Texas in Crisis

[Tigers!]

The cost of reliability increases dramatically at the top end; it’s VASTLY more expensive to have a grid with blackouts once a decade than it is to have a grid with blackouts once a year. Similarly, it’s VASTLY more expensive to have a grid that can recover from a blackout condition when one does arise in minutes, than it is to have one that takes hours to recover, or one that takes days.

A socialist system, that is mandated to provide reliable infrastructure despite that sometimes costing more than it can reasonably earn, is always going to be less prone to blackouts than a capitalistic system that requires profitability even where that implies occasional outages.

This. Reliability is expensive. We see it in the Texas utilities. We see it with some old, cheap drugs: The government forces the price as low as possible (they can with something mostly paid by Medicaid) and when the supply chain hiccups the patients are left to suffer. Look at what has happened with Abbott--some contaminated packaging (no contaminated product was ever found) shut down a factory and we have a big hiccup in specialty baby formula and some other products they produce.

Have they restarted production at that baby formula factory? It was good for an Aust. company as they had their greatest ever imports to the USA.
I was surprised to learn that production at just one factory stopping could cause so little formula to be available in the whole of the USA.

 

[laughing dog]

Texas has been in crisis for decades because of their "culture" This crisis will continue as long as their "culture" remains unchanged.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The cost of reliability increases dramatically at the top end; it’s VASTLY more expensive to have a grid with blackouts once a decade than it is to have a grid with blackouts once a year. Similarly, it’s VASTLY more expensive to have a grid that can recover from a blackout condition when one does arise in minutes, than it is to have one that takes hours to recover, or one that takes days.

A socialist system, that is mandated to provide reliable infrastructure despite that sometimes costing more than it can reasonably earn, is always going to be less prone to blackouts than a capitalistic system that requires profitability even where that implies occasional outages.

This. Reliability is expensive. We see it in the Texas utilities. We see it with some old, cheap drugs: The government forces the price as low as possible (they can with something mostly paid by Medicaid) and when the supply chain hiccups the patients are left to suffer. Look at what has happened with Abbott--some contaminated packaging (no contaminated product was ever found) shut down a factory and we have a big hiccup in specialty baby formula and some other products they produce.

Have they restarted production at that baby formula factory? It was good for an Aust. company as they had their greatest ever imports to the USA.
I was surprised to learn that production at just one factory stopping could cause so little formula to be available in the whole of the USA.

Consolidation makes us stronger... it eliminates jobs, puts production at great risk, saves the shareholders money. The chances of a baby formula manufacturer being unable to produce their product are so slim that, even when it happens, nothing will change, because consolidation makes us stronger!

 

[Gospel]

Texas has been in crisis for decades because of their "culture" This crisis will continue as long as their "culture" remains unchanged.

Would that "culture" happen to include old cowboys wearing another man's hat chanting make America horseback ride again while barreling down the road in an F150?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Have they restarted production at that baby formula factory? It was good for an Aust. company as they had their greatest ever imports to the USA.
I was surprised to learn that production at just one factory stopping could cause so little formula to be available in the whole of the USA.

The problem wasn't so much a matter of so little formula, but the usual hoarding shock that happens any time the supply glitches. Combine that with exclusive-provider contracts that a lot of states have about baby formula for aid for the poor and even if there was formula you might not be able to buy it.

Worse, however, was the other side of their production: They are AFIAK the sole source worldwide for a lot of specialty stuff for people with highly restricted diets.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And then there were lawsuits. I don't know if we covered this.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Texas power grid regulator didn’t overstep its authority when it set wholesale electricity prices at its maximum cap for several days during the deadly February 2021 freeze, overturning the conclusion of an appellate court.

I don't think I was quite aware of the source of the megacosts to the electricity.

On Feb. 15, 2021, the first day of the outages, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which regulates ERCOT, set wholesale electricity prices at its $9,000 cap to try to encourage more power plants to sell electricity to the grid. Under normal conditions, the wholesale price hovers around $30 per megawatt-hour.

So, they were losing plants left and right, and they needed more power to keep the system from failing. So they raised the electric rates from $30 per megawatt to 300 times that?! To encourage more power? Wouldn't tripling or quadrupling it have worked too? No, instead 300 times.

WTF?! That doesn't seem like making a mistake, it looks like price gouging. But the Texas Supreme Court ruled "who are we to judge"? Oddly enough, CJ Roberts at SCOTUS would take the opposite route with the "Fuck you, we're in charge!" So, after all this, then the whole system collapses anyway. So, people had to pay huge costs for no gain.