As a Texan who’s been living without power for days, I am outraged. As a human being who understands that disasters like this exacerbate the great inequalities in our society, I am worried. And as a reporter who has covered my share of big news stories (of which this is certainly one), I have a helluva lot of questions to which
It is August, 2021. I hope that Dan has received ‘real’ answers to these questions. Not that TX under Abbott would make positive changes in regard to these questions, or others.
We have just formed an Austin-based group of concerned citizens called the Texas Energy Accountability Movement - or "T.E.A.M." We are non-partisan, non-political and are seeking to unite with other grassroots groups that likely have sprung up all over Texas in response to this crisis. We are hoping to find those groups and have them find us - so that we can unite and form a citizens' energy oversight commission. We are deep into research of other states that have citizens' oversight commissions, as well as edifying ourselves on various ways to improve the state of infrastructure here. For example, there is a new AI water system called "Aquify" - a division of Exelon - might be interesting to consider for various municipalities, but we need to research first to render our recommendations. The ink is still wet on our Facebook site, and our new email: texcountability@yahoo.com. We are in touch with our elected officials and are planning to make public statements in the next meetings of the Texas House of Representatives and the Austin City Council on Thursday, Feb. 25. If anyone would like more information, or Mr. Rather, if you are able to help us in uniting, we would be grateful. We are having a Zoom meeting - our second - this Saturday at 2:00 pm. Thank you, Mr. Rather, for being as outraged as we are.
Dan, you write: "We cannot just treat what is happening in Texas as a natural disaster that swells with the news cycle and then disappears from view." This is central to any approach to any solution for a public problem. We Texas citizens, individually and collectively, must focus on keeping this Texas problem in the news cycle. Repeatedly, local, state, national, and international problems get their one or two day attention in the national news media, then sink from sight and mind. As you have said in the past, we need local news media for this purpose. Let's forget the national "news" coverage, and each of us insist that each of our Texas local newsletters, local newspapers, local radio programs, local television programs, and personal social web sites in every Texas hamlet, village, town, and city persistently wield the hammer for change until change occurs.
According to former President Trump, the climate is not going through a warming change. Is that why he lives in Florida. Where the climate stays warm most of the year. It is a beautiful state for those who live there and visit. But for those of us that are experiencing climate change in our own states, like Texas. California, Oregon, and most the states in the union and the world. The climate change is real. However, industry that are affected by legislations to reduce emissions and effect their bottom line, want this thinking to go away. Plus are in a lot of the politicians pockets in Capitol Hill and state governments to manipulate decisions in their favor. What the voting public has not realize until recently. The vote does count when the voters get together and vote the politicians out that are not working for the better of the voters. The really problem is keeping that motivation going.......time will tell.
Texans have a true and relentless advocate in you Mr Rather. It will be interesting to see how the powers that be react and move positively so that this debacle will not be repeated. My prayers continue for all affected.
Start with a belief that markets can solve utility infrastructure problems (spoiler - markets fail due to incentive and asymmetry issues).
Throw in an engineering mindset that uses the past to project the future. It’s like trying to drive by predicting the road ahead using the road you see in the rear view mirror.
Then destabilize your environment.
As a resident of a Northern “maker” state I don’t want Federal money squandered fixing a man-made disaster. Happy for short term FEMA aid. But this is all on Texas.
In short... You should be named to a commission seeking answers. Yours are all great beginning points of departure, Dan. The individual generation operators deserve credit for determining who gets power and who does not temporarily receive service. ERCOT simply issues the orders to curtail however many MWs are required from whichever circuits electron flows must be dampened. The PUC should have followed up on FERC recommendations, 10 years ago, to ensure that individual Texas utility participants implemented those recs in order to avoid another system-wide calamity. And so here we are, armchair QBing a climate disaster. Again.
ERCOT seems to be unfairly catching the brunt of public and political criticism. But they followed the disaster plan as best they could. They're the equivalent of a traffic cop in this scenario. The PUC needs to be authorized to wield a big stick over utilities and be able to mandate upgrades, retrofits, and winterization. The PUC should be held accountable for what they did, or did not do, 10 years ago. But I doubt the Guv and AG will take them to task.
