Posted on 02/24/2021 4:49:53 AM PST by EyesOfTX
Throughout the cold blast of last week, much news was made about the fact that three of the key members of the board of the Electric (non) Reliability Council of Texas weren’t even from Texas. In fact, it turned out the chairman lives in Michigan, the vice-chair also lives out of state, along with one other member of the 15-member board.
Well, guess what? Those news reports actually understated the out-of-state issue with this board. Turns out that there were no fewer than five non-Texans running Texas’s power grid. Happily, each and every one one of them resigned yesterday, along with a sixth non-Texan who was scheduled to move onto the board in the coming weeks:
Five members of the board of directors at the entity that operates Texas’ electrical grid will resign from their posts on Wednesday, according to a notice posted to the Public Utility Commission website.
Board Chairwoman Sally Talberg, Vice Chairman Peter Cramton, and members Terry Bulger, Raymond Hepper and Vanessa Anesetti-Parra will all resign from their posts on Wednesday, during the next meeting of the board of directors of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT.
ERCOT has come under fire for its handling of widespread blackouts that left millions of Texans without power and water as the state faced subfreezing temperatures, snow and ice.
None of the five members resigning from their posts live in Texas.
“Our hearts go out to all Texans who have had to go without electricity, heat, and water during frigid temperatures and continue to face the tragic consequences of this emergency,” the letter reads. “We have noted recent concerns about out-of-state board leadership at ERCOT. To allow state leaders a free hand with future direction and to eliminate distractions, we are resigning from the board.”
Craig Ivey, who was set to fill a vacant position on the board, said in a separate letter that he was withdrawing his candidacy “in order to avoid becoming a distraction” due to his out-of-state residency.
[End]
Look, I love non-Texans, so don’t get me wrong here. But ERCOT is a quasi-government entity – technically a 501(c)(4) non-profit – that runs the grid that supplies 80% of the state with power. It reports directly to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). In a state with 28 million residents, it seems to most of us here in Texas that we ought to be able to find 15 actual Texans who know how to manage a power grid.
I mean, we don’t elect Michiganders to our state legislature, or Marylanders to serve as our governor, do we? The governor can’t appoint Californians or Alabamans to serve on our PUC, can he? We don’t have a Louisianan as our attorney general, even though that might end up being tons of fun and all manner of shenanigans.
At the end of the day, my one and only problem with these five folks leaving the board – from which they were likely to be fired, anyway – is that the number is not 15.
My suspicion is that, like any other semi-accountable board of this type, ERCOT’s board has become a big social club, a cushy assignment with a huge paycheck that none of its members take too seriously. I honestly can find no other explanation for the fact that, when this board met on February 9, as the first of 3 arctic fronts was already pouring into the state, it spent just 45 seconds (that’s not a typo) of a 2-hour meeting discussing preparation measures for what they already knew at that point would ultimately become a major winter weather event.
The fact that not one of the 15 members had a single question or concern about preparedness for such a major event that they wanted to raise in that meeting tells me that there are no serious people currently serving on that board.
So, 5 down and just 10 more to go. If they won’t voluntarily resign, then the PUC and Governor Abbott needs to resign them. In fact, after the clownshow Texans suffered through last week – with more than 70 human beings ending up dead – the entire organization needs to be demolished down to the studs and reconstituted. Only a bold move such as that will give Texans any comfort that we won’t just be living through a replay of last week again sometime in the near future.
Are you listening, Governor Abbott?
That is all.
This whole Green thing needs a review. Supplemental energy needs if power goes out in heat and electricity supplied by stoves and electrical generation whether powered by wind,solar,or fuel particularly if one lives in a rural area always merits some consideration. But should be cost effective and not prohibited by government regulation . The way it seems to have been applied in California and even Texas I may be wrong but seems to have discouraged individual home and property owners from doing so.
The letter after the name means jack anymore.
The only reason two parties are allowed to exist is to give voters the illusion of choice.
And who in HADES in Texas thought it was a fine idea for ERCOT members to reside outside the state?!
Cruz, that includes you.
“people would say it strains credibility.”
Credulity. It strains credulity.
L
Governor Abbott better be listening. They all need to be gone. To the last one. This is not how Texas works.
I like the Texas Lt. Governor.
I’m willing to bet the other four out-of-staters were from corrupt blue or purple states as well.
Credulity. It strains credulity.
Thanks. It seems both are appropriate.
My own humble suggestion would be for them not to have any interest in ANY energy concerns, no matter the sources (fossil fuel, nuclear, solar, etc.).
Now, hold on, there! You're actually exercising independent thought, which is forbidden in GOP and Dumb-Dumb-O-Crat politics!
#WalkAway from the Dems and the GOP.
Cruz has no bearing on ERCOT.
That’s like asking an adult of school-aged children if they thought it was a “fine idea” that a school board in a city 300 miles away started allowing transgenders in the opposite sex bathrooms.
Heat pumps are only so good at extracting heat from the outside air, when said outside air doesn't have heat to extract. So the backup is resistance heating. As in use electricity to directly heat the home. Takes a lot of electrons. Requires a lot of wire to get power from where it's generated to where it's needed.
Discussions about how other areas of the country do it neglect to show their work: in the North, you see more gas and oil heat in those places instead of electric heat or heat pumps.
But the real reason the demand for electricity went through the roof is because Texas citizens and home-owners elected to use electric means to heat their homes, as opposed to using gas, oil, or coal.
As far back as the 70’s Texas electric companies PAID developers NOT to put gas lines into new subdivisions. They were billed as ‘New Modern All Electric Homes.
I know, because we bought one in 1979 in the Houston area.
This is definitely not how Texas works. So many out of state board members is a wake up call to most.
Thankfully, many of the power companies within ERCOT quickly saw what was happening and started making their own decisions. Ours ditched the all day outages and decided to cycle on and off every couple hours. That decision saved lives and repair bills. They also had enough sense to send water downstream to help other hydro plants.
That said, during the winter here, the full time residents use a mere fraction of electricity than is used during tourist season. Our subdivision of 90-ish houses has 6 full time houses so why cut our power? Yeah, yeah for the good of all. We were without power more than the next door county with the same inhabitant dynamic. Head scratching when we’d look out the windows to see lights on in and outside those houses just feet away.
Bill Clinton didn’t quit either. And it made no difference at all to him.
wy69
What that graph does not show, BTW, is that there was a lot of reserve gas capacity that never came online because those plants were not fired up in advance as a precaution and the “cold”, unwinterized plants froze up even faster. Plus, gas supply itself froze up.
I think most of them are lawyers too. While I’m sure ERCOT needs representation, they should hire lawyers, not be run by lawyers. Look at what lawyerticians(lawyer politicians) do for us. Write 5,000 page bills that normal people can’t understand.
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