Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

JASON BOTHE jbothe at me.com
Tue Feb 16 15:45:05 UTC 2021


The professor has it right. Before the state privatized the grid and made ERCOT, we never had these problems. Every few years, these private companies complain they need a rate hike because they need a grant to ‘beef up’ the infrastructure and it’s granted although we seem to keep having this issue. I’m certain history will continue to repeat itself. 

> On Feb 16, 2021, at 06:32, John Sage <jsage at finchhaven.com> wrote:
> 
> On 2/16/21 4:22 AM, John Sage wrote:
>>> On 2/15/21 10:02 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 2/16/21 07:49, Matthew Petach wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Isn't that a result of ERCOT stubbornly refusing to interconnect with the rest of the national grid, out of an irrational fear of coming under federal regulation?
>> Yes. This has been widely documented in numerous articles, both very recently and previously.
> 
> As one example only, of many:
> 
> "What went wrong with the Texas power grid?"
> 
> Marcy de Luna, Amanda Drane, Houston Chronicle
> 
> Feb. 15, 2021
> Updated: Feb. 15, 2021 9:23 p.m.
> 
> "Dan Woodfin, ERCOT’s senior director of system operations, said the rolling blackouts are taking more power offline for longer periods than ever before. An estimated 34,000 megawatts of power generation — more than a third of the system’s total generating capacity — had been knocked offline by the extreme winter weather amid soaring demand as residents crank up heating systems."
> 
> . . .
> 
> "Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants.
> 
> “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances."
> 
> https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php 
> 
> 
> - John
> __


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