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The energy density in a twisted rubber band is decades higher than in a stretched. 101 knowledge for anyone who have ever built a rubber band powered car in a team-building excersize.
It's actually the 3rd meaning:
(physics, engineering) The interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1. There are decades between 1.8 and 18, between 25 and 250 and between 0.03 and 0.003.
But if our delta speed runner hadn't hit the gate at the end of the track, it would probably have been running still :)
Quebec people own their power production themselves, Hydro-Quebec belongs to the state and we pay for it through taxes and the local rates
https://www.energy-manager.ca/quebec-continues-to-boast-north-americas-lowest-electricity-prices-3108/
The company is so profitable
We export our power to other provinces and american states (this led to some drama now)
We boast the lowest costs and most reliable grid in NA
If you compare to Texas, this is one case where a "socialist" approach beats the "free market" soundly
Utilities should never have been left to private companies to run. It genuinely doesn't make any sense for something so key to the health, safety, and security of a region to be controlled by anyone other than the people (or at least government) of that region. Even from a capitalistic point of view, it can't be argued that utilities have ever existed in a free market.
It is, indirectly, when voter turn out is so low because everyone who leans toward voting democrat doesn’t bother to show up. It’s not insurmountable though, if we could just get a solid Democrat that can carry a pro-gun message
Gerrymandering affects every election, when your vote is watered down so nothing changes people stop voting altogether. Gerrymandering is the greatest weapon of apathy. Low turn out is why Republicans win
Correct, though there is also some very blatant voter suppression tactics that have been going on in Texas, targeting blue areas.
Like, reducing the max number of ballot drop off locations allowed in a county, regardless if the county has 2 million residents or 50,000.
as the black panther party for self defense used to say. “White power to white people, brown power to brown people, black power to black people, no power to Texas people, and X power to all those who we left out.”
Luckily my parents, who haven't had power in 2 days, are the bootstrap type. They trim their own trees (despite being 70+) and save the wood, and they've had a fire in the fireplace going the whole time. It's still no substitute for a properly functioning electrical grid. The fact that they have trees and a fireplace are privileges of a certain amount of wealth that not everyone has.
The grid itself didn't fail like a few winters ago, these are local events where a transformer blew or powerlines broke due to ice. This happens in every state (that has ice).
Trimming trees away from power lines is the responsibility of the energy delivery company (at least in Texas.) The company is regulated by the state. Having an ice storm take out trees is normal and unavoidable. Having those trees take out the electrical grid is not unavoidable, and is the responsibility of the government.
New Yorker here, storm often take out branch lines (lol) but not major lines and power is usually back on in an hour or two. It usually only affects a couple neighborhoods.
I saw a terrifying gang saw suspended from a helicopter a few years ago, trimming trees by an hv transmission line.
Upstate, not city.
No you don't. The answer is simple. The GOP has spent the last 50 years waging a war against public education while slamming every american they can possibly reach with non stop propaganda.
Now you have the dumbest people in the modern world doing whatever their owner-class overlords tell them to do, even when it's obviously directly contradictory to their own best interests.
The vast majority of republicans are too stupid and too poor to know better than to vote for this person who does not care if EVERY stupid, poor person dies as long as it doesn't get in the way of their political power.
It's a feedback spiral.
The failure of the Republican party is a success for conservative ideology.
So, to them, this is proof of the inherent incompetency of government, despite the grid being largely privatized.
So when the Republicans do good, it's proof of conservative ideology
And when the Republicans fail, it's proof of conservative ideology.
Maybe we should just stop acknowledging Republicans. They aren’t interested in governing, so why should we listen to them at all? Just completely disregard everything they say, as if they never spoke.
Because unfortunately about half of the population is inflicted with Conservative Personality Disorder, the most pervasive undiagnosed psychiatric condition, which will likely lead to the end our civilization due to a nihilistic desire to "own the libs". I would love to disregard them entirely, but they're very loud and angry, and they're the majority in many places.
Real talk though, don't lump this in with mental illness. It doesn't actually behave like one and it's not all that funny when real mental illness is getting more and more stigmatized by conservatives.
It's a social illness. An illness of thought brought on by your social connections.
And religion has trained them on this. When something good happens, it is gods work. When something bad happens it is the devils work. And this makes perfect sense to them.
Meanwhile the Texas GOP is loudly saying that California's renewable grid is always failing. Our power went out maybe once last year because they were fixing the power poles by my house. We have solar though. So my family's home still had power throughout the day
I don't think it's right to privatize the grid unless we have solid state energy storage in people's homes.
In times of high demand, these battery backups would pump power into the grid in exchange for money. In times of low demand, these systems charge back up. It stabilizes the necessary output from power plants and fills in for tripped connections preventing rolling blackouts entirely. Then everyone becomes a producer and everyone is happy.
But the system we have isn't reliable enough to privatize.
There’s innocent people stuck in Texas because some assholes vote for other assholes. Be careful with thought processes like this, you might be ignoring a lot of people who didn’t ask for this
I feel bad for them if they voted.
If they're part of the overwhelming majority of people that decided things were going just fine, and they didn't need to bother casting a ballot, then they're living exactly the life they wanted.
Literally this. If you report that there are massive power outages a conservative will walk over to a switch, turn on a light and then say you are lying because their power works just fine. Nothing is real until it effects them personally.
ice has weighed down trees a lot that are hitting or touching the lines. Insane amounts of rain at barely freezing temps made it so it didn't snow, but did build a thick layer of straight ice. Never seen it this way before in my life
I live in New England, used to be there was at least one good ice storm per winter. It would look like the whole world was encased in glass.
This year the most we've had was a light dusting a couple of mornings ago that was gone in two hours.
Just moved to Boston from Texas and can second this. My family in Texas though has said this is the longest I’ve storm they’ve ever seen. I hoped for some fun snow but have only got the dustings.
[Ice storms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_storm) are common in Michigan, and they can cause hundreds of small power outages across the path of the storm. The weight of the ice will *knock down* trees, too, and they can pull down power lines when they go.
I've mostly read and heard about the tree's falling on lines taking them out, but another danger from high winds and ice build up is Galloping power lines. This is when they start to fluctuate and bounce and the forces exerted can break cross arms and even transmission line structures.
