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The situation in Texas (2 Viewers)

sho nuff said:
Is this because it simply is boring?  I mean it makes good talk to say we need it...say that we sort of agree its needed.  But when it comes down to spending money...nobody wants to...because its boring stuff...people don't see it as tangible things but more of a concept.
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Probably.  

The campaign issues are sexy.  People are happy and impressed when you deliver on health care, prescription drugs.  Those are slam dunks.  

Infrastructure is rebounding.  You've got to do it, but no one is impressed by it.  Unless you get like 20.  And even then, no one winds up on sports center for a good rebound.  

 
The General said:
I believe you are in Austin (apologies if my notebook is wrong) I lived, worked, down there years ago and have a few friends down there still. One of my absolute favorite places in the US. I’m so sorry you guys are dealing with this, I hope you, my friends, and everyone down there are as good as possible.

This whole situation is just a mess and while it definitely needs to be looked at as to why certain decisions were made, this does seem like a situation where we are dealing with very extreme conditions.

Absolutely people should be judged for their decision making when it’s all done and make sure systems are upgraded in a smart way for next time.

I could be totally wrong with my takes on this as I am just reading stuff on the internet. 
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Absolutely extreme conditions.  some of this was unavoidable.  some wasn’t.

 
joffer said:
Absolutely extreme conditions.  some of this was unavoidable.  some wasn’t.
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The avoidable stuff, or poor choices, is what should be judged or at least what I would try and judge. Super complex issue with both sides of solutions probably having merit in many cases.

To the political component of this. People’s bias and political leanings will come into play which will of course provide this debacle political angles  - as my distaste for Ted Cruz would show. He is the first to make these things political when it benefits him. I have a hard time taking any high road when it comes to this guy. Couldn’t care less personally if this is hypocritical on the internet or whatever. 

 
I am speaking as someone who lost power for multiple days and I work in upstream oil and gas.

I do not think we should upgrade our infrastructure to prevent this. We can put up with a few days of lost power once a decade to ensure our cheap electricity rates in the summer. If we improve the infrastructure to prevent these once every decade type events we will pay more as a consumer.

I think that within 5-10 years solar panels and storage will be much more cost efficient which would help mitigate this on a local scale.

While I do not think solar works for commercial or industrial, this peak power demand was driven by residential and most of the electricity was routed away from industry/commercial. I think rooftop solar and storage is the perfect solution for when residential demand is high.

 
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The political question here is does the government require the energy producers and suppliers spend the resources to have the extra capacity, pay for the extra maintenance, etc. for a once every decade or so event?  Or does this get left to the market place to do cost - benefit analysis of whether the on going stuff that is mostly unneeded more costly than the once a decade scramble?  I think there are very real real conservative versus liberal beliefs here, and I think what is happening this week is from selecting mostly from the conservative side of the political menu but I'm not sure it is a "conservative failure" but rather a "choice" that as a bleeding heart liberal doesn't seem too awful.  I'd expect there to be some noise but that the same choices are made tomorrow.  Heck I made a similar choice with the car battery figuring I could stretch another Texas winter out of it - oh well.   

I mean if I look out my window right now the street is snow covered after almost a week with about an inch.  If this was back in Baltimore County in Maryland then few politicians would survive the incompetence of not clearing the street.  But that requires large fleets of vehicles and crews and expensive private contractors, etc. with billion dollar storm centers to monitor all of this for the half dozen or so snow and ice events every year (and about the same number of summer storms and fall Atlantic storms).  Is it fair to oust my mayor for putting the City's resources to use elsewhere.  I mean this is the third time it has snowed in my three years here.  The first time it has stuck around pass noon.   I'm pretty sure that he would be ousted out of office if he tried to raise taxes to build out the means to clear an inch of snow that last more than a day. 

So this is political in that it is asking for Texas communities to make choices.  But it isn't necessarily a political failure when the choices go bad for a week.  Blaming this on the Green New Deal on the other hand...

 
MTskibum said:
I am speaking as someone who lost power for multiple days and I work in upstream oil and gas.

I do not think we should upgrade our infrastructure to prevent this. We can put up with a few days of lost power once a decade to ensure our cheap electricity rates in the summer. If we improve the infrastructure to prevent these once every decade type events we will pay more as a consumer.

I think that within 5-10 years solar panels and storage will be much more cost efficient which would help mitigate this on a local scale.

While I do not think solar works for commercial or industrial, this peak power demand was driven by residential and most of the electricity was routed away from industry/commercial. I think rooftop solar and storage is the perfect solution for when residential demand is high.
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These are the types of decisions that I would think shape how power grids have been built in Texas (and anywhere really). It’s a perfect example of a reasonable response as to why this situation happened that someone can argue the other side and both people be correct. 

