commercial users that most need power are using SO much natural gas themselves that they helped starve the same system that feeds the power plants they so desperately need!!!
5) As millions more customers lost power, that meant/means no electric heat power demand as well as no residential gas demand for those same customers because you can’t run a gas furnace without power to run the blower fan and the thermostat driven electric control system...
6) So gradually, and ironically, the electric customers without power will allow the gas grid to SLOWLY be replenished to normal system pressures from salt dome storage withdrawals from Louisiana, Texas production, curtailed industrial customers, and etc... and, then
7) the gas grid being slowly resupplied will allow gas fired power generators to slowly come back on line and slowly restore power to customers - IF, and only IF, those gas generation plants have not frozen up while offline...
8) all this continues while temperatures will gradually start to go higher later this week helping to thaw out sadly frozen gas generators and also reducing demand for natural gas AND electricity due to the warmer temps, and so...
9) gradually the systems will be able to come back into balance and everything will be back to “Normal”.
10) “Normal” is a state with too little gas and too little electric “spare” capacity and too little winterized equipment because post the late 1990s deregulation, there is no effective public regulator or public rate base surcharge facility to pay for excess capacity needed in these rare but critical demand situations.

The email concludes with the statement: It will happen again.

(th)

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#532 2021-02-20 13:17:15

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

The hardships Extreme Cold Killed Texans in Their Bedrooms, Vehicles and Backyards

In a state almost never see's a freeze condition being cheap to save money has proved why planning for it saves money in the long run. Other than trees or large branches new England seems to have learned that along time ago.
Battery buffers on all but nuclear would solve many issue for those that feed the grid under net metering from all other sources.

Good to see Biden declares major disaster in Texas as focus shifts to who is responsible for the winter weather crisis

Now time for Fema to step up its game

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#533 2021-02-20 16:02:57

kbd512
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

GW,

We did drip our faucets, but the Copper pipes that froze and burst were totally enclosed on all four sides between the ceiling of the balcony leading to our backyard patio and pool area.  The pipes did have insulation on them, but the insulation job was quite poor and the foam insulation sleeves were falling off, meaning not secured to the pipe with tape.  Both pipes broke immediately after brazed Copper fittings / elbow bends (nice clean splits about 3/4" long in both cases, probably where the braze joint annealed the Copper and made it very soft).  The offending fittings were replaced with much thicker Brass SharkBite couplings.  Foam insulation approximately twice as thick as what was replaced was secured around the pipes with tape (because the adhesive applied to the split in the foam sleeves loses adhesion over time).  Extra fiberglass insulation in the flooring will be added around the pipes to provide additional thermal protection.  A PVC trough (gutter pipe) will be secured around the Copper pipes so that if they burst again, the water stream will be redirected onto the patio from a drain hole / opening in the balcony's ceiling, rather than back down through the walls and into our house.  The Copper pipe itself appeared to be in good condition, as it should, since it's less than 10 years old.  Our new home was built in 2013.

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#534 2021-02-20 18:24:01

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

video Soar over a snow-covered neighborhood in northern Texas

Florida Good Samaritan Dubbed 'Tampa Chainsaw Man' Helping Texans in Deep-Freeze Crisis

Aaron Davis flew from Tampa, Florida, to Austin, Texas, on Friday — because he wanted to help people affected by the snow and ice storm.

Texas couple take in stranded delivery driver for 5 days during storm

Why some Texans are facing catastrophic electric bills after a winter storm

Specifically, it’s Texas residents who rely on a wholesale power plan, rather than a fixed-rate plan, who have seen their bills climb after the demand for power jumped dramatically across the state this week as Winter Storm Uri struck and temperatures plunged.

Texas' dangerous week in the dark is a wake-up call for the country's infrastructure

Even as Texas struggled to restore electricity and water over the past week, signs of the risks posed by increasingly extreme weather to America’s aging infrastructure were cropping up across the country.

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#535 2021-02-21 10:07:45

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

How to Apply for FEMA Disaster Assistance For Texas Winter Storm Damage

How to help Texas: Where to donate to help people without power, heat and water after storm

This does even happen here as well BB1dRoHF.img?h=449&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

The one i saw Friday on spaulding turpike coming home was a pickup truck pertched on the top of the divided highway medium strip guard rail.

Here is a new term to go with polar vortex in Pineapple Express
Which means rain coming.....

