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Should Colonial Pipeline and Texas power grid be placed ASAP under Fed. Admin & Security?

Do disasters caused by TX power grid operators & Colonial justify Fed. seizure?

  • The public interest overwhelming justifies Fed. seizure via eminent domain

    Votes: 3 50.0%
  • Wait n see: The 2 need to kill more people, damage more environment, more economic damage

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Capitalist ownership, management superior to public admin., no matter what

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • Total voters
    6

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Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop
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What is the alternative to incompetent crony capitalist ownership of "one of a kind" too big to fail enterprises avoidably interrupting the entire U.S. energy distribution and supply in just one three month period in 2021, both the Texas power grid and Colonial Pipeline owners and operators decisions resulting in deaths, horrendous environmental impact and severe economic impact, just in the first half of 2021, alone. Both enterprises have long history of repeated catastrophe.

April, 2021, in reaction to a million gallon plus gasoline "leak" first discovered last summer in North Carolina.:

In 2016 in Alabama :
(list of other links to Alabama reporting:
https://www.al.com/topic/colonial pipeline spill/ )

After spills and explosion, Colonial Pipeline CEO retiring

CEO Tim Felt said in a news release Thursday that it was his decision to step down from the Alpharetta, Georgia company at the end of January.
1564 days ago
By The Associated Press

Alabama pipeline explosion sent up 'geyser' of burning gasoline, 'like Old Faithful with fire'

First responder at Alabama gasoline pipeline explosion describes chaotic scene.
1651 days ago
By Dennis Pillion | dpillion@al.com

The model for this proposal is the successful TVA, created as a result of 1933 Depression Era legislation, criticized and attacked by
libertarians and capitalists ever since. Can they do a better job? History indicates, no.

 
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Power grid… no because ultimately it’s ideally self correcting. My only concern here is with Abbott who was a self-serving liar who tried to spin it as a partisan foible with that “it was wind!” fiction. One can’t assume it will self correct if the people in charge wear blinders.

Pipeline… mixed. Part of me says ‘yes’ because of the repeated missteps. The other suggests that this also can be fixed with laws that impose jail sentences for those who mismanage critical infrastructure. Fines never do the trick. Threaten executives with jail sentences and the culture changes quickly… for pipelines and a whole lot of other things.
 
Power grid… no because ultimately it’s ideally self correcting. My only concern here is with Abbott who was a self-serving liar who tried to spin it as a partisan foible with that “it was wind!” fiction. One can’t assume it will self correct if the people in charge wear blinders.

Pipeline… mixed. Part of me says ‘yes’ because of the repeated missteps. The other suggests that this also can be fixed with laws that impose jail sentences for those who mismanage critical infrastructure. Fines never do the trick. Threaten executives with jail sentences and the culture changes quickly… for pipelines and a whole lot of other things.

Agree completely but add argument for your consideration that the politicians and Texas Power Grid operators conspired to protect
the grid from federal oversight and regulation by literally "walling it off" from adjacent states to avoid interstate status justifying federal "participation", resulting in no in or out "power sharing" with nearby, interstate grids.

Is avoidance of federal "best practices" somehow in the public interest?

How can it be argued that this scheme was in the public interest when a consequence was inability to bring in additional power to
relieve hot or cold weather demand driven stress on the grid or to reciprocate in participation in the interstate grid? They seem to have been motivated mostly by extreme political views and short and longterm profit considerations. Reporting supports that consumers saw no benefit of lower rates resulting from this unusual scheme, AKA conspiracy.

Texas winter storm blackouts report from 2011 went unenforced

https://www.usatoday.com › news › nation › 2021/02/18
Feb 18, 2021 — Winter storm blackouts plagued Texas in 2011, too. Recommendations made afterward went unenforced. ... 'An electrical island':Texas has dodged federal regulation for years by having its own power grid. Had the ...

Why does Texas have its own power grid? | The Texas Tribune

https://www.texastribune.org › 2011/02/08 › texplainer...
Feb 8, 2011 — Basically, Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with — you ... years — not even counting Mexico's help during blackouts in 2011. ... In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power ...

