4 ms·

I suspect that it wasn't the mitigation was too challenging, just costly. Someone looked at the map and said, "Texas? You'll never need to be handling subzero t

I suspect that it wasn't the mitigation was too challenging, just costly. Someone looked at the map and said, "Texas? You'll never need to be handling subzero temperatures over a long time period." I don't even necessarily believe it was malicious (unless you consider cost cutting to make a profit malicious, which, maybe you'd have an argument there), just potentially lazy. This is the sort of thing we should have some baseline regulations to support -- critical infrastructure should be designed to support a temperature range of X to Y, where X is a record cold times some factor and Y is a record heat times some factor.

shawnz 6y ago
> I don't even necessarily believe it was malicious (unless you consider cost cutting to make a profit malicious, which, maybe you'd have an argument there), just potentially lazy. Playing devil's advocate here: It might not have been malicious or lazy, but actually just good judgement in avoiding unnecessary waste and getting those services deployed sooner for less cost to the customer. Of course it looks bad now that the situation they didn't expect to happen has happened, but in the long term, were the losses worse than what they saved by not implementing extreme cold weather mitigations?
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  This might be a reasonable excuse if they didn't have the same problem in 2011 and weren't warned it could have been much worse. But they did. And were warned. And they ignored it.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    However many times it happened, that still doesn't tell us whether the costs exceeded the savings. "Twice" isn't much more often than "once"
    - Twixes 6y ago
      Well, of course costs of resiliency would practically exceed savings for energy companies. But the costs of outages are tremendous for Texas overall. That's why critical infrastructure must be well regulated. Corrupt politicians are sure to protect profits of the energy industry, but in the end we all pay for the shenanigans that deregulation allows them to get away with.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        Lets say it led to no increased profits and the savings were entirely passed on to the customer (perhaps through careful regulation like you mention). Then wouldn't the costs be better for Texas overall?
        Scalestein 6y ago
        I think there is another factor of Choice that needs to be considered here. If people were given the choice between losing power when it gets cold and saving money or paying more for more reliable power then it might be reasonable. Power companies making that choice for their customers isn't fair. As a utility it should be expected that it is well run and stable. It isn't an easy market to have competition in due to the infrastructure meaning we can't have "cheap and unstable" options next to "expensive and stable". Where the state decides the utilities fall on that axis is the question here, I personally think they should be on the more conservative side and provide stability. The other thing to consider are the huge knock on effects from losing power. I may be ok with getting extra cash in exchange for power outages but when the stop lights are out and restaurant freezers start thawing things get a lot worse.
        shawnz 6y ago
        Good points. Although, it is of course impossible to have perfect service. Is a major failure once a decade not "well run and stable"? What level of service would be acceptable?
        Retric 6y ago
        No, the cost to produce electricity is largely independent of the value people receive from it. Differences in incentives are why hospitals for example have backup generators. They might be paying 100x as much to get power from a generator for a few hours a year, but losing power would cost them vastly more. That said, individual consumers are going to have their own personal preferences. For some people saving 10c a month on their monthly electric bill might be worth a once in a decade power outage. Some might even agree to save 1c/month.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- usefulcat 6y ago
  “but in the long term, were the losses worse than what they saved by not implementing extreme cold weather mitigations?” A lot of people (and businesses too) have been without any power for several days. In the case of Austin, “a lot” appears to be around 40%. Many more have had power only intermittently. That’s got to be a pretty sizable hit to economic output. Not to mention all the busted pipes. [edit: formatting]
  - shawnz 6y ago
    But is it greater than the impact on economic output of having done a safer, but slower and more costly expansion of the electrical grid? That's much harder to measure
    - boardwaalk 6y ago
