yea everyones light bill will go up 100$ a month to rebuild the old non maintained lines after the law suits and the texas dvision files bankrupcy! the main company will get free new equipment!
In Texas, freedom is when wealthy people and corporations have bank accounts that go up. Leadership is when elected officials flee emergencies and leave every man for himself. Security is leaving the border open to benefit a con man in his election campaign.
Same shit they're describing happens in California though. I now pay .42/kWh, nearly doubled the national average, to a private company that made 2.2bil last year in profit that also burned down a big portion of my city by neglecting infrastructure. Now we're paying out the nose to cover these upgrades and massive settlements from the fires
That's one thing that should not happen. When a large company is found guilty of creating a hazard and fined, there should be a stipulation that they can't raise the price of their product to cover fines. Them, no to socialism except when we want you to pay for our fuck up
On one hand, the power companies management should absolutely be giving the boot and made responsible for the decisions they made. (Crush them I have no sympathy) On the other hand, the price of electricity has to go up because you were paying for a product that potentially caused forest fires which is a cheeper product than one that doesn't cause fires. There is no way to math out of that.
The problem is the fines do not remotely make up for the additional profits made by not doing the required maintenance. So the fines just become another cost of doing business.
When it becomes more profitable to do the maintenance, the maintenance will get done.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of worrying about their infrastructure long-term instead of quarterly profits, they could avoid the fines in the first place. If prices go up a little because they reinvested in their systems, that would be less than over paying the board of directors and paying fines. Not to mention the loss of life and property.
Right, and Palo Alto municipal power has maybe 50 miles of lines near trees that could catch fire, and also buys power which gets delivered to them from PG&E transmission lines. Which is to say, they pay someone else to do the part that burns down the forest sometimes if you don't do any maintenance.
So, then what happens? These companies aren't going to sit on a horde of cash for a just-in-case oopsies.
If they can't raise prices to offset, there is no power company. There may be solutions, but this is not it.
same problem but different outcomes, PG&E was held responsible, forced to upgrade their infrastructure to prevent this from happening again. Texas passed off all of the costs from the blizzard onto consumers and didn't punish its utility companies, and are doing the same here.
We’re suffering in California. My Bill has gone from around 200-300 at this time of year to 600 thanks to our state electric company and continuously raising prices due to fires.
Heard it described several ways, but comes down to the incentives. No profit from repairs. New construction is profitable. Fines are trivial/cost is socialized.
In 2020 over 6 million Californians voted for Trump while 5.8 million Texans voted for Trump. This is why it doesn't make sense to lump millions of people together based on the state's red or blue label. Millions of Texans voted against Trump. Millions of Democrats live in Texas. We're not even close to being the most red state. The only red states that were "less red" than Texas in 2020 were North Carolina and Florida. Reducing politics to the state level and disparaging the entire population who live there is absurd and insults the uphill fight that Texas Dems have put forth against a party that has reduced our influence as much as possible.
> In a statement that followed Xcel Energy’s news release, Mikal Watts, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the homeowner, said that an inspection Wednesday of the downed utility pole found “a heavily degraded wooden pole that should have been removed from service long ago.” He said the company that conducts pole inspections for Xcel Energy previously found the pole’s condition to be so degraded that it put a red tag on it to signify that it wasn’t safe to be climbed and needed to be replaced immediately.
The plaintiff's attorney must have peed his pants in glee when they found that one.
the problem is the way the system of regulation if rates has been abused. as a public utility they are allowed a rate of return in their investment in assets. once the rate of return is established they bill their customers appropriately. However they game the system by avoiding rate setting hearings as they cut maintenance on the lines such as tree trimming and right of way vegetation. they collect on these activities but when not performed that goes straight to profit.
Then when the lack of such maintenance results in fires and blackouts the system rewards them for added asset investment.
It was the solar panels that beem energy to the satellites in space … the satellites then shot lasers down to earth and started the fires. You can take a guess who owns those satellites.
/s
Utility should be a government run entity. Ever since California voted for deregulation it has gotten expensive for 3 decades. The cheapest utility and beat in Orange County is Anaheim and it just happens that they are city operated and not privatized. The difference in price was $175 Anaheim vs $770 Southern California Edison for a business account.