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#536 2021-02-21 11:42:50

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Kbd512:

Freezes like this one are very rare in Houston or anywhere on the coastal plain or south Texas.  If it happens again (and it may,  but not for a few years yet,  statistically),  heavier copper fittings will not stop the damage.  The copper tube will swell and split if nothing else.  That's a simple consequence of water-as-ice being 10% more voluminous than water-as-liquid. 

Your description suggest you had foam-insulated copper lines hidden inside an unheated overhang structure exposed to cold on both sides (top and bottom).  While you have it open for repairs,  you might consider a thin layer of insulation,  then an electric heating tape,  then more insulation over that.  Insulation alone is inadequate for a several-days freezing event.  You can heat-sink your way through a 1-2 day transient,  but not much more.

It'll work just fine as long as the grid doesn't fail again.  I'd put a disable switch in the electric line feeding the heating tape.  Only turn it on when a freeze threatens.  Suspenders-and-belt against a bad thermostat.

Otherwise,  what you describe with the better fittings,  better insulation,  and catch trough sounds great. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-02-21 11:43:30)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#537 2021-02-21 17:30:12

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Arlington man gets $17,000 electricity bill. Gov. Abbott will address price spikes

“It is unacceptable for Texans who suffered through days in the freezing cold without electricity or heat to now be hit with skyrocketing energy costs,” Abbott said.
Currently, the electric company Griddy is under fire after its customers are reporting having bills in the thousands because of the winter storm conditions. The company charges customers a $9.99 monthly fee and the cost of spot power traded on Texas’ electric grid based on the time of day they use electricity.

We can say this with a salt lick History reveals why Texas utilities brushed off the feds and how it's hurting millions now but the situation seems a repeat Texas and California built different power grids, but neither stood up to climate change

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#538 2021-02-22 00:46:56

kbd512
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

GW,

I'd need new wiring runs to do what you're describing and having anything electrical wrapped around water pipes that might crack no matter what I do, could be problematic.  I'm going to look into it, because I don't want this to ever happen again.  The existing insulation was literally falling off the pipes, even the parts that didn't burst.  The water found the weak spot, which happened to be right next to a brazed joint on both pipes.  I'm seriously thinking about 304 stainless at this point.  Copper, Brass, PVC, and PEX all seem to come with issues that stainless is less affected by.

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#539 2021-02-22 09:40:51

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Kbd512:

The trick is to stop the freeze,  not resist it.  I've seen ice bust steel pipes.  The volume increase due to ice formation is just beyond what any practical materials can endure.  For a short event,  the heat of the water and pipe inside well-done insulation will get you through 1-2 days.  For a longer event,  you must supply heat energy in some way.  It's just physics. 

A heating tape for a short run of pipe pulls about the same amount of electricity as a coffee pot.  You can pretty much tap into any circuit with a 15 amp breaker,  and not worry about it,  unless there is something else "big" on that circuit,  like a refrigerator or a freezer.  Just run the wire and tap in,  in parallel at the next junction point,  like at a light switch. 

As I said,  it will likely be years before anything remotely as severe as what we just endured happens again.  The real "trick" for surviving that is a grid hardened against winter events as well as summer high demand.  Those idiots in Austin were supposed to do that,  but they did not. 

Otherwise,  everybody needs a generator,   and propane won't work in cold like that.  We'll run out of gasoline and diesel if we have to do that.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-02-22 09:41:59)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#540 2021-02-22 11:17:54

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For GW Johnson re #539 above ...

I was with you right to your last line ...

I expect that natural gas (methane) from the utility can keep a generator going as long as the utility is running.

I'm acquainted (through friends who have generators) with the option to run on either methane or propane, but switching is not easy or convenient.

I don't know the details, but I had assumed propane is a better bet if the home owner is laying in a supply of fuel for an emergency.

Does propane not work because the tank is outside, and flow of gas through valves causes residual water to freeze inside the line.

Edit#1: To put that question another way, if the emergency fuel chosen is propane, is there a way to protect the system from severe cold?

Would those electric tapes you've mentioned work to keep the lines above freezing?

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-02-22 11:19:27)

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#541 2021-02-22 14:59:45

kbd512
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

tahanson43206,

Running an electrical cord near a gas line is asking for an explosion.  All compressed gases have some amount of water vapor content in the fuel.  I was surprised by the amount of water in our natural gas lines when the gas company replaced our exterior gas lines and gas meter.  It was cool, not hot or cold, outside at that time.  I think it was only a month or so back when they did that.  None of our new equipment has leaked, so far as I can tell.

