Oh, Texas. Your power grid is an endless source of amusement (for people who don’t have to rely on it, of course).
The reason Texans hate government so much is because they have no idea what it looks like when it’s run correctly.
Losing power for three days, but knowing my energy bill will be twice as high as last months is always a cool feeling.
Smartass remarks aside, you have my sympathies.
I mean, I work in the O&G industry. Y’all have every right to be as smartass as you please.
so what’s the reason they’re the only state independent from the national grid?
they just know better?
guess that’s why they call it the lone star stateso what’s the reason they’re the only state independent from the national grid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection
There’s a whole article on it in Wikipedia, but the TL;DR; boils down to “If we’re not connected nationally then we don’t have to abide by national regulations”.
That’s ostensibly a cost-saving, assuming you don’t think too hard about what’s being regulated. But its also a great opportunity to price gouge consumers.
Everything’s bigger in Texas.
Especially the incompetence.
We’ve learned nothing from the 2021 winter storm that killed over 200 people.
They did change one thing. You used to be able to get electricity at wholesale prices from certain providers. When the rates went crazy during the 2021 storm and people’s crazy bills for turning on the lamp blew up on the news, they shut down that option.
These rate surges do hurt customers, but now it’s in the form of rate increases when their contract expires.
Correct.
Didn’t the state basically re-elect everyone who oversaw that shit show?
Not only did they re-elect them, deregulating the power grid even more was an explicit part of the Republican platform
Partisanship is a hell of a drug.
Rationality is out of the window. Ideology is the new religion. They don’t want to become “socialists” even though they don’t know what it truly means.
It’s almost scary to think of how bad it would have to get in order for voters to tick the boxes for Greens or Libertarians.
Like, how badly do these fuckers have to fail before you’re willing to shed your partisan jersey and vote to your own benefit?
It’s absolutely wild. The last time around, people died, and a lot more were put into financial hardship due to the shitty, hypercapitalist energy infrastructure. People were rightly ripshit angry about it.
And then nothing was done about any of it.
And then people keep voting for the politicians who created and perpetuated the situation.
It’s really hard to keep giving a shit about people who actively work and vote to make their own lives worse.
I bet those businesses who relocated from Cali to Texas are loving those power prices.
Oh yeah, they already left Texas.
Besides that one time power goes out more often in California. In Texas you just have a temporary price surge you could treat like a blackout if you wanted to. The difference is it’s less often and you have a choice.
Bookmarking this for the next time white supremacists here in good ole’ South Africa peddles the “privatisation is the only thing that will fix our electricity problems!” bullcrap.
Thanks, Texas!
No no no, that’s not true privatization. True privatization would fix all the problems
Lol so how’s that “deregulated freedom” working out for you, Texans?
“Last year, Texas overtook California in large-scale solar power capacity. When huge amounts of solar power rush onto the grid, batteries tend to follow. Now, Texas is building more grid batteries than California, the longtime undisputed leader in clean energy storage.”
And yet prices still surged 1600%
why would you think that any of this effects prices?
It should reduce the costs, but Texas is so fucked…
You are free… to pay as much as you possibly can for electricity.
what kind of woke liberal socialism is this?
don’t they know those solar power panels will use up all the sun! What will happen when we run out of sun?! /s
Probably the same thing that will happen to all the athletes once they run out of their finite lifetime supply of energy :(
