I've been on the New Mexico Topix forum a lot about this. It's a pretty interesting story.
Basically, the Texas power plants couldn't keep up with the demand for electric, and they tried to bring some of their backup plants on line but they failed because of the cold. They were geared for extreme heat demand, not this. Pipes froze. Stuff like that. Out of commission.
So they started running rolling blackouts, and the West Texas gas compressors that run gas from Texas to New Mexico started going down.
(crossposted from Right of Assembly)
Then New Mexico Gas started having to take down parts of their grid because of the gas pressure being too low. Once they do that, they can't turn it back on again until they go around and turn off everybody's gas meters, repressurize the system, and then go around and turn everybody's gas meters back on again, and then of course all the pilots must be relit by somebody.
New Mexico Gas said they had enough gas, it was the West Texas compressors (that did NOT have backup non-electric generators) that were the problem.
Meanwhile, there were various sorts of problems with electricity, depending on where on the grid you were. Most of New Mexico is on a different grid than Carlsbad, though we had lows here down around zero, too.
When a system does not have redundant backup systems, extreme conditions will reveal all of its faults. Transmission lines went down. People got shut off from electricity and gas both.
I've been fighting a meme that this was a fuel shortage problem. It was not. It was an infrastructure fail.
The faux fuel shortage meme is geared to deregulate energy companies (oh yay). And/or give them excuses to charge us more. It's anti-environmentalist in tone.
But really this is about deregulation. This is about letting corporations run our energy / fuel systems for us, and assuming they give a flying fuck about keeping us safe.
I just commented with one woman whose sister was north of Alamagordo, on natural gas. NM Gas shut that down, and then the electric was shut down too. She had no other fuel source, a four month old baby, and a husband in Afghanistan.
Fortunately, she had a cell phone. By the time help arrived, a glass of water had frozen on her kitchen table.
Alamagordo had gas and electric both shut off yesterday. It was below zero down here in Carlsbad last night. 15 predicted tonight. Warming tomorrow.
Updates from the comments:
National Pipeline Overview
from El Paso Pipelines.
Power Grid Map here.
Probe Into Power Outages Will Look At Plant Readiness
DALLAS, TX (KERA) - The state's public utility commission chairman yesterday apologized to Texans who were inconvenienced by planned energy outages on Wednesday. ERCOT, the agency that operates the state's electric grid says it should have done a better job informing the public about the rolling blackouts.
But both agencies say the employees operating the grid averted a major blackout by quickly implementing the brief, rolling outages.
KERA's Shelley Kofler reports the agencies are now launching an investigation into what happened, and tougher standards for power plants may be on the way.