Will National Politics Obscure What's Really Happening In Texas? l FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast

[@gunayorbay]

coverage beyond elections is appreciated

[@daledouglas5900]

You guys did remarkably well for non-specialists, but I think you talked past the problem. Just like any b-school introduction to logistics, the basic problem is that robustness costs money, and Texas made multiple decisions to reduce cost at the cost of reliability. You get what you pay for.

[@MixMeMcGee]

Absolutely. A lot of this is a values question. Given the choice, I’m not sure that Texans want to choose differently

[@shishkabobby]

The talk about Texas energy innovation is running pretty hollow in Iowa. We have more wind power and we broke 0 F for the first time in four days. Texas energy companies have avoided the needed investments to build a winterized power grid. That’s all. This whole disaster was self-inflicted

[@aurorawaxwing5866]

I think that was referring to having a smaller grid means that changes to have a great works are easy to pull off. But yeah it seems a little weird that wind turbines in Texas would not have the same weatherproofing as those in more northern states.

[@Septimus_ii]

@@aurorawaxwing5866 They'll weatherproof them as much as is needed, and the regulations don't require them to weatherproof the turbines.

[@aurorawaxwing5866]

@@Septimus_ii yeah. Sorry I worded that really poorly. I was typing on my phone.

[@philboudreaux9888]

Where's Ted Cruz? Oh yeah Cancun!

[@qwkimball]

I would have thought the Bahamas. He is, after all, a Caribbean Cruz.

[@Septimus_ii]

Well it was really cold in Texas and he wanted to go to the beach!

[@shishkabobby]

Drew, wind works in Antarctica. It works in Siberia. It works in Iowa. It works in Manitoba. There is absolutely no technical reason for the failure in Texas.

[@aaronwinegar9724]

That's less a question of ifs and more a question of what disasters do you prepare for. Do you prepare the grid for every possible eventuality and consume lots of state resources to do so in building and maintenance, or do you prepare the grid for only the most likely scenarios for your area. With infinite money, you would always do the former, but without infinite money, you have to decide how you spend your resources and there's no good answer.

[@shishkabobby]

@@aaronwinegar9724 We don't have infinite money in Iowa either. Wind works in subzero cold. It works in 100 F heat. It survives tornados (most of the time). There are regular cold spells in Texas. There was a similar one in 2011. Cold weather happens in Texas, dealing with that should be part of the plan.

[@aaronwinegar9724]

@@shishkabobby That's the very thing they're talking about, though. In more northern states, extreme cold during the winter is a common event, so have to weatherize against the cold. In more southern climes, you have to weatherize against extreme heat and hurricanes. But extreme cold weather is a highly uncommon event, so do you also spend a lot of money protecting the grid against that too? Or the reverse, do you insulate the Iowa grid against extreme heat?

[@shishkabobby]

@@aaronwinegar9724 If you are talking about the resilience of the power grid, you better not be talking about once-in-a-decade storms. This failure seems like criminal misconduct, not a questionable risk assessment. This storm is not a 'black swan', there was similar weather in 2011.

[@aaronwinegar9724]

@@shishkabobby If you want to take a broader view, every state in the West is having troubles from this storm. In fact, in Oregon, hundreds of thousands of people have been without power for just as long as in Texas. We are only talking Texas because people like Cruz got mouthy about California.

[@professorsogol5824]

People in Texas heat their homes at night? Where I live, where it drops below zero C at night, we turn everything off at night and use blankets to keep warm. When I lived in Alaska, where we had no electricity, no natural gas and only a little insulation in the walls (home-made storm windows by putting clear plastic over the windows), we kept warm at night with blankets. A bit cool in the morning before we got the stove running in the morning, but otherwise, we did just fine.

