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.

  • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • hobbicus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        For profit isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the more essential the service should warrant more and more regulations on safety security and pricing. They should not be given unlimited control over these.

        Government agencies are more than capable of providing equally shitty service even without a profit motive, see: DMV. Any monopoly is. This is partially why regarding universal healthcare most people aren’t advocating for government owned healthcare facilities, but the government being the single payer to privately run facilities to control prices.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I assume the DMV being shitty is just a meme, like Taco Bell giving you diarrhea.

          cause i’ve been in many DMVs, in several states, and never had a headache with it, and no one I know personally has had a problem either. Small sample base, of course.

    • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      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.

      We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

      We settled it before the damn constitution even started. How these nitwits in DC don’t see how publicly run infrastructure doesn’t provide for the common defense or promote general welfare is beyond me. But I guess running water, heat, affordable healthcare, and an ability to communicate with each other and the rest of the world doesn’t count under that, somehow.

      Maybe if the courts took the founders intent from the Prologue instead of the secret letters to their mistresses, we’d have a functional system. But that’s just my opinion.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

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

        • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I’m sorry. I had someone argue something very similar to me. And since it was someone I knew IRL, I knew they were 100% serious…

      • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

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

        • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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          1 year 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.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

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

            • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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              1 year 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

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • thedridge@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

    • a9249@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What are yah, some sorta communist? /s He’s sayin private companies shouldnt be fuckin us over, get him! /s