Texas has many times threatened to secede from the good old USA and it seems when it comes to electrical power they have succeeded in that endeavor. I am not making this up. Their electrical system is self-contained you might say. The rest of the nation is on a grid of the western US or the eastern US. Texas stands alone. So when the entire State is in an emergency situation as they currently are they are the only source to get power. They cannot tie into the national grid. They wanted it and they got it. And now they don't like it.
What does this mean for us? It means the electricity comes on and goes off willy-nilly. You never know when you might have electricity and when you won't. Need to cook supper? Do you really want to take that chance? And this applies to every other household chore. And that is just the tip of the iceberg and I mean that literally as well as figuratively. The only store that is open is HEB and that is because they have a generator. All other stores are closed because even if they could sell you something it would have to be a cash-only transaction. And no telling when this will change.
Yesterday we had electricity until 11:30 AM-then off till 1:30 PM- then on until 7:30 PM-Back on at 4:30 AM. Plan your day around that situation!! There is no reasoning connected to this that we can tell.
We lived in Iowa all of our growing up years and never had this situation. If the electricity went off it was because of downed lines or a blown transformer. There was always a reason and never just poor planning. The Texas Governor is livid but isn't that a bit too late?
Copied from NBC News:
The problems are exacerbated because Texas, the largest energy producer and consumer in the United States, is the only state to use its own power grid. That frees it from federal regulations, including ones that could have required it to be better prepared for a freak cold snap, said Peter Fox-Penner, the founder of Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy.
“Texas’ deregulatory philosophy has caused them to put much less stringent rules on generators and system operators to be prepared for cold weather than other systems, where extreme cold is more common,” he said in an interview.
“They believed that this kind of ‘perfect storm’ was so unlikely that they didn’t need to require the system to prepare for it,” Fox-Penner said.
The Railroad Commission of Texas, which despite its name regulates the oil and natural gas industry in the state but not any railroads, said that the weather had stopped fossil fuel production in some parts of the state.
"Some producers, especially in the Permian Basin and Panhandle, have reported experiencing unprecedented freezing conditions which caused concerns for employee safety and affected production," the Commission announced Monday.
The one-two punch of the storm and sudden power outages have caused wide-reaching damage across the state.
For the Fagan Family Farms, a small independent organic produce farm in Kyle, Texas, lost produce from the cold snap was bad enough, but the power outage was devastating. They had about $20,000 worth of lettuce growing in the electrically heated growhouse, owner Shawn Fagan said — about a fifth of his annual business — and that's now all lost.
"I had the next generation growing in the growhouse,” he said by phone. “Not only do I not have anything in the field, I don't have anything to put in the field now.”
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