This will no doubt be a massive issue in Texas, if someone in power who ultimately made these calls can’t explain what they made the choices they did in a very compelling manner they are going to get blasted.

Honestly a lot of people are probably screwed regardless because that’s how it works in anything.

 
stlrams said:
Didn’t read previous posts but realistically could Texas really be prepared for this weather event?  
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Yes, it has been colder in Oklahoma than in Texas, but far fewer outages, apparently because they’re connected to the larger power grids. Texas isn’t.

 
stlrams said:
Didn’t read previous posts but realistically could Texas really be prepared for this weather event?  
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Of course...prepare for the worst, hope for the best.  It's pretty clear their approach to the power grid is pretty short sighted.  Seems like that "but we're TEXAS!!!!!!!" shtick bit them in the butt.  Hopefully they learn from it and adjust.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
My region of the country just went through two weeks of nearly uninterrupted sub-zero temperatures and everything worked just fine.  There's no good excuse for a developed country having a power grid fail just because it was cold.
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:goodposting: And that's just the thing too, I understand the water pipe issues, etc, but the grid thing is completely ridiculous.  Texas' foolish pride on always having their own power grid because: "We're the Republic of Texas"

 
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MTskibum said:
I do not think we should upgrade our infrastructure to prevent this. We can put up with a few days of lost power once a decade to ensure our cheap electricity rates in the summer. If we improve the infrastructure to prevent these once every decade type events we will pay more as a consumer.
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How much of an increase do you think this would be though? I am not sure I can get behind the need to keep electricity as cheap as possible line of thinking

 
dawgtrails said:
How much of an increase do you think this would be though? I am not sure I can get behind the need to keep electricity as cheap as possible line of thinking
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This event happened in 1989, 2011, and 2021, lets assume that this event will continue at the same rate as in the past, every 15 years.

The average centerpoint customer pays 1,860 per year, which is 28,000 dollars over a 15 year period.

A 5% increase in price would be 1400 dollars over that period, I think that is too much and anything more would be a non-starter. For 1400 dollars someone could buy a 7000 watt generator and mitigate the risk on their side. Plus this generator would also help with hurricane power loss, where as insulating the gas wells and lines in the gas power plants would not help with hurricane power loss.

Spending money on a generator, solar/storage, etc would be a better use of consumer dollars because it covers a wider range of scenarios.

 
urbanhack said:
https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1362682965487218688
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Everyone complains when they make money, however no one has any sympathy when they go through an entire year of losing money and laying off employees.

That one day of profits is not going to help these companies too much, the US land oil and gas market is still fragile.

Edit, gas prices were not just a Texas thing, most of the country is going to have some expensive natural gas bills this month.

My brother is a plant manager at a sodium carbonate processing plant in Wyoming. They had to shut down for the week because they made more money selling their contracted natural gas back into the market than they would by actually processing the sodium carbonate.

 
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people in urban area's especially are totally unprepared for loss of electricity, they don't have food for more than a day or two, no backup's in place ....

is that the State's fault? a political party? 

I mean how does a state prepare for tens of millions of people who are unprepared when bad weather like this hits? 

 
Stealthycat said:
people in urban area's especially are totally unprepared for loss of electricity, they don't have food for more than a day or two, no backup's in place ....

is that the State's fault? a political party? 

I mean how does a state prepare for tens of millions of people who are unprepared when bad weather like this hits? 
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There's absolutely no reason why a cold snap should cause the power grid to fail.  None.  

I have very low expectations for government, but even my expectations are set way higher than that.  

 
IvanKaramazov said:
There's absolutely no reason why a cold snap should cause the power grid to fail.  None.  

I have very low expectations for government, but even my expectations are set way higher than that.  
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Given a limited budget for the houston area infrastructure, would money be better spent on preventing power outages from tropical storms or from winter storms.

 
Stealthycat said:
people in urban area's especially are totally unprepared for loss of electricity, they don't have food for more than a day or two, no backup's in place ....

is that the State's fault? a political party? 

I mean how does a state prepare for tens of millions of people who are unprepared when bad weather like this hits? 
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good grief

 
joffer said:
Stealthycat said:
people in urban area's especially are totally unprepared for loss of electricity, they don't have food for more than a day or two, no backup's in place ....

is that the State's fault? a political party? 

I mean how does a state prepare for tens of millions of people who are unprepared when bad weather like this hits? 
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good grief
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"people in urban area's"

Gee, I wonder what he means by that.

