4 ms·

I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mo

I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mostly because paying the cost to prepare for one of these is reasonable, but preparing for all of them would be very expensive and I will trade cheap power for the occasional inconvenience.

HenryKissinger 6y ago
> every thirty years Climate change says hi.
- jshevek 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bitbearr 6y ago
Glad you are doing so well. There are a lot of people out there who are not.
enraged_camel 6y ago
Your perspective is very self-centered. People die when power goes out for extended periods like this. Especially if the weather is exceptionally hot or cold.
- jshevek 6y ago
  The parent stated their experience (one day without power) and the willingness to pay more for a specific change, they didn't say anything about longer time frames. If a single day of power outage will cause a person to die, such as those with certain medical issues, you must make preparations for backup power. I hope you can agree at the extreme that treating the entire power grid as if it were a hospital's internal power network would be absurd.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
majormajor 6y ago
"I wouldn't pay any more money to avoid this" is a remarkable low cost tolerance. I would love to know just how much we'd be talking about per-customer. Ten cents over ten years? A dollar over ten years? Twenty dollars? More? Without knowing that "I wouldn't pay any more" seems foolhardy.
- _jal 6y ago
  Well, one thing you know is that poster knows no one reliant on powered medical devices.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    > Well, one thing you know is that poster knows no one reliant on powered medical devices. No, this is simply a baseless assumption made by you, with an effect similar to poisoning the well. I know people on medical devices, and one day of power loss per 30 years is absolutely acceptable to them, give that they arranged to have backup power.
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    California has rolling blackouts every summer (and winter) with power that cost about 3x more than Texas. Rolling blackouts also affect hospitals. I think OPs sentiment is that overall Texas is a better system. Compared to CA I agree. Now that doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be improved, but spending 3x more and looking more like California is a huge net loss.
    - rconti 6y ago
      It seems unlikely and reductionist to think that taking Texas' existing power system, and investing more money in reliability, would make it LESS reliable. But this is what happens when you compare two very complicated things (different states' utilities) and consider price of service to be the only relevant factor. I'm not familiar with rolling blackouts in the winter in CA. And, in fact, I've never been part of a rolling blackout, period, in my 20 years in CA. But the rolling blackouts that some areas experience now are by and large due to (fire) risk avoidance by the utility, not by generation issues.
worik 6y ago
It is a valid point of view. It may be true in a lot of places that we should step back from 100% coverage as the cost is just too high, and it is better (cheaper) to put the resilience in housholds than in utilities. But your anecdote is just that - a anecdote. We need to carefully weigh those options. Elected politicians have a bad reputation for making these trade offs sensibly. I have heard it said (by a fictional character I think - no source) that (in popular opinion) the present trumps the future every time
- dv_dt 6y ago
  Really it means that many many people end up paying for safety measures individually - if they can afford them. The total social cost is likely higher than building adequate infrastructure in centralized places.
  - worik 6y ago
    Yes. It depends on whether individual house holds pay their own way or if the costs are shared. I guess it would depend a lot of the local political culture.
dminvs 6y ago
Hey great. My blue-lipped toddler is very happy for you. Hour 42.
- advaita 6y ago
  Hey man, ignore the comment above, I hope things get better quickly and ya'll are safe, special the little one!
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  I get that cold isn't fun, but if that's something you're worried about, why not get a small generator or back-up heater ahead of time? We had a close call with this back in 2011. Unless you're really saying that you want to socialize the cost of keeping your toddler warm. All that aside, I hope y'all stay warm. I know many cities are opening warming facilities, so maybe check if there's one near you.
  - Hiopl 6y ago
    > socialize the cost of keeping your toddler warm This seems like one of the whole points for having a society. Ensuring basic necessities like this are covered at a marginal cost. But I guess the neoliberal capitalist haven of America thinks it's "socialism", and thus evil.
ghaff 6y ago
The real issue is frozen pipes which can be pretty expensive/catastrophic. As someone in New England, if it weren't for that, I wouldn't find a power outage all that big a deal--at least for a couple days. But frozen pipes can lead to $10K's of damage.
- shagie 6y ago
  There's a .gif on Imgur - https://imgur.com/gallery/yvIAcvB https://imgur.com/gallery/yvIAcvB Its... yea. That's going to be rather expensive. Also, part of the power problem is frozen pipes - and not just water pipes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/texas-power-plants-shut-by-cold-left-pipes-exposed-to-elements https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/texas-pow... > Operations in Texas have stumbled because temperatures are low enough to freeze oil and gas liquids at the well head and in pipelines that are laid on the ground, as opposed to under the surface as practiced in more northerly oil regions. The big question now is how quickly temperatures return to normal. For nuclear... the cooling ponds froze: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/town-square/2021/02/16/391602/texas-endure-freezing-temperatures-without-power-with-no-clear-end-in-sight/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/town-squar... > First, Representative Gene Wu, Texas House of Representatives District 137, walks us through the “cascade” of problems that caused multiple generators to go out without back-ups in place. Including, water vapor inside natural gas generators that condensed and froze shutting down the machines and nuclear power plants whose cooling ponds froze, setting off automatic shutdowns. Rep. Wu also advocates turning off all non-emergency electronics to reduce the strain on the energy grid. Imagine the fun of having those pipes freeze (this is the cooling loop - not the reactor loop so "just" power down the reactor - it's not the loop that deals with the water that passes through the core).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I have a colleague where an upstairs neighbor had a pipe freeze and leak because of a crack in the outside brickwork. Had to move out for a year. And, for many people, insurance won't really fully cover this sort of thing. I often debate if I should get a generator for outlier events in a house.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Thank you for having a sane reasoned look at this. People use extremely low probably exceptions to attempt to radically rewrite the way things are done. Bad shit happens very rarely. Sometime the best action can be just to do nothing.
myko 6y ago
People are dying because of this.
- myko 6y ago
  This is not hyperbole: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/deaths-texas-storm-ercot-power#:~:text=Aceito-,At%20Least%2010%20People%20Have%20Died%20As%20Texas%20Faces%20A,during%20a%20freezing%20winter%20storm https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/death.... Folks are dying as a direct result of these infrastructure failures.