[@donalddavis303]

Why did the "energy expert" say that wind and gas failed, when in reality wind provided more power then expected but the gas, coal, and nuclear instruments froze due to inadequate winterization

[@billheughan637]

Because the expectations were extremely poor, as cold fronts tend to either have low wind speeds, or bring storms that have too high wind speeds for turbines. Wind was projected to output ~20% of its capacity during the opening phase of the blackout (which it slightly exceeded, but that's a pretty useless distinction), which is far worse than the 60% of natural gas or 75% of nuclear that was available. The only difference is the grid operators were expecting the wind output to be poor and needed to lean on natural gas, but it wasn't there in the amount they were expecting, hence blackouts. In reality the best performing generation in terms of units out on a percentage basis was the nuclear plants, and the nuclear plant that did go out from a frozen safety sensor is already back online, which is more than can be said for other sources at the moment.

[@aurorawaxwing5866]

@@billheughan637 is that something inherent to nuclear power plants or because nuclear power plants have stricter regulations on them?

[@danielmorton9956]

@@aurorawaxwing5866 Yes to both- the sensor going offline causing a problem at all is arguably regulation related with higher tolerance equipment also being required with the system all inside shielding. Nuclear by nature also requires very little actual fuel and allows for the large isolation put into place. The plant itself isn't going to be disabled by this kind of storm.

[@billheughan637]

@@aurorawaxwing5866 There's still more information to come, but I think we have enough information now to make some tentative conclusions. A fundamental difference between nuclear and gas is that a nuclear plant can store 18 months of fuel on-site, whereas gas plants rely on a steady flow of gas from a pipe network. Why does this matter? Gas is not easy to store on-site, so when that steady flow of gas was interrupted for nearly a week (to this day, even) because of parts of the production/distribution network freezing up, that means outages in multiple plants for days as the whole network is unfrozen. Sum this up with a big spike in residential gas demand from heating and you get a bad shortage of power and gas at the worst possible time. In contrast, when the pressure sensor on a feedwater pump froze in the sole nuclear plant that went down, the pump shut down, then the plant shut down as a safety measure, but was back up and running in 3 days after a bit of emergency winterization. Unfortunately this isn't the first time we've run this rodeo - a less severe version of this cold snap happened in 2011 and similar things happened. It's on Texas' political leadership that people died from a totally predictable crisis when the solutions were ignored. Obligatory fuck gerrymandering, enabling these fools.

[@WeatherManToBe]

It's only been a week, but I'm already sick of hearing things like, "Texas wasn't built for this! This isn't normal for Texas! The Midwest doesn't build for cat 5 hurricanes!" This was totally normal for Texas. Nearly the EXACT same thing, but shorter, happened 10 years ago, almost to the exact week. The length of the deep freeze is a 20/30 year event for Texas, and thanks to climate change, will be a 10 year event going forward. That is normal. Everywhere just has building codes to the 100 year events, and essential infrastructure is even more protected. Let's face it. The Texan strategy of no regulations and build for today and current, not peak, demands is a failure not to be reproduced anywhere in the developed world.

[@4ysx]

I'm not sure how you can be confused about the governor's comments about how this is green energy fault, he's towing the party line

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker Maybe it's texas' choice not to weatherize them? They workjust fine in SD and ND.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker and the gas and coal plants that are failing due to lack of winterization, I guess that's Obama's fault too. Cuz everything is. Cuz of her emails. That was only 12 or 13 years ago. It's not like you haven't had a GOP controlled government that couldn't have remedied any of these things all along. But yeah go ahead and blame Obama for all of your troubles.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker Abbott is now saying he's going to do something about it and weatherize everything. Like he couldn't have done that before. Nice try bro

[@wordforger]

Yeah... Abbott occasionally shows something resembling common sense when he makes policies, but all too often he ends up kowtowing to the extremist loonies or appeasing them in one manner or another. He also, like pretty much every other politician in the state with very few exceptions, is in the hands of the fossil fuel industry.