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#542 2021-02-22 18:39:40

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For kbd512 re #541

Thanks for the practical observations about water in delivered gas, and the caution about how to keep gas pipes and fixtures warm enough so they don't freeze up as was (obviously) a problem in Texas recently.  The risk of electrical ignition of gas near a pipe would be reduced if voltage is kept low, but there must be methods that work, because states and regions North of Texas routinely protect their systems.

I hope that other active forum members who may have knowledge in this area, or possibly experience in keeping gas supply equipment warm enough in severe weather will toss in a post or two.

Edit#1: In housekeeping, there was recently a brief exchange of posts about geothermal heating.  The exchange didn't progress far, but it did cause me to look at geothermal heating considerations.  Apparently the theory of operation of (most?) systems is based upon the observation that if one digs far enough below the surface of the Earth, there is a stable region of temperature on the order of 55 degrees that does not fluctuate regardless of extremes of heat or cold on the surface.  A temperature of 55 degrees would be sufficient to keep a propane tank and service line from freezing, if coils of liquid were near the tank to transfer thermal energy as needed.  The pumps to drive the fluid movement could be some distance away.

Apparently the temperature of the crust of the Earth ** does ** increase at great depths, as the excavation approaches the top of the mantle. However, digging a heat pump well a kilometer deep or more seems impractical to me.  Digging to such depths appears to be justified if valuable minerals can be retrieved. 

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-02-22 18:49:04)

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#543 2021-02-22 20:05:00

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

To answer the question about propane in cold weather:  propane has a vapor pressure that depends upon its liquid temperature,  and is larger at warmer temperatures.  At ordinary temperatures (50-70 F),  it is near 200-250 psia.  At those ordinary temperatures,  this is the pressure inside a propane bottle,  where the "atmosphere" above the liquid pool is all vapor propane. 

My little propane torch bottle had been stored outside in the cold,  and had soaked out to the vicinity of 0 F.  I opened the valve to light the torch,  and nothing came out.  I could shake the bottle and feel the liquid sloshing around,  but at temperatures that low,  the bottle pressure was essentially zero gauge (or at my elevation,  about 14.5 psia).   This problem is even worse with butane.  Oldsters have told me they built fires under their butane tanks in bad winter conditions,  to get anything out of them.  It's not as bad with ethane,  and methane still has lots of vapor pressure at extreme cold winter temperatures. 

Natural gas out of the ground varies dramatically from well-to-well and from time-to-time.  It is dominantly methane,  with significant ethane,  and noticeable propane and butane.  Higher hydrocarbons are traces.  It has water,  carbon dioxide,  and nitrogen in it.  Some wells even have a little hydrogen.  Others show gas sulfur compounds. 

Natural gas that has been processed for better fuel qualities is mostly methane with a little ethane,  and only a trace of water.  The propane,  butane,  and most of the water has been condensed out.  The nitrogen and carbon dioxide are still there,  and they reduce the volumetric heating value,  and so lower the price that can be commanded,  accordingly.  The separated-out propane and butane (around about a 3/4-1/4 split) are sold still mixed together as LPG gas.  The product sold as "propane" still has a trace of butane in it,  and vice versa.  LPG is cheaper,  with the propane and butane still being unseparated.

Cheaper natural gas has not been processed very well,  if at all,  and still has the easy condensibles,  including the water,  in it.  The water can freeze to ice in harsh cold weather,  stopping up the transmission piping.  It can also form clathrates in combination with the condensible hydrocarbons.  Those form ices even easier than the water all by itself.  Ices stop up pipes.  That problem is quite distinct from the low cold vapor pressure experienced with propane and butane (and LPG).

Winterization hardening of natural gas systems requires both (1) use of the more-costly properly-processed (dry) form of the fuel,  and (2) adequate insulation and heating equipment at the vulnerable parts of the piping system where pressure drops occur under high-pressure compressible flow conditions (something used to reduce required pipe diameter). Nothing too hard to understand about that.

Neither was done in Texas,  because these well-known actions were voluntary,  not required by regulations,  just to limit costs further,  and motivated by unregulated free market ideology on the part of the regulators of this industry.  Not at all hard to understand.  Very hard indeed to agree with or condone,  given what happened. 

And it has happened before,  at one level or another,  about once every decade. It is NOT like there has been no warning,  because there has been.  There are no viable excuses here!

