Half of AZ to Have Rolling Blackouts Due to COLD Weather. Not Kidding

EEEEENNNNNNNHHHHHH! Wrong answer. We're about 47 days away from 3rd world country. Just a smidge more inflation...

We already have some of the most ineffectual health care (cost to benefit), abysmal teen pregnancy rates (thanks christians) high infant mortality rates (see health care above) low test scores on core subjects like reading, math, science, critical thinking in general (thanks christians and republicans) higher wealth disparity than Egypt for Pete's sake...

Call me when you get a clue.

Think you might want to check that assumption. I just moved from Phoenix 1 year ago. Last I remembered all reservoirs were sitting at record lows. Even if you have a good rain or snow season you are still sitting at low levels. That because what fills reservoirs isn't surface runoff (especially in Arizona as most runnoff is evaporated) but from groundwater. Getting decent groundwater recharge takes many years with good snowfalls in the mountains.

read last night Dallas Texas was having Natural Gas Pressure issues,cold weather like this causes them.

im on a co-op that uses Natural gas for electric and we havnt had any issues with power going out.

co-op is in east texas

Sales of the electric to other states sounds about right.

Not in the southwest... The electric companies have a mafia type monopoly on the market...

I live 35 miles from Hoover Dam where most of that electricity is made... It is sold to a power company in California who in turn sells it back to us at whatever price they choose to charge...

Bet some people got amply greased on that sweet deal... Welcome to America...

Yah, central and east. Heard the SRP spxpsn saying this has never happened before, just issues with the 2 coal fired plants north.

Austin TX is doing the same thing.

[link to austin.ynn.com]

Yes, because someone has the money to pay for it. Why do you think 3rd world countries who have oil reserves live without power??? Cause the 1st world countries have the money to pay for it.

Get used to rolling blackouts.

All done with them now but I believe it's supposed to be colder tonight so we'll see what happens.

Everything is up and running in Northern Phoenix. I have my heat on 80, all the lights in the house on, and I'm about to run the dish washer and the washer and dryer at the same time.

I watched this, I'm on the west side of the valley - I set a glass of H2O out last night, It actually froze a little. Friend told me he was wrapping his pipes - I told him when in Seattle were at times it got stuck below 20 for a week r so, I never messed with that. But it was cold standing in the wind.

TV say could get in the teens - NWS says a low of 28.

The snow birds r running around in shorts, LOL.

I wonder what they would do if it actually got cold? 70 on Sunday.

[link to forecast.weather.gov]

Last Edited by TTX8K82 on 02/02/2011 12:03 PM

I guess you ride the short bus.

LOL, our local news propagates the bs...EXTREME WEATHER center, oh crap, it's going to be freezing tonight. FFS, it freezes here during the winter sometimes.

It's the same as when it rains here and people completely freak out, forget how to drive, news screaming storm of the century etc.

Holy smokes! Rolling blackouts in AZ and TX?! Isn't that where all the climate-change deniers live? Record cold in Winter, record heat in Summer. "Burn, Baby Burn." -Enron

SRP's web page has a lot of helpful information on the subject.

NOT!

They do post lake levels though and they are good.

We were forecast at 22 degrees for a low in Maricopa and it was right around 40 at 4 AM.

Jesus jumped up christ ass-hat, we always have "record" heat. It's the fucking desert. There's nothing unusual about it getting cold here either. Yes tard, the climate is changing, winter, spring, summer and fall happens.

There's no such thing as "normal" weather, shift happens.

Oh no, what will you do without the internet porn!

We are truly doomed.

What is it now, the ice age? globel warming? or have we settled on catastrophic climate change? So no matter what happens we got it right? Baastardi of Accuweather say that what Al's group is doing now. He also says there is more to come.

[link to www.accuweather.com]

[link to www.algore.com]

Yawn.

Awwwww you are sweet! Maybe it just because I've been focused on the Egypt mess, but that comment just made me grin. Thanks for that! I feel just a bit better about humanity now.

I'm going to be moving to Tucson soon.... can't wait to get out of this Midwest igloo in the winter and swimming through the air in summer... Are you in the Phoenix area OP? But back on topic... definitely smell BS! I agree with the person suggesting it is a possible "test" to see how people react... It would be a good place to test it in the winter time....

ALL of TEXAS is having rolling blackouts!

Yah I'm in the Phx area. Tucson's nice, a few too many libs for me, a bit cooler in the summer, some great resorts and hiking Enjoy.

Not that simple. The electric power network is more flexible than that.

Well yes there's a contract to sell PV power to LA, although it's about 50% of PV's output last time I looked into it. And there's real-time electricity trading, whereby power is bought and sold on an hourly basis, regionally or nationally, and the prime directive is to avoid blackouts if possible.

The max. load in that area is generally super-peak in summer when it's 115F. Hard to believe power was not available today.

No, you're wrong, I've been here for 16 years and the largest reservoir on the salt river chain is Roosevelt. For 4 years now it's been sitting at at least 85%, right now it's at 91% and the subsequent lakes below are all above 90%. The lakes in the SE region of the state are always way below due to diversion so no, I'm not wrong on this one.

I also do a lot of work with Clark County Water Rec in Vegas, I asked why Mead was still so low with the last few years of snow and rain fall. They're basically trying to get Powell back up before they bring Mead back up. But if you check below Mead, Mohave, Havasu are all 90%+ full.

Yah but it was SRP not APS but I agree, last summer when it was 118 then over 110 for 2 weeks no blackouts.

Real-time electricity traders from SRP and APS buy and sell from each other. That's the function of real-time trading, to balance things regionally.

Some places are hard to flow to others. For example Texas is more or less an "island" electrically, without much connection in or out, so it's its own region (ERCOT). But Arizona / California / Nevada are well connected. That's why Enron was able to flow power around in loops there in one of their famous "Enron strategies" and get paid an enormous amount of money for electrons that had been (more or less) sent from Californa to Nevada or Arizona and back.

Huh, thanks for the info, very interesting.

Seems to me this should be investigated with your local congressman. It could be payback to customers for not being allowed to get their ripoff power company rate increases.

SRP's been pretty consistent with keeping rate increases low and they usually get them. Unfortunately now it's for solar and wind energy fields. It'd be great if those mediums got more than 30% return.

or a Particle Collider being powered up...