Hi Dan, great newsletter. You probably know her already, but if not, Dr. Leah Stokes @leahstokes probably has answers to your questions, indeed wrote the book on it (Short circuting Policy, http://bit.ly/scp-kindle). Summary thread of her's regarding Texas here:
Yes, i agree. Perhaps an additional question. Has the news media not done their do diligence, have reporters been bullied from asking tough question, are stories about the power grid not interesting enough to sell ads/compete for ratings? Perhaps the public has been sold news is only partisan political entertainment.....
Thank you Dan! I’m so glad you are safe! I had no idea We live in the same city until today. I’m so glad you and your family are safe. This week has been very challenging to say the least. I hope that everyone will come together and put differences aside during this time and just help one an another. I don’t see what good it will do to argue like children. I hope we can all learn from this. I know I will be more prepared for anything that comes our way. Dan Rather I’d truly love to meet you one day.
I don't live in Texàs and am more and more sorry for those who do however I am optimistic that this horrible situation will accelerate the political changes already underway in Texas to overcome one of the more onerous examples of minority rule and help our entire country to do likewise. But I hope they can do so in a way that doesn't amp up the intense divisions and polarization between urban/rural, ethnicities, and income inequalities etc and sets an example of cooperation ( that seems so impossible right now ) for the rest of the country!
78727 here. Never lost power or water. Suffering 'survivor's guilt', when so many around us lost power for 4 days (check the Austin Energy outage map). Took in relatives, who were without for 4 days, for family bonding. Plus, I am the guy who fills up on gas, and dry beans and rice ahead of time, and drives in ice and snow. Please cover the shoes yet to fall: spike in utility bills due to 'pass-through' of energy costs that will be coming up in the next month; and, how and if the current degree of outrage gets conveyed to electeds and converted to policy beneficial to the bulk of Texans.
I’ve heard about the need to “Repair our Infrastructure” for 10 years now. Congress needs to GO TO WORK. Put partisan BULLSHIT aside and agree on the obvious need to revolutionize the foundation of our country. Oil companies are waking up and adding renewables to their investments, not enough yet but they will if Congress GETS TO WORK. Senators in fossil fuel producing states are on notice. Your words are on deaf ears as we know why your against renewables. Get it done or vote them out.
It is August, 2021. I hope that Dan has received ‘real’ answers to these questions. Not that TX under Abbott would make positive changes in regard to these questions, or others.
thanks for sharing the relevant news articles as well
We have just formed an Austin-based group of concerned citizens called the Texas Energy Accountability Movement - or "T.E.A.M." We are non-partisan, non-political and are seeking to unite with other grassroots groups that likely have sprung up all over Texas in response to this crisis. We are hoping to find those groups and have them find us - so that we can unite and form a citizens' energy oversight commission. We are deep into research of other states that have citizens' oversight commissions, as well as edifying ourselves on various ways to improve the state of infrastructure here. For example, there is a new AI water system called "Aquify" - a division of Exelon - might be interesting to consider for various municipalities, but we need to research first to render our recommendations. The ink is still wet on our Facebook site, and our new email: texcountability@yahoo.com. We are in touch with our elected officials and are planning to make public statements in the next meetings of the Texas House of Representatives and the Austin City Council on Thursday, Feb. 25. If anyone would like more information, or Mr. Rather, if you are able to help us in uniting, we would be grateful. We are having a Zoom meeting - our second - this Saturday at 2:00 pm. Thank you, Mr. Rather, for being as outraged as we are.
Dan, you write: "We cannot just treat what is happening in Texas as a natural disaster that swells with the news cycle and then disappears from view." This is central to any approach to any solution for a public problem. We Texas citizens, individually and collectively, must focus on keeping this Texas problem in the news cycle. Repeatedly, local, state, national, and international problems get their one or two day attention in the national news media, then sink from sight and mind. As you have said in the past, we need local news media for this purpose. Let's forget the national "news" coverage, and each of us insist that each of our Texas local newsletters, local newspapers, local radio programs, local television programs, and personal social web sites in every Texas hamlet, village, town, and city persistently wield the hammer for change until change occurs.
According to former President Trump, the climate is not going through a warming change. Is that why he lives in Florida. Where the climate stays warm most of the year. It is a beautiful state for those who live there and visit. But for those of us that are experiencing climate change in our own states, like Texas. California, Oregon, and most the states in the union and the world. The climate change is real. However, industry that are affected by legislations to reduce emissions and effect their bottom line, want this thinking to go away. Plus are in a lot of the politicians pockets in Capitol Hill and state governments to manipulate decisions in their favor. What the voting public has not realize until recently. The vote does count when the voters get together and vote the politicians out that are not working for the better of the voters. The really problem is keeping that motivation going.......time will tell.
