For Americans who live in northern states, two or three days without power in the winter doesn’t seem that unusual. A Midwestern blizzard, a Nor'easter smacking into New England, or an ice storm raining down branches (and power lines) anywhere can leave just about any region wanting for electricity for an extended period. And while the 27°F temperature in Austin this morning may be chilly, it’s certainly not going to impress the folks in International Falls, Minnesota, who are enjoying a balmy -18°. For those who sat through a two-week outage in St. Louis, or Detroit, or Boston, what’s happening in Texas may just not seem like that big a deal. But there are several things at work that make the Texas blackout a disaster rather than an inconvenience.
The first thing is the sheer scale. For more than three days, the area of Texas that was out was essentially known as “Texas.” The outage map on Thursday morning shows considerable improvement, with many counties fully restored. However, there are still counties where the majority of homes are without power for a fourth straight day, and rolling blackouts might spread later in the day as demand for power increases. The second thing is the nature of the outage. This wasn’t high winds or accumulating snow and ice causing the issue. It wasn’t a failure of the power lines—it was a failure of the power system. It’s a vivid illustration of how the deregulated, self-contained power system in Texas has incentivized producers to keep the system always on the brink of failure. Because in Texas’ system, failure is highly profitable. Finally, for both business and homeowners, the outage illustrates how a hands-off approach to building codes and regulation leads to “cheap” solutions that turn out to be extremely costly.
Oh. Also, it looks as if Ted Cruz has decided this would be a great time for a Mexican vacation.
Multiple reports are circulating that, in the midst of a crisis that’s rattling his state, America’s favorite zodiac killer suspect has decided this would be a great time to sip umbrella drinks and catch some rays on a Cancun beach. However, as of 9AM ET, this story remains unconfirmed. It was broken on Wednesday evening by former MSNBC anchor David Schuster, whose last big breaking news story was how Hillary Clinton was going to be replaced on the 2016 Democratic ticket. Schuster also said that Chelsea Clinton had been “pimped out” to superdelegates. So … keep that in mind. Cruz’s office hasn’t denied the trip, which could mean he’s definitely in Cancun. It could also mean he’s definitely hiding in a closet so he can jump out and scream “fake news!”
Though, seriously, it looks like Ted Cruz went to Cancun.
But if Cruz could escape the chill to just … chill, he’s definitely one of the lucky few. Because many in Texas are now wrestling with the results of a cold snap combined with a blackout. The combined effects of which include things like this:
That’s just one example of the small-scale disasters facing many families this morning that come from a combination of a utility model that maximizes profit by promoting shortages, and a construction model that minimizes costs by allowing builders to skip out on things like insulation.
It’s not just homes. Supply lines in towns and cities are often buried just inches below the ground when they’re buried at all, giving far from adequate protection to municipal water supplies. Just think of Texas as one of those companies that proudly brags about its "six sigma" efficiency, without mentioning that to get there it cut every possible corner. Including any ability to respond to a disruption in normal conditions.
Then, on top of the dark, and the cold, and the lack of water, and the busted pipes, Texans are also dealing with a supply chain that is breaking down, leaving some areas short of food. As the Texas Tribune reports, stores in Texas have had to throw out frozen food in huge amounts. Though some stores have backup power, that power is designed around outages that might last hours, not days. Some stores were operating cash-only sales conducted from lines of coolers and introducing Texans to the joys of food rationing.
All of this might not seem quite so painful if it wasn’t also perfectly predictable. Not only did forecasters give the state an advance warning of the arctic blast about to hit this week, but a review of past disasters made it clear that Texas was not ready for an event that was dead certain to come. As Bloomberg reports, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North America Electric Reliability Corporation both prepared reports following a cold front that plunged the state into blackouts back in February 2011. That event caused instruments and pipelines at gas and coal plants to freeze. The state saw four days of extensive rolling blackouts, and it did so at a time when wind was barely a blip in Texas’ energy mix.
And 2011 was far from the first. One of the biggest conclusions was that utilities had failed to act on the recommendations of a report issued after a 1989 event that also generated systemwide rolling blackouts in response to multiple days of cold weather. The 1989 report gave recommendations that were not followed by 2011. And no surprise, that 2011 report generated recommendations that have still not been followed in 2020.
That’s because Texas’ ERCOT system is optimized to generate profit, not energy security. It doesn’t reward utilities for taking steps to safeguard power in an emergency. It certainly doesn’t provide any incentive to generate more power than is necessary. In fact, the best way to game the system for maximum profit is often by taking advantage of price spikes generated through shortages. Some installations were able to generate more profit on Monday and Tuesday alone than they would have gained through an entire year of normal operation.
A 100-megawatt wind farm in the state that might have normally made almost $40,000 over a two-day period in February could reap more than $9.5 million on Monday and Tuesday alone, Nicholas Steckler, a power-markets analyst at Bloomberg NEF, said.
$10 billion worth of electricity was sold on Monday—two orders of magnitude greater than normal—at a time when millions of people in the state were without power. And all of that happened without a single major power line coming down.
No one should really be surprised. This is, after all, the state where chemical plants just keep exploding, even though it has happened before. And before. The Houston area alone has had at least five chemical explosions just since 2019. Because Texas is a giant experiment in cutting corners for profit.
Not to worry, Texans: Rick Perry says you like it this way. As The Houston Chronicle reports, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” said Perry. And then, in perfect Rick Perryese, he said, “Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off of having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically, and strategically.” Meaning that having a grid that works well in a crisis means it’s not resilient? Maybe we just need to get more fusion reactors.
In the meantime, Texans will have to settle for the generators, water, and blankets being sent by President Biden. Who doesn’t even seem to have required Gov. Greg Abbott to sing his praises before helping.