[@mick_muffin]

Unfortunately, I do think so. My community went almost 4 days without power. Going on 2 days without water with no real end in sight yet on that front. Incompetent leadership got us into this mess and we shouldn’t expect them to get us out of it. Deregulation works so long as individuals act morally and ethically. Rare does one do so with so much power.

[@macmcleod1188]

the leadership was responding to the desires of a majority, small tho it may be, of Texans including millions who moved here from higher cost states where it wasn't possible to find affordable housing or jobs. i imagine their priorities will change some now. Texas population growth was the second highest in the nation since the last census. That puts a lot of strain on power generation systems even without 30 to 115 year events. I have friends whose pipes didn't freeze in 89 but did this time. Unfortunately, many Republicans will still deny climate change is real.

[@macmcleod1188]

@Aaron A420 well Republican or Democrat, after a failure of this magnitude they should be replaced even if it wasn't their fault. Especially if they failed to show leadership and compassion during the crisis. We don't know if their Replacements will do better but we certainly know they failed. What makes it worse this time is that Republicans are actively trying to duck responsibility and blame everyone else. They should have been out handing out food showing meetings with them dealing with the crisis communicating to the public what the plan was. I would hope Democrats to the same standard. I am concerned that the public is going to go off half-cocked and push her a bunch of irrational actions that only waste a bunch of money. Everyone needs to set aside politics and set to work solving the problem and figuring out rational cost-effective improvements. The next election they can turn to politics

[@mick_muffin]

@@macmcleod1188 teddy cruz

[@talideon]

If Texas wants "energy reserves" it needs interconnects with other grids that it can pull from, or the likes of pumped hydro storage. Batteries only solve the problem on an individual level.

[@billheughan637]

All of the other grids were having issues of their own and were curtailing exports. There isn't alot of good locations left for pumped storage, and especially not in the amount that would be required for a 40h duration (or even longer, as some of these blackouts were). You need another option, these are not feasible or resilient enough.

[@jennamakesbugs]

At this point, I wish she'd stop saying 'at this point'.

[@susanne5803]

As a child (Europe) we lived through many weeks of extreme catastrophic winter once. I'm thinking very much of you! We were unprepared, too for that extent of snow and storm and cold. Decades later I would say that I have learned to be somewhat prepared for three to four days of black out, no water and no energy. And two to four weeks self-containment with energy and water. Every now and then it's useful. Stay safe and well! Thank you for reporting!

[@FireEverLiving]

Daniel says every statement as a question? Perhaps he's not very sure about what he's saying? It's kind of grating?

[@tylerhackner9731]

I hope it doesn’t obscure anything. Both need to be talked about.

[@joannawarrens5117]

Infrastructure, infrastructure and infrastructure

[@Rocwallaby]

Who bears the risk when unexpected events happen.......not the provider, but the consumer.......that’s what happens when you deregulate and isolate.

[@bentrinker1937]

As someone who’s watching on the sidelines, it feels dystopian to hear Texas leadership complain about socialism and the dangers of the “green new deal” in the wake of this.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker This is a failure of Texas not wanting to be part of a national, and regulated power grid, keep dreaming.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker That's patently false. Natural gas and coal both failed.

[@peterdods425]

ERCOT answers to the Public Utility Commission, whose members are all appointed by the governor. The buck stops there - with the governor

[@ThomasBomb45]

@tom tuker wind turbines work in canada and Alaska. The energy source isn't a problem. It's a failure to winterize infrastructure across the board

[@ThomasBomb45]

@tom tuker solar panels can't freeze

[@isaacng123456789]

29:00 Republicans are very consistent, at blaming every single problem on progressives, democrats, and AOC.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker The green new deal is not the law. It's had zero impact on the way Texas runs their state. This is a red state run by the GOP. Windmills work just fine in ND and SD because they are weatherized to do so. I wonder who makes that choice in a red state like Texas?

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker yeah I'm sure Obama was in charge of everything. With a red state like Texas. That sounds really convincing Tom.