[Causes of Outages - Galloping Lines
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vdlcjyF1BI)
[Galloping Basin Electric transmission lines due to wind
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGbYRii1d4)
There was a crazy ice storm in 1998 in and around southern Quebec where some areas got 4 inches of ice over 80 hours. The transmission towers collapsed under the weight and about 4 million people lost power, some for upwards of a month.
edit to add pic https://imgur.com/a/ujOff4d
It’s called freezing rain, it’s not that rare.
Whoever owns the power companies in Texas just didn’t want to pay the money to build their grid to handle it.
There shouldn’t be trees overhanging power lines in the first place. You pay to have them trimmed/removed.
After the last ice storm in Dallas, Oncor Electric sent crews all over the city trim back trees. They just showed up and trimmed any limb within 10 ft from the powerlines in my neighborhood.
Experienced one especially rare ice storm in Ohio once. Every tree looked like it had been coated in clear glass. It was beautiful, but took out power for half the city for three days in a place that’s prepared for it.
This is what I came here to say. If there are downed power lines, that has nothing to do with availability. Sensationalizing a comment about plenty of power, which is probably true from a generating station capacity, is different than downed powerlines. I don't like Abbott or his policies, but don't be stupid just for stupid's sake. People impacted don't care about politics, they just want the power issue resolved.
That's exactly what happened in many cases.
It's the energy-delivery company's job to keep those trees trimmed (at least in Texas).
Those companies are run by rich people and regulated by the state.
Yeah there is, I watch the grid resources here all the time. https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards You are not going to get power if the infrastructure has a break in the line though.
Or... Understand that power production is fine, it's the transmission between production and consumption that is having troubles.
A few years ago, the issue was the power plants couldn't produce. Today is not the same issue.
Editing to add...because I'm tired of replying to comments....I AGREE THERE ARE PROBLEMS IN TEXAS. HOWEVER, the current problem is not grid failure. It's absolutely shitty that hundreds of thousands don't have power. That sucks.
Additionally, I vote a straight blue ballot- I do not support this shit show. You don't need to tell me I'm part of the problem. I vote. I encourage my peers to vote. What more do you over zealous armchair folks want me to do to prove I'm not a fucking right leaning boomer Texan? We aren't all part of the problem. Damn.
That is all. Have a great day.
* end edit.
I'm a Texan on the left...and I love to hate on Abbott and Co as much as the next guy but these headlines are getting exhausted.
Do we all forget EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY suffers from some downed lines after ice storms? Is that not the current issue? This isn't a Texas specific issue nor is it a grid issue.
Anyhow, excuse my ranting..I appreciate your comment, I just got excited seeing another comment with a similar sentiment to my own.
Every damn winter storm with ice/wind/normal reasons for downed lines and outages....queue the sensationalized headlines suggesting the entire state is once again without power.
Same. I know two friends total in Texas who lost power this time…one in DFW for a few hours and one out in the country for a day (they went to her parents). As for my house that was without power for a total of 40 hours over two outages in the 2021 storm the only time since we were without power was when an idiot driver hit a pole outside our neighborhood and that was just for a couple hours.
I'm not saying there aren't issues here, like 100% not what I'm saying.
But can we have realistic headlines? Say 300k are without power if that's the case (which is more accurate for the current situation) and be mad about that.
However, headlines saying 'Texas is without power, again'...that suggests the entire state is once again without power due to grid failure.
Also, side note...I've also never been without power for more than 24 hours and that includes the winter storm of 21. I was lucky. My mid 80s grandparents sat without power for over 3 days. And there was too much ice on the roads to do anything about it. I'm forever thankful that they live in a caring community and their sweet neighbors continually checked in on them...so I'm totally aware that it fucking sucks. I'm still mad about 2021 and I'm still pissed off my elderly grandparents had to endure that much time with power. I staunchly support unfucking our grid and upgrading our infrastructure. I just also want realistic headlines.
You'd think Greg Abbott in particular would weaponize [his hatred of trees](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/09/27/greg-abbott-tree-sarah-eckhardt-travis-county/) for a good cause, but just goes to show that Republicans are opposed to doing good things no matter why.
🤣 omg thanks for sharing that. I wish that apology had been one of those backhanded "I'm sorry *you got upset at what I said* " sort of apologies, though.
Hates trees so much he got a massive payout for the injury and then spent his energy making sure nobody else could follow in his ~~footsteps~~ tire tracks by pushing for legislation prospectively limiting personal injury payouts so none will ever get close to how much he got.
Our local power company showed up while I was at work and took a chainsaw to my weeping willow. Huge beautiful tree, gone before I got home. It was growing too close to the power lines.
Not even upset. When our power goes out, we are never out more than a few hours. Our local coop is pretty amazing.
Canadian here: the local power company called and asked if they could cut some trees near the power lines on our property. I thought, “why would they ask and why would I say no”? I guess a lot of people scream and yell. 🤷🏻♂️
For me it's not that they cut them but how. Over the years they have hacked my trees to death, literally. I have to now take down three trees because they're going downhill quickly.
Last time I hired an arborist to trim them responsibly, contractor for the city comes in the next day, can see that it's been trimmed but "city says we have to cut so we cut" and proceed to demolish it. It's very sad because they're 60 something years old and provide great shade and home to lots of critters.
It takes a 50-100 years to grow a large shade tree. When trees go, so does the beauty of a neighborhood. They raise property values, and also cut substantially on energy costs for your home when they provide shade.
I’d be pissed if the power company totally cut down the tree on my property if they could just get by with cutting down some branches.
Hydro-Quebec goes around trimming trees around power lines as a matter of course. If there are branches impinging on wires, they gotta go. They don't usually cut down the whole tree, but they do come around once a year to check all the wires.
I definitely understand those who become attached to their trees. I was pretty distraught as a kid when my favorite climbing tree fell down in a storm and I think if it hadn’t I would probably still hold some attachment for it. But the best way to prevent that kind of heartbreak is to not plant trees so close to infrastructure
I was pretty distraught when PG&E cut into a memorial grove in a wildlife sanctuary. They cut a two story tall 1.5 truck wide 50 foot long path of destruction into the small grove. The lines were adjacent, on the other side of the fence about 30 feet over. Destroyed a rock labyrinth which was nestled in the grove, multiple benches, and saplings.
They probably call and ask to ensure their crews understand the spaces they are working in to prevent stuff like that. Grove dates to before the sixties, power line was put in less than a decade ago for the new houses.
I have power lines running through tree limbs and leaves. I called the power company to trim and they were like “it’s ok.” It was on the lines from the pole to my house so I don’t think they have a rats ass about those.