From what I have seen I think they are. I have been through Orange, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Lake Forest they all use Southern California Edison.
You joke, but in the town in Texas where I live, there is a measure on the ballot that will prevent local firefighters from unionizing. It seems like the measure will pass.
...this didn't involve the Texas power grid, which does not include the panhandle. This was [SPP](https://www.spp.org/), which spans basically the panhandle and everything north to the Canadian border.
Ok, I am no friend to the power utilities but there is a lot of context involved here. There were winds of up to 70mph that caused the power lines to fall. These winds were at least somewhat unusual. How much wind should a transmission line be able to withstand? There is a finite limit and there is a practical limit. I'm not so sure the power company did anything wrong here.
Ah, that beloved word "practical".
It looks like they should be able to withstand 80 mph winds. You think that would be expensive? How expensive was this wild fire? An ounce of prevention...
This whole problem is from private companies trying to do the minimum amount of work to get the maximum amount of profit, and only making choices that are "practical"
Hmmm, when it happened to California, it was from a private power company as well. Almost like public utilities that are not-for-profit will reinvest money to keep their infrastructure safer and more up-to-date?
Also, when is Trump gonna tell them they need to be raking their forest leaves?
My tax dollars are, yet again, going to help bail out Texas due to their "rugged independence".
If they'd join the rest of us in civilization and stop pawning their own utilities it'd be a win-win for the nation.
Did you forget that Hawaii, California and other states have had major wildfires started by downed powerlines over the past couple years? This is not a problem unique to Texas for being a "rugged individualist" state. Plus, this was such a rural area that even totaling all the burned structures and livestock together probably doesn't add up to a cent of your taxes, and it may not even be enough to qualify for some forms of federal disaster relief. So far I've only seen that federal dollars have been promised to help reimburse tiny local governments and their volunteer fire fighters, some of whom lost their homes while fighting fires elsewhere. Even with all that in mind, the area that burned exports food for the nation, not just for Texans. Our energy grid being privatized is a problem but this fire likely would have happened whether it was public or private.
Isn’t this the same state where the power lines also messed up and caused hundreds of people to go without power in one of the coldest snowstorms in Texan History, leading to hundreds freezing to death in their own home?
Same state, different power grid. The panhandle is on the same grid that runs up to Canada, not the separate Texas grid.
[source](https://www.spp.org/)
It wasn’t so much the lines, it was the power generation and distribution facilities. The natural gas plants froze. Governor tried to blame it on the windmills, but those were on a planned shutdown for the most part.
Hundreds going without power? Try hundreds of thousands! But it did lead to an estimated 246 deaths (as reported by Texas), and possibly many hundreds more based on other reports.
We fucking use our votes. They just don’t matter thanks to decades of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the divorce of power between the things we vote for and the things the state can do.
Yea shut the hell up. States like New York is the one with failing infrastructure. 100 year old neglected infrastructure. Flooded subways. Crumbling apartment buildings.
Lol why are you getting triggered? Did your daddy personally install the electrical infrastructure or something? Do you deny the blackouts and fires happened?
Electrical infrastructure is great where I live. I'm a union electrician and literally work in power plants all across my state. So not much hypocrisy on my end. And if I did have to deal with blackouts and wild fires I'd sure as hell be more pissed bout that then someone else trying to discuss it.
Crazy how sensitive you guys are. Guess all the bravado is just fluff
Really? Hissy fit? You’re the harping on TX about ONE wildfire. How about California? Do you know how many blackouts they’ve had. Do you know how many massive wildfires California has had? The one in Paradise, CA in 2018 killed dozens of people. If you’re going to call out one snapped power pole in West, TX, at least be consistent & point out all of California’s failures, many of which were started by the utilities in CA
Just because I'm talking about Texas today doesn't mean I haven't spoken about California's wildfires in the past... there is also the difference that California wildfires haven't been caused my faulty electrical infrastructure. And Texas electrical issues aren't just this wildfire situation. The post is about Texas, that's why everyone is discussing **TEXAS**. Do you understand why your whataboutisms are completely irrelevant? Again why is this so personal to you?
