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I look forward to witnessing more Texas-style deregulation nightmares. This will probably play out as the financial equivalent of their paroxysmal electrical gr

I look forward to witnessing more Texas-style deregulation nightmares. This will probably play out as the financial equivalent of their paroxysmal electrical grid. Sometimes your purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

jqpabc123 2y ago
Upvoted for the word "paroxysmal".
maxwell 2y ago
Laboratories of democracy.
cosmic_quanta 2y ago
I strongly object on comparing the Texas power grid with this wild-west stock exchange. Deregulation of power grids (which has been done throughout the US, not only in Texas) isn't the same as removing red tape in financial reporting. It's about removing oversight of large, vertically-integrated utilities by fostering competition of unintegrated market participants. Deregulating power grids has been such a success for flexibility and renewable energy integration that the European Union codified it into law in 2019. Is it working perfectly in Texas? Absolutely not. Is it an example of utter failure of "deregulation"? Absolutely not!
- while_true_ 2y ago
  Enron is the poster child of how opening the energy grid to an unregulated free market makes it ripe for price rigging and manipulation. Enron was famous for trading strategies like "Fat Boy" and "Death Star" where they would do things like submit fake energy schedules to create the illusion of congestion on transmission rights they own to collect payments for relieving the congestion the next day, which wasn't actually going to happen. Energy markets need regulations and oversight to prevent bad actors from ripping off utilities, which ultimately get passed on to ratepayers via higher rates.
  - cosmic_quanta 2y ago
    Absolutely, these "deregulated" markets still need oversight. And there is oversight: look at what happened with JPMorgan manipulating energy markets [0]. My issue is, "deregulation of electricity markets" means "unbundling vertically-integrated utilities", not "removing oversight". This Texas Stock Exchange is about removing oversight. [0]: https://apnews.com/ferc-jpmorgan-owes-410m-for-price-manipulation-d1b5e158ca9a4c29bac065a95cc6dc8e https://apnews.com/ferc-jpmorgan-owes-410m-for-price-manipul...
fdasfdasfdjf 2y ago
Well, the Texas economy has been booming. It has been outpacing the rest of the US for many quarters now. They are financially doing something right.
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago
  And as everyone knows, past performance is a guaranteed indicator of future performance. If you simply go as fast as possible, you'll continue at that rate forever.
  - fdasfdasfdjf 2y ago
    Many California corporations have moved to Texas. These include HP, Oracle, Tesla and Charles Schwab. It turns out many companies like less regulations.
    - digital_sawzall 2y ago
      Oracle, like many others, moved in name only. In fact Oracle just changed the headquarters to Nashville.
      - abadpoli 2y ago
        Oracle didn’t move its entire workforce, but it’s inaccurate to say it was “in name only”. Oracle spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a massive office campus near downtown Austin that reportedly has space for 10,000 employees. I’m curious what other companies you’re thinking of when you say “like many others”, because all of the ones I can think of have moved significant parts of their operations to Texas.
    - mike_d 2y ago
      Oracle has north of 160,000 employees. 2,500 of which are in Texas. The founder and CEO both live in other states.
    - kaibee 2y ago
cdot2 2y ago
Texas actually has roughly average electric grid reliability compared to other states (28 out of 50) while also having substantially below average electricity costs. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/energy/power-grid-reliability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastruct... https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... Texas also recently announced a program to build a series of distributed small nuclear reactors around the state which is cool. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/27/texas-small-nuclear-reactors-power/ https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/27/texas-small-nuclear-...
- oldpersonintx 2y ago
  [flagged]
- mbreese 2y ago
  In this context, I wouldn't be interested in averages. Their systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known. The average reliability rates aren't going to necessarily show these events.
  - abadpoli 2y ago
    > systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known No they aren’t. They’re often repeated, but they aren’t true. Texas had a catastrophic “grid failure” in 2021. It hasn’t had any actual issues since. There have been no power outages due to “grid failure” since that one event. The past couple winters and summers have seen several situations where the grid operators have issued warnings, but these warnings are completely normal and are part of the process to inform power producers to not go offline, etc. In software terms, it’s basically the equivalent of “it’s going to be a busy day today, try to avoid doing any deployments to prod unless they’re really necessary”. Just like the train derailments last year, and the airplane issues this year, the media loves to use the fervor around a single bad event to then create big headlines about every similar event. Back to the software example, imagine if every big shopping holiday there was an CNN headline of “Amazon told its developers they cannot deploy to prod today. Amazon is worried about an outage!!” And because the layperson doesn’t know any better, they fall for it. But in reality, it was business as usual.
leetharris 2y ago
The Texas electrical grid is great. It had one rough event that has been echoed all throughout the internet endlessly because the left thinks it is a dunk on a red state.
- digital_sawzall 2y ago
  That is false. As a life long texan the grid gets dicey with rolling blackouts every summer and the occasional shutdown every winter. In fact hundreds of thousands of Houstonians lost power for extended periods just last month.
  - ARandomerDude 2y ago
    > That is false. As a life long texan the grid gets dicey with rolling blackouts every summer and the occasional shutdown every winter. What? I'm also a lifelong Texan and have experienced rolling blackouts once: during 2021. > In fact hundreds of thousands of Houstonians lost power for extended periods just last month. You mean after a massive storm with 100 mph winds destroyed infrastructure and flooded the city? https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/weather/houston-storms-power-severe-weather-south/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/weather/houston-storms-power-...
    - chankstein38 2y ago
      I don't know either of you and I'm not trying to assert either of you is correct or incorrect but it's worth remembering how insanely large your state is. It'd take 11hrs to drive from Houston to El Paso and Texas contains most of the different climates we're all familiar with. To some degree, saying "As a life long Texan" then trying to generalize the "Texas Experience" to be your own is as incorrect as saying "As an American, there are mountains everywhere and it's green and beautiful".
- HWR_14 2y ago
  It had more than one failure. Just this century, winter weather caused issues in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2021
goodmunky 2y ago
[flagged]
- olsonjeffery 2y ago
  Winning what? At raising maternal mortality? At childhood asthma? At poisoning groundwater? What is Texas winning at?
  - 93po 2y ago
    teenage pregnancy and abstinence only education
  - dxbydt 2y ago
    fwiw, Texas won mathcounts this year! And last year!! In fact, Texas won in 5 of the past 10 years, which is absolutely astounding!!! Last time California showed up on the list of winners was way back in 2014. https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/MathCounts_historical_results https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/MathCounts_hi...
- VoodooJuJu 2y ago
  Based Texan.
thepasswordis 2y ago
California’s grid is so bad that nobody even bothers reporting on it anymore.
mcconaughey 2y ago
Yes -- because the highly regulated CA electrical grid functions so seamlessly?

