Star Citizen studio accused by staff for making them work during Texas winter storm.

[HerrKaLeu]

4 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

We had rolling blackouts ten years ago last time it got a little cold too. Texas' government doesn't give a shit about its people.

I wonder who voted for the people in Texas State government.... I bet people from Texas.... 

[suicidalfranco]

I don't see the issue here?

Last year when intaly went into lockdown what did you think happened: My company started pay me to stay at home doing nothing or if there was something to do I'd work from home and if there was nothing to do I'd use my vacations?

Small hint: i started this year with negative 16 hours of accumulated vacations.

 

Same happens when it snows and moving back and forth from work is near impossible. With the only difference that a storm locks the place for at worst a week, the lockdown lasted 5 months.

 

I don't blame my company for it, frankly that was for the best. The alternative was to ask the company to release me from work during the lockdown and get money from the state. Which meant

1) less money per month, compared to my salary

2) there are still people waiting for their money since last year, so yeah

 

We got lucky that our company didn't suffer like many that ended up closing shop, and in that case forcing everyone who lost their job to rely on the state.

[AlwaysFSX]

4 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

And heaters don't work if there is no power.

The concept of doesn't exist =/= didn't work seems to be hard apparently. The government's failure to winterize the grid is not the same as Texas not having the equipment to deal with a snowstorm or other weather. They do.

[Vanderburg]

2 minutes ago, Rocky Arbigaus said:

Do you believe in labor laws?

Sure. I think many labor laws are good, but probably not all of them. Just calling something a "labor law" doesn't make it a good law. And disagreeing with one law (or 10 laws, or 100 laws, etc) doesn't mean you don't believe in laws.

[SteveGrabowski0]

4 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

The concept of doesn't exist =/= didn't work seems to be hard apparently. The government's failure to winterize the grid is not the same as Texas not having the equipment to deal with a snowstorm or other weather. They do.

I was reading his no heating comment as couldn't turn the heater on (because the power was out). I hope he wasn't actually suggesting people in Texas don't have heaters.

[Rocky Arbigaus]

Ok, great, sorry then if I dismissed you like a jackass.
But let me try to explain why I think this is fucked up, at least in my view. Back in Brazil, were I come from, there are no Unpaid Leaves. All your working days, holidays and vacations are all paid. You may have a discount if you fail to fulfill your monthly hours, but what your discount will be that month paid leave (Sunday, for example).
Additionally, we get a 13th salary, that would work almost the same way as your Christmas bonus, but granted by law as an extra salary month.
And on top of that, the employer must make a pension deposit to a protected account that we can only use if we get fired, buying the first house or in case of a natural disaster. 

Also, the employers is responsible from the employee security during work hours, and commuting to and from work is considered working hours. So yeah, working in your car during a blizzard is a big no-no, unless your company fancies a lawsuit.

[Rocky Arbigaus]

Again, sorry for being a jackass, I know it's no excuse, but this lockdown and some personal things are getting into me.

[AlwaysFSX]

21 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I was reading his no heating comment as couldn't turn the heater on (because the power was out). I hope he wasn't actually suggesting people in Texas don't have heaters.

He did, and suggested that Texan homes don't have insulation either. Except they do because of the heat.

[ravenshrike]

5 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

Agreed. Most air con they have works on reverse cycle to provide heating. However, many were without electricity. Interesting to hear why. First was the mounds of coal were so frozen that the automated units that put it un the furnaces could not operate. Second, they us masses of fracked gas, which has a content of water. Their gas pipes are above ground and uninsulated so the gas froze in the pipes and in quite a few cases, split the pipes. 98% of their reduction in power was from failures in fossil fuel industry. 2% was failed windmills. Texas is odd in that is is not part of the US power grid and instead are a power island which really added to their problems.

 

Bit off topic above there, but for those with no power then getting to work where it sounds like they did have power may have been a good thing.

Bullshit. The frozen lines were caused by the pressure drop from massively increased usage. The wind power was completely gone. So the nat gas powerplants had to cover that loss(about 20% of production iirc) as well as a 20% increase over normal usage. That caused a majorly large drop in pressure in the linesand subsequent massive loss in temperature which meant they froze over. Wind and solar as base load is a stupid idea and always was, because in extreme weather events(this type of storm occurring in texas  once a decade or so) it fails first.