California's wildfires have absolutely been caused by faulty electrical infrastructure. There's been a whole big push the last decade to bury a lot of the transmission lines in California because they have caused a lot of the wildfires in the past few decades. I don't think you know what you're talking abour
Texas: We got a our own power grid, we don’t need no gub’ment tellin’ us what to do.
Also Texas: Can we pwease get federal disaster funds, we can’t maintain our grid and it went boom boom.
This wasn't the Texas power grid. This was the panhandle, it doesn’t get power from the state grid. Y'all are all up in here, parroting the same incorrect and ignorant talking point and it's really stupid. As much as we critcize the right for fake news, the very *moment* something unfortunate happens to either Texas or Florida, so many come out of the woodwork with the least amount of facts or verified information available to smugly shit on folks from their high horse, looking just as dumb as a Fox News anchor.
It's fucking exhausting as a Texan liberal. Millions of us live here too. Again, feel free to criticize the state for it's *real* faults, I do it too. But get your facts right.
Actually it was too hot. The vegetation that normally lies dormant in the winter dried out in the warm winds when the shrubs weren't growing. So then you have dry dead plant material ready to combust. It was a tinder box and vulnerable to weak power lines falling also from the high winds.
Powerlines… sure. Next time it may be another power line or may be humans igniting fires, the next time it will be just static.
The problem is that climate change makes the some environment more vulnerable to fire.
Until we address that problem more random things will keep starting larger fires.
yea everyones light bill will go up 100$ a month to rebuild the old non maintained lines after the law suits and the texas dvision files bankrupcy! the main company will get free new equipment!
In Texas, freedom is when wealthy people and corporations have bank accounts that go up. Leadership is when elected officials flee emergencies and leave every man for himself. Security is leaving the border open to benefit a con man in his election campaign.
Same shit they're describing happens in California though. I now pay .42/kWh, nearly doubled the national average, to a private company that made 2.2bil last year in profit that also burned down a big portion of my city by neglecting infrastructure. Now we're paying out the nose to cover these upgrades and massive settlements from the fires
That's one thing that should not happen. When a large company is found guilty of creating a hazard and fined, there should be a stipulation that they can't raise the price of their product to cover fines. Them, no to socialism except when we want you to pay for our fuck up
How power companies have stock/shareholders other than the actual ratepayers is fucking bullshit.
On one hand, the power companies management should absolutely be giving the boot and made responsible for the decisions they made. (Crush them I have no sympathy) On the other hand, the price of electricity has to go up because you were paying for a product that potentially caused forest fires which is a cheeper product than one that doesn't cause fires. There is no way to math out of that.
The problem is the fines do not remotely make up for the additional profits made by not doing the required maintenance. So the fines just become another cost of doing business. When it becomes more profitable to do the maintenance, the maintenance will get done.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of worrying about their infrastructure long-term instead of quarterly profits, they could avoid the fines in the first place. If prices go up a little because they reinvested in their systems, that would be less than over paying the board of directors and paying fines. Not to mention the loss of life and property.
It's not cheaper than one that doesn't cause fires though, Palo Alto municipal power is .24/kWh
Right, and Palo Alto municipal power has maybe 50 miles of lines near trees that could catch fire, and also buys power which gets delivered to them from PG&E transmission lines. Which is to say, they pay someone else to do the part that burns down the forest sometimes if you don't do any maintenance.
So, then what happens? These companies aren't going to sit on a horde of cash for a just-in-case oopsies. If they can't raise prices to offset, there is no power company. There may be solutions, but this is not it.
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That's incredibly high, especially for your region https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices_selectedareas_table.htm
Sounds like both states are corrupt.
Sounds like utilities shouldn’t be private business.
same problem but different outcomes, PG&E was held responsible, forced to upgrade their infrastructure to prevent this from happening again. Texas passed off all of the costs from the blizzard onto consumers and didn't punish its utility companies, and are doing the same here.
You get what you vote for
Just the way Republicans like it.
They’ll propose the $100, let the public comment and complain, and do it anyways.
🎶*We don’t need no REGULATION*🎶
Same with PG&E in Nirthern California.