jqpabc123 2y ago

Upvoted for the word "paroxysmal".

maxwell 2y ago

Laboratories of democracy.

cosmic_quanta 2y ago

I strongly object on comparing the Texas power grid with this wild-west stock exchange. Deregulation of power grids (which has been done throughout the US, not only in Texas) isn't the same as removing red tape in financial reporting. It's about removing oversight of large, vertically-integrated utilities by fostering competition of unintegrated market participants. Deregulating power grids has been such a success for flexibility and renewable energy integration that the European Union codified it into law in 2019. Is it working perfectly in Texas? Absolutely not. Is it an example of utter failure of "deregulation"? Absolutely not!

while_true_ 2y ago
Enron is the poster child of how opening the energy grid to an unregulated free market makes it ripe for price rigging and manipulation. Enron was famous for trading strategies like "Fat Boy" and "Death Star" where they would do things like submit fake energy schedules to create the illusion of congestion on transmission rights they own to collect payments for relieving the congestion the next day, which wasn't actually going to happen. Energy markets need regulations and oversight to prevent bad actors from ripping off utilities, which ultimately get passed on to ratepayers via higher rates.
- cosmic_quanta 2y ago
  Absolutely, these "deregulated" markets still need oversight. And there is oversight: look at what happened with JPMorgan manipulating energy markets [0]. My issue is, "deregulation of electricity markets" means "unbundling vertically-integrated utilities", not "removing oversight". This Texas Stock Exchange is about removing oversight. [0]: https://apnews.com/ferc-jpmorgan-owes-410m-for-price-manipulation-d1b5e158ca9a4c29bac065a95cc6dc8e https://apnews.com/ferc-jpmorgan-owes-410m-for-price-manipul...

fdasfdasfdjf 2y ago

Well, the Texas economy has been booming. It has been outpacing the rest of the US for many quarters now. They are financially doing something right.