[JZStudios]

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

As a German, severe Winter weather is normal for you. The reason its not a big deal is because you're equipped to deal with it, your house is insulated, you have central heating, you keep warm winter clothes, your council have ploughs and gritters.

 

Remember that, in Texas, going below 10c in the Winter would be considered abnormal. Their houses are made from wood, they have no insulation, no heating (in fact Air Con is mandatory in Texas), they wear shorts in December etc etc.

 

The two situations are VERY different.

Admittedly, I don't live in Texas, but I do live nearby in the desert and it's 100% standard to have central heating. Desert gets cold yo. Snow is not a shocking thing to happen and I'm completely amazed that Texas made literally zero attempts to account for cold weather. I'm not expecting them to account for -80, but at least being able to handle a freeze should be standard.

 

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

its pretty hard to work from home when the power is off for days.

Imagine how the devs of the Stalker and Metro series feel.

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

And they did not have it, that is correct.  You can own a car but if you don't have fuel for it you can say you don't have transport.

It's pretty funny how wrong you are while standing tall blowing in the breeze. Here's a few things to note from what was mentioned above;

• Below 10c in winter would be considered abnormal. No, going below 10c in summer would be considered abnormal. Texas hits multiple 0c freezes literally every year, with an average of 27.8 freezes at or below 0c every year. https://www.weather.gov/fwd/d32data
• Houses made of wood. Only partially true. There's a lot of older brick buildings and the vast majority of homes are stucco, which is essentially concrete, all around the entire house on a wood frame.
• They have no insulation. Completely false. Even houses made in the 60s have fiberglass insulation in between the exterior walls. Maybe it's not as much as they should have and the windows are probably shit, but they 100% have insulation.
• No heating, again, completely false. Heating is standard.
• Wear shorts in December. No they don't. I'm sure someone does, but most people are not wearing shorts when it's freezing, especially when they're used to high desert summer temps.

The only difference between this year and all the last is that it hit a record low of -2f where normally it would be ~-20f, still below the 32f freezing point.

[Distinctly Average]

21 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Bullshit. The frozen lines were caused by the pressure drop from massively increased usage. The wind power was completely gone. So the nat gas powerplants had to cover that loss(about 20% of production iirc) as well as a 20% increase over normal usage. That caused a majorly large drop in pressure in the linesand subsequent massive loss in temperature which meant they froze over. Wind and solar as base load is a stupid idea and always was, because in extreme weather events(this type of storm occurring in texas  once a decade or so) it fails first.

Maybe you should check your facts instead of listening to that moron on Fox who obviously didn’t. Figures have been adjusted a little as they have come in but even so, wind power losses were well behind those of what was lost in fossil fuels and nuclear power. Nuclear power was lost as water supply was low due to frozen pipes.

 

Windmills can be protected from extreme cold as can water pipes for nuclear, gas pipes (which froze due to the water content in fracked gas) and coal loading systems. Texas is just not used to this kind of weather and that is the problem. It cannot be blamed on renewables, but management geared to normal conditions.

 

Not blaming Texas, these conditions were very unusual. In parts of the world that get this kind of weather all the time, like Canada, Alaska, Norway and many more, they have no issues. Their renewables work fine as do their fossil fuel based power stations.

 

Here in the UK the tinyest bid of snow brings our transport to a standstill. Schools close, flights are cancelled and trains remain parked as all the points freeze. We are not geared up to it either. We are lucky to have a very resilient grid system which does very often now run fully on renewables and nuclear. Coal and gas are rapidly being phased out here. 

 

So let’s check Reuters.

 

Quote

In a statement provided to Reuters via email, Ed Crooks, vice chairman of Wood Mackenzie’s Americas division (here), said, “The crisis in Texas was not caused by the state’s renewable energy industry.  The largest loss of generation came from gas-fired power plants, with the drop-off from wind farms a long way behind.”

He explained, however, that “the loss of power has been a warning of the issues that will be raised as the proportion of renewable generation on the grid rises.” Crooks said that businesses and policymakers who are managing the transition to green energy must pay careful attention to the kinds of catastrophic risks that Texas is experiencing by building resilient generation, transmission and distribution equipment.