"...According to a 2014 report[2] by the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power (TCAP), "deregulation cost Texans about $22 billion from 2002 to 2012. And residents in the deregulated market pay prices that are considerably higher than those who live in parts of the state that are still regulated. For example, TCAP found that the average consumer living in one of the areas that opted out of deregulation, such as Austin and San Antonio, paid $288 less in 2012 than consumers in the deregulated areas.".."
 
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Definition of socialism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Sure...why not? What can possibly go wrong? :rolleyes:
 
Agree completely but add argument for your consideration that the politicians and Texas Power Grid operators conspired to protect
the grid from federal oversight and regulation by literally "walling it off" from adjacent states to avoid interstate status justifying federal "participation", resulting in no in or out "power sharing" with nearby, interstate grids.

Is avoidance of federal "best practices" somehow in the public interest?

How can it be argued that this scheme was in the public interest when a consequence was inability to bring in additional power to
relieve hot or cold weather demand driven stress on the grid or to reciprocate in participation in the interstate grid? They seem to have been motivated mostly by extreme political views and short and longterm profit considerations. Reporting supports that consumers saw no benefit of lower rates resulting from this unusual scheme, AKA conspiracy.

Texas winter storm blackouts report from 2011 went unenforced

https://www.usatoday.com › news › nation › 2021/02/18
Feb 18, 2021 — Winter storm blackouts plagued Texas in 2011, too. Recommendations made afterward went unenforced. ... 'An electrical island':Texas has dodged federal regulation for years by having its own power grid. Had the ...

Why does Texas have its own power grid? | The Texas Tribune

https://www.texastribune.org › 2011/02/08 › texplainer...
Feb 8, 2011 — Basically, Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with — you ... years — not even counting Mexico's help during blackouts in 2011. ... In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power ...

"...According to a 2014 report[2] by the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power (TCAP), "deregulation cost Texans about $22 billion from 2002 to 2012. And residents in the deregulated market pay prices that are considerably higher than those who live in parts of the state that are still regulated. For example, TCAP found that the average consumer living in one of the areas that opted out of deregulation, such as Austin and San Antonio, paid $288 less in 2012 than consumers in the deregulated areas.".."
I am well aware and don’t disagree that they are self serving idiots. If that’s the case you are trying to make, well, you’re singing to the choir. But, that wasn’t your question. Your question was about federal regulation. To that I would say that market forces probably still provide the best long term remediation. If Texas has expensive and unreliable power, businesses will relocate and take people with them. Also, never forget the Enron fiasco with the west coast grid, nor the blackout that took out much of the northeast and Midwest for days in the early 2000s. The interstate grids don’t exactly have the best track record.

Longer term, photovoltaic deployments are growing quickly in Texas and projected over the next decade or two I would imagine Texas to be one of the leading states with local PV, which will put a dent in grid reliance.
 
Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods​
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property​
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done​

Sure...why not? What can possibly go wrong? :rolleyes:

-Sigh-
There are some "business" activities that are impractical if dependent on "free market" profit incentives, or from the standpoint of vital interest or public safety.

Rural electrification, rural mail delivery, rural telephone and broadband internet infrastructure are just three examples that come
to mind...

The Great Compromise - TVA

https://www.tva.com › our-history › tva-heritage › the-...
Ike himself had referred to TVA as an example of “creeping socialism” and told friends in ... But, ironically, TVA's own success increased its political vulnerability.

Postal Clause - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Postal_Clause
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads." The Post Office has the constitutional authority to designate mail routes. ... post offices with the implied authority to carry, deliver, and regulate the mail of ...

They attempted to privatize public safety as well, but the law prohibited it.:

Privatization of Georgia cities morphs from Sandy Springs model​

https://www.ajc.com › news › local-govt--politics › priv...

May 16, 2019 — The city has just nine employees, other than its 270 police officers and firefighters. Mayor Rusty Paul said the city's system works because it is ...
 
