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Although it was a much more extreme event, no fewer than 246 people died because of the Texas outage in 2021. It’s not just the economy that can suffer if there

Although it was a much more extreme event, no fewer than 246 people died because of the Texas outage in 2021. It’s not just the economy that can suffer if there is a grid outage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

cdot2 4y ago
That 246 includes all deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the storm. Not specifically the power outages. "In addition to hypothermia, DSHS attributed the storm-related deaths to "exacerbation of pre-existing illness" (10%), motor vehicle accidents (9%), carbon monoxide poisoning (8%), fires (4%) and falls (4%)."
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Seeing as the storm does not produce carbon monoxide itself, I think "storm related" here includes "people dying because the storm knocked out their power"
  - cdot2 4y ago
    not having power also doesn't produce carbon monoxide
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Portable combustion heaters do. People were using those because they didn't have gas or power for heat, and that's usually how people end up dead from CO. I don't think there's an honest way to spin that into not being the storm and grid failure's fault.
everforward 4y ago
The flip side is that in an event like that, the power is worth far more than $20 to the owner of the PowerWall. I lived through that outage, and I lost more than $20 in food that spoiled in the fridge/freezer (didn't have a good storage container to put it outside where the raccoons/cats couldn't get it). Some people lost dramatically more than that when their pipes froze and burst. Central heating also doesn't work without power. They draw less than 600 watts. In that situation, would you rather have $20 or enough power to have your heating run for 24 hours? And that's actual runtime, you could probably keep your house warm-ish for 2 or 3 days by turning it on and off. Personally, I'd only be interested if joining something like VPP came with a substantial subsidy on the price of the PowerWall or a monthly payment that could offset a significant portion of the cost. Or it had enough storage that I actually had extra power after running essentials (it does not currently).

cdot2 4y ago

That 246 includes all deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the storm. Not specifically the power outages. "In addition to hypothermia, DSHS attributed the storm-related deaths to "exacerbation of pre-existing illness" (10%), motor vehicle accidents (9%), carbon monoxide poisoning (8%), fires (4%) and falls (4%)."

mrguyorama 4y ago
Seeing as the storm does not produce carbon monoxide itself, I think "storm related" here includes "people dying because the storm knocked out their power"
- cdot2 4y ago
  not having power also doesn't produce carbon monoxide
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Portable combustion heaters do. People were using those because they didn't have gas or power for heat, and that's usually how people end up dead from CO. I don't think there's an honest way to spin that into not being the storm and grid failure's fault.

everforward 4y ago

The flip side is that in an event like that, the power is worth far more than $20 to the owner of the PowerWall. I lived through that outage, and I lost more than $20 in food that spoiled in the fridge/freezer (didn't have a good storage container to put it outside where the raccoons/cats couldn't get it). Some people lost dramatically more than that when their pipes froze and burst. Central heating also doesn't work without power. They draw less than 600 watts. In that situation, would you rather have $20 or enough power to have your heating run for 24 hours? And that's actual runtime, you could probably keep your house warm-ish for 2 or 3 days by turning it on and off. Personally, I'd only be interested if joining something like VPP came with a substantial subsidy on the price of the PowerWall or a monthly payment that could offset a significant portion of the cost. Or it had enough storage that I actually had extra power after running essentials (it does not currently).