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Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule (www.kut.org)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.

In February of 2021, a massive cold front descended on Texas, bringing days of ice and snow. The weather increased energy demand and reduced supply by freezing up power generators and the state’s natural gas supply chain. This led to a blackout that left millions of Texans without energy for nearly a week.

The state has said almost 250 people died because of the winter storm and blackout, but some analysts call that a serious undercount.

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[–] 243 points 2 years ago (35 children)

It is almost like natural monopolies, such as primary power generation and supply, should be under the control of the Government and not private individuals.

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  • [–] 91 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    They all used to be. Then Reagan and Clinton happened.

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  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    ding ding ding. We have a winner! Give that man a prize!

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Thank you, thank you.

    My prize will sit proudly in my woman cave.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Sorry but lemmy has declared you a male. Your penis will arrive in 3 to 5 business days.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I have a battery-operated one that gives me no drama or grief.

    Hopefully that penis is returnable.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Most places that are not Texas still have something resembling the old school utility model where the state effectively grants a license to a private company to operate and manage the grid, which is itself a public right of way. This is governed by a state appointed utility board.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    No no... Checks the GOP playbook: we just need to offer a premium power support plan so if the power goes out they'll provide you a backup generator. It just costs twice the normal rate.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    I know your joking here, but this is actually the path forward and is being implemented in other states and countries.

    The power company provides at a discount or for free a home backup battery to the residence. If not free, You pay off the battery at a very affordable rate but end up with a smaller power bill as the power company can access its power to balance the load, filling it up when power is cheap and the battery being used when power is expensive.

    In a blackout, the home owner gets to use the battery and doesn't suffer an outage.

    It makes the grid more secure by dispersing it around thousands of homes instead of a large expensive failure points and gives them an improved ability to balance the overall load instead of needing a gas peaker plant.

    I think it was recently announced that a Vermont power company was going to onboard 100% of their users in the next few years, but it's happening elsewhere too. If a tree takes something down in a snow storm, people won't lose power giving them time to fix it.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    That actually seems like a really good idea on the infrastructure side. We should still get rid of private power companies.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Batteries are consumable though. Only so much usage available

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago*

    An LFP battery will last over a decade of daily full discharges, and that's not going to be what happens, and even then, it's still 80%.

    Probably looking at 30-40 20-30 years before wanting to replace it due to energy levels.

    Peaker plants also require maintenance and staffing and other costs associated with them.

    The batteries being consumable isn't a problem.

    Edit: and gas from a peaker plant is consumed too

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    The issue here is specifically that they're not monopolies any more, because of deregulation

    Ironically, if they were a monopoly, they would have an obligation to provide power in emergencies, per the ruling.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Why did it take me so long to finally realize that by privatizing services like these, governments are preemptively shifting the blame when the service fails? Voters who are angry at the energy company won't be (as) angry with the politicians.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    That’s communism and we are a capitalist country.

    The right thing to do under a capitalist economy is to buy the government and give yourself a monopoly.

    This isn’t a natural monopoly, it’s protected by legislature and cronyism.

    A proper capitalist approach to utilities, then the pipes and wires need to be considered no different then the road they are installed on. Recoup money by selling metered wholesale access to the carriers and utilities.

    But we don’t have proper capitalism. We have this bastardized American version that sucks.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    A government providing services is not communism, it's a first-world standard.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I thought the sarcasm of my first two paragraphs was heavily laid on, but I suppose not.

    I don’t disagree with you, however the majority of electoral college and senate voters agree with my first two paragraphs.

    We are insistent that we must do things differently. This American Exceptionalism, as if there’s something fundamentally different between humans born inside its walls than the ones born out.

    If we must be insistent that we’re different, we should at least be consistent in its application. The preamble basically implies that the ideal is exactly what you and the rest of my post is saying.

    In the modern world a countries greatest strength is its ability to utilize its economies of scale. If for no other reason we should at least realize that the existing systems are unsustainably wasteful.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You mean the dudes who owned slaves and thought that only white men were people? Ok yeah, they were righteous ...

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    Many of them were either abolitionists or manumissionists. It’s hard to believe we had always been so conflicted since our founding (as many of the northern states had already abolished slavery before ratifying the constitution), yet still managed to have a reasonably functional government essentially made up entirely of rich white dudes who openly hated each others guts.

    Also it’s easy to sit here and poo-poo the whole slavery thing now, 300 something years later. Washington got his first slaves from inheritance. When he was 11. That’s not me dismissing it, that’s just me demonstrating how normalized it was.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago*

    Production can be liberalised, but it requires good regulation. Regulation failed to include a rule for responsibility to provided a minimum of energy, the judge can't do more than the regulation law. It works in EU, we didn't have blackout past year even though the situation was dramatic mostly due to the Russian invasion, because the liberalised market allowed efficient sharing of energy where it was most needed.
    I wouldn't be so certain a public monopoly could have managed it in such an efficient way (in terms of finance, energy usage and service). People tend to idealize public administration.

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