Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#191

Post by everybodyknows » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #55

The 'firm' is Brazos, which was run as a not-for-profit co-op. Here's a statement from the CEO who resigned describing a precursor event in 2014 and suggesting how the DoE should proceed to make a repeat less likely: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/08/f18/karnei_s... It suggests the problems were systemic and interconnected, but at least some parts of the industry were aware of them.

Resigned some time after the initial Ercot six:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/26/ercot-resignation-po...

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#192

Post by rayiner » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

lmeyerov wrote: post #187

rayiner wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "deregulated" energy industry is built around that exact principle you're talking about, both in the US and the EU. The "platform" is the grid, which delivers electricity from plants to homes and businesses. Because competition in this area is limited, these companies are regulated monopolies, whose infrastructure decisions and rates are closely supervised by a government energy board. These entities work as part…

I thought energy generation is still regional in practice -- loosely, the further it goes, the more expensive -- and private co's deciding to cheap out on weather protections showed the king has no clothes in this case? grid sounds nice and platform-y, but when you zoom in, similar to us telcos: not quite as stable and abundant as the lobbyists advertise for any given region when you look. as an intuition, a solar pa…

> thought energy generation is still regional in practice --

ERCOT serves over 26 million customers in Texas. That's more than large enough to have a highly functioning market.

> and private co's decided to cheap out on weather protections?

What on earth makes anyone think that government-owned power generators in Texas would have invested in weather protections? The sewer systems around the country are publicly owned, yet the public utilities "cheap out" on capacity and routinely dump massive amounts of raw sewage into local waterways during big rain storms that happen every year or two. People are attributing to the structure of the market a failure that's more about the inability of entities in general (public or private) to deal with black swan events.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#193

Post by lmeyerov » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #192

lmeyerov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought energy generation is still regional in practice -- loosely, the further it goes, the more expensive -- and private co's deciding to cheap out on weather protections showed the king has no clothes in this case? grid sounds nice and platform-y, but when you zoom in, similar to us telcos: not quite as stable and abundant as the lobbyists advertise for any given region when you look. as an intuition, a solar pa…

> thought energy generation is still regional in practice -- ERCOT serves over 26 million customers in Texas. That's more than large enough to have a highly functioning market. > and private co's decided to cheap out on weather protections? What on earth makes anyone think that government-owned power generators in Texas would have invested in weather protections? The sewer systems around the country are publicly owne…

RE:market size, esp. proportional to texas land mass, that's not obvious to me. But I'm writing that as a not-an-energy person, just someone who spent an afternoon googling years ago to understand why energy operations people viewed things like solar/wind/etc. as local, not national. Finance and other non-operational people can certainly work more abstractly.

RE:Weather, when gov-funded climate change scientists collectively predicted adverse weather phenomena would continue accelerating in accordance to global warming, and a lot of communities have been living through it? I started hearing about that 10-20 years ago, it's not news. Next you'll tell me that continued beachfront erosion merits gov bailouts of insurance companies because we couldn't predict that either..

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#194

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #57

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be born in America to be President, but you do need to be a natural-born citizen. Of course, the idea of amending the Constitution to remove that requirement to clear the path for a particular candidate (not that long ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger was mentioned) has come up before; current restrictions won't necessarily apply indefinitely into the future.

Is your distinction that it has to be USA territories - colonies like Guam, Puerto Rico? - but not necessarily USA proper, so military bases and consulates count (?) but could be termed 'outside USA' or is something else going on here?

No, the distinction is that “natural-born citizen” is a phrase in the Constitution about which there is some debate about it's exact meaning, but the dominant understanding is “citizen by law at birth and not later naturalized” rather than “born in the United States”.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#195

Post by rayiner » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

lmeyerov wrote: post #193

rayiner wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> thought energy generation is still regional in practice -- ERCOT serves over 26 million customers in Texas. That's more than large enough to have a highly functioning market. > and private co's decided to cheap out on weather protections? What on earth makes anyone think that government-owned power generators in Texas would have invested in weather protections? The sewer systems around the country are publicly owne…

RE:market size, esp. proportional to texas land mass, that's not obvious to me. But I'm writing that as a not-an-energy person, just someone who spent an afternoon googling years ago to understand why energy operations people viewed things like solar/wind/etc. as local, not national. Finance and other non-operational people can certainly work more abstractly. RE:Weather, when gov-funded climate change scientists coll…

Big rainstorms are not news, yet most public sewer systems are totally unequipped to deal with them. Hot days in summer are not news and yet Amtrak is unequipped to deal with them (http://blog.amtrak.com/2015/06/heat-restrictions).