[@peterdods425]

@tom tuker ERCOT answers to the Public Utility Commission, whose members are all appointed by the governor. The buck stops there - with the governor

[@Psittacus_erithacus]

Thoughtful coverage, much appreciated.

[@PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

May shift Texas left has it may hurt Republican leadership and the state and a push to stop climate change. A fast warming arctic could cause a more wavy jet stream and push colder air further south. Either way, the suburbs are revolting

[@benjialtman8390]

Please bring back Clare.

[@Fix_It_Again_Tony]

I don't agree with Maggie starting around 8:45. She's using a both sides approach,however, the first part about how Texas doesn't need to be built to Minnesota standards may be true, but it doesn't apply in this specific case. This is an argument about where the balance is, but it is brutally clear the balance point has been missed so badly here that you can't use a both sides argument. There is only one side and that is the Texas infrastructure is woefully under prepared for a typical cold winter in Texas! This same type of weather event with similar consequences happened only ten years ago in 2011 as mentioned. It also happened in 1989. This is not an out of the ordinary storm. Perhaps 2021 was the worst of all of them, but this has multiple times in recent memory. Average low temps in Dallas are near freezing, but in a typical winter the area sees low temps in the teens or 20's. Record low temperature is -8 °F in February 1899. www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/TX/Dallas/extreme-annual-dallas-low-temperature.php www.weather.gov/fwd/dgr8mxmn When you engineer something you take the worst case and work from there. That infrastructure should be built to withstand sustained temps at least in the twenties, but maybe even the teens, with intermittent low temps down to 0 °F or so. It will be interesting to see how many of the failures of the 2011 event were repeated once the 2021 event can properly be investigated. www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf From the Executive Summary about the 2011 blackouts: "The storm, however, was not without precedent. There were prior severe cold weather events in the Southwest in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2010. The worst of these was in 1989, the prior event most comparable to 2011. That year marked the first time ERCOT resorted to system-wide rolling blackouts to prevent more widespread customer outages. In all of those prior years, the natural gas delivery system experienced production declines; however, curtailments to natural gas customers in the region were essentially limited to the years 1989 and 2003." The events that have unfolded in Texas in the past week are a massive management failure of electricity and natural gas infrastructure, but also of state government. They knew events like this can and do happen in Texas, yet they chose not to act in the decade between 2011 and 2021. People should be charged with manslaughter over this. Almost 50 people have died so far.

[@seanpalmer8472]

The fact that new buildings aren't built to Passivehaus standards baffles me. You can heat a typically-sized house with about the same amount of the energy that a hair dryer consumes. Half of the energy consumed in the US is by buildings (more specifically. residential and commercial buildings). _There wouldn't be the emergency that there is now in Texas if peoples' homes were built to Passivhaus levels of insulation and air-sealing._ Yes, there is a 5%-ish building cost premium (for new construction) as well as a fair amount more planning before construction ever begins. However, you recoup that extra cost very quickly due much smaller heating and cooling requirements and the lower utility bills that result. In fact, with a half-dozen solar panels, POOF...your Passive House is now a net-zero house.

[@billheughan637]

5% for new construction? I'm skeptical that's the case, but even still i can't imagine it's anything close to that for a retrofit, which would be most of the work that would need to be done if such a scheme was pursued.