Texans have a true and relentless advocate in you Mr Rather. It will be interesting to see how the powers that be react and move positively so that this debacle will not be repeated. My prayers continue for all affected.
End point for decades of decision making.
Start with a belief that markets can solve utility infrastructure problems (spoiler - markets fail due to incentive and asymmetry issues).
Throw in an engineering mindset that uses the past to project the future. It’s like trying to drive by predicting the road ahead using the road you see in the rear view mirror.
Then destabilize your environment.
As a resident of a Northern “maker” state I don’t want Federal money squandered fixing a man-made disaster. Happy for short term FEMA aid. But this is all on Texas.
In short... You should be named to a commission seeking answers. Yours are all great beginning points of departure, Dan. The individual generation operators deserve credit for determining who gets power and who does not temporarily receive service. ERCOT simply issues the orders to curtail however many MWs are required from whichever circuits electron flows must be dampened. The PUC should have followed up on FERC recommendations, 10 years ago, to ensure that individual Texas utility participants implemented those recs in order to avoid another system-wide calamity. And so here we are, armchair QBing a climate disaster. Again.
ERCOT seems to be unfairly catching the brunt of public and political criticism. But they followed the disaster plan as best they could. They're the equivalent of a traffic cop in this scenario. The PUC needs to be authorized to wield a big stick over utilities and be able to mandate upgrades, retrofits, and winterization. The PUC should be held accountable for what they did, or did not do, 10 years ago. But I doubt the Guv and AG will take them to task.
Hope you've thawed out by now, Dan and Jean.
Hi Dan, great newsletter. You probably know her already, but if not, Dr. Leah Stokes @leahstokes probably has answers to your questions, indeed wrote the book on it (Short circuting Policy, http://bit.ly/scp-kindle). Summary thread of her's regarding Texas here:
https://twitter.com/leahstokes/status/1363182924468658177
Yes, i agree. Perhaps an additional question. Has the news media not done their do diligence, have reporters been bullied from asking tough question, are stories about the power grid not interesting enough to sell ads/compete for ratings? Perhaps the public has been sold news is only partisan political entertainment.....
Thank you Dan! I’m so glad you are safe! I had no idea We live in the same city until today. I’m so glad you and your family are safe. This week has been very challenging to say the least. I hope that everyone will come together and put differences aside during this time and just help one an another. I don’t see what good it will do to argue like children. I hope we can all learn from this. I know I will be more prepared for anything that comes our way. Dan Rather I’d truly love to meet you one day.
Darla
I don't live in Texàs and am more and more sorry for those who do however I am optimistic that this horrible situation will accelerate the political changes already underway in Texas to overcome one of the more onerous examples of minority rule and help our entire country to do likewise. But I hope they can do so in a way that doesn't amp up the intense divisions and polarization between urban/rural, ethnicities, and income inequalities etc and sets an example of cooperation ( that seems so impossible right now ) for the rest of the country!
78727 here. Never lost power or water. Suffering 'survivor's guilt', when so many around us lost power for 4 days (check the Austin Energy outage map). Took in relatives, who were without for 4 days, for family bonding. Plus, I am the guy who fills up on gas, and dry beans and rice ahead of time, and drives in ice and snow. Please cover the shoes yet to fall: spike in utility bills due to 'pass-through' of energy costs that will be coming up in the next month; and, how and if the current degree of outrage gets conveyed to electeds and converted to policy beneficial to the bulk of Texans.
Great observations Dan! Thank you, John
Regarding the question of why back-up and contingency plans failed, I would first ask whether there WAS a plan.
I’ve heard about the need to “Repair our Infrastructure” for 10 years now. Congress needs to GO TO WORK. Put partisan BULLSHIT aside and agree on the obvious need to revolutionize the foundation of our country. Oil companies are waking up and adding renewables to their investments, not enough yet but they will if Congress GETS TO WORK. Senators in fossil fuel producing states are on notice. Your words are on deaf ears as we know why your against renewables. Get it done or vote them out.