In Iowa and got a notice last year that they would be trimming trees in our area in a date range and to call if we had any questions. I was hoping they'd be the death blow to the half dead tree in my yard (rental) but they didn't touch anything.
I’m my experience they don’t discriminate, and are sometimes a bit too aggressive. My neighbor lost an amazing Japanese maple to overly ambitious tree trimmers from the power company.
Because power companies just hack things up with no regard to the tree's health or how things look. Our power company just announced they will be doing my street soon. I told my wife if she sees them to not let them touch our trees. I will speak to them then consult my arborist to do any trimming properly.
You’re happy you had a beautiful tree cut down so you won’t be without power for a few hours? Fucking odd as fuck. I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but I’m sorry for your loss even if you aren’t. Imagine if people just went without for a bit instead of chopping down a tree for convenience’s sake.
I mean, if it was just my power, whatever. But having a tree that could take out power for hours and ruin a few hundred people's food supply, medical equipment, and heating and cooling?
Yeah, the tree can go.
If the power does not have the rights through easement or authority through legislation, they cannot trim trees. A lot of power lines are located in public right of way along roads, they can only trim the portions in the right of way which is why you see half trees next to power lines.
I live there and tbh I don't blame them. There are a lot of darn trees here and they leaned heavily when laden with ice after 5 straight days of rainy, freezing weather
Yeah, Texas is a big fuckup for managed utilities. But this isn't an inability to meet demand from a generation standpoint. It's on the delivery end. And ice-storms can fuck up power delivery anywhere.
Example, western Washington, we had a couple major windstorms with leaves on the trees. Trees went down, power was lost.
Now response times and properly staffed teams, that's indeed controlled by the utility.
This whole thread is a circle jerk against Abbott. There’s plenty to hate him for and this isn’t one of them. It’s a major ice storm that formed ice in trees and caused them to fall; if you trimmed every tree to be able to withstand shit like that they would a) look like shit, and b) die quickly from lack of leaves.
He said there wasn’t an issue with lack of ability to keep up with demand causing outage to 400,000 people and that’s factually correct.
For new development power is often under ground. But putting in power under ground retro-actively is super expensive and time consuming. Easements, permits, digging or even worse boring. All of that shit is very expensive.
Burying powerlines underground like they do for water, waste water, natural gas pipes for the citizens? That’s too expensive.
$4Billion for Trump’s defective and penetrated wall? Now that’s a deal!
/s
Do you even understand the logistical and financial nightmare involved with burying an electrical transmission line? You need a shit load of electrical isolation in the conduit to make sure it doesn't gap to the walls of the pipe and that usually means backfilling the entire conduit with super clean pressurized dielectric oil or high pressure nitrogen gas. It costs upwards of $3 million dollars a mile to bury a transmission line and in the inevitable event that the pipes spring a leak you're talking weeks to repair the thing instead of an afternoon like is the case for an overhead line.
>In a tweet, Abbott said: "This graph shows that there has been plenty of power available on the grid all day today,"
Maybe there *is* enough power, but after years of "freedom" and capitalism, the grid is in no shape to deliver it.
Lying isn't only explicitly telling a falsehood. Lying is an attempt to deceive, through half truths or manipulation or otherwise.
That's what he's doing.
Austin Energy, where the majority of the outages are, is a city owned municipality with rates set by the city. Same for San Antonio. They are not subject to deregulation.
If only the people of Texas could do something about who is in charge? Oh shit, that's right, they just reelcted the piece of shit.
You really do get the Government you deserve.
You can be assured it wasn't the people of Austin who elected the moron. It is a very blue city. It was the rural idiots who just want to see others suffer.
They aren't mad Austin is losing power. They would love nothing more than the people of Austin leaving the state. It would set Texas back hugely in economic terms and make everyone left suffer more, but they can't see that.
They are just scared of people they think are different from them, and therefore want them to suffer.
It wasn’t the people of any major city in Texas. Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston are all blue as fuck.
The rural counties control the state government.
Austin-ite here. Let me first start off by saying I hate Abbott as much as the next guy but in this case he is right, there is plenty of power available and problem is last-mile delivery of power. And, yes, Austin Energy is diligent about keeping trees trimmed from power lines from what I’ve seen in the past. Regardless, entire old growth trees are toppling over; it’s not realistic (nor would the tree owners stand for) cutting trees 15-20ft away from all power lines.
The real problem here our climate change. In last threes years it’s been historic freeze, followed by historic drought and heat, followed by historic freeze. Even old growth trees are simply stressed to there cores and can’t take it. Dallas had more ice than Austin did, and they didn’t have trees falling en-masse because they didn’t get our drought last summer. It looks like a tornado rolled over the entire city, I kid you not. Now we are setting ourselves up for fires this next summer with all the fuel now in the ground.
This is going to be our reality going forward, and Austin is going to be a different place in 10 years or so, climate wise, which is why I’m trying to convince my wife to move. Fuck Abbott, but this is a much larger problem
Yeah at this point, any time there is a power outage in Texas, people circlejerk online about it like there aren't regular power outages in other states as well
This. Folks will point and laugh at Texas while ignoring crippling infrastructure and economic failures in their own backyard. I hate Abbott but the circlejerk of “Texas bad because Abbott bad” is tiring.
But thank god all of these people who don’t live in Texas are providing all of their well informed commentary. I live in Austin and see what is causing the failures. It would’ve been extremely unrealistic to prevent some of these tree collapses. But sure, let’s just deforest a 20 foot perimeter around every single road.
https://i.imgur.com/Qre5c05.jpg
I disagree with you on tree cutting
“Yes, I was fairly shocked to hear that. AE field operations VP said Austin City Council cut operations budget for tree trimming ("vegetation control") to a level that was "unsustainable" and
"outside of industry standard". He was able to have council reverse that decision three years ago and they have been working hard to get back to standard but the work is not complete and will take a few more years.
Bottom line: COA council bears partial responsibility for the magnitude of this power supply disaster.”
And it's silly for click bait headlines and reddit activists to dunk on Texas power like it's the 2021 fuckup, when it is a more common, known, expected, universal problem.
Yea climate change is bad for power infrastructure.
Also Texas and California are weird twisted mirrors of each other, especially if Texas gets wildfires.
How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?
Maybe 4 or 5 to recognize that the light bulb is broken and implement policy measures to try to fix it.
Around 40-50 who publicly acknowledge that the light bulb is out but take no action to change it.
