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Interesting: I assumed Texas wasn't connected to the national grid because they hate the Federal govt (I remember Texas' Rick Perry saying he wanted to abolish

Interesting: I assumed Texas wasn't connected to the national grid because they hate the Federal govt (I remember Texas' Rick Perry saying he wanted to abolish the Dept of Energy.) But Michael Lee says it's because they can move faster in building transmission lines for wind energy. No idea if this is true.

captn3m0 4y ago
Wikipedia cites https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-its-own-power-grid.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-it... and says it’s political.
- frankfrankfrank 4y ago
  You are citing wikipedia that cites slate ... not exactly good faith, authoritative sources. It is not "political" as the context of your reply clearly indicates as much as it is deeply tied to not only the history of Texas as it relates to joining the USA and also the fundamental manner in which the USA was supposed to function, wich has been and continues to be under constant and direct assault. It may ruffle your feathers, but not knowing these things clearly indicates that you are not American, however the real questions should be "why is not every other sovereign state of the United States acting more like Texas and why is the system so broken today that essentially only Texas acts the way the system intended states to act?". The only other state that comes close to Texas, may be Florida, which is emerging and moving in that direction, at least among the states of consequence.
  - quintushoratius 4y ago
    > It is not "political" as the context of your reply clearly indicates as much as it is deeply tied to not only the history of Texas as it relates to joining the USA and also the fundamental manner in which the USA was supposed to function, wich has been and continues to be under constant and direct assault. So... not technical, but political
    - frankfrankfrank 4y ago
      You may want to refresh your understanding of what "political" means. You appear to hold a common misunderstanding of the terms definitional scope.
doodlebugging 4y ago
You are correct about Texas not wanting the Federal gov't to have much control over their energy grid and that is a large part of the reason that we are not connected to other parts of the national grid. Back a few decades ago when Clean Air regulations came into play (Texas was not on the national grid at the time) Texas used their control of the Texas grid to allow grandfathering in of most of the dirty coal generation plants with no requirements that they meet federal standards. Texas mined lignite for many of their plants and bought coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin for others. New plants under construction had to meet the new standards but old plants could keep on rocking along spewing their ash and pollutants all over the state and everyone downwind. Supposedly it was allowed because utilities argued that it was too expensive to bring them into compliance. What a joke. This is the same state where a chicken billionaire walked the floor of the legislature passing envelopes of cash to representatives and at the time said that this was just the way to do business here. And after last year's winter break-down they crafted a handy way to pass all the costs of electricity related to their failures to do simple maintenance and upgrades on to Texas taxpayers while at the same time lobbying and winning property tax reductions which conveniently enough, finances a large part of the state's operations. People keep voting for the same old losers and then griping when it bites them in the ass. So many parts of Texas are broken and dysfunctional that it is sad but funny to hear someone say they want to move here for any reason. We used to be great but the clowns are driving the short bus here now and everyone wants to ride since it's cheaper than the last place they lived, maybe.
- pstuart 4y ago
  Whenever I see "see, regulation is bad" it's always seems to be framing the answer as getting rid of all regulations rather than making them less onerous and more effective.
  - doodlebugging 4y ago
    This is the Texas way lately. We have had a crop of libertarian leaning authoritarians come into power and it looks like one of those things that Ajax can't take off. Eliminating regulations is the goal. No one is trying to understand how to tweak the regulations so there is a beneficial outcome to the regulation. The only ones who are supposed to benefit in Texas are those who are in need of regulatory oversight and they are the ones who control the narrative around the process so everything is devolving into a mess where there is no accountability, no oversight and plenty of money in circulation to maintain that situation.
stefan_ 4y ago
Large, large parts of Europe are basically one interconnected grid now and that has not stopped anyone from building (or not building) wind energy.
- splistud 4y ago
ourmandave 4y ago
(I remember Texas' Rick Perry saying he wanted to abolish the Dept of Energy.) For someone who hates the Fed, Rick Perry is a National Treasure. Somebody didn't do their homework and gave this idiot the talking point to abolish the dept that's in charge of the fucking nukes. That's like Defund the Police on steroids. Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019.
- mwattsun 4y ago
  > Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019 I didn't realize that. I laughed out loud. He couldn't remember the third 'E' department he wanted to abolish.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Texas originally did not want to connect to the national grid and be party to what they considered socialistic and over reaching federal government regulations. Whatever they claim today, that is its origins.

