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'Unplanned' outages hit Texas power plants in soaring temperatures
Officials with Texas' power grid operator pleaded with residents Monday to limit their electrical usage amid soaring temperatures and a series of mechanical problems at power plants.
The appeal, from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, comes four months after deadly blackouts during a winter storm left millions of people without power — and weeks after state legislators passed a package of measures aimed at fixing some of the problems exposed by the storm.
Officials with the nonprofit group, which oversees 90 percent of Texas' energy production, asked residents to set their thermostats higher, turn off lights and avoid using larger appliances until Friday.
A spokeswoman for the group told reporters that the outages accounted for more than 12,000 megawatts, enough to power 2.4 million homes. Some areas of the state, including Dallas and Tarrant counties, were warned about poor air quality and potentially dangerous heat, with the heat index approaching 110 degrees.
A senior official with ERCOT, Warren Lasher, said it wasn't clear why there were so many unplanned outages. But he said that the group is "deeply concerned" about the plants that are offline and that a thorough investigation is being conducted to better understand the problems.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:32AM (13 children)
Boy, those Texans are slow.
Enron. California. 2000.
The outages this winter proved very profitable [reuters.com]
Why do you hate capitalism?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 16 2021, @01:43PM (11 children)
Careful there. Capitalism is on trial. 50 years ago, Capitalism was a citizen with a stellar reputation. Much, much better than ... than ... Communism! The boomers might wonder if you're a Commie, with talk like that.
But now? #exxonknew. And Capitalism has evil relatives with which we're all better acquainted now, named Monopolism and Fascism.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @01:49PM (4 children)
It's not "Capitalism".
It's "Capitalism run amok".
Texas got all the deregulation it wanted, along with the consequent results. Last winter. And now. And it's profitable! So everything working as intended.
Police can legally stop you for having too much tent on your window.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday June 16 2021, @02:06PM (3 children)
It's "Capitalism run amok".
amok time? fascinating...
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 16 2021, @02:23PM (2 children)
Capitalism on boner pills.
Police can legally stop you for having too much tent on your window.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:41PM (1 child)
And obesity meds to counter the heart clogging insulin depleting estrogen mimicking food pellets that are fractionally cheaper to mold into fun shapes than producing real food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:33AM
Not sure you call these 'pellets'
https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/the-50-greatest-hamburgers-in-texas/ [texasmonthly.com]
While obesogens play an important role in obesity, the old saying of "too much in and not enough out" is the cause. Obesogens just make it easier to go from
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03399/fatbloke1_3399316b.jpg [telegraph.co.uk]
to
https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hampshire-uk-sept-15-2018-260nw-1244299510.jpg [shutterstock.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 16 2021, @03:16PM (3 children)
There are two capitalisms: capitalism as a social tool, or as a religion. Capitalism is a useful tool, but an incredibly dangerous religion.
A Black, Hispanic, or Muslim voting for Trump is like a Jew voting for Hitler
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:32PM (1 child)
Nature abhors any social philosophy taken as a religion, yes.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:07PM
Funny how societies crumble and the religion remains.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:06AM
'Dangerous' and 'religion' seem historic friends. (The words crusade and holocaust come to mind, but no doubt, that is a vey limited view of the world.)
Being convinced that something is true because of belief does not make it bad/wrong/silly.
Belief has helped bring humanity far.
But is does make it an opportunity for exploit for one wishing to further some cause.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:23PM (1 child)
Take a moment to think about how you heard that. ;)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:25AM
Agreed. Think "banana republic". Even before the oil wars, we did a lot of shameful crap in the name of profit.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 16 2021, @04:23PM
Any sufficiently libertarian power grid will eventually reimplement Enron.