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I am well aware and don’t disagree that they are self serving idiots. If that’s the case you are trying to make, well, you’re singing to the choir. But, that wasn’t your question. Your question was about federal regulation. To that I would say that market forces probably still provide the best long term remediation. If Texas has expensive and unreliable power, businesses will relocate and take people with them. Also, never forget the Enron fiasco with the west coast grid, nor the blackout that took out much of the northeast and Midwest for days in the early 2000s. The interstate grids don’t exactly have the best track record.

Longer term, photovoltaic deployments are growing quickly in Texas and projected over the next decade or two I would imagine Texas to be one of the leading states with local PV, which will put a dent in grid reliance.
All of your points are well taken. I am reacting to the "spillover" of what happened in Texas not staying in Texas. When petroleum extraction and refining was interrupted for two reasons, the grid failure and no investment in weather protection or back up power to even preserve "little things" like powering extraction pumps at the petroleum wells or pipeline pumping stations, refined products nationwide rose 50 cents per gallon almost immediately and there were some supply interruptions. There was some impact on the fragile economic recovery. This is how it directly became a federal concern.
 
All of your points are well taken. I am reacting to the "spillover" of what happened in Texas not staying in Texas. When petroleum extraction and refining was interrupted for two reasons, the grid failure and no investment in weather protection or back up power to even preserve "little things" like powering extraction pumps at the petroleum wells or pipeline pumping stations, refined products nationwide rose 50 cents per gallon almost immediately and there were some supply interruptions. There was some impact on the fragile economic recovery. This is how it directly became a federal concern.
That’s a fair point. From a economic and national security perspective, it’s important for America to make sure Texas’s production capacity does not get tanked by preventable mistakes made by short sighted idiots. :)
 
We need redundancy in the power grid and fuel delivery pipelines. We don't need to put all our eggs in one basket.

The problem with that for a capitalistic model is that redundancy cost money. If it is not being run at peak efficiency its not creating maximum profits.

Same way with maintenance. It cost money to keep equipment in top shape. Where exactly is the minimum amount of maintenance that we can get by with.

Just one of the problems with the capitalistic model.
 
We need redundancy in the power grid and fuel delivery pipelines. We don't need to put all our eggs in one basket.

The problem with that for a capitalistic model is that redundancy cost money. If it is not being run at peak efficiency its not creating maximum profits.

Same way with maintenance. It cost money to keep equipment in top shape. Where exactly is the minimum amount of maintenance that we can get by with.

Just one of the problems with the capitalistic model.
Not true. The model works fine so long as there is an operational cost to not having that redundancy. Take a look at the most capitalistic institutions in history (exchanges and brokerages) and you will find the most highly available, redundant infrastructure ever built by mankind, bar none. More redundant than any power grid, plane or space craft you could imagine, because when a system transacts billions per second, you do whatever it takes to keep it up.

the actual problem here is that consumers don’t care much for redundancy. Gas generators have been around forever but virtually no one buys them, save for a 3 month uptick after a major outage. And businesses implement local systems to ride out the majority of outages (the short ones) so they’ll gamble on cheap energy over redundant energy and deal with the once-a-decade disruption like what happened in Texas this year.
 
We need redundancy in the power grid and fuel delivery pipelines. We don't need to put all our eggs in one basket.

The problem with that for a capitalistic model is that redundancy cost money. If it is not being run at peak efficiency its not creating maximum profits.

Same way with maintenance. It cost money to keep equipment in top shape. Where exactly is the minimum amount of maintenance that we can get by with.

Just one of the problems with the capitalistic model.
Yes, the government tends to be more risk adverse and have higher ‘reliability’ requirements for a given system it develops. Often we found the specifications were routinely changed for the system so that ultimately the requirements and spec document would change to meet the test result. The government is horrible at Project Management
 
Industry incapable of or unwilling to police itself as respects what may impact national security should be overseen by the fed govt. This would apply to the energy industry and social media currently given special treatment under Section 230. These areas have proven to be highly vulnerable to outside intervention that has highly negative impact on our democratic society. This would be a function that supports industry to assure a secure environment in which business to is able to make profit in our capitalist democracy.
 
