#texas power grid

[terezisexbuttpyrope]

Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule

A panel of judges has said that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the 2021 blackout. The r

hell state 🙃

[tomorrowusa]

Texas residents endure days-long heat wave and no power

Hurricane Beryl left millions of Texans without power during a brutal heat wave. Several people have died.

Texas is still suffering from power outages triggered by Hurricane Beryl which dissipated a week ago.

More than a week after Hurricane Beryl swept through Texas and left millions without power, nearly 60,000 people in the state still do not have electricity. The issue is more than an inconvenience, as many in the state have faced a deadly days-long heat wave that claimed its latest victim on Tuesday. Local news reported that a woman was found dead in her apartment after spending the last eight days in her home without electricity and air conditioning. The heat index in Houston had climbed to 110F (43F) the day her body was discovered. With the power issue lingering and more than a dozen deaths now linked to the heat, frustrations in Houston have started to boil over - particularly as the forecasts for the coming days warn of high temperatures. Armed residents living without electricity have reportedly harrassed and threatened workers from CenterPoint Energy, the local energy provider, who have been sent out to restore power. Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement saying that CentrePoint Energy "has lost the faith and trust of Texans". He issued a July 31 deadline for the company to respond to questions about what went wrong and what can be done to mitigate hurricane damage to the electric grid.

Climate-denying Republican Gov. Greg Abbott followed that Texas GOP tradition of leaving the state whenever climate causes a disaster leading to misery and death for residents. We remember Sen. Ted Cruz heading to Cancún when a winter storm caused the state's separate power grid to collapse.

Gov. Abbott went to Milwaukee to attend the GOP convention to brag about himself sending busloads of migrants to Chicago.

Gov. Abbott says Texas will continue busing migrants to Chicago during RNC speech

Those migrants are being sent north with taxpayer money in air conditioned buses while Abbott's Texas constituents are dropping dead from the heat.

Abbott himself was enjoying the moderate climate of the Upper Midwest where the high temperature in Milwaukee on Thursday is expected to be a refreshing 75° F/24° C. No place in southeastern Wisconsin will even make it to 80° today.

Abbott and other MAGA Republicans will be celebrating the climate policies of the Orange Dear Leader whose election would guarantee even more climate disasters for the Lone Star State.

Trump asks Big Oil for $1B in campaign cash

^^^ just sayin'

[texasobserver]

From “Catastrophe 88,” the Texas Observer guide to the new session of the state legislature, opening tomorrow:

Elections have consequences. This political bromide is overused for a reason—it’s reliably true. And this year, the fallout for vulnerable Texans could be particularly destructive.

After something approaching a blue wave swept across Texas in November 2018, a chastened Republican majority in the Legislature kept its focus in the 2019 session on serious policymaking—school finance and property tax reform—while largely forgoing their typical red-meat fare.

Republicans thwarted expectations of another Democratic surge in November 2020, and the next year the GOP ignored the problems laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis, instead focusing on passing as much right-wing legislation as possible over the course of a regular session, plus three painful specials. 

The final outcome was ugly: Abortions were effectively banned by threat of bounty, handgun permits were done away with, voting laws were made more restrictive, transgender kids were targeted with statutory bigotry, and school curricula on race and history were whitewashed. Profound policy problems, meanwhile, were left to fester. 

Critically, the state’s electoral districts were redrawn for the next decade to ensure incumbent Republican majorities will be insulated from electoral backlash while the state’s growing numbers of people of color and Democratic-aligned voters are kept at bay. 

This fresh gerrymander set the table for another Republican rout last November as the GOP maintained strong majorities in the state House and Senate and easily swept the state’s high-powered executive offices—led by Governor Greg Abbott’s 11-point defeat of Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. 

Firmly in control, Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and GOP lawmakers are now free to do as they please—to pick up where their vengeful 87th legislative session mercifully left off just over a year ago. 

Some top Republicans hinted during campaign season that they might want to soften the sharpest edges of their draconian and unpopular ban on abortion or pull back on the most extreme parts of their so-called “election integrity” laws. But there’s little reason to think this legislative session will yield moderation. The party’s activist base is eager to continue the march toward one-party authoritarianism, punishing political enemies and catering to political patrons as they go. 

Read the full guide on the Texas Observer.

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

I need to finish up my 30 hour course for being certified with gifted and talented kids. But I am so burned out. And I don't particularly like the presenter. A 30-hour course taught by one person with one person's perspective. Granted I have learned a lot I just don't really like that woman at all. And just like when I got my bilingual certification last year I'm sure this will not give me any more pay or recognition but it may help me deal with students a bit better. And it is teaching me a lot about myself since of course as someone who raised themselves and really had no parents and it was in '70s I was never really identified and I think that I was. Horse I was also autistic and I'm sure back then one canceled out the other.

The winter break is showing me just exactly how crappy daytime TV is. They don't even have Bar Rescue on anymore like they used to. And that was probably the one show I actually watched. I think I have watched Home Alone 2 at least once a day since I have been off probably twice a day in some cases.

All I can afford is basic cable and believe me there is nothing on.

The real question now is will the power grid hold and when is Ted Cruz leaving the country for warmer climes?

When the power grid failed I was living in a cinder block house that had no insulation and no heat to begin with. That was not fun. I'm in a much much better place now but I'm still antsy about what could happen especially to a lot of other people who aren't as well taken care of as I am now.

[solarpunkcitizen]

The Texas Electric Grid Failure Was a Warm-up

One year after the deadly blackout, Texas officials have done little to prevent the next one—which could be far worse.

This is a really good article.

[chelsealorine]

Another winter storm in Texas, another freezing day without power. This is getting really, and I mean REALLY, old.

[rjzimmerman]

Extreme heat pushes highs over 110 in Texas as power grid nears brink

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas projects record-high demand as temperatures skyrocket.

If the power grid in Texas fails, who will governor abbott blame this time? My guess is biden but with any wind turbine in a close second. Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:

A serious summer heat wave is baking Texas with record temperatures and high humidity. Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings blanket much of the Lone Star State, with the National Weather Service calling the conditions “extreme” and “dangerously hot.”

On Sunday, more than a dozen record highs were set throughout the state as temperatures soared as high as 113 degrees. Houston shot up to 105 degrees, matching its highest temperature ever recorded in July.

Sunday was the state’s second-hottest day since at least 1950, according to Maxar, a weather consulting firm.

The record-challenging heat is forecast to persist through Tuesday, combining with a moist lower atmosphere to produce heat indexes above 110 degrees in the southeast part of the state.

The statewide scorcher is enough to induce record high demand and tax the state’s beleaguered power grid, prompting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to issue a public appeal for conservation during the hottest times of day.

Expected demand is only 0.61 percent less than total electric generation capacity, leaving very little wiggle room on the grid.

Texas’s drive for energy independence dating back to the early 20th century, however, meant that the state constructed its own grid, leaving no recourse in high-demand scenarios.

In most situations, states and municipalities can borrow energy from a neighbor if local demand exceeds capacity; Texas’s drive for energy independence dating back to the early 20th century, however, meant that the state constructed its own grid, leaving no recourse in high-demand scenarios.

That proved disastrous during the record cold wave of February 2021, when 3.5 million Texans were without power at one time as temperatures dipped to minus-2 degrees in Dallas and 13 degrees in Houston. Nearby states such as Oklahoma fared much better since its electrical infrastructure was interconnected with that of other states.

[rhp162]