[@seanpalmer8472]

@@billheughan637 My comment was already getting longer than I wanted and I didn't put all of the qualifiers. Yes, that 5% is for the case of a custom home that is already using decent structural materials. It's not 5% on top of the cost of tract homes from _a lot_ of national builders where every corner is cut and the buildings barely meet code. For example, did you know that there are builders out there that use cardboard for sheathing and that that is perfectly allowable under building code in some areas? But I digress. You should also note that there is some initial cost savings because you are often buying HVAC equipment that is much smaller than what you would for a non-Passivhaus. Now as far as retrofits, they are absolutely more expensive to get a good performing building than building new. (That's why it's so important to get new buildings built well rather than retrofitting them years down the road) There have been some advancements that make it cheaper than it used to be. For example, there are a lot more companies/people doing energy audits and blower-door tests. That's the first step in doing a good retrofit to improve a building's energy efficiency and thermal comfort level. Then there are low-labor technologies to improve air sealing like Aerobarrier. They come to your building (new construction or retrofit), seal up all the doors and windows, pressurize your building with a large fan an spray an aerosolized plastic in the air. because the building is pressurized, air rushes out through any hole, gap or crack that is less than 1/4" wide over the course of an hour or so. The technology was initially used to seal HVAC ducts, but in the last decade they've started using it for whole houses.

[@CloaknDagger]

No offense guys but you're missing the point entirely about the false narratives. They don't HAVE to be internally consistent. They don't HAVE to be true. Where have you guys been for the last 5 years? All they have to do is give conservatives something to talk about and side with. That's it. The truth doesn't matter in conservative America. It's about time you guys caught the hell up and started addressing that.

[@buckyharris9465]

You're right, the engineering professor sounded politically naive -- as if it never occurred to him that any given right-wing meme not only lacks internal logic but also contradicts other prevalent right-wing memes. But don't blame the other three panelists -- they already know better.

[@CloaknDagger]

@@buckyharris9465 Yeah but they could have easily corrected him and been like "Look at the last few years, this is par for course and part of how they retain political power".

[@adogonasidecar1262]

This is lacking someone who is a technologist of power generation and transport. As a result, very vague and not really relevant...

[@talideon]

Or maybe it could be as simple as the fact that Texas decided to keep their power grid completely separate from the rest of North America.

[@CranialEmvibe]

Agreed, I agree with the conclusions here but the base facts and theorizing aren't well understood here it seems. Case in point, 70 year old parts of the grid isnt necessarily an indicator of poor infrastructure. It may but in many cases, just an age of an element doesn't spell "bad".

[@gabrielekennedy6123]

Antarctica has wind

[@katfrancis1230]

How come nobody's mentioned the rapid population growth in Texas in recent years for putting additional strain on the demand on the existing infrastructure? We obviously have a lot more people and households using electricity than we did just a few years ago, and with an aging and underfunded power grid is it really keeping up with the growth rate as well as climate change?

[@kerrex86]

Because then they would have to address the demographic elephant in the room

[@robertgalindo5979]

I'm an EE, but my tract wasn't power, I have looked at the climate models on my own time quite a bit along with reading through the IPCC reports. Don't get it wrong, don't get it twisted, I'm not claiming expertise. Still I have a stronger background on these subjects then most - I was pleasantly surprised here, alot more nuanced a conversation then I was expecting.

[@obfuscated3090]

It will happen again and always does. Be ready. Knowledge is free. Cold weather gear is cheap in hot weather so stock up. Sleeping bags are cheap (under 100 bucks new) . Own one per person rated for at least forty degrees below worst possible weather in your region (that means coldest temp EVER recorded). Own enough cold weather gear to make heat OPTIONAL for survival. You should be able to coast through several days worth of disaster if you're ready. I am and I'm not special. Own water containers for drinking water so if cut off you're good for a few days. Fill them in time. Have at least a month's food (it doesn't need to be food you actually like eating which encourages waste, it does need to be healthy high energy food to sustain you) in ready storage. Good times exist to prepare for bad times.

[@elaineekberg113]

Sorry, your problem is politicians and lobbyists. A/C can be powered 8 months of the year, no problem, but a week of heat??? I'm in Northern CO, and lived off-grid for 13yrs in the mountains, off-road. If the battery bank is indoors, theres no problem storing power, get a generate and conserve power. Texans dont know diversity. We have above 100 degree weather some summer here, even up in there mountains.