Industry incapable of or unwilling to police itself as respects what may impact national security should be overseen by the fed govt. This would apply to the energy industry and social media currently given special treatment under Section 230. These areas have proven to be highly vulnerable to outside intervention that has highly negative impact on our democratic society. This would be a function that supports industry to assure a secure environment in which business to is able to make profit in our capitalist democracy.

Trump administration crony capitalism, dissolving regulation and enforcement, deliberate malgovernance, operating outside
of the law.

".. (DHS) .. and customs, cyber security, and disaster prevention and management.

...Homeland security policy is coordinated at the White House by the Homeland Security Council. .."

Commentary | Colonial Pipeline: Destroyer, EPA Non ...

https://www.citizensjournal.us/comm...e-destroyer-epa-non-existent-dot-ineffective/
From 2019 to present there have been 38 gasoline spills in North Carolina — 31 of them were from Colonial Pipeline. This last spill was 1.2 million gallons in a natural preserve. It took Colonial eight months to announce that figure and a news report said there is new info suggesting that amount ..

Largest U.S. Gas Spill in 20 Years - 1.2 Million Gallons ..

https://weather.com/news/news/2021-...pill-colonial-pipeline-oehler-nature-preserve

The "justification" by Trump, et al to break the law was a willfully exaggerated claim of how many "good paying jobs" the
Keystone Pipeline project would sustain is still pushed four years later.

Biden did not "kill the pipeline", Trump killed treaties, the truth, and the rule of law.

Majority of keystone pipeline jobs killed by Biden were ...

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/majority-keystone-pipeline-jobs-unionized-sen-mike-crapo
"The Biden administration's revocation of the presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline was shortsighted and eliminated over 1,000 jobs, the majority of which were unionized," Crapo said.

Fact-checking claims that Biden is 'destroying 11,000 jobs ...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...obs-by-revoking-keystone-pipeline/ar-BB1d7mvK
"..TC Energy Corp., the Canadian company that owns the Keystone XL pipeline with the Alberta government, has said more than 1,000 people are out of work because of Biden’s executive order. .. but most of the jobs would be temporary...."

JAMES HILL
February 24, 2017

"Two days before the Trump administration approved an easement for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross a reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, the U.S. Department of the Interior withdrew a legal opinion that concluded there was “ample legal justification” to deny it.
The withdrawal of the opinion was revealed in court documents filed this week by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the same agency that requested the review late last year.
...
The 35-page legal analysis of the pipeline’s potential environmental risks and its impact on treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous tribes was authored in December by then-Interior Department Solicitor Hilary C. Tompkins, an Obama appointee who was -- at the time -- the top lawyer in the department..."
 
What is the alternative to incompetent crony capitalist ownership of "one of a kind" too big to fail enterprises avoidably interrupting the entire U.S. energy distribution and supply in just one three month period in 2021, both the Texas power grid and Colonial Pipeline owners and operators decisions resulting in deaths, horrendous environmental impact and severe economic impact, just in the first half of 2021, alone. Both enterprises have long history of repeated catastrophe.

April, 2021, in reaction to a million gallon plus gasoline "leak" first discovered last summer in North Carolina.:

In 2016 in Alabama :
(list of other links to Alabama reporting:
https://www.al.com/topic/colonial pipeline spill/ )

After spills and explosion, Colonial Pipeline CEO retiring

CEO Tim Felt said in a news release Thursday that it was his decision to step down from the Alpharetta, Georgia company at the end of January.
1564 days ago
By The Associated Press

Alabama pipeline explosion sent up 'geyser' of burning gasoline, 'like Old Faithful with fire'

First responder at Alabama gasoline pipeline explosion describes chaotic scene.
1651 days ago
By Dennis Pillion | dpillion@al.com

The model for this proposal is the successful TVA, created as a result of 1933 Depression Era legislation, criticized and attacked by
libertarians and capitalists ever since. Can they do a better job? History indicates, no.



No, because the government is even less competent and has substantial immunity from liability.