 
I mean, I have lived in an urban area nearly my entire life. One time even had a grocery store across the street. It wasn't as if I just walked over there everyday and bought just enough for a day's worth of eating

 
IvanKaramazov said:
There's absolutely no reason why a cold snap should cause the power grid to fail.  None.  

I have very low expectations for government, but even my expectations are set way higher than that.  
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It's just capitalism.

Basically, Texas tells people "Hey, we can offer a lower price on energy. The only drawback is that every 10 years you will lose power for a couple of weeks. But you can use the money you save to buy a generator and store some food." The people are free to evaluate the risk/reward of that proposition and then they can either choose to accept or not. It's no different than choosing to live in tornado alley or a hurricane zone.

 
Stealthycat said:
people in urban area's especially are totally unprepared for loss of electricity, they don't have food for more than a day or two, no backup's in place ....

is that the State's fault? a political party? 

I mean how does a state prepare for tens of millions of people who are unprepared when bad weather like this hits? 
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That isn't true. As a result of the COVID crisis, many people in urban areas are avoiding daily trips to the market and buying enough food on one visit to last about a week (that is what I have been seeing in L.A.)

 
Roy L Fewks said:
It's just capitalism.

Basically, Texas tells people "Hey, we can offer a lower price on energy. The only drawback is that every 10 years you will lose power for a couple of weeks. But you can use the money you save to buy a generator and store some food." The people are free to evaluate the risk/reward of that proposition and then they can either choose to accept or not. It's no different than choosing to live in tornado alley or a hurricane zone.
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None of that has anything to do with capitalism, but okay.

 
Roy L Fewks said:
It's just capitalism.

Basically, Texas tells people "Hey, we can offer a lower price on energy. The only drawback is that every 10 years you will lose power for a couple of weeks (days). But you can use the money you save to buy a generator and store some food." The people are free to evaluate the risk/reward of that proposition and then they can either choose to accept or not. It's no different than choosing to live in tornado alley or a hurricane zone.
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Most people only lost power for 2 days at most, some people lost monday/tuesday, others tuesday/wednesday, etc. Almost every work call I have we discuss how long the power was out, I have a pretty decent sample size at this point.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
None of that has anything to do with capitalism, but okay.
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It absolutely has to do with capitalism, people prefer cheap energy to preparing the system for extreme events.

You do not have where you live in your profile, were you effected by this? You seem to have a pretty strong opinion that it should not have happened. I was personally effected and it did not bother me.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
There's absolutely no reason why a cold snap should cause the power grid to fail.  None.  

I have very low expectations for government, but even my expectations are set way higher than that.  
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I wonder what impact this will  have on the exodus of companies from CA to TX.

 
MTskibum said:
It absolutely has to do with capitalism, people prefer cheap energy to preparing the system for extreme events.

You do not have where you live in your profile, were you effected by this? You seem to have a pretty strong opinion that it should not have happened. I was personally effected and it did not bother me.
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No, the issues with Texas didn't affect me in the slightest.  I live in the Dakotas.  It gets cold here.  The air temperature (not the wind chill, the actual air temperature) was -25 this past weekend.  Everything worked just fine.  The lights stayed on, my HVAC system worked like a charm, the city came by and plowed after a snowfall, etc.  If we lost power for an extended period of time, I would be pissed because this is what I'm paying taxes for.  

In fairness to you and other Texas residents, this isn't just a Texas thing.  California has had similarly high-profile examples of being unable to provide basic government services for no particular reason.  Minnesota had a bridge collapse a few years ago from lack of maintenance.  And of course our government at all levels failed to operate with anything resembling basic competence in response to covid-19.

I don't see anything wrong with being ticked about that.  

 
I bought solar phone chargers a couple of years ago in case something like this happened.  I'm sure they are impossible to find now but IMO put a note in your phone for May to buy some just in case.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
No, the issues with Texas didn't affect me in the slightest.  I live in the Dakotas.  It gets cold here.  The air temperature (not the wind chill, the actual air temperature) was -25 this past weekend.  Everything worked just fine.  The lights stayed on, my HVAC system worked like a charm, the city came by and plowed after a snowfall, etc.  If we lost power for an extended period of time, I would be pissed because this is what I'm paying taxes for.  

In fairness to you and other Texas residents, this isn't just a Texas thing.  California has had similarly high-profile examples of being unable to provide basic government services for no particular reason.  Minnesota had a bridge collapse a few years ago from lack of maintenance.  And of course our government at all levels failed to operate with anything resembling basic competence in response to covid-19.

