this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
379 points (96.8% liked)
Technology
59188 readers
3192 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
In February 2021 Texas severely failed to meet power demand in subzero temperatures that lasted around two weeks. Many power stations across the state became inoperable due to these extreme temperatures. Major cities were almost completely blacked out for extended periods. People were burning furniture to stay warm and a good number of people froze to death.
When that happens on the East or West grid, they just grab power from unaffected regions. In Texas all they can do is rolling blackouts. They know this is a vulnerability in their grid because it happened in 2011 as well.
For some reason they won't harden their stations against the cold, but they wouldn't have to if they just got on the East or West grid. So basically they'd rather risk the lives of Texans than either spend the money to harden stations or suck up to the Feds and get on the national grid. Seems pretty stupid to me, but you know a person can be stupid, but it takes a government to be really stupid.