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Comment by gretch | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, they do like their guns in Texas

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