      It seems like you're thinking purely of net economic impact. As someone in Texas who just got their power back and no longer has running water, I'm having a real hard time not posting a really vicious retort here. Pure capitalism without any humanism is really quite gross and frustrating.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        No, I am really thinking of net impact, economic and otherwise (but the parent mentioned economic output, so I was replying to that point)
    - pixl97 6y ago
      Heh, this is a 100 billion+ disaster when it is over. There are so many things people have not talked about yet. Multiple blood banks have lost their entire cooling and flooded at the same time. A medical testing and samples lab has had similar issues. You've not seen that in the news yet. The there are the things we do know, like the Samsung IC shutdown that will cost millions in itself.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- minikites 6y ago
  >losses worse than what they saved I'm sure "we saved a few bucks" will be comforting to the families of people who froze to death or died of carbon monoxide poisoning from this entirely avoidable disaster.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Were the losses worse? Yes, workout a doubt? People died. Pets died. Homes and water mains were destroyed. People have to boil their water. Having power wouldn't have prevented all that but it definitely would have prevented some.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    It's possible more people could have died from, for example, medical delays due to smaller hospitals from increased electricity costs over a period of decades due to unnecessary risk aversion
    - vkou 6y ago
      ... What? The cost of electricity is not a constraint on the size of hospitals. And there are plenty of states who are part of the national grid, with cheaper electricity than Texas.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  It depends on how you price a human life. Give me that number, and I can start to answer. More than 300 people have ended up in ERs in Houston alone for carbon monoxide inhalation as a result of misguided efforts to avoid freezing to death, I'm not entire sure how to allocate that cost, either. 1989, 2011, 2021. At some point, having been told twice now, and soon to be a third time, you spend the money to avoid the pitchforks.
twalla 6y ago
> This is the sort of thing we should have some baseline regulations to support Texas runs its own power grid specifically to avoid doing that
- adolph 6y ago
  Blackouts happen elsewhere too. New Orleans today: https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/rotating-power-outages-why-the-lights-went-out-in-new-orleans-on-the-northshore/289-08024848-29c4-45eb-8cca-4d4b157ae9ea https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/rotating-po... at the direction of MISO, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. The company describes itself as similar to an air-traffic controller, monitoring the flow of electricity across 15 states and one Canadian province.
throw0101a 6y ago
> This is the sort of thing we should have some baseline regulations to support -- critical infrastructure should be designed to support a temperature range of X to Y, where X is a record cold times some factor and Y is a record heat times some factor. Meanwhile the folks in the El Paso area (which is not regulated/managed by ERCOT) are going just fine: > El Paso Electric said they always try to prepare for the future and after a winter storm in 2011, the utility company worked towards replacing and upgrading their equipment. Many generators now have antifreeze protection. * https://kvia.com/news/el-paso/2021/02/15/el-pasos-not-seeing-power-outages-like-the-rest-of-texas-and-heres-why/ https://kvia.com/news/el-paso/2021/02/15/el-pasos-not-seeing... The first step is making sure you have regulators who are somewhat clued in. Of course being hooked up to the national grid could be useful as well, so as to allow for energy inputs when your own infrastructure is having problems. Though that would mean dealing with the Feds, which seems to be undesirable: > Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. * https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul...
- chooseaname 6y ago
  > Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. * https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul... I bet they don’t. If they did they don’t now.
  - JetSpiegel 6y ago
    Rick "What is the Department of Energy? while being head of the DoE" Perry.
- adolph 6y ago
  That’s great that El Paso got this failure mode right. Are there other modes that they de-prioritized? El Paso Energy is interesting bc it represents the old school community monopoly. I wonder if the JPM buyout will help or hinder its mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso_Electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso_Electric