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-02-22 20:16:03)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#544 2021-02-23 06:57:32

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For GW Johnson re #543

Thank you for your detailed explanation of the challenge of maintaining flow of various heating gases in cold temperatures, and for review of several grades of various gases supplied to the market.

SearchTerm:Propane blockage due to cold weather or pressure changes
SearchTerm:Winterization of heating gas supply service

kbd512 offered a caution about heating gas supply lines and fixtures with electric heating tape.

From my perspective, that seems like a reasonable concern, although like many things in life, there is a risk associated with doing nothing at all, vs wrapping a fixture or line with electric heating tape.

Oh Good Grief!  I started a Google search for how to winterize gas lines, and the top listings are for how to winterize gas grills.

I've never taken any special precautions, and this is the first time I've become aware it is even something to worry about.

Perhaps the moisture content of the fuel delivered by the local utility is low in water content. 

I see from the Google citations that more than one person has been thinking about this ...

What it means to winterize Texas' energy plants | The Texas Tribune
www.texastribune.org › 2021/02/20 › texas-power-grid-winterize

Looking more closely at the citations for winterizing the grill, the citations appear to be for grills fed by a container of gas.

Here's a good suggestion that showed up in the Google citations ... in addition to draining water pipes in a house (or building) consider blowing the pipes with air to further reduce any lingering moisture that might be present.  I do that with my garden hoses, so the suggestion rings a bell.

Thanks again to GW Johnson and kbd512 for contributions to this subtopic.

(th)

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#545 2021-02-23 19:46:29

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
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Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Well that reminds me about some mars topic that related in Power Distribution by pipelines on Mars. which includes movement of other liquids to gasses which also brought me to the sabetier methane which has a water by product in chamber reactions and of the tanks which could have the pressure and water problems even on mars.
One way to keep the lines and tanks would be to use excess from Solar Heliostat System with Molten Salt Bath, and Liquid CO2 Method. to send the heat down to lines with them wrapped with capillary tubes to draw the cold away with the heat from the molten salt to working fluids as an exchanger. The same trick can be used on tank ends to keep water from freezing. The for pressure drop use heated helium in the same manner as is done with rocket fuels.

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#546 2021-02-24 22:17:19

SpaceNut
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Why intense winter freezes will still happen in a heating world

Extreme cold in Texas during years like 1983, 1989, and 2011 foreshadowed the 2021 freeze, yet the state largely ignored a major 357-page report published in 2011, which urged a weatherization of Texas' vulnerable energy infrastructure.

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#547 2021-03-06 19:30:28

SpaceNut
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Video report

Elon Musk, Microsoft and oil giants like Occidental and Chevron are investing in technologies to capture carbon. Carbon Engineering and Climeworks are two start-ups that have built machines to suck CO2 straight out of the atmosphere and store it underground. But the industry faces a number of challenges. The dream is to suck carbon from the air and bury it, but the reality is that some captured CO2 helps to make more oil.

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#548 2021-03-07 00:34:06

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

SpaceNut,

They shouldn't be pumping CO2 underground after the energy / time / money was spent to collect it.  Instead, it should be turned into new petroleum products, presuming the goal is to continue to have usable energy for transportation while preventing CO2 levels from rising.  We can certainly electrify the grid since weight is not an issue, but batteries are insufficiently energy dense to electrify anything but small personal vehicles and portable tools / appliances.  I still don't see this as any different than recycling metals or plastics.  CO2 is simply another natural resource that requires far less input energy when it's recycled.

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#549 2021-03-07 06:35:42

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

For all contributing to this topic ... A report appeared recently in the news feed, about carbon capture by making artificial stone.  If someone can find that article or a similar one, it would be helpful, as a form of carbon capture that is "permanent".

I agree with kbd512 that making fuel or other useful products makes sense and it should definitely be on the list of "things to do".

Capturing carbon in fresh plant life is a temporary measure, but it makes sense as well

The ** best ** thing humans can do is to stop drawing down the reserves of stored carbon nature has bequeathed us.

A quick Google lookup confirmed that the "stone" I was thinking of is "limestone" ...

The formula (per Google) is CaCO3 ... Now ** that's ** a lot of Carbon sequestered, at the cost of only one Calcium atom.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-03-07 06:36:10)

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#550 2021-03-07 08:58:33

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

If the underground is storage then we can recover it later for making into products that we can use.
The good thing is the technology for mars is made from the engineering of this task.

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