In a statement to Reuters via email, Paul Goydan, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group who leads the firm’s energy practice in North America, said that there “were extended power outages because large portions of the U.S. natural gas supply were taken offline due to weather, and generation sources of all types froze from the extreme cold.”

Goydan said he expected “discussions of mandatory weatherization,” followed by “questions around natural gas storage, liquid natural gas export in times of crisis, and overall energy system resiliency” to take place as Texas plans for its future in energy.

On Feb. 16, federal regulators said they would open an inquiry into power outages in Texas and the Midwest due to extreme cold weather (here). The same day, Governor Abbott called for reform of ERCOT after it received widespread criticism for not preparing for the extreme weather.

 

Or maybe a YouTube video from FullyChargedShow who run a big show in Texas

 

 

Or the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56085733

[spartaman64]

1 hour ago, AlwaysFSX said:

He did, and suggested that Texan homes don't have insulation either. Except they do because of the heat.

maybe he was more referring to the fact the pipes arent insulated?

[ravenshrike]

8 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

So let’s check Reuters

Yes, the drop in nat gas power production was greater, because it failed when it was generating the majority of power in the state. Per vox, 13% of the total power loss was from wind turbines failing. If that number was before the 20% overall increase in usage from the cold, that means  65% of wind generation was offline as about 20% of Texas' total energy is from wind. If after that increase, 80% of wind generation was offline.

 

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/19/22290512/texas-winter-storm-wind-energy-power-outage-grid-fox-news

[IkeaGnome]

In other news, life as normal? Schools didn't close for this storm..

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/weather/2021/03/11/seasons-biggest-snowstorm-drops-more-than-a-foot-of-snow-in-some-parts-of-anchorage/

[Vishera]

7 hours ago, Rocky Arbigaus said:

Edit: Well, since you guys are apparently unaware for some reason, Texas in undergoing thorough a crises caused by a snowstorm. 

 

Well,most of the community lives outside the US,mainly Europeans and Canadians.

 

That's rough,because of global warming the winters are colder and summer is hotter.

My country has similar weather to Texas and we also got hit hard with winter storms,luckily i live far enough from the center of these storms but it's still too cold.

[straight_stewie]

Just to set the stage for what I'm about to say, I grew up in Wisconsin but I've been living in Mississippi for about 10 years now. We got the same snow storm that Texas did, mostly to the same extent.

It really wasn't that bad. People in the south would just rather use snow as an excuse to not do anything than learn how to drive in it. Literally. The snow, overall, stayed on the ground for only a week (the bulk of it stayed for only three days), and yet every store was empty, suppliers didn't deliver to retailers, and people wouldn't come to work. But I drove a front wheel drive Ford Escape to work, every day during the storm, without issue. Work absentee problems during winter weather in the south are the result of laziness and poor driving ability, and nothing else.

The power outages in Texas where pretty bad. From the research I've seen, there are really two reasons for that: Common failures that happen during ice storms (downed lines), but more largely, they rely very heavily on wind (and to a lesser extent solar). Those power sources simply don't work in storms. Common sense would tell you that if an airplane can't take off with ice on it's propeller, then a wind turbine won't work well with ice on it's propeller (that's basically what it is) either. This issue has been so highly politicized that I don't imagine any reasonable discussion can be had on it, but just think about it for a minute: Does a fan work when covered in ice?

[StDragon]

3 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

So no one from Texas in this thread? The problem wasn't the weather, the problem is our criminal state government in Texas that doesn't have any rules on the book for ensuring our power grid can function properly in cold weather. Or maybe I should amend that and say maybe it was working properly, as it allowed power companies to price gouge at $9 per kilowatt hour for nearly a week. Anyways, the state was only able to fulfill about 40% of the power demand which meant constant rolling blackouts for the lucky ones and no power for many others. Who is going to go to the office to sit there in the dark without heat for 5 hours, and maybe get 3 hours of work done when the power is actually on? The highways were all closed, there were no stoplights working in the cities because they had to shut them all off to conserve power, there was no public transportation. So you're going to quadruple your commute time to work to sit in a dark office most of the day in a state with dogshit infrastructure not capable of handling a little cold. You guys should laugh at us, it's ridiculous that temperatures in the 20s Fahrenheit shut down a state. But that is the way the state of Texas designed its power grid to operate because we're run by crooks.