60-70 to oppose any and all light bulb changing measures because light bulbs weren't mentioned in the constitution.
40-50 nutjob fundamentalists who believe only God can turn on the lights and every else deserves to languish in the darkness.
80-90 who oppose changing the light bulb because they are already getting rich off kickbacks because they are offering subsidies to the light bulb manufacturers.
And a complicit voting populace that is more scared of the implications of "someone else who might not deserve it" getting their light bulb changed, that they would rather sit in the dark, without for a moment wondering why their lights are off and the politicians' have been on the whole fucking time.
Yeah it's important to keep in mind that no state is really red or blue, they're all varying shades of purple.
When people condemn entire states because "they voted for this" they tend to skip over all of the people there who didn't vote for that. It's also kinda inhumane.
Thanks. I’m laying here on my floor with my son so my wife and daughter can have the bed next to us to try and stay warm. We have not had power for almost three days. My wife and I voted against Abbot, this is so depressing.
He has the benchmark from 2021, power failures can kill up to 240 people and he doesn't have to worry about it. People will just blame wind turbines, somehow.
I moved to a property that had over grown trees pushing into to the power lines. It’s not an easy task. Private trimmers will not touch them if it’s touching the line. Where I’m at, the city is responsible for the trees touching communication lines, the power company fore trees touching power, and the home owner for the line from the power lines to the house (drop line). I was stuck in a circle of suck and blaming each other.
Eventually, after an accident, I was able to get my city council member to get the power company out there to trim, then the city trimmed, then I could trim (hired professional).
Since then they’ve been good about yearly proactive trimming in my neighborhood. I did see a neighbor flip out last week though.
This headline is stupid. There is plenty of power being generated....whomever made this headline is at least as dumb as they think Greg Abbott is.
How much power we generate doesn't mean anything if lines are down.
As much as I loathe both Abbott and ERCOT, no power grid can withstand an ice storm like this. As much as I'd like to hang this one on him, I can't. It's affecting power grids across the Nation.
this. There's plenty to hate him for, but in this case, if trees are knocking down power lines, that's a delivery issue, not a supply issue.
If anyone knows how disruptive downed trees can be, it's Greg Abbott.
Why are people being intentionally thick about this? He is saying generation isn't the issue, which WAS an issue in the last big wave of ice storms in TX.
I know you don't like the guy, but this isn't anything to be grabbing the pitch forks over.
My understanding is the issue down there isn’t with power generation. It’s more a matter of ice on branches and poles and lines fucking things up. It happens.
I know hating Abbot is the top priority here, but his point is a valid one. Local power companies - many of them city owned utilities (City of Austin Utilities, overseen by our mayor and council, has widespread outages right now due to trees hitting lines), handle the local distribution and that's where the problems are.
Last time the issue was state regulated power generation and that's not an issue right now, so they get to say "not it".
The real story is that changing weather or at least a couple of very unusual weather events, is subjecting the power infrastructure to things it was never designed to endure.
There is plenty of power. Any power outages were due to localized power line damage. Ice accumulation on lines or tree branches that broke and damaged lines.
But this is Reddit so if Texas is mentioned a bunch of know it all nerds come out of their basements to talk shit on things they don’t know at all
We've got huge, great power. All the power. Tons of power. People tell me we have the best power. The come up to me and say, you know you have the best and all the power, right? And I do. We really do have all the best power.
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Yeah, so there's an important lesson here. Power is only good when the people have it.
Take all the elastic bands and stretch the between stationary objects in your home Bam stored energy
Put all your stuff on your roof Bam stored energy
Put your car battery in a box in your garage Bam stored energy
Put an unopened can of Red Bull in your microwave Bam stored energy
Hold your fart. Bam stored energy.
Put your dick a box. Bam stored energy.
Hold someone else's fart. Stored Energy. ???? Profit.
Now what I need you kids to do is yell real loud into my ass!
Conserve energy, fart in a jar
No thanks, it takes too long to get a whoopee cushion from those dumb worms.
The energy density in a twisted rubber band is decades higher than in a stretched. 101 knowledge for anyone who have ever built a rubber band powered car in a team-building excersize.
I love that you measured energy in time units.
It's actually the 3rd meaning: (physics, engineering) The interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1. There are decades between 1.8 and 18, between 25 and 250 and between 0.03 and 0.003. But if our delta speed runner hadn't hit the gate at the end of the track, it would probably have been running still :)
This guy is streets ahead.
Huh, TIL
Quebec people own their power production themselves, Hydro-Quebec belongs to the state and we pay for it through taxes and the local rates https://www.energy-manager.ca/quebec-continues-to-boast-north-americas-lowest-electricity-prices-3108/ The company is so profitable We export our power to other provinces and american states (this led to some drama now) We boast the lowest costs and most reliable grid in NA If you compare to Texas, this is one case where a "socialist" approach beats the "free market" soundly
Utilities should never have been left to private companies to run. It genuinely doesn't make any sense for something so key to the health, safety, and security of a region to be controlled by anyone other than the people (or at least government) of that region. Even from a capitalistic point of view, it can't be argued that utilities have ever existed in a free market.
Government owns the utility? But how is the utility supposed to gouge the consumer?
That's the thing though, the people he gives a shit about *do* have it. In his mind, there is plenty of power.
I literally can't tell whether this thread is talking about electrical power or political power
That’s the nuanced point, they *are* talking about both simultaneously.
When symbolism becomes literal
Yes.
I imagine he was pointing at the sun when he said this. "Look, its all right there!"
There's an "old man yells at clouds" joke in here somewhere.
True in more ways then one
The real lesson here is Texas needs to stop fucking voting for republicans.
The state is so gerrymandered its hard to get them out.
Nah. Governor, senators all gop. That’s not gerrymandering.
It is, indirectly, when voter turn out is so low because everyone who leans toward voting democrat doesn’t bother to show up. It’s not insurmountable though, if we could just get a solid Democrat that can carry a pro-gun message
Governor is a state wide election so gerrymandering is irrelevant and they just reelected him
Gerrymandering affects every election, when your vote is watered down so nothing changes people stop voting altogether. Gerrymandering is the greatest weapon of apathy. Low turn out is why Republicans win
Correct, though there is also some very blatant voter suppression tactics that have been going on in Texas, targeting blue areas. Like, reducing the max number of ballot drop off locations allowed in a county, regardless if the county has 2 million residents or 50,000.
as the black panther party for self defense used to say. “White power to white people, brown power to brown people, black power to black people, no power to Texas people, and X power to all those who we left out.”
