Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid...
by bsder on Thursday April 08, 2021 @05:38AM
(#26736829)
>it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith
You expected otherwise from Goobernor Abboot?
This is a huge distraction in the hope that people won't demand fundamental things like:
1) Fixing the electrical grid to the level that the Feds pointed out needed to be done in a report from 10 years ago the last time this happened.
This isn't just winterizing the grid, but also having enough fine grained control that you could shed enough load to do rolling blackouts.
The Texas grid doesn't have enough fine control so too many extra things are on the same circuits as "essential" services and the grid simply couldn't shed enough load without pulling the plug on things like hospitals.
It also doesn't help that residences just use fundamentally less electricity nowadays thanks to LED lighting and efficient appliances. Pulling the plug on residences just isn't a big enough lever anymore.
2) Giving ERCOT real statutory authority so that it can actual compel actions as opposed to being the toothless political sinecure it currently is.
ERCOT couldn't do jack shit when everything went to hell because it has no authority to compel anybody to do what they need to do. For example, the only way ERCOT could force some industrial plants offline that were refusing to shut down was to artificially raise the electrical prices instead of being able to give an order to summarily force shutdown.
You expected otherwise from Goobernor Abboot?
This is a huge distraction in the hope that people won't demand fundamental things like:
1) Fixing the electrical grid to the level that the Feds pointed out needed to be done in a report from 10 years ago the last time this happened.
This isn't just winterizing the grid, but also having enough fine grained control that you could shed enough load to do rolling blackouts.
The Texas grid doesn't have enough fine control so too many extra things are on the same circuits as "essential" services and the grid simply couldn't shed enough load without pulling the plug on things like hospitals.
It also doesn't help that residences just use fundamentally less electricity nowadays thanks to LED lighting and efficient appliances. Pulling the plug on residences just isn't a big enough lever anymore.
2) Giving ERCOT real statutory authority so that it can actual compel actions as opposed to being the toothless political sinecure it currently is.
ERCOT couldn't do jack shit when everything went to hell because it has no authority to compel anybody to do what they need to do. For example, the only way ERCOT could force some industrial plants offline that were refusing to shut down was to artificially raise the electrical prices instead of being able to give an order to summarily force shutdown.
But hey, "Regulation bad. Fox News say so."