Path: ...!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: William Hyde Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:57:49 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 90 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 23:57:52 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="badd92909d4fec4d4ebd79274db7075f"; logging-data="2142651"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/vr9rvIFTEcrsKxRYax43n" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0 SeaMonkey/2.53.18.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:gBzW/iuQhjdQ6jhvix7FYQEoTqg= In-Reply-To: Bytes: 4728 Lynn McGuire wrote: > On 7/17/2024 3:05 PM, William Hyde wrote: >> Paul S Person wrote: >>> On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:47:12 -0600, John Savard >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:15:08 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James >>>> Nicoll) wrote: >>>> >>>>> Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds >>>>> >>>>> Celebrate the coldest summer of the rest of your life with some >>>>> frosty SF and fantasy novels! >>>>> >>>>> https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-featuring-frigid-icy-worlds/ >>>> >>>> I could comment that your posting is itself a dystopian SF story, >>>> about a world where giant oil companies have managed to control the >>>> political system and hypnotize the populace so as to prevent any >>>> effective response to global warming... >>>> >>>> if it weren't for the fact that it seems like calling that scenario >>>> "fiction" has already proven to be over-optimistic. >>> >>> One of the two theories I have seen on why the Texas electrical system >>> died again (if that actually happened; >> >> >> According to news stories I have seen, some parts of Texas are not >> scheduled to regain power until July 19. >> >> When I lived in College Station, TX, I experienced more power outages >> per unit time than I have anywhere else (the situation here is >> deteriorating, though) but it was never gone for more than a few hours. >> >> William Hyde > > Out of the 2.3 million electric meters that were down in the Houston > area (3 million meters total), only 40,000 remain disconnected as of > today.  That is awesome compared to Hurricane Ike which had major areas > without power for up to six weeks. That is awesome compared to Ike. It is also, however, lousy for any state, and especially for a wealthy state just crammed with talented engineers. When I left Texas the Brazos county engineer was on the point of being turfed out of his job for being not conservative enough. It seems a strange criterion to use. At the same time people here should have been turfed out for being neither competent nor sober. A strange lack of criterion to use, but heck, only seven people died. > https://www.chron.com/news/article/houston-power-outages-beryl-19579186.php Ah the Chronicle. I used to devour that paper. Couldn't figure out at first why they payed so much attention to the Lt gov. > > Those electric meters are polled every five minutes, they know which > meters are down. > > My family and I were on our whole house generator from Monday at 5 am to > Wednesday at 4 pm.  If constant electricity is important to you then you > need to get an automatic whole house generator.  It is not unusual for > us to get a monthly power outage of more than a minute, the generator > starts and is making power within ten seconds. My local infrastructure is close to the worst in the province. I lose power about three times a year, but the nearest main arteries (200 feet away) never do. > > Putting stuff underground does not work well on the Gulf Coast due to > the high water table.  Plus, nobody around here is willing to pay the > 10X cost of underground distribution lines and transmission lines. It doesn't work well here either, I am told. And people here are no more eager to pay extra now that electrical transmission is in private hands. William Hyde