I don't see anything wrong with being ticked about that.  
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I'm not going to make an infrastructure week joke

I'm not going to make an infrastructure week joke

I'm not going to make an infrastructure week joke

 
Maybe a better way of putting it is that I voluntarily chose to live in the upper Midwest.  I honestly think that people who complain about the weather up here are whiners -- nobody likes sub-zero temperatures of course, but if you hate it that much you can always move.  Having moved here myself, it would seem really weird to me to complain about the place that I moved to when I knew perfectly well that it was going to be like this before I relocated here.

But I would feel free to complain about my city manager if he doesn't get my street plowed in a timely fashion.  

I get that people who live in Texas don't generally live in houses that are insulated like mine, and they may not realize what they need to do to prevent frozen pipes in the event of a power outage.  That's totally understandable.  But they should be ticked that the state can't keep the lights on when huge swaths of the country manage to pull off this feat every winter with no drama.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
No, the issues with Texas didn't affect me in the slightest.  I live in the Dakotas.  It gets cold here.  The air temperature (not the wind chill, the actual air temperature) was -25 this past weekend.  Everything worked just fine.  The lights stayed on, my HVAC system worked like a charm, the city came by and plowed after a snowfall, etc.  If we lost power for an extended period of time, I would be pissed because this is what I'm paying taxes for.  

In fairness to you and other Texas residents, this isn't just a Texas thing.  California has had similarly high-profile examples of being unable to provide basic government services for no particular reason.  Minnesota had a bridge collapse a few years ago from lack of maintenance.  And of course our government at all levels failed to operate with anything resembling basic competence in response to covid-19.

I don't see anything wrong with being ticked about that.  
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I have lived in Bismark, Riverdale, and Stanton North Dakota(in addition to other cold places like Montana and Wyoming). I understand the need for their infrastructure to be able to work in the cold. I know it is possible to design equipment that does not fail in the cold.

We just have a different opinion is all, I think a cost/benefit analysis would show that it is more beneficial to save the money and invest elsewhere rather to prevent an event that has occurred 3 times over the last 32 years.

 
dawgtrails said:
How much of an increase do you think this would be though? I am not sure I can get behind the need to keep electricity as cheap as possible line of thinking
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I have a hard time imagining that the cost of upgrading this isn't offset by the savings.

It looks like costs from this one storm are likely to be massive -- seeing $20B+ as a possible number before you even get to uninsured repairs and public infrastructure.  And this will happen again.  

No idea what the full winterization costs would be, but if spending, say, $10B or $20B on energy infrastructure moves things forward it almost has to be a good investment -- especially since the costs are spread over most of the population instead of concentrated among people who flipped tails.

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
Maybe a better way of putting it is that I voluntarily chose to live in the upper Midwest.  I honestly think that people who complain about the weather up here are whiners -- nobody likes sub-zero temperatures of course, but if you hate it that much you can always move.  Having moved here myself, it would seem really weird to me to complain about the place that I moved to when I knew perfectly well that it was going to be like this before I relocated here.
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It's like moving to Florida and then complaining about the heat and the alligators.

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
I have a hard time imagining that the cost of upgrading this isn't offset by the savings.

It looks like costs from this one storm are likely to be massive -- seeing $20B+ as a possible number before you even get to uninsured repairs and public infrastructure.  And this will happen again.  

No idea what the full winterization costs would be, but if spending, say, $10B or $20B on energy infrastructure moves things forward it almost has to be a good investment -- especially since the costs are spread over most of the population instead of concentrated among people who flipped tails.
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Or they could connect their grid to the others around them and import power from less affected areas.  Sure that means some coal generation stations in Missouri operating at 50% capacity would have to ramp up quickly to meet the Texas demand, but that's likely cheaper than hardening the system to prevent their own generating capacity from going offline.  Also, that means intestate commerce (read: feds) would be able to regulate Texas energy market on some level. 

 
squistion said:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC 2h

We hit $3.2 MILLION in Texas relief support last night!

One of the places it’s going is the Houston Food Bank. I’m visiting Reps. @JacksonLeeTX18 & @LaCongresista with volunteers to pack meals.

The bank REALLY needs helping hands.

Can you join a shift? https://houstonfoodbank.org/ways-to-give/give-time/

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1363159091300851713
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Maybe she can tell them that they should have had her Green New Deal, then this wouldn't have happened.  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC

·

Feb 17

The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal.

 
will there be any impact on insurance rates for people outside of texas because of claims related to poor infrastructure take that to the bank brohans  

 
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