I live west of Houston. So I've got a few things to say about it...

 

Our homes were never built to spec like up up north. While insulated in the walls and attic, the attic itself is deigned to flow air through it to keep cool as possible during warmer climate. Which means any pipes above the insulation line would have popped if they weren't set to drip at the faucet and spigots outside. When water stands still, ice crystals form, water expands, and pipes burst. It's basic physics 101 stuff.

 

Me and my direct four other neighbors had a CPVC pipe burst in the attic above the garage. It ran the length of the roofline right above the soffit; might as well have had that pipe out in the open fully exposed. It froze in two places at the end and ruptured in the middle. We forgot to leave that one spigot dripping on the side of our homes. I had to cut the pipe and cap it off. I have water to the home and life is normal again. Later this spring or summer I'll look into repairs, but for now isn't not essential. Annoying to not have it working, but can live without.

 

The consecutive days below freezing combined with ice sleet was what killed the grid. Pipelines were frozen (they weren't burred to winterized spec last I read), steam boiler lines frozen (power generation), and wind turbine blades iced up. We even had a nuclear plant shutdown (controlled and it was safe); so that was a large portion of power generation off the grid too.

Lots of us have gas heating, but without electricity, we can't use it as the blower motor has to spin. While we can literally weather through 8+ hours without power, we can't for 48+ hours. A home can only retain so much heat before pipes freeze in the wall. Walking around inside feeling 35+F degrees isn't fun. Let me tell you... And that was the biggest issue, Ercot had lost control of the ability to balance the grid and duration of supply. In fact, it's rumored they were moments away from a catastrophic collapses of the grid to where it would take MONTHS to bring back online. With refineries shutdown, you would see (in the US at least) gasoline prices more than double in price. In fact, so bad the Fed Gov would have to step in with rationing not seen since wartime or the energy crisis of the 1970s.

So yeah, heads have rolled over this and taught us Texans a valuable lesson; get our grid to winterized spec. This won't be the last time this will happen; nature isn't so forgiving. 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, JZStudios said:

• Below 10c in winter would be considered abnormal. No, going below 10c in summer would be considered abnormal. Texas hits multiple 0c freezes literally every year, with an average of 27.8 freezes at or below 0c every year. https://www.weather.gov/fwd/d32data
• Houses made of wood. Only partially true. There's a lot of older brick buildings and the vast majority of homes are stucco, which is essentially concrete, all around the entire house on a wood frame.
• They have no insulation. Completely false. Even houses made in the 60s have fiberglass insulation in between the exterior walls. Maybe it's not as much as they should have and the windows are probably shit, but they 100% have insulation.
• No heating, again, completely false. Heating is standard.
• Wear shorts in December. No they don't. I'm sure someone does, but most people are not wearing shorts when it's freezing, especially when they're used to high desert summer temps.

I love how I never even mentioned half of this stuff but go off king I guess.

 

If you had bothered to read what I wrote you'd know I never said houses weren't built with heating systems in them, I just said that in a lot of areas those systems couldn't work due to outages.

[Distinctly Average]

52 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Yes, the drop in nat gas power production was greater, because it failed when it was generating the majority of power in the state. Per vox, 13% of the total power loss was from wind turbines failing. If that number was before the 20% overall increase in usage from the cold, that means  65% of wind generation was offline as about 20% of Texas' total energy is from wind. If after that increase, 80% of wind generation was offline.

 

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/19/22290512/texas-winter-storm-wind-energy-power-outage-grid-fox-news

And your point is?

 

Gas lines froze sure to high water content gas. It is expensive to remove so why bother in a locale that doesn’t normally have a problem with it. Why insulate the pipes, or put them underground when only very unusual events cause a problem?

 

Same with the water supplies to the nuclear plant who had to shut down a reactor as a result. It is very rare to loose water supply so why protect it against extreme and rare weather?

 

Coal, why build expensive loaders that can deal with frozen coal.

 

Wind turbines can and do work in super low temps, but why bother for rare events?

