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Hell froze over in Texas – the state will connect to the US grid for the first time via a fed grant

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announces $1.5B for four transmission projects – including connecting the Texas grid to the rest of the US for the first time ever.

The projects, spanning multiple states, will add nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission lines and increase grid capacity by 7,100 megawatts (MW). They’ll boost grid reliability, lower energy costs, and support the clean energy transition.

54 comments
  • Texas fails its people routinely. All they do politically in the media is meant for distraction from that consistent fact.

    Wherever you see them talking about the border, abortion, voter suppression tactics, unisex bathrooms, Dr. Seuss, etc, remember this is really a distraction from things like ERCOT, a clear example of how they fail and can't fix anything, even while Texans suffer and die avoidable deaths on a regular schedule now...

    Repeat after me everyone. ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ted cruz ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT greg abbot ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT louie gohmert ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCO ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT madison cawthorn ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT john cornyn ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT dan patrick ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT


    So the ENTIRE western half of the United States is on one power grid and the ENTIRE East Coast is in another power grid. All that unity and then Texas decides, "nah man, not for me, iM a FrEeDuMbb!!!" 

    So they have their own poorly designed and neglected power grid that is routinely failing, year after year - when it's too cold and when it's too hot. It has broken, aging equipment that they know needs to be replaced, yet they ignore things like proper winterizing to save on cost.

    If you recall any of the winter storms that froze Texas for weeks in the past several years? They lose their electricity, make weak attempts to blame it publicly on things like wind power and the border. That third Texas-centric failed power grid (the body that controls it) is called ERCOT. 

    Early in the pandemic, ERCOT lost power for the whole state due to sustained, avoidable neglect of their equipment. After written warnings and a lack of safety regulation in Texas to force them to maintain. Then, while Texans were dying, literally freezing to death without access to food, fresh water or some medications, the coward ted cruz famously abandoned his constituents to try to sneak away to the Ritz Carlton in Mexico with his family to warm up a bit. When caught at the airport, he then blamed his daughter, changed his planned return flight to an earlier time and pretended that he was only dropping his family off. Then of course text messages came out later from his wife texting their wealthy neighbors basically saying, "who wants to go get warm at the Ritz with ted and me while these poor fuckers freeze to death?" (and yes, that is the same wife that trump publicly called ugly publicly, only for Ted to lick his lifted boots for the past decade). All of this was during the height of first wave COVID of course and with international travel restrictions still in force in many places. 

    It eventually became clear that a good chunk of the ERCOT board members that made these decisions to neglect maintenance of equipment or risk it failing catastrophically don't even live in the state (therefore don't have to suffer any direct physical consequences of their actions). One lived in Indiana, another as far away as Germany. And all the while, Texans dying due to incompetence AND THEN THEY RE-ELECT their abusers. The same politicians listed above are the ones that don't regulate (or deliberately remove safety regulations) to enable ERCOT's heartless failure. 

    Texas is a national embarrassm, they can vote to change that.

  • I don't like saying this, but you reap what you sow. This is pretty on par with what all the Texans I know believe. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. If your bootstraps are missing then it's definitely someone else's fault.

    • Not everyone is ignorant in Texas, you blinded by hate smh. Over generalizing and wishing harm on your fellow man and even the innocent ones doesn't make you better than them.

      • Not everyone is ignorant there, just enough of a voting majority to absolutely fuck themselves in a wide array of ways, and by extension, fuck up the rest of the country to a small extent.

      • What are you even talking about? Nobody insinuated any of the points in your comment. OP mentioned anecdotally that Texans they know present in a certain way. That certain way is basically co-opted by Republicans. Texas has a governor, two senators, and a 2-to-1 ratio of House reps that were VOTED IN BY TEXANS that are Republicans. The policy of energy independence pushed by these representatives elected by majorities has led to awful, yet predictable, outcomes. This is the very definition of the state reaping what it has sown.

  • Ok, this wasn't on my bingo card.

    I'm... impressed. (I didn't read the article, mind you.)

  • I think hell already froze over in Texas since Greg Abbott and Cancun Cruz kept getting into power there over Beto O'Rourke.

  • Neat, they are gonna build some high voltage dc infrastructure to connect with Texas. It allows connection of grids that aren't in sync with each other. (At least that was supposed to be a huge advantage of HVDC when I was first hearing about it.)

  • This improves all Americans access to energy. Texas can reroute power from the southeast sector if needed and vis versa. Ultimately this will save money and lives.

54 comments