shawnz 6y ago

> I don't even necessarily believe it was malicious (unless you consider cost cutting to make a profit malicious, which, maybe you'd have an argument there), just potentially lazy. Playing devil's advocate here: It might not have been malicious or lazy, but actually just good judgement in avoiding unnecessary waste and getting those services deployed sooner for less cost to the customer. Of course it looks bad now that the situation they didn't expect to happen has happened, but in the long term, were the losses worse than what they saved by not implementing extreme cold weather mitigations?

bcrosby95 6y ago
This might be a reasonable excuse if they didn't have the same problem in 2011 and weren't warned it could have been much worse. But they did. And were warned. And they ignored it.
- shawnz 6y ago
  However many times it happened, that still doesn't tell us whether the costs exceeded the savings. "Twice" isn't much more often than "once"
  - Twixes 6y ago
    Well, of course costs of resiliency would practically exceed savings for energy companies. But the costs of outages are tremendous for Texas overall. That's why critical infrastructure must be well regulated. Corrupt politicians are sure to protect profits of the energy industry, but in the end we all pay for the shenanigans that deregulation allows them to get away with.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      Lets say it led to no increased profits and the savings were entirely passed on to the customer (perhaps through careful regulation like you mention). Then wouldn't the costs be better for Texas overall?
      - Scalestein 6y ago
        I think there is another factor of Choice that needs to be considered here. If people were given the choice between losing power when it gets cold and saving money or paying more for more reliable power then it might be reasonable. Power companies making that choice for their customers isn't fair. As a utility it should be expected that it is well run and stable. It isn't an easy market to have competition in due to the infrastructure meaning we can't have "cheap and unstable" options next to "expensive and stable". Where the state decides the utilities fall on that axis is the question here, I personally think they should be on the more conservative side and provide stability. The other thing to consider are the huge knock on effects from losing power. I may be ok with getting extra cash in exchange for power outages but when the stop lights are out and restaurant freezers start thawing things get a lot worse.
        shawnz 6y ago
        Good points. Although, it is of course impossible to have perfect service. Is a major failure once a decade not "well run and stable"? What level of service would be acceptable?
      - Retric 6y ago
        No, the cost to produce electricity is largely independent of the value people receive from it. Differences in incentives are why hospitals for example have backup generators. They might be paying 100x as much to get power from a generator for a few hours a year, but losing power would cost them vastly more. That said, individual consumers are going to have their own personal preferences. For some people saving 10c a month on their monthly electric bill might be worth a once in a decade power outage. Some might even agree to save 1c/month.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
usefulcat 6y ago
“but in the long term, were the losses worse than what they saved by not implementing extreme cold weather mitigations?” A lot of people (and businesses too) have been without any power for several days. In the case of Austin, “a lot” appears to be around 40%. Many more have had power only intermittently. That’s got to be a pretty sizable hit to economic output. Not to mention all the busted pipes. [edit: formatting]
- shawnz 6y ago
  But is it greater than the impact on economic output of having done a safer, but slower and more costly expansion of the electrical grid? That's much harder to measure
  - boardwaalk 6y ago
    It seems like you're thinking purely of net economic impact. As someone in Texas who just got their power back and no longer has running water, I'm having a real hard time not posting a really vicious retort here. Pure capitalism without any humanism is really quite gross and frustrating.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      No, I am really thinking of net impact, economic and otherwise (but the parent mentioned economic output, so I was replying to that point)
  - pixl97 6y ago
    Heh, this is a 100 billion+ disaster when it is over. There are so many things people have not talked about yet. Multiple blood banks have lost their entire cooling and flooded at the same time. A medical testing and samples lab has had similar issues. You've not seen that in the news yet. The there are the things we do know, like the Samsung IC shutdown that will cost millions in itself.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
minikites 6y ago
>losses worse than what they saved I'm sure "we saved a few bucks" will be comforting to the families of people who froze to death or died of carbon monoxide poisoning from this entirely avoidable disaster.
Pfhreak 6y ago
Were the losses worse? Yes, workout a doubt? People died. Pets died. Homes and water mains were destroyed. People have to boil their water. Having power wouldn't have prevented all that but it definitely would have prevented some.
- shawnz 6y ago
  It's possible more people could have died from, for example, medical delays due to smaller hospitals from increased electricity costs over a period of decades due to unnecessary risk aversion
  - vkou 6y ago
    ... What? The cost of electricity is not a constraint on the size of hospitals. And there are plenty of states who are part of the national grid, with cheaper electricity than Texas.
pwinnski 6y ago
It depends on how you price a human life. Give me that number, and I can start to answer. More than 300 people have ended up in ERs in Houston alone for carbon monoxide inhalation as a result of misguided efforts to avoid freezing to death, I'm not entire sure how to allocate that cost, either. 1989, 2011, 2021. At some point, having been told twice now, and soon to be a third time, you spend the money to avoid the pitchforks.

twalla 6y ago

> This is the sort of thing we should have some baseline regulations to support Texas runs its own power grid specifically to avoid doing that

adolph 6y ago
Blackouts happen elsewhere too. New Orleans today: https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/rotating-power-outages-why-the-lights-went-out-in-new-orleans-on-the-northshore/289-08024848-29c4-45eb-8cca-4d4b157ae9ea https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/rotating-po... at the direction of MISO, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. The company describes itself as similar to an air-traffic controller, monitoring the flow of electricity across 15 states and one Canadian province.

throw0101a 6y ago

> This is the sort of thing we should have some baseline regulations to support -- critical infrastructure should be designed to support a temperature range of X to Y, where X is a record cold times some factor and Y is a record heat times some factor. Meanwhile the folks in the El Paso area (which is not regulated/managed by ERCOT) are going just fine: > El Paso Electric said they always try to prepare for the future and after a winter storm in 2011, the utility company worked towards replacing and upgrading their equipment. Many generators now have antifreeze protection. * https://kvia.com/news/el-paso/2021/02/15/el-pasos-not-seeing-power-outages-like-the-rest-of-texas-and-heres-why/ https://kvia.com/news/el-paso/2021/02/15/el-pasos-not-seeing... The first step is making sure you have regulators who are somewhat clued in. Of course being hooked up to the national grid could be useful as well, so as to allow for energy inputs when your own infrastructure is having problems. Though that would mean dealing with the Feds, which seems to be undesirable: > Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. * https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul...

chooseaname 6y ago
> Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. * https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-woul... I bet they don’t. If they did they don’t now.
- JetSpiegel 6y ago
  Rick "What is the Department of Energy? while being head of the DoE" Perry.
adolph 6y ago
That’s great that El Paso got this failure mode right. Are there other modes that they de-prioritized? El Paso Energy is interesting bc it represents the old school community monopoly. I wonder if the JPM buyout will help or hinder its mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso_Electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso_Electric