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Comment by jplr8922 | Hacker News Reader

As an Canadian and ex power trader across north america (including ERCOT), I find the political interpretations of events very weird. Poor regulation and deregulation are not the same thing. Do you really think that talking about grid preparation for winter will get any anybody elected? The nuances of esoteric economic principles and advanced egineering are not cool topic which can be understood or debated through tweets and memes. The same can be said about a lot of tangible or intangible infrastructure. I think ERCOT-type failures will become the norm.

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As a Canadian power systems engineer who lives and breathes NERC compliance standards every day (something I'd never ever thought I'd see discussed by the broader public) I find it bizarre that everyone is staking out their position on this based on political allegiances rather than focusing on analyzing the event.

There are also extremely broad misconceptions that Texas is somehow exempt from all federal regulation that are fueling people's motivated reasoning on this topic. NERC reliability standards are enforceable in Texas! [1] All existing and future NERC winterization rules apply just as much in Texas as anywhere else.

Yes, ERCOT messed up. Yes, there are big issues to be resolved here. Some of those issues are national in scope and some are Texas specific. But drawing a direct line from Texas being its own interconnection to this failure simply doesn't follow the facts for me.

[1] https://www.texasre.org/enforcement

The point is that politicians should be marketing themselves as leaders who take care of this kind of stuff so I as a constituent do not have to worry about it. They should be able to hire advisors who make sure they prioritize the right things.

Instead what we have are pols who optimize for fundraising. Which means you get the opposite.

> The point is that politicians should be marketing themselves as leaders who take care of this kind of stuff so I as a constituent do not have to worry about it. ...

They do (at least partly) market themselves that way, but they don't follow through because if you don't worry about it you're not checking if they follow through.

And there is a group of wealthy people who contribute money to reinforcing the idea that government (at any level) is incapable of fixing problems. Either through argument or by creating laws that hamstring the ability of members of the government to take action. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2019/11/15/can-com...

>Poor regulation and deregulation are not the same thing. Do you really think that talking about grid preparation for winter will get any anybody elected?

No, but I would hope this type of thing could get somebody unelected now.

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