HenryKissinger 6y ago

> every thirty years Climate change says hi.

jshevek 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bitbearr 6y ago

Glad you are doing so well. There are a lot of people out there who are not.

enraged_camel 6y ago

Your perspective is very self-centered. People die when power goes out for extended periods like this. Especially if the weather is exceptionally hot or cold.

jshevek 6y ago
The parent stated their experience (one day without power) and the willingness to pay more for a specific change, they didn't say anything about longer time frames. If a single day of power outage will cause a person to die, such as those with certain medical issues, you must make preparations for backup power. I hope you can agree at the extreme that treating the entire power grid as if it were a hospital's internal power network would be absurd.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

majormajor 6y ago

"I wouldn't pay any more money to avoid this" is a remarkable low cost tolerance. I would love to know just how much we'd be talking about per-customer. Ten cents over ten years? A dollar over ten years? Twenty dollars? More? Without knowing that "I wouldn't pay any more" seems foolhardy.

_jal 6y ago
Well, one thing you know is that poster knows no one reliant on powered medical devices.
- jshevek 6y ago
  > Well, one thing you know is that poster knows no one reliant on powered medical devices. No, this is simply a baseless assumption made by you, with an effect similar to poisoning the well. I know people on medical devices, and one day of power loss per 30 years is absolutely acceptable to them, give that they arranged to have backup power.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  California has rolling blackouts every summer (and winter) with power that cost about 3x more than Texas. Rolling blackouts also affect hospitals. I think OPs sentiment is that overall Texas is a better system. Compared to CA I agree. Now that doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be improved, but spending 3x more and looking more like California is a huge net loss.
  - rconti 6y ago
    It seems unlikely and reductionist to think that taking Texas' existing power system, and investing more money in reliability, would make it LESS reliable. But this is what happens when you compare two very complicated things (different states' utilities) and consider price of service to be the only relevant factor. I'm not familiar with rolling blackouts in the winter in CA. And, in fact, I've never been part of a rolling blackout, period, in my 20 years in CA. But the rolling blackouts that some areas experience now are by and large due to (fire) risk avoidance by the utility, not by generation issues.