captn3m0 4y ago

Wikipedia cites https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-its-own-power-grid.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-it... and says it’s political.

frankfrankfrank 4y ago
You are citing wikipedia that cites slate ... not exactly good faith, authoritative sources. It is not "political" as the context of your reply clearly indicates as much as it is deeply tied to not only the history of Texas as it relates to joining the USA and also the fundamental manner in which the USA was supposed to function, wich has been and continues to be under constant and direct assault. It may ruffle your feathers, but not knowing these things clearly indicates that you are not American, however the real questions should be "why is not every other sovereign state of the United States acting more like Texas and why is the system so broken today that essentially only Texas acts the way the system intended states to act?". The only other state that comes close to Texas, may be Florida, which is emerging and moving in that direction, at least among the states of consequence.
- quintushoratius 4y ago
  > It is not "political" as the context of your reply clearly indicates as much as it is deeply tied to not only the history of Texas as it relates to joining the USA and also the fundamental manner in which the USA was supposed to function, wich has been and continues to be under constant and direct assault. So... not technical, but political
  - frankfrankfrank 4y ago
    You may want to refresh your understanding of what "political" means. You appear to hold a common misunderstanding of the terms definitional scope.

doodlebugging 4y ago

You are correct about Texas not wanting the Federal gov't to have much control over their energy grid and that is a large part of the reason that we are not connected to other parts of the national grid. Back a few decades ago when Clean Air regulations came into play (Texas was not on the national grid at the time) Texas used their control of the Texas grid to allow grandfathering in of most of the dirty coal generation plants with no requirements that they meet federal standards. Texas mined lignite for many of their plants and bought coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin for others. New plants under construction had to meet the new standards but old plants could keep on rocking along spewing their ash and pollutants all over the state and everyone downwind. Supposedly it was allowed because utilities argued that it was too expensive to bring them into compliance. What a joke. This is the same state where a chicken billionaire walked the floor of the legislature passing envelopes of cash to representatives and at the time said that this was just the way to do business here. And after last year's winter break-down they crafted a handy way to pass all the costs of electricity related to their failures to do simple maintenance and upgrades on to Texas taxpayers while at the same time lobbying and winning property tax reductions which conveniently enough, finances a large part of the state's operations. People keep voting for the same old losers and then griping when it bites them in the ass. So many parts of Texas are broken and dysfunctional that it is sad but funny to hear someone say they want to move here for any reason. We used to be great but the clowns are driving the short bus here now and everyone wants to ride since it's cheaper than the last place they lived, maybe.

pstuart 4y ago
Whenever I see "see, regulation is bad" it's always seems to be framing the answer as getting rid of all regulations rather than making them less onerous and more effective.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  This is the Texas way lately. We have had a crop of libertarian leaning authoritarians come into power and it looks like one of those things that Ajax can't take off. Eliminating regulations is the goal. No one is trying to understand how to tweak the regulations so there is a beneficial outcome to the regulation. The only ones who are supposed to benefit in Texas are those who are in need of regulatory oversight and they are the ones who control the narrative around the process so everything is devolving into a mess where there is no accountability, no oversight and plenty of money in circulation to maintain that situation.

stefan_ 4y ago

Large, large parts of Europe are basically one interconnected grid now and that has not stopped anyone from building (or not building) wind energy.

splistud 4y ago

ourmandave 4y ago

(I remember Texas' Rick Perry saying he wanted to abolish the Dept of Energy.) For someone who hates the Fed, Rick Perry is a National Treasure. Somebody didn't do their homework and gave this idiot the talking point to abolish the dept that's in charge of the fucking nukes. That's like Defund the Police on steroids. Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019.

mwattsun 4y ago
> Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019 I didn't realize that. I laughed out loud. He couldn't remember the third 'E' department he wanted to abolish.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Texas originally did not want to connect to the national grid and be party to what they considered socialistic and over reaching federal government regulations. Whatever they claim today, that is its origins.