MSFT_Edging 2y ago
And as everyone knows, past performance is a guaranteed indicator of future performance. If you simply go as fast as possible, you'll continue at that rate forever.
- fdasfdasfdjf 2y ago
  Many California corporations have moved to Texas. These include HP, Oracle, Tesla and Charles Schwab. It turns out many companies like less regulations.
  - digital_sawzall 2y ago
    Oracle, like many others, moved in name only. In fact Oracle just changed the headquarters to Nashville.
    - abadpoli 2y ago
      Oracle didn’t move its entire workforce, but it’s inaccurate to say it was “in name only”. Oracle spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a massive office campus near downtown Austin that reportedly has space for 10,000 employees. I’m curious what other companies you’re thinking of when you say “like many others”, because all of the ones I can think of have moved significant parts of their operations to Texas.
  - mike_d 2y ago
    Oracle has north of 160,000 employees. 2,500 of which are in Texas. The founder and CEO both live in other states.
  - kaibee 2y ago

cdot2 2y ago

Texas actually has roughly average electric grid reliability compared to other states (28 out of 50) while also having substantially below average electricity costs. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/energy/power-grid-reliability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastruct... https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... Texas also recently announced a program to build a series of distributed small nuclear reactors around the state which is cool. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/27/texas-small-nuclear-reactors-power/ https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/27/texas-small-nuclear-...

oldpersonintx 2y ago
[flagged]
mbreese 2y ago
In this context, I wouldn't be interested in averages. Their systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known. The average reliability rates aren't going to necessarily show these events.
- abadpoli 2y ago
  > systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known No they aren’t. They’re often repeated, but they aren’t true. Texas had a catastrophic “grid failure” in 2021. It hasn’t had any actual issues since. There have been no power outages due to “grid failure” since that one event. The past couple winters and summers have seen several situations where the grid operators have issued warnings, but these warnings are completely normal and are part of the process to inform power producers to not go offline, etc. In software terms, it’s basically the equivalent of “it’s going to be a busy day today, try to avoid doing any deployments to prod unless they’re really necessary”. Just like the train derailments last year, and the airplane issues this year, the media loves to use the fervor around a single bad event to then create big headlines about every similar event. Back to the software example, imagine if every big shopping holiday there was an CNN headline of “Amazon told its developers they cannot deploy to prod today. Amazon is worried about an outage!!” And because the layperson doesn’t know any better, they fall for it. But in reality, it was business as usual.

leetharris 2y ago

The Texas electrical grid is great. It had one rough event that has been echoed all throughout the internet endlessly because the left thinks it is a dunk on a red state.

digital_sawzall 2y ago
That is false. As a life long texan the grid gets dicey with rolling blackouts every summer and the occasional shutdown every winter. In fact hundreds of thousands of Houstonians lost power for extended periods just last month.
- ARandomerDude 2y ago
  > That is false. As a life long texan the grid gets dicey with rolling blackouts every summer and the occasional shutdown every winter. What? I'm also a lifelong Texan and have experienced rolling blackouts once: during 2021. > In fact hundreds of thousands of Houstonians lost power for extended periods just last month. You mean after a massive storm with 100 mph winds destroyed infrastructure and flooded the city? https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/weather/houston-storms-power-severe-weather-south/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/weather/houston-storms-power-...
  - chankstein38 2y ago
    I don't know either of you and I'm not trying to assert either of you is correct or incorrect but it's worth remembering how insanely large your state is. It'd take 11hrs to drive from Houston to El Paso and Texas contains most of the different climates we're all familiar with. To some degree, saying "As a life long Texan" then trying to generalize the "Texas Experience" to be your own is as incorrect as saying "As an American, there are mountains everywhere and it's green and beautiful".
HWR_14 2y ago
It had more than one failure. Just this century, winter weather caused issues in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2021

goodmunky 2y ago

[flagged]

olsonjeffery 2y ago
Winning what? At raising maternal mortality? At childhood asthma? At poisoning groundwater? What is Texas winning at?
- 93po 2y ago
  teenage pregnancy and abstinence only education
- dxbydt 2y ago
  fwiw, Texas won mathcounts this year! And last year!! In fact, Texas won in 5 of the past 10 years, which is absolutely astounding!!! Last time California showed up on the list of winners was way back in 2014. https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/MathCounts_historical_results https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/MathCounts_hi...
VoodooJuJu 2y ago
Based Texan.

thepasswordis 2y ago

California’s grid is so bad that nobody even bothers reporting on it anymore.

mcconaughey 2y ago

Yes -- because the highly regulated CA electrical grid functions so seamlessly?