Well, thank God you were able to shame him into doing his job, whatever that might be.

Or maybe his vacation is over, I have no idea.

Just heard from two friends that their entire, huge apartment complex in north east Dallas is without water; fortunately they were able to find a hotel to go to. Of course, scumbag hotel operators are price gouging to take advantage, even though the TX governor has issued some sort of order forbidding that.

According to Oncor, in the Dallas area the rotating power outages have ceased because capacity has caught up with demand and the remaining outages are all related to physical damage from the storm. That is some progress, I guess.

We sent you the warm weather. And kept the coldest for ourselves.
-40s for a week straight with -50s windchill.

You're welcome!

;)

For the life of me, I cannot understand why anybody lives in Canada in the wintertime.

capitalism baby!

Canada was settled by people who had it worse (in some regard) in their homeland.
Think about that for a minute. Haha

I love the cold, bright sunshine.

It's the days around zero with overcast that get me down.

It wasn't to maximize profits, it was because they were sure the utilities are inefficient and a free market solution would be much more efficient and lower rates.

How does ERCOT encourage the free market to optimize the system? They raise electricity prices in times of high demand so that companies are encouraged to build new plants to make money on those high prices.

Well prices have been near $9,000 per megawatt hour several times in the last few days (vs normally about $20/MWh) and not one new power plant has been built! Just kidding of course but how do you convince investors to loan $100 million or more to build a power plant on the slight chance that you'll make a large profit but a much larger chance you won't even break even.

Yes, a big improvement over the past few days. Funny thing about this area is by next Tuesday or so we will be running central a/c.

I've been fortunate - my place has had only one rolling blackout following 27 hours without electricity, and water has not stopped. I only had one frozen pipe, which I was able to thaw without damage after I cut away a section of wallboard to get to it.

its almost like having the utilities being public owned and operated is such a good idea that basically everyone else in the entire world does it. crazy

In business school deregulation probably makes a lot of sense.

Utility model: Cost + Profit = Price

Deregulated model: Price - Cost = Profit

So the thinking goes that you want to cut costs while maintaining reliability so the plant is up, running, and ready to sell power when needed at the lowest cost possible.

Unfortunately too often short term profit takes precedence over long term profit and maintenance and repairs are put off until it's too late. Or put off because the shareholders demand cost cuts.


There were also a lot of utilities that maximized cost since profit was a percentage of cost. I didn't see too much of that in Texas but I heard horror stories about California.

this.

its not like the "free market" is a magic word that makes things cost less. the cost has to come out of somewhere, and in this case, its long term reliability and robustness.

nothing in life is free, and the "free market" doesn't change the cost of things.

Funny thing is, all I can think about is that people in Texas will be through this soon and be back to miserable, intolerable heat for 10 months of the year. I could not tolerate your climate but extreme cold is really miserable as well.

Don't get me wrong, these private companies work their asses off to make sure the plants are ready for whatever weather is coming but there isn't a blank check to handle it all.

I had a relative ask me what the power companies were doing with all the money the state gives them to maintain the equipment? I had to explain there is no money from the state. The only money power producers get is from the power they sell.

Texas doesn’t have a miserable heat for 10 months out of the year. Not even in Houston.

Even if it's six months out of the year, it's a deal killer for me.

Maybe three.

By this weekend, TX temps are warm-ish again, right? Hope so - sounds terrible there.

On the private utility thing, I am a dedicated capitalist. I think 1) government regulators have to set the standards and rules, then 2) let private companies meet them while making as much money as they can. Too often we see 1) failing, and it is often because the private companies' lobbying and money influences the regulators. I'm thinking that controlling the influence of money in politics and the revolving door between government and industry is a better idea than nationalizing utilities.

The heat and humidity here is godawful for about 8 months of the year (sometimes closer to 10); a big chunk of my creative energy is spent building turbo pooowwwaaaahhh air conditioning systems for my home, vehicles and workplace. The only people that think it is bearable are ones that genuinely like to burn and sweat ass, and those that never go outdoors (which are many, based upon the commonness of obesity here).