There was nothing wrong with how to Texas grid was managed. There was a largely unprecedented weather event. The grid authority in Texas previously decided not to Spend money insulating their infrastructure on the idea they weren’t likely to see such an event and it would be money spent for nothing which rate payers and utilities would have to cover.

There is nothing wrong with this, everyone makes cost/benefit decisions every day. You can be safe from nearly all accidents and drive an MRAP to work but the cost is substantially higher then a Subaru. Are you somehow then wrong if you get injured in a serious car accident because you drove a Subaru and not an Armored car? Don’t be silly.
 
...There was nothing wrong with how to Texas grid was managed. There was a largely unprecedented weather event. The grid authority in Texas previously decided not to Spend money insulating their infrastructure on the idea they weren’t likely to see such an event and it would be money spent for nothing which rate payers and utilities would have to cover....

I'm hoping even you don't really believe this quoted portion of your post.
 
I'm hoping even you don't really believe this quoted portion of your post.
I find it very telling that I made a detailed argument, and you have not actually address the argument. Because you do not have an intelligent reply. Your entire criticism of Texas is Texas bad. You cannot create a coherent argument for what the Texas authorities did wrong with the energy grid that could not also be applied to a lot of Democrats and federal government programs. Or even regular consumers.
 
I find it very telling that I made a detailed argument, and you have not actually address the argument. Because you do not have an intelligent reply. Your entire criticism of Texas is Texas bad. You cannot create a coherent argument for what the Texas authorities did wrong with the energy grid that could not also be applied to a lot of Democrats and federal government programs. Or even regular consumers.
You gave me, what... 30 seconds? I was searching for my earlier post supporting everything you quoted that I said. I always support my posts.

From my post of several months ago, linked directly above.:

https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf
Report on outages and curtailments during the Southwest cold ...www.ferc.gov › legal › staff-reports › 08-16-11-report
Aug 2, 2011 — FERC/NERC Staff Report on the 2011 Southwest Cold Weather Event ... (ERCOT), which covers most of Texas, experienced either an outage, ...

ObamaFERC2011.jpg


Federal Regulators Plan to Investigate Massive Texas Power ...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/f...tigate-massive-texas-power-outage/ar-BB1dM5Id
FERC is the same agency that examined the last major winter power outage in Texas in 2011, and then offered recommendations aimed at preventing a repeat in the future.

Photos: Remembering the coldest winters in Houston history
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-...emembering-the-coldest-winters-in-6859026.php
3 of 44 4 of 44 A shopper copes with Friday's big chill at Greenspoint Mall on Dec. 23, 1989. The weather kept the crowds at home in the morning, but the afternoon brought last-minute buyers to ...

The December 1989 Cold Wave - National Weather Service
https://www.weather.gov/ilx/dec1989-cold
December of 1989 featured several surges of Arctic air into the central and eastern United States beginning around mid month and lasting until Christmas. This Arctic outbreak was a historic event, with many locations establishing monthly or all-time record lows.
 
I'm hoping even you don't really believe this quoted portion of your post.
Hmm. Why is it necessarily unbelievable? Yes they are building a not so great track record of having a major outage once every decade but as I explained in an earlier post this is not necessarily much worse than the track record of the other two North American grids. The only data driven figure of merit we should be focusing on is whether they are enjoying lower cost energy than adjacent states in exchange for taking some risks.

don’t get me wrong, this does not excuse their board being comprised of out-of-staters nor human scum like Cancun Cruz losing their spine (again) during state crisis. There is some rotten leadership for sure. However I am not convinced generation and distribution in Texas is fundamentally worse than the rest of the US. I personally want to see a bit more of the TX open access energy market applied to the rest of the US. Ironically there is near unanimous consensus in the renewables community that open access features of the TX grid need to be transplanted to the coastal grids.
 