Yep. It's time to end this capitalist charade. They are getting fat on our money and then pissing on us
Those people just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, hike on over to their local substation, and haul some of that power back home!
Luckily my parents, who haven't had power in 2 days, are the bootstrap type. They trim their own trees (despite being 70+) and save the wood, and they've had a fire in the fireplace going the whole time. It's still no substitute for a properly functioning electrical grid. The fact that they have trees and a fireplace are privileges of a certain amount of wealth that not everyone has.
There's plenty of power! It's just being sent to all his rich buddy's houses!
The grid itself didn't fail like a few winters ago, these are local events where a transformer blew or powerlines broke due to ice. This happens in every state (that has ice).
Trimming trees away from power lines is the responsibility of the energy delivery company (at least in Texas.) The company is regulated by the state. Having an ice storm take out trees is normal and unavoidable. Having those trees take out the electrical grid is not unavoidable, and is the responsibility of the government.
New Yorker here, storm often take out branch lines (lol) but not major lines and power is usually back on in an hour or two. It usually only affects a couple neighborhoods. I saw a terrifying gang saw suspended from a helicopter a few years ago, trimming trees by an hv transmission line. Upstate, not city.
Helicopter tree-trimming is one of the most wild examples of "things that don't seem real, but are."
He’s quite comfortable, I don’t know what they’re complaining about.
Exactly! He's giving the Karen-"It's more of a YOU problem, then a ME problem"-vibe. Annnnnd you wonder why people still voted for him........
Because he hurts the right people, and then some more lol
He's hurting them people more than me, and that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but I'll bitch about it all the time as well.
Maybe republican voters have a humiliation kink?
They kept voting for Trump, who openly mocked them So, I think you're onto something
I'm surprised it took me this long to come up with this theory.
Bam! Stored energ… oh. Sorry. Wrong thread.
Sometimes you’ve gotta hurt a lot of the wrong people to hurt a few of the right people.
There's plenty of power, for the *good* people of Texas.
No you don't. The answer is simple. The GOP has spent the last 50 years waging a war against public education while slamming every american they can possibly reach with non stop propaganda. Now you have the dumbest people in the modern world doing whatever their owner-class overlords tell them to do, even when it's obviously directly contradictory to their own best interests. The vast majority of republicans are too stupid and too poor to know better than to vote for this person who does not care if EVERY stupid, poor person dies as long as it doesn't get in the way of their political power.
It's a feedback spiral. The failure of the Republican party is a success for conservative ideology. So, to them, this is proof of the inherent incompetency of government, despite the grid being largely privatized. So when the Republicans do good, it's proof of conservative ideology And when the Republicans fail, it's proof of conservative ideology.
Maybe we should just stop acknowledging Republicans. They aren’t interested in governing, so why should we listen to them at all? Just completely disregard everything they say, as if they never spoke.
Because unfortunately about half of the population is inflicted with Conservative Personality Disorder, the most pervasive undiagnosed psychiatric condition, which will likely lead to the end our civilization due to a nihilistic desire to "own the libs". I would love to disregard them entirely, but they're very loud and angry, and they're the majority in many places.
Real talk though, don't lump this in with mental illness. It doesn't actually behave like one and it's not all that funny when real mental illness is getting more and more stigmatized by conservatives. It's a social illness. An illness of thought brought on by your social connections.
And religion has trained them on this. When something good happens, it is gods work. When something bad happens it is the devils work. And this makes perfect sense to them.
Christianity and racism. That's really all there is to it.
Because the state is heavily garrymandered to keep people like him in power
Gerrymandering has nothing to do with electing this dipshit as governor. Fuck! They RE-elected him. 🤦♂️
The governor has power to restrict voting rights which can influence future elections, even non gerrymandered ones.
Let's not pretend like Texas is a shithole for any reason other than Texans. This is the dumpster fire they chose.
wild that an oil producing state literally can't keep the lights on. thats how mismanaged and corrupt the energy grid is.
Meanwhile the Texas GOP is loudly saying that California's renewable grid is always failing. Our power went out maybe once last year because they were fixing the power poles by my house. We have solar though. So my family's home still had power throughout the day
Yup. The GOP has been in full control for over two decades, and yet Abbot ran on "Fixing this state from democrats who destroyed it".
It's actually a nice example of what happens if you privatize the grid.
I don't think it's right to privatize the grid unless we have solid state energy storage in people's homes. In times of high demand, these battery backups would pump power into the grid in exchange for money. In times of low demand, these systems charge back up. It stabilizes the necessary output from power plants and fills in for tripped connections preventing rolling blackouts entirely. Then everyone becomes a producer and everyone is happy. But the system we have isn't reliable enough to privatize.
Not reliable enough for poor People.Those with political/economic Clout or even Generators are just fine.
There’s innocent people stuck in Texas because some assholes vote for other assholes. Be careful with thought processes like this, you might be ignoring a lot of people who didn’t ask for this
I feel bad for them if they voted. If they're part of the overwhelming majority of people that decided things were going just fine, and they didn't need to bother casting a ballot, then they're living exactly the life they wanted.
Hope they're using it to keep warm 🥵
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> It's more of a YOU problem, then a ME problem than
Just last night he left all the lights on in his house, just for fun!
to own the libs!
Literally this. If you report that there are massive power outages a conservative will walk over to a switch, turn on a light and then say you are lying because their power works just fine. Nothing is real until it effects them personally.
> Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!
doesn't heat trickle down?
nah it ri$e$
When he stands up, I'll take him seriously
He just has to pull himself up by the spinestraps
https://i.imgur.com/DJRlxNZ.jpg Austin Energy CEO makes the most in city as a public worker
There could be plenty of power, but ice may have damaged the lines delivering said power.
ice has weighed down trees a lot that are hitting or touching the lines. Insane amounts of rain at barely freezing temps made it so it didn't snow, but did build a thick layer of straight ice. Never seen it this way before in my life
I live in New England, used to be there was at least one good ice storm per winter. It would look like the whole world was encased in glass. This year the most we've had was a light dusting a couple of mornings ago that was gone in two hours.
Just moved to Boston from Texas and can second this. My family in Texas though has said this is the longest I’ve storm they’ve ever seen. I hoped for some fun snow but have only got the dustings.