 

It seems to me they need to bother. As the only state that is an energy island it has become very obvious with hindsight that Texas need to address the issue whether it is winterisation, additional redundancy or joining the rest of the US grid.  You cannot blame any of the power solutions, renewable or otherwise. Well managed renewables are a very good thing to have and despite the recent issues, Texas are doing a lot of excellent work in that arena.

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

or joining the rest of the US grid.

That wouldn't have helped much in this situation. The polar vortex (or whatever you call it) hit the entire North American continent. If it was just the state of Texas, yeah, it would have helped. But Texas was relatively warmer compared to the other states.

 

The inverse have occurred in the North East as well, heatwave blackouts. Being part of the grid didn't help either. Power generation is local for the most part.

[Master Delta Chief]

26 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

The power outages in Texas where pretty bad. From the research I've seen, there are really two reasons for that: Common failures that happen during ice storms (downed lines), but more largely, they rely very heavily on wind (and to a lesser extent solar). Those power sources simply don't work in storms. Common sense would tell you that if an airplane can't take off with ice on it's propeller, then a wind turbine won't work well with ice on it's propeller (that's basically what it is) either. This issue has been so highly politicized that I don't imagine any reasonable discussion can be had on it, but just think about it for a minute: Does a fan work when covered in ice?

Wind turbines are capable to function in harsher environments, but require some more technical work in order to make that happen. Common example would be the Antarctician base Princess Elisabeth, which doesn't use any fossil fuels and relies solely on wind turbines and solar power. So, basically in other words, Texas simply didn't prepare itself for situations like these. Also, energy from wind turbines are seconded to regular energy sources from fossil. 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-wind-turbines-in-cold-climates-dont-freeze-de-icing-and-carbon-fiber/?sh=721d73cb1f59

[Distinctly Average]

2 minutes ago, StDragon said:

That wouldn't have helped much in this situation. The polar vortex (or whatever you call it) hit the entire North American continent. If it was just the state of Texas, yeah, it would have helped. But Texas was relatively warmer compared to the other states.

 

The inverse have occurred in the North East as well, heatwave blackouts. Being part of the grid didn't help either. Power generation is local for the most part.

Partly true, but a couple of other nearby states appear to have had excess capacity which may or may not have helped. Either way, Texas could be part of making the whole US more resilient.

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, Distinctly Average said:

 

 

Gas lines froze sure to high water content gas.

Had the pressure in the lines remained nominal, that wouldn't have mattered. The pressure drop that caused the freezing was so widespread because the amount of nat gas suddenly being pulled from the tanks was almost double the standard rate. Even if the lines had all been fully insulated from outside conditions, it's possible they would have still froze. Again, wind as any sort of baseline power generation is fucking stupid. The only way it works is with at least 48 hours worth of backup battery capacity.

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

The only way it works is with at least 48 hours worth of backup battery capacity.

Speaking of battery capacity

 

"Elon Musk is getting into the Texas power market, with previously unrevealed construction of a gigantic battery connected to an ailing electric grid that nearly collapsed last month. The move marks Tesla Inc.’s first major foray into the epicenter of the U.S. energy economy.

 

A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC is quietly building a more than 100 megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, a town roughly 40 miles south of Houston. A battery that size could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day. Workers at the site kept equipment under cover and discouraged onlookers, but a Tesla logo could be seen on a worker’s hard hat and public documents helped confirm the company’s role."

 

Batteries isn't the answer. As you can see, the amount of capacity for 20,000 homes in July/August (heatwave) doesn't scale. What batteries do however is smooth out changes in load so as to prevent brownouts. By working the market, you can charge at night when the rates are low and feed back into the grid when demand is high. So, it's profitable, brownouts averted, win-win for everyone.

 

For true baseload, 3rd gen nuclear (and 4th gen in the future) is the only viable option. Everything else is a pipe dream at achieving clean, green, baseload.

[jasonvp]

9 hours ago, Rocky Arbigaus said:

Summary

 Cloud Imperial Not only did not suspended operations during the winter storm, but also were told to use paid time off for missed days work. 

We probably shouldn't believe everything we read on the Intard-webz.  CIG has been responding to the original article that this didn't happen.  In fact, employees were specifically told to clock in as if they were working so as to not lose any time off.