Hmm. Why is it necessarily unbelievable? Yes they are building a not so great track record of having a major outage once every decade but as I explained in an earlier post this is not necessarily much worse than the track record of the other two North American grids. The only data driven figure of merit we should be focusing on is whether they are enjoying lower cost energy than adjacent states in exchange for taking some risks.

don’t get me wrong, this does not excuse their board being comprised of out-of-staters nor human scum like Cancun Cruz losing their spine (again) during state crisis. There is some rotten leadership for sure. However I am not convinced generation and distribution in Texas is fundamentally worse than the rest of the US. I personally want to see a bit more of the TX open access energy market applied to the rest of the US. Ironically there is near unanimous consensus in the renewables community that open access features of the TX grid need to be transplanted to the coastal grids.

I highlighted what I reacted strongly to.: "...There was a largely unprecedented weather event. The grid authority in Texas previously decided not to Spend money insulating their infrastructure on the idea they weren’t likely to see such an event .."

February 2021​

"...Current coldest forecast temperature: 10° on Tuesday 2/16
Nights forecast at or below freezing: Five
The current official NWS forecast low for Houston on Tuesday morning (at IAH Airport) is 10 degrees, which would rank as a tie for Houston’s 5th coldest morning all-time (back to 1889). .. this would rank as the second coldest, with only December 23, 1989 being colder (7 degrees).

January 2018​


Coldest temperature: 19° on 1/17
Nights at or below freezing: 10, split up over 20 days
..
Well, the reality is that January 2018, while impressive, was split up over 3 weeks and came with comparatively mild daytime highs.

February 2011​


Coldest temperature: 21° on 2/2
Nights at or below freezing: 12 over 2 weeks

....not really a record-setting event in Houston, other parts of Texas saw some impressive records. El Paso’s coldest February day on record was February 3, 2011. Dallas was plagued with cold and wintry weather as well, marring the 2011 Super Bowl.

December 1989​


Coldest temperature: 7° on 12/23
Nights at or below freezing: 14 over 2-3 weeks

Six record low temperatures still stand from 1989.

December 12: 25°
13: 19°
16: 19°
22: 13°
23: 7°
December 24: 11°
...
December of 1989 was Houston’s coldest December on record back to the 1880s.

December 1983​


Coldest temperature: 11° on 12/25
Nights at or below freezing: 12, including 11 in a row to close the month.


The December 1983 cold wave was another hall of fame event for Houston. We closed the month with 11 straight mornings below freezing, including four full days that failed to crack above 32 degrees.

December 1983 is Houston’s second coldest December behind
1989. December 1983 was to Dallas what December 1989 was to Houston, leading to their coldest December on record.

January 1978​


Coldest temperature: 21° on 1/20
Nights at or below freezing: 20 (!) over the course of the month

The January 1978 cold snap doesn’t have much intensity on any single day, but it makes up for that in terms of duration, which ultimately led to 1978 being our coldest January (and coldest month) on record..."

Continued...
 
Continued from last post...

The weather stats and dates of extreme (for Texas) cold periods supports that the defense of the grid operators and enabling politicians matches what one would expect from late February, 1978 through November, 1983, and not reasonable now, or even in March, 2011.

January-February 1951​


Coldest temperature: 14° on 2/2
Nights at or below freezing: 6 in a row

..The switch flipped on January 28, when temperatures dropped 40, and then January 29 when they kept dropping to 24 degrees. We then had four straight days below freezing all day long. The January 29-February 3 period remains Houston’s coldest stretch of 6 days on record, averaging 26.3 degrees.

January 1940​


Coldest temperature: 10° on 1/19
Nights at or below freezing: 11 in a row


.. Only twice has Houston seen 11 straight days of low temperatures at or below freezing: January 1983 and January 1940. The 1940 cold is notable for both intensity and duration.

January 1930​


Coldest temperature: 5° on 1/18
Nights at or below freezing: 8, coming in two 4-day waves .."


January 18, 1930 is Houston’s coldest morning on record, with a low of 5 degrees above zero. The cold came in two punches, this first strong one, followed by a second one a couple days later in which we bottomed out at 15 degrees on the 22nd.
 
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You gave me, what... 30 seconds? I was searching for my earlier post supporting everything you quoted that I said. I always support my posts.