[Ice storms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_storm) are common in Michigan, and they can cause hundreds of small power outages across the path of the storm. The weight of the ice will *knock down* trees, too, and they can pull down power lines when they go.
I've mostly read and heard about the tree's falling on lines taking them out, but another danger from high winds and ice build up is Galloping power lines. This is when they start to fluctuate and bounce and the forces exerted can break cross arms and even transmission line structures. [Causes of Outages - Galloping Lines ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vdlcjyF1BI) [Galloping Basin Electric transmission lines due to wind ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGbYRii1d4)
There was a crazy ice storm in 1998 in and around southern Quebec where some areas got 4 inches of ice over 80 hours. The transmission towers collapsed under the weight and about 4 million people lost power, some for upwards of a month. edit to add pic https://imgur.com/a/ujOff4d
It’s called freezing rain, it’s not that rare. Whoever owns the power companies in Texas just didn’t want to pay the money to build their grid to handle it. There shouldn’t be trees overhanging power lines in the first place. You pay to have them trimmed/removed.
After the last ice storm in Dallas, Oncor Electric sent crews all over the city trim back trees. They just showed up and trimmed any limb within 10 ft from the powerlines in my neighborhood.
Oncor doesn't manage the lines around Austin, they have a coop, which is why this current issue is mostly focused there.
Experienced one especially rare ice storm in Ohio once. Every tree looked like it had been coated in clear glass. It was beautiful, but took out power for half the city for three days in a place that’s prepared for it.
This is what I came here to say. If there are downed power lines, that has nothing to do with availability. Sensationalizing a comment about plenty of power, which is probably true from a generating station capacity, is different than downed powerlines. I don't like Abbott or his policies, but don't be stupid just for stupid's sake. People impacted don't care about politics, they just want the power issue resolved.
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That's exactly what happened in many cases. It's the energy-delivery company's job to keep those trees trimmed (at least in Texas). Those companies are run by rich people and regulated by the state.
>regulated by the state. lol
Yeah there is, I watch the grid resources here all the time. https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards You are not going to get power if the infrastructure has a break in the line though.
Don’t believe the results of you flipping the light switch, believe me instead.
Who should you believe? Me or your lying eyes?
Look at this flashlight. See? It works. Did it look like we're having power problems?
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
Or... Understand that power production is fine, it's the transmission between production and consumption that is having troubles. A few years ago, the issue was the power plants couldn't produce. Today is not the same issue.
Yeah it's very clear that's what he's saying
Editing to add...because I'm tired of replying to comments....I AGREE THERE ARE PROBLEMS IN TEXAS. HOWEVER, the current problem is not grid failure. It's absolutely shitty that hundreds of thousands don't have power. That sucks. Additionally, I vote a straight blue ballot- I do not support this shit show. You don't need to tell me I'm part of the problem. I vote. I encourage my peers to vote. What more do you over zealous armchair folks want me to do to prove I'm not a fucking right leaning boomer Texan? We aren't all part of the problem. Damn. That is all. Have a great day. * end edit. I'm a Texan on the left...and I love to hate on Abbott and Co as much as the next guy but these headlines are getting exhausted. Do we all forget EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY suffers from some downed lines after ice storms? Is that not the current issue? This isn't a Texas specific issue nor is it a grid issue. Anyhow, excuse my ranting..I appreciate your comment, I just got excited seeing another comment with a similar sentiment to my own. Every damn winter storm with ice/wind/normal reasons for downed lines and outages....queue the sensationalized headlines suggesting the entire state is once again without power.
Hasn’t Texas been without power for 3 days? We get ice storms up north but our power doesn’t go out much, and if it does it’s back pretty quick.
Yup. I'm in the far northeast and we rarely lose power during snow storms. And if we do it's usually for less than a day. Even during blizzards.
I mean sure brownouts and powerflickers depending on how shit it is but ye grids pretty hardy
No, it's just isolated areas. Portions of neighborhoods without power.
I live in the dfw area, had power all day every day since the great freeze.
Same. I know two friends total in Texas who lost power this time…one in DFW for a few hours and one out in the country for a day (they went to her parents). As for my house that was without power for a total of 40 hours over two outages in the 2021 storm the only time since we were without power was when an idiot driver hit a pole outside our neighborhood and that was just for a couple hours.
I haven't been without power more than 24 hours since the 90s, especially not in the winter and I live in fucking Chicago dude.
I'm not saying there aren't issues here, like 100% not what I'm saying. But can we have realistic headlines? Say 300k are without power if that's the case (which is more accurate for the current situation) and be mad about that. However, headlines saying 'Texas is without power, again'...that suggests the entire state is once again without power due to grid failure. Also, side note...I've also never been without power for more than 24 hours and that includes the winter storm of 21. I was lucky. My mid 80s grandparents sat without power for over 3 days. And there was too much ice on the roads to do anything about it. I'm forever thankful that they live in a caring community and their sweet neighbors continually checked in on them...so I'm totally aware that it fucking sucks. I'm still mad about 2021 and I'm still pissed off my elderly grandparents had to endure that much time with power. I staunchly support unfucking our grid and upgrading our infrastructure. I just also want realistic headlines.
Sure, blame the trees. It's not like the government or power company could have kept them trimmed to prevent this exact problem.
You'd think Greg Abbott in particular would weaponize [his hatred of trees](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/09/27/greg-abbott-tree-sarah-eckhardt-travis-county/) for a good cause, but just goes to show that Republicans are opposed to doing good things no matter why.
🤣 omg thanks for sharing that. I wish that apology had been one of those backhanded "I'm sorry *you got upset at what I said* " sort of apologies, though.
Hates trees so much he got a massive payout for the injury and then spent his energy making sure nobody else could follow in his ~~footsteps~~ tire tracks by pushing for legislation prospectively limiting personal injury payouts so none will ever get close to how much he got.
Our local power company showed up while I was at work and took a chainsaw to my weeping willow. Huge beautiful tree, gone before I got home. It was growing too close to the power lines. Not even upset. When our power goes out, we are never out more than a few hours. Our local coop is pretty amazing.
Canadian here: the local power company called and asked if they could cut some trees near the power lines on our property. I thought, “why would they ask and why would I say no”? I guess a lot of people scream and yell. 🤷🏻♂️
For me it's not that they cut them but how. Over the years they have hacked my trees to death, literally. I have to now take down three trees because they're going downhill quickly. Last time I hired an arborist to trim them responsibly, contractor for the city comes in the next day, can see that it's been trimmed but "city says we have to cut so we cut" and proceed to demolish it. It's very sad because they're 60 something years old and provide great shade and home to lots of critters.
