Lone Star Catastrophe

What’s happening in Texas is not just a calamity, it was an avoidable calamity:

Millions of Texans were without heat and electricity Monday as snow, ice and frigid temperatures caused a catastrophic failure of the state’s power grid.

[…]

Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants.

“The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.

“For more than a decade, generators have not been able to charge what it costs them to produce electricity,” said Hirs. “If you don’t make a return on your money, how can you keep it up? It’s like not taking care of your car. If you don’t change the oil and tires, you can’t expect your car to be ready to evacuate, let alone get you to work.”

And just to preempt what is sure to be the stylized Republican narrative about why millions of people were left in the dark and cold:

To folks blaming #renewables for Texas #RollingBlackouts the opposite is true. #Solar over performed ERCOT model today by ~1GW & #wind was w/in 1GW of target. #Nuclear = 100%. ~30GW of mostly gas/coal plants went offline. (1/2) #TXLege #WinterStorm2021 #FrozenTexas #natgas pic.twitter.com/1QqKPAtDgF— Rafael Anchía (@RafaelAnchia) February 16, 2021