I've worked with electric utility regulators all over North America and the UK. They all seem from the outside to be mind bogglingly incompetent. ERCOT in Texas is no better and no worse than the rest. We should be asking why are these regulators in general are so bad. I'm going to blame the voters. Voters think electricity is easy. They think a KWh of energy is all the same but you can't store electricity, you have to generate the exact same amount that you use. They don't consider transportation and d
ERCOT in Texas is no better and no worse than the rest.
The Eastern and Western US grids actually supplying power demonstrate otherwise. Especially since the storm that is crippling Texas is also hitting all of the states North of Texas and not causing widespread outages.
The same grid collapse due to cold happened in 1989, and 2011. The post-mortem report on the 2011 incident listed the things ERCOT needed to require the power generators to do, and they did exactly none of them. ERCOT could have made those changes a requirement for being connected to the grid, and didn't. The Texas legislature could have passed a law requiring it, and they didn't. The executive branch in Texas could have written a regulation to require it, and they didn't.
This is absolutely not a "both sides" thing. People are dying because of one side's anti-regulatory fervor.
The Eastern and Western US grids have had other equally spectacular wide-scale failures whilst the Texas grid remained up - they just happened at different times (and from somewhat different causes, including ones tied directly to the extra complexity of running a large, heavily interconnected grid). Someone could just as easily point to those failures in isolation as proof the Texas grid is better. Also, as far as I can tell there was no grid collapse due to cold in 1989 and 2011, just rolling blackouts comparable to the ones California had last summer.
The Eastern and Western US grids have had other equally spectacular wide-scale failures whilst the Texas grid remained up - they just happened at different times (and from somewhat different causes, including ones tied directly to the extra complexity of running a large, heavily interconnected grid). Someone could just as easily point to those failures in isolation as proof the Texas grid is better. Also, as far as I can tell there was no grid collapse due to cold in 1989 and 2011, just rolling blackouts comparable to the ones California had last summer.
Two points:
1. That discounts the times the E&W grids were able to prevent major problems due to the ability to move power around, so simply saying it happens eleswhere is not a strong case for why Texas' grid design is a good one.
2. Had Texas been part of the national grid the rolling blackouts may not have been necessary.
The real mark though is: how did the grid operators learn from those incidents and take corrective action to make sure that the same cause won't have the same effects?
We know the answer to that for ERCOT - they got a nice detailed report of corrective action they could take to prevent exactly what is happening right now, and they did fuck-all with it. Now people are dying of exposure in their own homes.
Every one of those motherfuckers, as well as the governor that appointed them, deserves a spectacular pub
It really is the voters - left and right (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It really is the voters - left and right (Score:5, Informative)
ERCOT in Texas is no better and no worse than the rest.
The Eastern and Western US grids actually supplying power demonstrate otherwise. Especially since the storm that is crippling Texas is also hitting all of the states North of Texas and not causing widespread outages.
The same grid collapse due to cold happened in 1989, and 2011. The post-mortem report on the 2011 incident listed the things ERCOT needed to require the power generators to do, and they did exactly none of them. ERCOT could have made those changes a requirement for being connected to the grid, and didn't. The Texas legislature could have passed a law requiring it, and they didn't. The executive branch in Texas could have written a regulation to require it, and they didn't.
This is absolutely not a "both sides" thing. People are dying because of one side's anti-regulatory fervor.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:It really is the voters - left and right (Score:4, Informative)
The Eastern and Western US grids have had other equally spectacular wide-scale failures whilst the Texas grid remained up - they just happened at different times (and from somewhat different causes, including ones tied directly to the extra complexity of running a large, heavily interconnected grid). Someone could just as easily point to those failures in isolation as proof the Texas grid is better. Also, as far as I can tell there was no grid collapse due to cold in 1989 and 2011, just rolling blackouts comparable to the ones California had last summer.
Re: (Score:2)
The Eastern and Western US grids have had other equally spectacular wide-scale failures whilst the Texas grid remained up - they just happened at different times (and from somewhat different causes, including ones tied directly to the extra complexity of running a large, heavily interconnected grid). Someone could just as easily point to those failures in isolation as proof the Texas grid is better. Also, as far as I can tell there was no grid collapse due to cold in 1989 and 2011, just rolling blackouts comparable to the ones California had last summer.
Two points:
1. That discounts the times the E&W grids were able to prevent major problems due to the ability to move power around, so simply saying it happens eleswhere is not a strong case for why Texas' grid design is a good one.
2. Had Texas been part of the national grid the rolling blackouts may not have been necessary.
Re: (Score:2)
The real mark though is: how did the grid operators learn from those incidents and take corrective action to make sure that the same cause won't have the same effects?
We know the answer to that for ERCOT - they got a nice detailed report of corrective action they could take to prevent exactly what is happening right now, and they did fuck-all with it. Now people are dying of exposure in their own homes.
Every one of those motherfuckers, as well as the governor that appointed them, deserves a spectacular pub