Re: Financial topics
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 9:48 pm
Generational theory, international history and current events
http://www.gdxforum.com/forum/
https://communityimpact.com/austin/cent ... ter-storm/ERCOT: Texas power system was less than 5 minutes from collapse during winter storm
By Christopher Neely | 7:32 PM Feb 24, 2021 CST | Updated 7:32 PM Feb 24, 2021 CST
At about 1:51 a.m. Feb. 15, as the historic winter storm knocked out power plants across Texas and increasingly stymied the ability to produce and provide power, the state’s electricity system frequency fell below 59.4 hertz—a threshold that signals dire emergency.
The state’s electricity system can only spend nine minutes below 59.4 hertz before a statewide blackout is imminent—something that can take weeks or longer to fix, according to Bill Magness, the CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s power system operator.
Magness said ERCOT had already shed 2,000 megawatts of demand from the state’s power system, hoping the forced alleviation of electricity demand would take stress off the system and buy time for more electricity to become available.
Immediately after the system’s frequency fell below 59.4 hertz, ERCOT ordered another 3,000 megawatts of demand be shed from the system. The decision buoyed the system for only seconds before it dipped down again to 59.302 hertz. At 1:55 a.m., with about four minutes and 37 seconds left before a statewide blackout was imminent, ERCOT ordered another 3,500 megawatts of demand be shed from the system.
By 1:57 a.m., the system was back up around 59.7 hertz—still an emergency but further away from devastating collapse. At 2 a.m. ERCOT ordered a final 2,000 megawatts of load shed. The system bounced up to 60.1 hertz.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/mark ... -load-shedThe presentation Magness provided at the board meeting is the most detailed accounting so far of the grid's failure to provide power through this February's polar vortex event, putting the state's electric grid, its regulators and policymakers under tremendous pressure and leading to the resignation of ERCOT's four independent board members, effective after the meeting.
In the presentation, Magness noted that the types of generation that went out of service was widely distributed, as to type. At peak of outages on Feb. 15-16, the capacity out were as follows:
Natural gas: about 27 GW, or about 52% of capacity
Wind: about 18 GW, or about 57% of capacity
Coal: about 6 GW, or about 44% of capacity
Solar: about 750 MW, or about 12% of capacity
Nuclear: about 700 MW, or about 13% of capacity
The contrast with February 2011's rolling outage event was stark, as the earlier event only had outages for 7.5 hours and were loads to be shed small enough that distribution utilities could actually cycle customers online and off, whereas the 2021 event had outages for 70.5 hours and required such a large total load to be shed, that some customers had to remain offline for days, so that power could be continued for essential services, Magness said.
So this really was an across-the-board failure of the entire energyHiggenbotham wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:43 pm> https://communityimpact.com/austin/cent ... ter-storm/
> https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/mark ... -load-shed> In the presentation, Magness noted that the types of generation that
> went out of service was widely distributed, as to type. At peak of
> outages on Feb. 15-16, the capacity out were as follows:
> Natural gas: about 27 GW, or about 52% of capacity
> Wind: about 18 GW, or about 57% of capacity
> Coal: about 6 GW, or about 44% of capacity
> Solar: about 750 MW, or about 12% of capacity
> Nuclear: about 700 MW, or about 13% of capacity
> What I posted a few days ago was wrong. The reason they didn't
> roll the outages wasn't because the grid was too unstable to roll
> them. I believe that Magness is telling the truth, but I couldn't
> imagine that so much capacity was lost that there was only enough
> capacity left for essential services.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/health/v ... index.htmlResearchers find worrying new coronavirus variant in New York City
By Maggie Fox, CNN
Updated 6:21 AM ET, Thu February 25, 2021
(CNN)Two separate teams of researchers said this week they have found a worrying new coronavirus variant in New York City and elsewhere in the Northeast that carries mutations that help it evade the body's natural immune response -- as well as the effects of monoclonal antibody treatments.
Genomics researchers have named the variant B.1.526. It appears in people affected in diverse neighborhoods of New York City, they said, and is "scattered in the Northeast."
One of the mutations in this variant is the same concerning change found in the variant first seen in South Africa and known as B.1.351. It appears to evade, somewhat, the body's response to vaccines, as well. And it's becoming more common.
"We observed a steady increase in the detection rate from late December to mid-February, with an alarming rise to 12.7% in the past two weeks," one team, at Columbia University Medical Center, write in a report that has yet to be published, although it is scheduled to appear in pre-print version this week.
The way hyperinflation starts is that the government is spending much more than they get in taxes, so they have to keep selling bonds no matter what. As investors start realizing they are losing money on bonds because inflation is going up, they sell bonds. The government (guys with police, laws, military) want the central bank to buy bonds so the government can keep spending money (and they always get their way in such a crisis). But the faster the central bank buys bonds with newly printed money, the more the bond holders get worried and sell bonds. But the faster the investors sell bonds, the faster the central bank must print new money. This is a death spiral. It will kill the dollar and the world economy. Once it starts the dollar is doomed.aeden wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:52 amFor those unfamiliar with convexity hedging/flows and why it is a potentially disastrous feedback loop where selling begets more selling, think stock gamma only to the downside. Here is a quick primer from Bloomberg: tyler
There comes a point in any big selloff in Treasury bonds when the move becomes so pronounced that it starts to feed on itself. Increases in yields force a crucial group of investors to sell Treasuries, which in turn leads to further increases in yields. Two months into this rout, that moment appears to have arrived, and it’s beginning to send shudders throughout all corners of U.S. financial markets.