From my post of several months ago, linked directly above.:

https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf
Report on outages and curtailments during the Southwest cold ...www.ferc.gov › legal › staff-reports › 08-16-11-report
Aug 2, 2011 — FERC/NERC Staff Report on the 2011 Southwest Cold Weather Event ... (ERCOT), which covers most of Texas, experienced either an outage, ...

ObamaFERC2011.jpg


Federal Regulators Plan to Investigate Massive Texas Power ...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/f...tigate-massive-texas-power-outage/ar-BB1dM5Id
FERC is the same agency that examined the last major winter power outage in Texas in 2011, and then offered recommendations aimed at preventing a repeat in the future.

Photos: Remembering the coldest winters in Houston history
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-...emembering-the-coldest-winters-in-6859026.php
3 of 44 4 of 44 A shopper copes with Friday's big chill at Greenspoint Mall on Dec. 23, 1989. The weather kept the crowds at home in the morning, but the afternoon brought last-minute buyers to ...

The December 1989 Cold Wave - National Weather Service
https://www.weather.gov/ilx/dec1989-cold
December of 1989 featured several surges of Arctic air into the central and eastern United States beginning around mid month and lasting until Christmas. This Arctic outbreak was a historic event, with many locations establishing monthly or all-time record lows.
None of this refutes anything I said nor is it an argument for a federal takeover of the Texas grid.

I can post gruesome pictures of people driving small cars dead in accidents, do you not care about the safety of everyone if we don’t ban all cars weighing less then ten tons? Well? Huh!?

God forbid anyone suffer any discomfort for losing electricity for a couple weeks, it’s not like all human social development occurred before power was even a thing.
 
Continued from last post...

The weather stats and dates of extreme (for Texas) cold periods supports that the defense of the grid operators and enabling politicians matches what one would expect from late February, 1978 through November, 1983, and not reasonable now, or even in March, 2011.

January-February 1951​


Coldest temperature: 14° on 2/2
Nights at or below freezing: 6 in a row

..The switch flipped on January 28, when temperatures dropped 40, and then January 29 when they kept dropping to 24 degrees. We then had four straight days below freezing all day long. The January 29-February 3 period remains Houston’s coldest stretch of 6 days on record, averaging 26.3 degrees.

January 1940​


Coldest temperature: 10° on 1/19
Nights at or below freezing: 11 in a row


.. Only twice has Houston seen 11 straight days of low temperatures at or below freezing: January 1983 and January 1940. The 1940 cold is notable for both intensity and duration.

January 1930​


Coldest temperature: 5° on 1/18
Nights at or below freezing: 8, coming in two 4-day waves .."


January 18, 1930 is Houston’s coldest morning on record, with a low of 5 degrees above zero. The cold came in two punches, this first strong one, followed by a second one a couple days later in which we bottomed out at 15 degrees on the 22nd.
So you’re bringing up isolated events that average less then once per decade, and which never previously caused widespread power outages. Ok you’re only proving my point. The grid was more then adequate for reasonably foreseen weather conditions.
 
As critical as power infrastructure is to our well-being as a nation it amazes me that it's in private hands at all. The power grid should be nationalized, or at least much more heavily regulated than it currently is.
 
As critical as power infrastructure is to our well-being as a nation it amazes me that it's in private hands at all. The power grid should be nationalized, or at least much more heavily regulated than it currently is.
Why? So you can pay more for a bunch of left wingers and political cronies to get high government salaries and pensions?

Are used to live in a rural community with a public utility district, And in theory the rates were lower, but the utility District charge property taxes then they added fees like a green energy fee, and an employee pension fee, And when you added all those up you were actually paying slightly more than the county across the border from mine where the utility was a private company. In addition, the Washington state public utilities commission has a series of consumer protection laws, which public utility districts are all exempt from. As currently structured there is no evidence to suggest the idea that public utility districts are better for anybody except for the unionized employees who work there.
 
pipelines bad. We should shut them all down. Transport by rail is much better, especially for Warren Buffet. I wonder how much Buffet contributed to the Democrats?
 
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