To me that doesn't justify the choice to be disconnected.
So let's say they might not have made up the entire loss...so what?
Making up for some of the loss would help wouldn't it?
That seems like using perfection as a justification to make worse choices...
The whole disconnected grid wisdom or lack of it seems unrelated to me as far as if winterization is being done well enough generally.
If anything, it might be a blessing to the other states, that they are not connected to Texas at present. Consider the northeast blackout of 2003:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2003-blackout-fiv...
Texas is not shutting down train lines in Canada. We didn't implement our own winterization guidelines and now we face the consequences. That's how it should be.
The justification for Texas's grid goes back many decades and can't be assessed on the basis of an event like this -- that's recency bias.
Arguing that the problem couldn't be entirely fixed, and ignoring the possibility of ANY help seems as I described, demanding perfection to ignore any possible improvement...
As far as a possible collapse of outside systems, the other connected systems seem to have done well enough for now.
Why is this the case? It seems like if Texas was connected they'd be able to pull some of that missing 45GW power which might be enough for an hour of electricity every 8 hours which would be a total game changer for a lot of homes.
Yes. At the peak, Texas wholesale electricity spot-prices went up by 10,000% - 10x is child's play. What would have happened was non-essential use in California would have been priced out by desperate Texan households who'd pay almost anything to keep residences heated.
Energy companies absorb the fluctuations, except for that one company that thought it was a great idea to pass-though prices to the customers. It was a great idea when the prices were low, but many of their customers will likely experience sticker shock on their next bill.
Isn't this just more argument for perfection. Sure, if they completely and fully winterized every single plant, it wouldn't be a problem. But what if they did more than nothing to winterize but less than 100%. Then imagine they were connected as well. If they had simply done better at multiple things, they wouldn't have to be perfect at any one thing. And it certainly doesn't excuse them making terrible decisions on multiple things.
Sure, if everything in my house is 100% fireproof, I don't need a fire extinguisher. Sure, if everything in my house is made out of kindling, a fire extinguisher is going to be inadequate protection. But if I build my house out of relatively fire retardant materials and I keep a fire extinguisher, I am likely going to be ok. Perfection is the enemy of good, and is no excuse for just settling for outright bad.