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Comment by wumeow | Hacker News Reader

Compare and contrast with Texas.

Why? Why does this new innovation in the california grid have to be all about dunking on texas?

(As a californian) It's especially annoying coming from anyone californian, the state of Enron and PGE wildfires. Like we are so caught up in the vanity of comparison that we quickly rush to forgive our past sins while condemning the mistakes of others for forever and ever.

How about as technologists, we just focus on innovating (which is not a zero sum game) and we don't compare ourselves to people who aren't doing as well.

I’m in Europe and I can pick on Texas all day on energy. The separate grid is a self-inflicted gunshot wound in both feet.

Well, they do like their guns in Texas

I live in Texas and support your message. We get cheap power and have cheap results [under stress] to show for it, repeatedly

Then you should also know the way they run their energy network is similar to our euro free energy markets. Many many people in Europe pay spot price, the kind that people on HN freaked out when the pricing went crazy is pretty normal in EU.

How so? Would the Federal regulators have done a better job of making CenterPoint invest the right amount of money into tree trimming and placing lines underground?

California is under Federal regulation and has significant problems where PG&E hasn't invested enough in reliability.

If California just breezed through every natural disaster with no power outages and lower than Texas energy prices it would truly be a no brainer.

But Texas has retail power rates in the $0.10-$0.20/kwh range. From what I understand $0.20 would be an absolute bargain in California and that $0.30-$0.50 per kwh is more what folks out there pay.

It's not so compelling in that case. Of course I could have missed something. Please do let me know if I have.

Hitting a company with fines for not doing maintenance required by regulation, when the fines cost more than compliance, works well. Given sensible regulations, of course.

Look at airlines: rather strict and reasonably good safety regulations made flying the safest form of transportation, safer than driving and maybe even walking. Nevertheless, we don't see exorbitant prices either; if anything, the cost of air travel is surprisingly low, often competitive with rail, even in EU.

Of course, unreasonable regulations are a bane, see the leaded fuel situation in general aviation, or the whole nuclear industry.

Hello from Alameda, CA. 15.5c per kwh here except for M-F 5pm-9pm, where it is 50c.

Oh wow! Thanks for the info. I'm glad to hear it's not crazy everywhere out there.

Because, despite having vast amounts of renewables, Texas is a key political contributor to our lack of a cohesive national strategy for ditching fossil fuels. Its national politicians regularly insist that climate change is a hoax.

If a few decades of trying to use rationality have failed, I'm all for calling attention to their own local failures. If "dunking" on them is in bad faith, it is only because good faith arguments have failed so consistently.

Texas is the number two state in grid battery. No other state comes close to either California or Texas.

Texas has added a massive amount of batteries in a year or two. Worth noting, however, that as a fraction of their peak load California has about 3x as many batteries as Texas, because Texas uses far more energy and has much less rooftop solar. So while they are in the 2nd position it seems like a fairly distant 2nd.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908526

Or with past California

I dislike right-wing silliness as much as anyone, but this whole hate against Texas is just weird. We had Montana winter weather for a week and our grid went down. I had a business partner in California during a period a few years back and we had to reschedule meetings around when he would have electricity. We should just focus on doing better instead of fighting.

The hate as you call it is not weird. It’s a reasonable response to a state that consistently enacts laws and regulations that hurt the people. You get what you vote for and people in other states have to put up with idiotic Texas politicians who vote against hurricane Sandy aid while later requesting help. Texas deserves far more “hate” than it gets.

You don't have to see the world in such stark terms. There is plenty of silliness everywhere.

Not all silliness is equal or equally stupid. The Texas legislature routinely calls for secession when a Democrat wins the Presidency and votes to stymie federal aid to other states while demanding federal aid for themselves.

I don’t see the world in stark terms except where appropriate. You do believe cases exist where such views are warranted right? I happen to think that Texas qualifies.

California demands just as much federal aid, and perhaps more - they budgeted assuming that COVID-era federal funding would last forever, until they were recently forced to cut after having to face their absurd assumptions. San Francisco's city government also attempted to boycott working with any contractor in 30 states based on their political views, until it was forced to relent due to not being able to find contractors at an acceptable price.

California gets much less in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes. California is much larger population wise than Texas and as such it isn’t surprising that they need more federal aid. California also doesn’t vote against federal aid to states in disaster situations.

Perhaps it would be more helpful to try to understand what underlying mechanisms have created situations in which apparently self destructive tendencies are expressed in large societies (not just Texas but in general). What can we do to improve on this?

Not a Texas-hater exactly, but there’s something specific here wrt culture and identity. Texans routinely describe Texas as exceptional, as different, as unique.

You may be right that there are generic problems at work, but when the protagonist insists that they aren’t like others, it’s not a surprise that people don’t think that way.

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