Around the country, there is a $4.5 trillion infrastructure backlog. https://www.asce.org/templates/press-release-detail.aspx?id=.... Almost all of that backlog is on the plate of public entities (road works, sewer works, bridges, etc.) Where do you live that the government has actually addressed crises that it faces in the present and has time to pro-actively address stuff scientists are talking about happening years in the future?

Yeah, maybe competent and pro-active bureaucrats at a government power utility would have avoided this problem. It also could have been avoided by running power plants on unicorn manure, which I hear has natural anti-freeze properties.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#196

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

meepmorp wrote: post #101

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your distinction that it has to be USA territories - colonies like Guam, Puerto Rico? - but not necessarily USA proper, so military bases and consulates count (?) but could be termed 'outside USA' or is something else going on here?

Iirc, when John McCain (born in Panama) was running against Obama, Congress passed legislation clarifying that people born on military bases abroad still counted as natural born citizens for electoral purposes.

McCain wasn't born abroad any more than if he had been born in D.C.; he was born on a US Naval Base in a US Territory.

Also, a statute passed when he was running for President almost certainly could not have any effect on whether or not he was Constitutionally a natural born citizen.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#197

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

throwaway3699 wrote: post #175

maxerickson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would retail customers (with fixed rates) worry about it?

Commercial customers like factories and empty offices cutting usage can still make a serious impact.

I expect they would have mostly been shut down at $1200.

Really it looks like retail electric providers in Texas are structurally disadvantaged vs generators, carrying an unlimited obligation of service vs getting the spot price set to the regulatory maximum.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#198

Post by lmeyerov » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #195

lmeyerov wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE:market size, esp. proportional to texas land mass, that's not obvious to me. But I'm writing that as a not-an-energy person, just someone who spent an afternoon googling years ago to understand why energy operations people viewed things like solar/wind/etc. as local, not national. Finance and other non-operational people can certainly work more abstractly. RE:Weather, when gov-funded climate change scientists coll…

Big rainstorms are not news, yet most public sewer systems are totally unequipped to deal with them. Hot days in summer are not news and yet Amtrak is unequipped to deal with them ( http://blog.amtrak.com/2015/06/heat-restrictions ). Around the country, there is a $4.5 trillion infrastructure backlog. https://www.asce.org/templates/press-release-detail.aspx?id=... . Almost all of that backlog is on the plate of publi…

This feels like rapidly shifting goalposts from my statement about energy being local and the local private energy companies cheaping out because they could

Yes, a lot of people live in denial. In security-related areas of all kinds where the ROI is largely unobservable loss prevention, that's why leadership-level people know to ask for budget immediately after any incident... because important stuff doesn't get funded or enforced otherwise.

And agreed, I'm not a superfan of Amtrak. There's a wide spectrum on how to do things. The more I learn about any individual one, the more I learn that most things appear broken from the inside, so I am both consistently awed things work in the daily case, and know that left alone, they won't in the edge cases.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#199

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #158

adrianN wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why so many people assume that public transport needs to cover cost with fares. It provides immense public utility, even to the people who don't use it. It makes perfect sense to subsidize it. And it's not like taxes on cars pay for all their externalities.

I don't understand why so many people assume that others should pay for the services they consume. Why should a relatively poor upstate new york taxpayer be paying 50% of the fare of some young finance bro going to work? Also removing prices removes information. For instance the ferry costs something like $15 per rider to operate compared to around $5 for subway. With both trips at the same price to the consumer, you…

I don't think the flow of money is from Upstate NY to NYC. And to take your example to it's logical conclusion, we'd end up in an AnCap paradise. Why should I pay for ANY socialized good or service that I don't use. Such as roads to places I'll never go, schools my child doesn't attend, and medical procedures that I don't need?

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#200

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #103

snidane wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually well understood that privatisation for platform industries is bad, privatisation for businesses running on top of platforms is good. Networks and infrastructure = little to no competition. Eg. networks naturally settle in a optimal geographical location and utilize economy of scale then. Can't compete with that. So don't privatise platforms. Rather - make them monopolistic and make them share the revenu…

I wish our political systems would admit to this. So often I hear one side praying at the alter of free markets and deregulation, while the other condemns any profit making business as greedy. It just seems to me that free markets work absolutely fantastic in some areas and absolutely horrid in others (health care being probably the most notorious example).

I think you are citing a false equivalency. "Any profit = Greedy" isn't as tightly held on the Left as Free-Market principles are on the right. The proof is in the pudding, which states have lost production of a service utility due to adhering to "Any profit is greed!"?