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Opens with a disingenuous "$86M owed, which will be paid for by Texas consumers" no, it already has been paid for by consumers when they bought the energy from

Opens with a disingenuous "$86M owed, which will be paid for by Texas consumers" no, it already has been paid for by consumers when they bought the energy from them because they needed it. I'm trying to figure out if these people truly don't know how any of this works because they're uninterested or if they deliberately pretend like they don't because the truth is not condusive to the narrative they want to build.

WillPostForFood 3y ago
They hate crypto, and they hate Texas, so they can take a cheap shot.
- kennywinker 3y ago
  Who is this they you speak of? Texas is a beautiful state, with a psychotic energy system, and a government that doesn’t represent the will of their people.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    The UK has an almost identical power market. We just generate more wind and solar than anyone else.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    You've never been to Texas if you think it's beautiful lol. Its pretty in some places, particularly the desert and hills, but most of Texas is flat, muggy, hot, the forests are overgrown, pig farms and grain fields. Even the ocean is brown. California is beautiful. Texas is mid at best. But it has other things going for it. The energy system in Texas is one of it's strengths, the government does represent the will of the majority and is probably the main thing the state has going for it, that and energy resources. People don't move there because it's beautiful, they move there because it is governed and run pretty sensibly.
    - kennywinker 3y ago
      Citations: Gov. policy not representing the people: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-primary-election-2022-polling/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-primary-ele... Energy system insanity: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/texas-power-grid-heat-what-matters/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/texas-power-grid-hea... As for texas being a beautiful state, I have no citations, just good memories from my many visits. I will grant you that there are a growing number of oil extraction / fracking hellscape in the state.
      - friend_and_foe 3y ago
        An article only talking about what voters may disagree with the government on? Why not address the other issues that keep getting these people reelected? They're winning on some platform. The article says mask and vaccine mandates, and only mentions that the people disagreed on the mask mandates. What about the vaccine mandates? Why leave the polling on that one out? And a biased article that only cites critics. The Texas grid has had one catastrophic failure in living memory. It also has some of the cheapest electricity anywhere in the country, even the world.
kennywinker 3y ago
Not sure how one can “buy energy” from a crypto company that doesn’t generate electricity…
- dublinben 3y ago
  This is known as a Virtual Power Plant.[0] In the case of this cryptocurrency company, they are selling the electricity that they "would" be consuming if it wasn't being bought back from them. If they hadn't "sold" it back to the grid, it wouldn't have been available to be used by other customers. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    What an absurd name for basically a big resistor generating heat you are paid to disconnect from the grid when it’s about to go up in flames. They need batteries not sudoku solver bots. Talk about doublespeak in this case, wow.
    - anonporridge 3y ago
      If there is no buyer for excess solar/wind electricity, then it must curtail and earn less income. Less income means it takes longer to pay off initial capital costs and generate return. Slower investment return from solar and wind deployments means expansion of them will take longer. If wind and solar takes longer to roll out at full scale for financial reasons, then our goals towards fossil fuel reductions takes longer. Therefore, if you can find a buyer who will suck up any excess solar and wind and pay them, we eliminate fossil fuels quicker.
      - jcranmer 3y ago
        > If there is no buyer for excess solar/wind electricity, then it must curtail and earn less income. Solar and wind have the lowest marginal costs of production, which means they'll win out on the wholesale power markets. Furthermore, Texas is a state with increasing population growth and increasing energy needs (hotter planet means more A/C, after all), and has regularly been setting all-time highs on daily energy consumption. So there'll always be a buyer for the excess electricity.
sneak 3y ago
This site is pretty generic template agitprop. Industry and activist groups make things like this all of the time to frame certain issues they don't like in the worst possible light. You can find this sort of stuff in lots of industries that have cash flows at risk that are trying to manufacture outrage in the voting public to create activists who will attempt to influence legislative priorities.

WillPostForFood 3y ago

They hate crypto, and they hate Texas, so they can take a cheap shot.

kennywinker 3y ago
Who is this they you speak of? Texas is a beautiful state, with a psychotic energy system, and a government that doesn’t represent the will of their people.
- Aloha 3y ago
  The UK has an almost identical power market. We just generate more wind and solar than anyone else.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  You've never been to Texas if you think it's beautiful lol. Its pretty in some places, particularly the desert and hills, but most of Texas is flat, muggy, hot, the forests are overgrown, pig farms and grain fields. Even the ocean is brown. California is beautiful. Texas is mid at best. But it has other things going for it. The energy system in Texas is one of it's strengths, the government does represent the will of the majority and is probably the main thing the state has going for it, that and energy resources. People don't move there because it's beautiful, they move there because it is governed and run pretty sensibly.
  - kennywinker 3y ago
    Citations: Gov. policy not representing the people: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-primary-election-2022-polling/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-primary-ele... Energy system insanity: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/texas-power-grid-heat-what-matters/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/texas-power-grid-hea... As for texas being a beautiful state, I have no citations, just good memories from my many visits. I will grant you that there are a growing number of oil extraction / fracking hellscape in the state.
    - friend_and_foe 3y ago
      An article only talking about what voters may disagree with the government on? Why not address the other issues that keep getting these people reelected? They're winning on some platform. The article says mask and vaccine mandates, and only mentions that the people disagreed on the mask mandates. What about the vaccine mandates? Why leave the polling on that one out? And a biased article that only cites critics. The Texas grid has had one catastrophic failure in living memory. It also has some of the cheapest electricity anywhere in the country, even the world.

kennywinker 3y ago

Not sure how one can “buy energy” from a crypto company that doesn’t generate electricity…

dublinben 3y ago
This is known as a Virtual Power Plant.[0] In the case of this cryptocurrency company, they are selling the electricity that they "would" be consuming if it wasn't being bought back from them. If they hadn't "sold" it back to the grid, it wouldn't have been available to be used by other customers. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant
- arcticbull 3y ago
  What an absurd name for basically a big resistor generating heat you are paid to disconnect from the grid when it’s about to go up in flames. They need batteries not sudoku solver bots. Talk about doublespeak in this case, wow.
  - anonporridge 3y ago
    If there is no buyer for excess solar/wind electricity, then it must curtail and earn less income. Less income means it takes longer to pay off initial capital costs and generate return. Slower investment return from solar and wind deployments means expansion of them will take longer. If wind and solar takes longer to roll out at full scale for financial reasons, then our goals towards fossil fuel reductions takes longer. Therefore, if you can find a buyer who will suck up any excess solar and wind and pay them, we eliminate fossil fuels quicker.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      > If there is no buyer for excess solar/wind electricity, then it must curtail and earn less income. Solar and wind have the lowest marginal costs of production, which means they'll win out on the wholesale power markets. Furthermore, Texas is a state with increasing population growth and increasing energy needs (hotter planet means more A/C, after all), and has regularly been setting all-time highs on daily energy consumption. So there'll always be a buyer for the excess electricity.

sneak 3y ago

This site is pretty generic template agitprop. Industry and activist groups make things like this all of the time to frame certain issues they don't like in the worst possible light. You can find this sort of stuff in lots of industries that have cash flows at risk that are trying to manufacture outrage in the voting public to create activists who will attempt to influence legislative priorities.