'How did this happen? How does an entire giant state run out o | Syndiegram

"How did this happen? How does an entire giant state run out of energy? How does a power grid fail so drastically? The answer is simple. Texas partitioned its own energy grid from the rest of the country so it could be free from regulation, and that independence comes with a cost. In a 2019 story for the Texas Observer, Amal Ahmed wrote that Texas’s energy grid, ERCOT, “has the lowest reserve margins, or extra supply, out of any grid system in the United States this summer. If customers had needed more electricity than predicted, there wouldn’t be much room for error, and ERCOT might have needed to initiate rolling blackouts to prevent a larger, more dangerous power outage.” The state was warned a decade ago that this might happen. And they did nothing. “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” an expert told the Houston Chronicle. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.” In other words, a lack of capable governing allowed an important and life-sustaining system to rust.

No one I’ve talked to in Texas has mentioned the government. They know better than to expect anything from it. Anyone who has lived in Texas for any period of time and experienced any kind of dire need knows that the government is not going to help you. It’s controlled by men who care more about their pockets than their people. It’s one thing to come to terms with that level of neglect when it’s being enacted in the service of denying people individual rights to decisions over their body, or ensuring that everyone can carry a gun at all times. But it’s something else to see the consequences of the government’s callousness borne out in the crashing of a power grid. Even libertarians think that the government should make sure the roads are safe and that people can heat their homes.

Texas isn’t the only state that’s been forced to bear these failures of government. In January 2016, the Michigan governor promised to look into how American citizens in Flint had ended up with tap water that ran brown and was poisoning people. The scandal got so large that Presidential candidates went to the tiny town to say their piece. And what happened? Basically nothing. No one went to jail. In 2019, they said they would keep investigating, but nothing has happened. People are going to be sick for the rest of their lives and the people responsible will pay no price.

There’s New York, too, and Iowa and California and Florida and so many other states where thousands upon thousands of people have needlessly died due to state and local governments botching their pandemic response. Americans are being failed in every state. They are dying and suffering while our representatives are arguing over whether to give us 1,400 more dollars in the 11th month of a pandemic. Every level of the United States government is lying to you right now. They are looking you dead in the eye as your family members freeze and cough and drown in debt and telling you that, actually, you’re fine."

https://defector.com/texas-energy-crisis-lying/