Right now, I’m typing this on my iPad sitting in front of my fireplace in my house with no power, no heat, frozen pipes in one bathroom and wearing the warmest sweater I own. I’m one of those 60% of Houstonians who got randomly picked to not have power this week because some idiot arbitrarily made that decision. Oh, and yes, my next door neighbor does have power. If you don’t have power and are looking for someone to blame for that condition, I have one question for you. Who do you vote for on Election Day? If your answer is Republicans, then my answer is to light a candle, walk into your iced up bathroom, hold up the candle to the mirror and look. The person in the mirror is who’s responsible for you freezing in the dark.
There are three major power systems in the US – the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and…wait for it…Texas. Why? Texas didn’t want those big, bad, federal bureaucrats telling it what to do. It’s been that way all the way back to WWII after the Federal Power Act was signed to provide regulation for interstate power transmission between states. Under that act, all power that is transmitted over state lines had to conform with federal regulations for safety, measurement, and pricing. Texas said no thanks to that, preferring to keep everything intrastate and telling surrounding states to kiss our big red butt. The big NY blackout in 1962 provided more impetus for Texas to emphasize that independence, forming ERCOT in 1965. Ironically, that acronym stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is most certainly not.
During the deregulation craze of the late ‘90s, the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) issued several rules, including Rule 2000, which provided for the deregulation of the production, transmission, trading, and selling of electricity. ERCOT took that opportunity to go full “free market” becoming a hub for trading, selling, and buying electricity, designing a system that brought IPPs (independent power producers), local utilities, and industrial customers together. The problem? No one was put in charge or held accountable for reliability. All that works fine in normal times, but in weather events, system upsets, and growth in demand, it’s perfectly set up for Fingerpoint City, which leads us to the clusterfuck that is the week of February 14, 2021.
A little information about how power is generated in Texas – about 50% of our power it generated by natural gas fired generation; 20% comes from coal; 20% from wind, 10% from nukes, and the rest from other renewables including solar, which is only about 1%, which, in my opinion, is unacceptably low. Also, the Texas Public Utility Commission, which has been a Republican lap dog for decades, has rules that are not enforced. For example, we’re supposed to have 15% excess capacity for peak demand, but they NEVER enforce that requirement. In fact, that number has hovered in the 7 to 8% for YEARS. Worse, we had a wake up call in 2011 when we had a big freeze. The problem is that ERCOT, Perry, and Abbott have all ignored that wake up call, increasing demand and reliability issues. Add that to Texas silly anti-federal government dogma, and you get this slow motion disaster that we’re all living.
Abbott woke up from his stupid coma today, and declared that “reforming” ERCOT is now on his emergency legislative agenda for this session. That’s a laugh, since his last “emergencies” were non-existent voter fraud claims and fretting over who uses which public bathrooms.
Abbott’s had his chance, Perry before him, as has the TXLeg which has been populated by mouth breathers and morons for two decades. Texas, just like the federal government, can’t survive without an actual functioning government. Abbott has gotten away for way too long with his cavalier “let them eat cake” strategy. His cynical “local control until I disagree” strategy hasn’t worked and will never work. Abbott, Patrick, and all the mouthbreathers and morons have had control long enough. Texas deserves better. We deserve a government with adult supervision run by leaders who focus on reliable power, stable government, dependable healthcare, and appropriate education, not the libertarian fever dream that Texas has become.
Impeach Abbott. Impeach Patrick. Vote the rest of the bums out. Maybe millions of Texans spending a week freezing in the dark might just change their votes.