[@macmcleod1188]

What's happening in Texas is similar to what happened around the globe in 2018 when thousands of people died, 700 in Sweden, 66 in Canada, Etc. from unprecedented *high* temperatures. If this happens again in 2 years the impact will not be as great because we'll have paid the extra money to prepare for an ice storm with this kind of nearly unprecedented cold temperatures. This storm broke records from 115 years ago. Yes, Republican stunk up their response to the pandemic. And I still won't vote for a republican at any level as I have not done since 2006. But just as Republicans tried to put this automatically on wind turb8nes, a lot of people are trying to put this on Republicans when Democrats (and any other party) would have probably not done much better and this particular case. Preparing for 100 year events will get you crucified as wasting money and being overly concerned. Every other department that wants and needs money today will be saying you are a fool. Skipping these preparations probably saved texans thousands of dollars each over the last decade with much lower electric rates. Now the question is. . will it be another 30 to 115 til the next time? Or will this now happen every few years? hell if I know. i can see the value of winterizing new wind turbines and winterizing natgas plants and those nuclear plants. i can't see the value of retrofitting a bunch of 15 year old wind turbines tho. We need rational actions not mob mentality rushed decisions. Part of the problem is anyone who would have prepared for this before hand would have gone bankrupt by the time it happened. which is why you need smart government regulations to create a safe, fair playing field.

[@joelmccoy9969]

The mortification/shame of being in a backward second world Central American Republic that collapses in the face of winters or hurricanes causes visceral, hateful backlashes to never spoken but imagined sleights by THEM.

[@jayc222]

"Political incentives are more on the back end rather than the front end." That's why Utah is so weird. People are dedicated to preparedness and that spills over into government. That's why the state was able to lead the nation in establishing a "rainy day fund." Salt Lake County installed expensive earthquake resistance technology into the historic county building in 2018 and the state capitol several years before that. Then a substantial quake hit in 2020. Major earthquakes are generational events in Utah, so the politicians allocating tax dollars for those major upgrades didn't necessarily expect to see a return on that investment in their lifetimes. Luck favors the prepared.

[@wordforger]

I admit I got so pissed at Abbott's grandstanding that I gave his office a piece of my mind. I never write ANYONE like that, but it's rather harrowing when I had to worry that my mother was going to either freeze to death or suffocate in the night with no power and running a wood burning stove with a leaky pipe. She's supposed to sleep with a breathing machine on. With no power, she couldn't run it at all. I take pride in our state, and the way we've led in wind power, and to see the guy who should be trying to get stuff running, or at least trying to send out necessary information about winter safety and reassurance going on Fox to badmouth green energy and use the crisis as a way to score some cheap political points while people were literally freezing to death... Yeah, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I called him out on the lie and told him he and his buddies owned this crisis for not requiring winterization and that they somehow manage to get wind turbines running in Alaska and Antarctica just fine. Do I think he'll read it? No. But maybe if he gets enough angry letters in his inbox he'll get an idea that perhaps he might need to actually do something worthwhile for once.

[@Natasha-tu5qs]

As a climate scientist, I am grateful for your accurate representation of this event as not neccessarily clinate-change related. Not every extreme weather event is attributable/related to climate change. This is still a very active area of research.

[@jebthegodemperor7301]

Here's a bright idea: NUCLEAR POWER!

[@thomashiggins9320]

It's hard to go hang out at a restaurant or cafe or hotel, where there is power and water, when social isolation is required to stay healthy. :p I have a 40-year-old electrical box on my 60 year-old house. It's been upgraded once, in six decades. How much would single-home batteries (Tesla Power Walls or whatever) help? In Denver, if a mayor doesn't have the streets cleared of snow within 24 hours of a snow storm, his re-election is in jeopardy. Not even kidding. :) A good discussion.

[@linda1lee2]

Chicago mayor Bilandic lost his reelection after now clearing snow quickly enough. Following mayors made that a priority.