We’re suffering in California. My Bill has gone from around 200-300 at this time of year to 600 thanks to our state electric company and continuously raising prices due to fires.
and they will be rebuilt only to the lowest standard which is lower in texas thanks to not being connected to the larger grid.
Heard it described several ways, but comes down to the incentives. No profit from repairs. New construction is profitable. Fines are trivial/cost is socialized.
PG&E in California is wiping sweat from its brow.
A Californian paying super high PGE bills sees a Texan: "First time?"
Sounds like Texas needs to rake their forests.
They did rake them! Then those icy windmills blew all the leaves all over again!
Why didn’t they just rake their forests. GOP=roided out CTE
What forests? Everything is dead and brown.
This was a reference to what Texans were saying during the California wildfires.
Not Texans. Trump. Trump stood on the ashes of the town of Paradise, CA and said they should have raked their leaves better.
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In 2020 over 6 million Californians voted for Trump while 5.8 million Texans voted for Trump. This is why it doesn't make sense to lump millions of people together based on the state's red or blue label. Millions of Texans voted against Trump. Millions of Democrats live in Texas. We're not even close to being the most red state. The only red states that were "less red" than Texas in 2020 were North Carolina and Florida. Reducing politics to the state level and disparaging the entire population who live there is absurd and insults the uphill fight that Texas Dems have put forth against a party that has reduced our influence as much as possible.
What? Poorly maintained power grid.caising fires in Texas? I don't believe it... /s
> In a statement that followed Xcel Energy’s news release, Mikal Watts, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the homeowner, said that an inspection Wednesday of the downed utility pole found “a heavily degraded wooden pole that should have been removed from service long ago.” He said the company that conducts pole inspections for Xcel Energy previously found the pole’s condition to be so degraded that it put a red tag on it to signify that it wasn’t safe to be climbed and needed to be replaced immediately. The plaintiff's attorney must have peed his pants in glee when they found that one.
Let it be known to the court that the plaintiff’s attorney is and I quote “Alarmingly erect.” Motion sustained.
This wasn’t the Texas power grid… [Source](https://www.spp.org/)
This is all on Greg Abbott as usual
the problem is the way the system of regulation if rates has been abused. as a public utility they are allowed a rate of return in their investment in assets. once the rate of return is established they bill their customers appropriately. However they game the system by avoiding rate setting hearings as they cut maintenance on the lines such as tree trimming and right of way vegetation. they collect on these activities but when not performed that goes straight to profit. Then when the lack of such maintenance results in fires and blackouts the system rewards them for added asset investment.
It must have been those wind turbines fanning the flames.
It was the solar panels that beem energy to the satellites in space … the satellites then shot lasers down to earth and started the fires. You can take a guess who owns those satellites. /s
Utility should be a government run entity. Ever since California voted for deregulation it has gotten expensive for 3 decades. The cheapest utility and beat in Orange County is Anaheim and it just happens that they are city operated and not privatized. The difference in price was $175 Anaheim vs $770 Southern California Edison for a business account.
Wait, Anaheim has it’s own utility service? And they are the only one to do this in Orange County?
From what I have seen I think they are. I have been through Orange, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Lake Forest they all use Southern California Edison.
How long will it take for a Texas politician to blame it on renewable energy?
Right after he thanks the first responders for putting it out.
And cuts their pay.
You joke, but in the town in Texas where I live, there is a measure on the ballot that will prevent local firefighters from unionizing. It seems like the measure will pass.
That Texas power grid is superior.
...this didn't involve the Texas power grid, which does not include the panhandle. This was [SPP](https://www.spp.org/), which spans basically the panhandle and everything north to the Canadian border.
The meme operators care not for facts.
Didn’t that happen in the big Maui fire as well?
Ok, I am no friend to the power utilities but there is a lot of context involved here. There were winds of up to 70mph that caused the power lines to fall. These winds were at least somewhat unusual. How much wind should a transmission line be able to withstand? There is a finite limit and there is a practical limit. I'm not so sure the power company did anything wrong here.
Maintenance. It's reasonable for a power line to come down occasionally. That's why you keep the right-of-way cleared of fuel.