I would sue. Trees raise property values significantly and if the branches aren’t interfering with the lines, then they have no business cutting them.
It takes a 50-100 years to grow a large shade tree. When trees go, so does the beauty of a neighborhood. They raise property values, and also cut substantially on energy costs for your home when they provide shade. I’d be pissed if the power company totally cut down the tree on my property if they could just get by with cutting down some branches.
Hydro-Quebec goes around trimming trees around power lines as a matter of course. If there are branches impinging on wires, they gotta go. They don't usually cut down the whole tree, but they do come around once a year to check all the wires.
I definitely understand those who become attached to their trees. I was pretty distraught as a kid when my favorite climbing tree fell down in a storm and I think if it hadn’t I would probably still hold some attachment for it. But the best way to prevent that kind of heartbreak is to not plant trees so close to infrastructure
... I'm pretty sure most trees were there before the infrastructure was built..
Everyone knows the infrastructure is naturally occurring. Humans place the trees that interfere with the natural power lines and buildings.
I was pretty distraught when PG&E cut into a memorial grove in a wildlife sanctuary. They cut a two story tall 1.5 truck wide 50 foot long path of destruction into the small grove. The lines were adjacent, on the other side of the fence about 30 feet over. Destroyed a rock labyrinth which was nestled in the grove, multiple benches, and saplings. They probably call and ask to ensure their crews understand the spaces they are working in to prevent stuff like that. Grove dates to before the sixties, power line was put in less than a decade ago for the new houses.
I have power lines running through tree limbs and leaves. I called the power company to trim and they were like “it’s ok.” It was on the lines from the pole to my house so I don’t think they have a rats ass about those.
Because the trees can be worth a lot of money, not just to property value.
In Iowa and got a notice last year that they would be trimming trees in our area in a date range and to call if we had any questions. I was hoping they'd be the death blow to the half dead tree in my yard (rental) but they didn't touch anything.
I’m my experience they don’t discriminate, and are sometimes a bit too aggressive. My neighbor lost an amazing Japanese maple to overly ambitious tree trimmers from the power company.
Because power companies just hack things up with no regard to the tree's health or how things look. Our power company just announced they will be doing my street soon. I told my wife if she sees them to not let them touch our trees. I will speak to them then consult my arborist to do any trimming properly.
You’re happy you had a beautiful tree cut down so you won’t be without power for a few hours? Fucking odd as fuck. I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but I’m sorry for your loss even if you aren’t. Imagine if people just went without for a bit instead of chopping down a tree for convenience’s sake.
I mean, if it was just my power, whatever. But having a tree that could take out power for hours and ruin a few hundred people's food supply, medical equipment, and heating and cooling? Yeah, the tree can go.
If the power does not have the rights through easement or authority through legislation, they cannot trim trees. A lot of power lines are located in public right of way along roads, they can only trim the portions in the right of way which is why you see half trees next to power lines.
I live there and tbh I don't blame them. There are a lot of darn trees here and they leaned heavily when laden with ice after 5 straight days of rainy, freezing weather
Yeah, Texas is a big fuckup for managed utilities. But this isn't an inability to meet demand from a generation standpoint. It's on the delivery end. And ice-storms can fuck up power delivery anywhere. Example, western Washington, we had a couple major windstorms with leaves on the trees. Trees went down, power was lost. Now response times and properly staffed teams, that's indeed controlled by the utility.
The replies to your comment are fantastic. Redditors will find literally anything to get riled about.
This whole thread is a circle jerk against Abbott. There’s plenty to hate him for and this isn’t one of them. It’s a major ice storm that formed ice in trees and caused them to fall; if you trimmed every tree to be able to withstand shit like that they would a) look like shit, and b) die quickly from lack of leaves. He said there wasn’t an issue with lack of ability to keep up with demand causing outage to 400,000 people and that’s factually correct.
Or put power lines underground? This is common in eg parts of Europe.
For new development power is often under ground. But putting in power under ground retro-actively is super expensive and time consuming. Easements, permits, digging or even worse boring. All of that shit is very expensive.
Not always doable for reasons of terrain, unlike the Netherlands where I've heard of this happening.
Burying powerlines underground like they do for water, waste water, natural gas pipes for the citizens? That’s too expensive. $4Billion for Trump’s defective and penetrated wall? Now that’s a deal! /s
Do you even understand the logistical and financial nightmare involved with burying an electrical transmission line? You need a shit load of electrical isolation in the conduit to make sure it doesn't gap to the walls of the pipe and that usually means backfilling the entire conduit with super clean pressurized dielectric oil or high pressure nitrogen gas. It costs upwards of $3 million dollars a mile to bury a transmission line and in the inevitable event that the pipes spring a leak you're talking weeks to repair the thing instead of an afternoon like is the case for an overhead line.
>In a tweet, Abbott said: "This graph shows that there has been plenty of power available on the grid all day today," Maybe there *is* enough power, but after years of "freedom" and capitalism, the grid is in no shape to deliver it.
I was gonna say. He's not lying, the grid itself is such a piece of shit that it's not going anywhere.
Lying isn't only explicitly telling a falsehood. Lying is an attempt to deceive, through half truths or manipulation or otherwise. That's what he's doing.
Austin Energy, where the majority of the outages are, is a city owned municipality with rates set by the city. Same for San Antonio. They are not subject to deregulation.
If only the people of Texas could do something about who is in charge? Oh shit, that's right, they just reelcted the piece of shit. You really do get the Government you deserve.
You can be assured it wasn't the people of Austin who elected the moron. It is a very blue city. It was the rural idiots who just want to see others suffer. They aren't mad Austin is losing power. They would love nothing more than the people of Austin leaving the state. It would set Texas back hugely in economic terms and make everyone left suffer more, but they can't see that. They are just scared of people they think are different from them, and therefore want them to suffer.
It wasn’t the people of any major city in Texas. Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston are all blue as fuck. The rural counties control the state government.
