Hacker News Reader

Comment by solidsnack9000 | Hacker News Reader

Without winterization, it doesn't matter if Texas is connected or not. With it, it doesn't matter either, because it produces and uses so much electricity.

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.

View on HN

> Without winterization, it doesn't matter if Texas is connected or not.

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.

Would other states be able to provide it? I saw a post a few days ago showing that wholesale electricity prices are up 10x in nonimpacted states (California)

> Would other states be able to provide it?

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.

This isn't how residential pricing works. End residential customers typically don't pay these increases

Yes - residential customers don't pay wholesale price (which is what I, and gp was referring to). I'm not sure why you're injecting residential pricing into the discussion.

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.

I don't think limiting yourself to the possibility of 0 help makes sense if "maybe they wouldn't get very much help".

I'm just not sure you're applying the right kind of reasoning here. The question is, what do we learn from this event? One thing we don't learn is that Texas's disconnected grid was a problem -- it simply made no difference, because of the magnitude of the capacity loss. It might even have protected the surrounding states.

Simply because the entire loss couldn't be replaced, doesn't mean some extra supply couldn't be if it was connected.

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.

Going from no electricity for 2-3 days to just an hour of electricity every 8 hours is a total game changer. It allows you to charge your phone which reduces your health and safety risks suite a bit, not to mention an hour of heating can mean the different between a house that hits a low of 34 vs 44 which is a world of different in terms of cold.

> Without winterization, it doesn't matter if Texas is connected or not. With it, it doesn't matter either, because it produces and uses so much electricity.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com