worik 6y ago

It is a valid point of view. It may be true in a lot of places that we should step back from 100% coverage as the cost is just too high, and it is better (cheaper) to put the resilience in housholds than in utilities. But your anecdote is just that - a anecdote. We need to carefully weigh those options. Elected politicians have a bad reputation for making these trade offs sensibly. I have heard it said (by a fictional character I think - no source) that (in popular opinion) the present trumps the future every time

dv_dt 6y ago
Really it means that many many people end up paying for safety measures individually - if they can afford them. The total social cost is likely higher than building adequate infrastructure in centralized places.
- worik 6y ago
  Yes. It depends on whether individual house holds pay their own way or if the costs are shared. I guess it would depend a lot of the local political culture.

dminvs 6y ago

Hey great. My blue-lipped toddler is very happy for you. Hour 42.

advaita 6y ago
Hey man, ignore the comment above, I hope things get better quickly and ya'll are safe, special the little one!
da_big_ghey 6y ago
I get that cold isn't fun, but if that's something you're worried about, why not get a small generator or back-up heater ahead of time? We had a close call with this back in 2011. Unless you're really saying that you want to socialize the cost of keeping your toddler warm. All that aside, I hope y'all stay warm. I know many cities are opening warming facilities, so maybe check if there's one near you.
- Hiopl 6y ago
  > socialize the cost of keeping your toddler warm This seems like one of the whole points for having a society. Ensuring basic necessities like this are covered at a marginal cost. But I guess the neoliberal capitalist haven of America thinks it's "socialism", and thus evil.

ghaff 6y ago

The real issue is frozen pipes which can be pretty expensive/catastrophic. As someone in New England, if it weren't for that, I wouldn't find a power outage all that big a deal--at least for a couple days. But frozen pipes can lead to $10K's of damage.

shagie 6y ago
There's a .gif on Imgur - https://imgur.com/gallery/yvIAcvB https://imgur.com/gallery/yvIAcvB Its... yea. That's going to be rather expensive. Also, part of the power problem is frozen pipes - and not just water pipes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/texas-power-plants-shut-by-cold-left-pipes-exposed-to-elements https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/texas-pow... > Operations in Texas have stumbled because temperatures are low enough to freeze oil and gas liquids at the well head and in pipelines that are laid on the ground, as opposed to under the surface as practiced in more northerly oil regions. The big question now is how quickly temperatures return to normal. For nuclear... the cooling ponds froze: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/town-square/2021/02/16/391602/texas-endure-freezing-temperatures-without-power-with-no-clear-end-in-sight/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/town-squar... > First, Representative Gene Wu, Texas House of Representatives District 137, walks us through the “cascade” of problems that caused multiple generators to go out without back-ups in place. Including, water vapor inside natural gas generators that condensed and froze shutting down the machines and nuclear power plants whose cooling ponds froze, setting off automatic shutdowns. Rep. Wu also advocates turning off all non-emergency electronics to reduce the strain on the energy grid. Imagine the fun of having those pipes freeze (this is the cooling loop - not the reactor loop so "just" power down the reactor - it's not the loop that deals with the water that passes through the core).
- ghaff 6y ago
  I have a colleague where an upstairs neighbor had a pipe freeze and leak because of a crack in the outside brickwork. Had to move out for a year. And, for many people, insurance won't really fully cover this sort of thing. I often debate if I should get a generator for outlier events in a house.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Thank you for having a sane reasoned look at this. People use extremely low probably exceptions to attempt to radically rewrite the way things are done. Bad shit happens very rarely. Sometime the best action can be just to do nothing.

myko 6y ago

People are dying because of this.

myko 6y ago
This is not hyperbole: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/deaths-texas-storm-ercot-power#:~:text=Aceito-,At%20Least%2010%20People%20Have%20Died%20As%20Texas%20Faces%20A,during%20a%20freezing%20winter%20storm https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/death.... Folks are dying as a direct result of these infrastructure failures.