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Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
201–210 of 462 posts
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#202Note: this isn't a power grid issue. Texas is famously not connected to the national grid [1]. This is an issue of downed power lines.
An obvious question is: why doesn't Houston have underground power? It turns out that Houston really shouldn't exist. It's built on a swamp. It's also hot so heat dissipation is an issue. So it's expensive [2]. Houston is also famous for its lack of zoning [3]. Combine this with a lot of really old neighbourhoods that don't, for example, have sufficient setbacks to bury cabling and you have a hot mess.
It's also worth pointing out that Houston is one of the worst urban sprawls on the planet. It's almost as large as LA with slightly more than half the population.
It's accurate to describe Houston as a low-lying car-dependent hellscape built on a swarmp with no urban planning in a hurricane zone.
[1]: https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2021-07-22/texas-elec...
[2]: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/05/24/burying-...
[3]: https://therealdeal.com/texas/2023/03/16/dont-say-the-z-word...
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
TLDR Texas is hosed as climate change accelerates and there is no will to pay to build resilient infra. Godspeed y’all.
Did you read OP's post?
Yes. I am also familiar with the technical challenges and cost of improving last mile electrical distribution to withstand hurricane force conditions where burial is not an option (whether because of a high water table or potential surge conditions, where equipment is suspended at a height above ground level on permanent scaffolding or pedestals). It is expensive, not impossible. It is a choice, and there is a cost. It’s cold, hard economics. The politics are whether to spend or not spend, and the outcome of that decision.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Plus the Federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed It's amusing and a bit scary that someone thinks the federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed.
The US dollar literally is constructed as needed. It's pretty darn close to free thanks to electronic banking. However, like all magic, using it has severe (and generally predictable) consequences. Unlike fictional magic, the consequences take 4 years to kick in like clockwork. That, and the US's two term limit meant that presidents get to print money without political consequence. Worst case, they lose the midterms,…
Presidents don't print money. Congress approves stimuli in the form of spending. Spending is always inflationary in nature because it injects money into the economy.
The Federal Reserve, nearly completely independent (for better or worse) from the Executive and Legislative branches, prints money in the form of quantitative easing and controls other levers through lending and interest rate strategies.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#205Yesterday I spoke with a Generac (home standby generator) dealership owner in the Houston area, and they are getting swamped with calls (80 a minute at times) and they have 20 people manning the phones.
One of the problems I see is that people aren't prepared. I live my life by the motto "Be Prepared" (see username). One of the Merit Badges I teach is Emergency Preparedness, and with camping, my Scouts are okay going without electricity and electronics. Even if you're not interested or able to participate in Scouting, swing by your local Scout Shop and pick up an Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge booklet and learn what you can do to Be Prepared. It doesn't extend to just hurricanes.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Plus the Federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed It's amusing and a bit scary that someone thinks the federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed.
It's free if you spend it on a durable asset that is as or more valuable than the cash was, which can often be true of infrastructure. Your balance sheet goes up not down after the spend then.
There are vanishingly few examples of infrastructure spending that don't turn into massive, wasteful boondoggles; perhaps the Interstate Highway system.
The national railroad system a century prior and even the Internet were nearly entirely built with private funds.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with below-ground power distribution for metropolitan areas?
Moles, mice, things walking/driving over the top. There is a long list of things that make underground not nearly as reliable as it sounds.
> Moles, mice, things walking/driving over the top
I wonder if anyone has started an environmental impact statement about burying lines. For example squirrels, possums, etc use them as bridges over streets, birds use them as observation/socialization spaces, especially some flocks of migratory grackles (maybe?) that have a giant winter rookery on the lines around a grocery store.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#208Yesterday I spoke with a Generac (home standby generator) dealership owner in the Houston area, and they are getting swamped with calls (80 a minute at times) and they have 20 people manning the phones. One of the problems I see is that people aren't prepared. I live my life by the motto "Be Prepared" (see username). One of the Merit Badges I teach is Emergency Preparedness, and with camping, my Scouts are okay going…
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've answered your own question. The incentives of capitalism "unencumbered by regulation" and the necessities of investing in and maintaining infrastructure are often at odds.
See the crumbling privatised water infrastructure in London/England as another example of this. The companies in charge allowed the infrastructure to crumble all whilst paying out massive shareholder dividends and holding huge amounts of debt. Then they dare to ask for government bailouts and increased utility bill prices. Someone explain how that's even allowed. As usual, socialism for the losses, capitalism for the…
It's worse than that. Those massive debts are from loans from a loan company. The parent company of the loan company is also the parent company of Thames water.
It's all a massive scam. It would be better if companies were not able to own other companies.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#210I was there last weekend & for the day of the hurricane. This was just a cat 1 hurricane at the time it passed through Houston, and there was SO much damage. I can't imagine the city is remotely prepared for (god forbid, and idk how likely it is that far inland anyway) a cat 4 or 5. We were staying in a hotel that had a backup generator, but every single other building that was visible from our hotel had lost power d…
It's obvious that everyone wants to blame it on their favorite villain, whatever that is. A more rational approach would be to look at comparable cities and see how they cope with big storms, whatever the storms' cat numbers. My guess is, no matter what comparables you pick, Houston comes out on the bottom. Maybe it IS deregulation! You can be in favor of it in general, and still admit, "OK, maybe in this instance it…
Houston is a low-lying coastal city surrounded by rivers and bayous whose population has increased 10x since 1950. Not really an ideal situation to build out that kind of housing for millions of people in floodplains.