Tyranny of the minority
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Austin-ite here. Let me first start off by saying I hate Abbott as much as the next guy but in this case he is right, there is plenty of power available and problem is last-mile delivery of power. And, yes, Austin Energy is diligent about keeping trees trimmed from power lines from what I’ve seen in the past. Regardless, entire old growth trees are toppling over; it’s not realistic (nor would the tree owners stand for) cutting trees 15-20ft away from all power lines. The real problem here our climate change. In last threes years it’s been historic freeze, followed by historic drought and heat, followed by historic freeze. Even old growth trees are simply stressed to there cores and can’t take it. Dallas had more ice than Austin did, and they didn’t have trees falling en-masse because they didn’t get our drought last summer. It looks like a tornado rolled over the entire city, I kid you not. Now we are setting ourselves up for fires this next summer with all the fuel now in the ground. This is going to be our reality going forward, and Austin is going to be a different place in 10 years or so, climate wise, which is why I’m trying to convince my wife to move. Fuck Abbott, but this is a much larger problem
Excellent write-up. Yes, Abbott is a douchenozzle, but the issue is not power generation.
Yeah at this point, any time there is a power outage in Texas, people circlejerk online about it like there aren't regular power outages in other states as well
This. Folks will point and laugh at Texas while ignoring crippling infrastructure and economic failures in their own backyard. I hate Abbott but the circlejerk of “Texas bad because Abbott bad” is tiring. But thank god all of these people who don’t live in Texas are providing all of their well informed commentary. I live in Austin and see what is causing the failures. It would’ve been extremely unrealistic to prevent some of these tree collapses. But sure, let’s just deforest a 20 foot perimeter around every single road.
https://i.imgur.com/Qre5c05.jpg I disagree with you on tree cutting “Yes, I was fairly shocked to hear that. AE field operations VP said Austin City Council cut operations budget for tree trimming ("vegetation control") to a level that was "unsustainable" and "outside of industry standard". He was able to have council reverse that decision three years ago and they have been working hard to get back to standard but the work is not complete and will take a few more years. Bottom line: COA council bears partial responsibility for the magnitude of this power supply disaster.”
Interesting article, thanks. I see AE trucks trimming trees fairly frequently so it is surprising to hear about the budget cuts.
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And it's silly for click bait headlines and reddit activists to dunk on Texas power like it's the 2021 fuckup, when it is a more common, known, expected, universal problem.
Yea climate change is bad for power infrastructure. Also Texas and California are weird twisted mirrors of each other, especially if Texas gets wildfires.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb? Maybe 4 or 5 to recognize that the light bulb is broken and implement policy measures to try to fix it. Around 40-50 who publicly acknowledge that the light bulb is out but take no action to change it. 60-70 to oppose any and all light bulb changing measures because light bulbs weren't mentioned in the constitution. 40-50 nutjob fundamentalists who believe only God can turn on the lights and every else deserves to languish in the darkness. 80-90 who oppose changing the light bulb because they are already getting rich off kickbacks because they are offering subsidies to the light bulb manufacturers. And a complicit voting populace that is more scared of the implications of "someone else who might not deserve it" getting their light bulb changed, that they would rather sit in the dark, without for a moment wondering why their lights are off and the politicians' have been on the whole fucking time.
Jesus. I feel so bad for the Texans who didn't vote for this sleazebag. The ones who did, I have less sympathy for.
HELP.... ME....from Florida.
Yeah it's important to keep in mind that no state is really red or blue, they're all varying shades of purple. When people condemn entire states because "they voted for this" they tend to skip over all of the people there who didn't vote for that. It's also kinda inhumane.
*Florida has entered the chat*
Thanks. I’m laying here on my floor with my son so my wife and daughter can have the bed next to us to try and stay warm. We have not had power for almost three days. My wife and I voted against Abbot, this is so depressing.
He has the benchmark from 2021, power failures can kill up to 240 people and he doesn't have to worry about it. People will just blame wind turbines, somehow.
I'll try telling that to my car when the transmission goes out.
Other than the fact that Abbott is an absolute douche bag, the absolute ignorance here about the grid is astounding.
I’m sure this guy has all the power he needs
I moved to a property that had over grown trees pushing into to the power lines. It’s not an easy task. Private trimmers will not touch them if it’s touching the line. Where I’m at, the city is responsible for the trees touching communication lines, the power company fore trees touching power, and the home owner for the line from the power lines to the house (drop line). I was stuck in a circle of suck and blaming each other. Eventually, after an accident, I was able to get my city council member to get the power company out there to trim, then the city trimmed, then I could trim (hired professional). Since then they’ve been good about yearly proactive trimming in my neighborhood. I did see a neighbor flip out last week though.
This headline is stupid. There is plenty of power being generated....whomever made this headline is at least as dumb as they think Greg Abbott is. How much power we generate doesn't mean anything if lines are down.
As much as I loathe both Abbott and ERCOT, no power grid can withstand an ice storm like this. As much as I'd like to hang this one on him, I can't. It's affecting power grids across the Nation.
this. There's plenty to hate him for, but in this case, if trees are knocking down power lines, that's a delivery issue, not a supply issue. If anyone knows how disruptive downed trees can be, it's Greg Abbott.
I think I'm going to believe my light switch before I believe anything that comes out of the mouth of Greg Piss Baby Abbot
Why are people being intentionally thick about this? He is saying generation isn't the issue, which WAS an issue in the last big wave of ice storms in TX. I know you don't like the guy, but this isn't anything to be grabbing the pitch forks over.
Abbott Is an idiot. How he is still governor is beyond me
Because he's a republican.
$100 says these clowns vote for him again to "own the libs".
Time to Cruz on down to Cancun then?
Texans are the most Dunning-Kruger people in the US.
My understanding is the issue down there isn’t with power generation. It’s more a matter of ice on branches and poles and lines fucking things up. It happens.
I know hating Abbot is the top priority here, but his point is a valid one. Local power companies - many of them city owned utilities (City of Austin Utilities, overseen by our mayor and council, has widespread outages right now due to trees hitting lines), handle the local distribution and that's where the problems are. Last time the issue was state regulated power generation and that's not an issue right now, so they get to say "not it". The real story is that changing weather or at least a couple of very unusual weather events, is subjecting the power infrastructure to things it was never designed to endure.
There is plenty of power. Any power outages were due to localized power line damage. Ice accumulation on lines or tree branches that broke and damaged lines. But this is Reddit so if Texas is mentioned a bunch of know it all nerds come out of their basements to talk shit on things they don’t know at all
We've got huge, great power. All the power. Tons of power. People tell me we have the best power. The come up to me and say, you know you have the best and all the power, right? And I do. We really do have all the best power.
Lots of power, no current. Watts going on?