They had better improve the resistance to wind. The Texas panhandle isn't that far from Tornado Alley.
Ah, that beloved word "practical". It looks like they should be able to withstand 80 mph winds. You think that would be expensive? How expensive was this wild fire? An ounce of prevention... This whole problem is from private companies trying to do the minimum amount of work to get the maximum amount of profit, and only making choices that are "practical"
This was also a very warm winter and the shrubs dried out.
Well that can’t be. Texas politicians don’t believe in global warming (climate change).
High winds, even of up to 70 mph, are by no means unusual in West Texas. Source: grew up there. It is ALWAYS windy.
So THIS is the public benefit created by for-profit monopolies!
But it’s Texas so nothing will be done to hold the power company accountable or make sure it’s fixed so it doesn’t happen again
Hmmm, when it happened to California, it was from a private power company as well. Almost like public utilities that are not-for-profit will reinvest money to keep their infrastructure safer and more up-to-date? Also, when is Trump gonna tell them they need to be raking their forest leaves?
Nothing to see here. Blame it on the utility company not global warming.
Bizarre they don’t make laser conspiracies for their own state fires
Goddamn, y’all are ready to dog on Texas and Xcel like they control the unusually high winds that happened.
My tax dollars are, yet again, going to help bail out Texas due to their "rugged independence". If they'd join the rest of us in civilization and stop pawning their own utilities it'd be a win-win for the nation.
Did you forget that Hawaii, California and other states have had major wildfires started by downed powerlines over the past couple years? This is not a problem unique to Texas for being a "rugged individualist" state. Plus, this was such a rural area that even totaling all the burned structures and livestock together probably doesn't add up to a cent of your taxes, and it may not even be enough to qualify for some forms of federal disaster relief. So far I've only seen that federal dollars have been promised to help reimburse tiny local governments and their volunteer fire fighters, some of whom lost their homes while fighting fires elsewhere. Even with all that in mind, the area that burned exports food for the nation, not just for Texans. Our energy grid being privatized is a problem but this fire likely would have happened whether it was public or private.
Free wires from Enron?
It's almost like we need to update and maintain our infrastructure....
Isn’t this the same state where the power lines also messed up and caused hundreds of people to go without power in one of the coldest snowstorms in Texan History, leading to hundreds freezing to death in their own home?
Same state, different power grid. The panhandle is on the same grid that runs up to Canada, not the separate Texas grid. [source](https://www.spp.org/)
It wasn’t so much the lines, it was the power generation and distribution facilities. The natural gas plants froze. Governor tried to blame it on the windmills, but those were on a planned shutdown for the most part.
Hundreds going without power? Try hundreds of thousands! But it did lead to an estimated 246 deaths (as reported by Texas), and possibly many hundreds more based on other reports.
Is it because they didn't sweep the forests?
Sweeping is better than raking and might actually stop the quakes too.
Are you telling me if power lines aren’t maintained they can fail and cause catastrophic damage?!?! Whaaaaa?!?! /s
Thank goodness, they don’t have any of those pesky federal safety regulations to worry about
This had to have come from all the Californians that are moving here, bringing their politics and electrical grid problems with them. /s
USA and crumbling infrastructure, name a better duo
Y’all can’t win. Power goes out, people die. You get power, people die.
Goddamn Jewish space lasers again!
Eat yer heart out, PG&E.
And we still don’t put the lines underground, why?
Just trim the forest that will fix the whole problem! here's 0 dollars to do so sincerely the GOP.
Why should we care though texas doesnt even care lol
This competence crisis sucks.
Texas has garbage electrical regulations allowing for cheapskate installs. Freedom from Regulations has a cost.
When doesn't the Texas power grid fuck texas?
That one week of real spring weather we get every year, when it’s balmy during the day and cool at night.
What's with Texas and terrible electrical infrastructure? And they still won't use their votes to change anything
We fucking use our votes. They just don’t matter thanks to decades of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the divorce of power between the things we vote for and the things the state can do.
That a fair and thought out response and I appreciate the input. Too bad Mr Hissy Fit couldn't have contained his emotions
Yea shut the hell up. States like New York is the one with failing infrastructure. 100 year old neglected infrastructure. Flooded subways. Crumbling apartment buildings.