[@besam]

@@linda1lee2 I was going to say that. All politicians are afraid in Chicago during snow storm. These cities have disaster coordinating centers. Texas seems to lack it.

[@maryannbray3305]

Use solar panel you would not have this problem!!!

[@daviddonaldson288]

Look at historic yearly minimum temperature recordings. I don't see any evidence that this cold front is unprecedented.

[@OlliHazard]

He mentioned that Houston had 5x more freezing nights in the 1970s, & the avg low temps were 7 degrees colder.

[@MrSthotwhelz]

Pay for it now or pay for it later. Eventually, you will pay for it. Be it 1, 10, 100 years from now it will happen. Shortsighted.

[@Man1ak]

This isn't the crux of the topics discussed, but I just wanted to thank you for calling out that this event could or could not be climate change-motivated and the science is not yet settled. Sometimes it feels nothing contrary to the most extreme point of view can be voiced in either direction; I always come back to this podcast because it is willing to call out the data and declare when something is simply currently unknown.

[@besam]

Do my question is if national grid wasn’t going to help. How come El Paso didn’t suffer any outages.

[@GeekonaBike]

Is it just me or does it seem like AN truck trailer in Texas right now is effectively refrigerated?

[@MrSthotwhelz]

national politics always spin events for people. Opinions will color experiences.

[@nodrogj1]

"Remember, we're still in the middle of a pandemic" No, I hadn't noticed...

[@Septimus_ii]

Ted Cruz hasn't

[@Lorangebeatrice]

Wildly ignorant panel. Some grievous misinformation thrown about, especially in regard to climate change. Bleh.

[@ThomasBomb45]

How so?

[@Lorangebeatrice]

@@ThomasBomb45 well, for one, their confidence that this polar vortex was not at all influenced by climate change. The panelists both admit all forms of extreme weather are possible due to climate change, however, they suddenly and without merit CONFIRM this winter event could not at all be directly linked. Bold statement, and according to ongoing research not at all a certainty. Let’s start there.

[@dozaarchives2225]

Texas has no power reserve, because the technology is too expensive to deploy.

[@davidcwitkin6729]

Texas has a huge coastline. Add in tidal energy and offshore windfarms in the Gulf of Mexico

[@DrinkyMcBeer]

Short answer: yes Long answer: yeeeeeeeessssssss

[@BRIANFREY]

Texas is not the only state with an independent power grid. Hawai’i is literally an island state and is not connected to the mainland grid.

[@PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

But Texas isn’t an island

[@kt-rg2ei]

Wow thank you.

[@ThomasBomb45]

Hawaii has 6 grids

[@johnupjohn]

Did you ever featured the California power grid disaster? Was it a Republican's fault?

[@shishkabobby]

That was totally a market problem

[@johnupjohn]

@@shishkabobby Same with Texas.

[@shishkabobby]

@tom tuker Jesus... learn how to write the possessive of plural nouns. Unless of course, you want to blame one Democrat.

[@peterdods425]

ERCOT answers to the Public Utility Commission, whose members are all appointed by the governor. The buck stops there - with the governor

[@leadwithgreeneconomy]

California is a different subject. In rational conversation, one addresses one subject at a time. This conversation is about Texas. Try to concentrate on one thought at a time.

[@TnT24u]

Tell me something (A REPUBLICAN CHALLENGE) Name me one bill in the last 30 years authored by any REPUBLICAN/Conservative in the HOUSE or The Senate that was supported by Republicans and signed into law by a REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT or ANY President that benefited average American Middle Class, or seniors, or students, or lower income Americans, or the working poor, or single moms, or the homeless , or the environment??? and wasn't just for their RICH DONOR CLASS or Big Pharma I'm not asking for a GROCERY LIST I'm asking for 1 THING .? I can list you 25 things off the top of my head that Democrats/liberals have done for all of these groups.. and had to fight Republicans every inch of the way...