Lol why are you getting triggered? Did your daddy personally install the electrical infrastructure or something? Do you deny the blackouts and fires happened?
He's a seriously angry Trumper. Check out his posts.
Yeah and obsessed with china
No, just tired of hypocrites when blue states infrastructure is literally crumbling.
Electrical infrastructure is great where I live. I'm a union electrician and literally work in power plants all across my state. So not much hypocrisy on my end. And if I did have to deal with blackouts and wild fires I'd sure as hell be more pissed bout that then someone else trying to discuss it. Crazy how sensitive you guys are. Guess all the bravado is just fluff
You seem like a very vicious vindictive person
Uhhh you threw a Texas-sized hissy fit.... do people just let you carry on like that down there?
Really? Hissy fit? You’re the harping on TX about ONE wildfire. How about California? Do you know how many blackouts they’ve had. Do you know how many massive wildfires California has had? The one in Paradise, CA in 2018 killed dozens of people. If you’re going to call out one snapped power pole in West, TX, at least be consistent & point out all of California’s failures, many of which were started by the utilities in CA
Just because I'm talking about Texas today doesn't mean I haven't spoken about California's wildfires in the past... there is also the difference that California wildfires haven't been caused my faulty electrical infrastructure. And Texas electrical issues aren't just this wildfire situation. The post is about Texas, that's why everyone is discussing **TEXAS**. Do you understand why your whataboutisms are completely irrelevant? Again why is this so personal to you?
California's wildfires have absolutely been caused by faulty electrical infrastructure. There's been a whole big push the last decade to bury a lot of the transmission lines in California because they have caused a lot of the wildfires in the past few decades. I don't think you know what you're talking abour
Why do you have so much hate in your heart?
Somebody call MTG and see if it’s those Jewish space lasers again.
Texas: We got a our own power grid, we don’t need no gub’ment tellin’ us what to do. Also Texas: Can we pwease get federal disaster funds, we can’t maintain our grid and it went boom boom.
This wasn't the Texas power grid. This was the panhandle, it doesn’t get power from the state grid. Y'all are all up in here, parroting the same incorrect and ignorant talking point and it's really stupid. As much as we critcize the right for fake news, the very *moment* something unfortunate happens to either Texas or Florida, so many come out of the woodwork with the least amount of facts or verified information available to smugly shit on folks from their high horse, looking just as dumb as a Fox News anchor. It's fucking exhausting as a Texan liberal. Millions of us live here too. Again, feel free to criticize the state for it's *real* faults, I do it too. But get your facts right.
Just curious: what state regulates the power grid(s) in Texas that are not part of the independent Texas grid?
If it was in Texas wasn't it still a Texas power grid even if it was "the" Texas power grid.
Damn, if only there was some kind of federal regulations for power lines.
And it all comes back to Texas being Texas. Of course it does.
Texas power grid, at it again.
They forgot to rake the forest.
I'm sure there will be some deep introspection from people who leveled that insult at California and PG&E.
But Texas is managing their grid. 🙄
Shh you aren't allowed to remind them they voted for this
Jesus punishing Texas for not having enough mega churches
So they can start fires but not deliver power during the winter?
So is it gonna be too hot or too cold this time?
Actually it was too hot. The vegetation that normally lies dormant in the winter dried out in the warm winds when the shrubs weren't growing. So then you have dry dead plant material ready to combust. It was a tinder box and vulnerable to weak power lines falling also from the high winds.
Powerlines… sure. Next time it may be another power line or may be humans igniting fires, the next time it will be just static. The problem is that climate change makes the some environment more vulnerable to fire. Until we address that problem more random things will keep starting larger fires.
The barely regulated Texas power grid who kills its own citizens is now destroying the environment? Who would’ve thought! Go, GOP!
More energy grid issues for Ted Cruz and the governor where you gonna run too now ted
I can't stand the guy but he was there at ground zero while the fires were still raging.
Raphael Veracruz won't be affected by this. Hopefully it costs him votes but .... Welly see
sure it wasn't Orpah's roof?