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Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#21
What's stopping power companies from ramping up energy production? They know in advance there will be problems. What stopping them from just producing more? I realize there are some peculiarities of the Texas grid, but this is obviously a problem beyond Texas, as California and east coast has blackouts as well. I'm asking about all these cases.

I imagine maybe this requires some additional infrastructure that simply doesn't exist. If so, what's the barrier to building this infrastructure?

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#22
post #5

It would have had blackouts if it didn't build all those bitcoin mines. The bitcoin mines encouraged power infrastructure development, and they can just be taken offline when high heat causes power demand spikes for air conditioning.

I'm not from Texas so genuinely asking, is there hard proof that anyone specifically invested in power infrastructure because of bitcoin mines in a way they wouldn't have otherwise?

i live in texas and no, there’s not. because it didn’t happen.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its newsworthy because of its frequency of occurrence.

I think the news is that they paid bitcoin miners to sit idle. The only other choice was to charge them more for power usage.

right, they save that second option for regular consumers.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#24
This is the first I've seen data on high demand growth this summer (I live in Texas and try to follow these issues).

> The power grid has seen overall demand grow 7% this summer, after two decades of predictable 1% per year growth, and 10 preliminary demand records since late June. [1]

[1]: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/erc...

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#25
post #2

So Texas almost got close to a blackout in the last 2 years? Is this newsworthy, are we reporting on things that almost happened?

If you had lived through the last blackout and still lived in Texas, then absolutely yes it’s newsworthy. We want to grade our government accurately. Almost having a collapse again is a bad mark on the test score.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#26
There's a lot of misunderstanding in the comments so far regarding bitcoin mining incentives. I urge you to read this thread describing the split-second load-shedding response time from the POV of one of these miners:

https://twitter.com/ogbtc/status/1699588007664275873

It also goes into the other mechanism by which they make money (being natural sellers of future energy demand contracts during times of high demand). This mechanism is similar to how other commodity markets operate with producers, consumers with steady future demand, and consumers with unpredictable short-term demand.

Our energy grids need to keep an equal demand/production at all times, and on-demand load-shedding is a valuable part of this equation. The bitcoin miners are providing a service to ERCOT and being paid for it. If there were a more "productive" source of on-demand energy usage, then it will replace the bitcoin miners, this is how markets work (of which both energy production/consumption and capitalism in general are).

This is the reality of how the texas energy grid works at present. The bitcoin miners, for lack of a (subjectively) "better" option, are filling the two needs of elastic load-shedding and predictable future demand. The first is very hard to fill, the latter can probably be fulfilled more productively with steady demand from other industries (factories, data centers, other things that run 24h per day).

One more edit: this whole equation changes COMPLETELY if we have the ability to store energy production in times of low demand to be used in future times of high demand (batteries). We don't currently have this at any sort of reasonably useful scale, we need this, and the current "market" everyone is upset about is a bandaid on top of the lack of decent storage options. For the climate folks, the anti-bitcoin folks, whoever disagrees with what I've said here: Fix the storage issue and everything gets magically better. Good luck, it's a very hard problem with very nasty environmental impacts, I'm rooting for you.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#28
post #2

So Texas almost got close to a blackout in the last 2 years? Is this newsworthy, are we reporting on things that almost happened?

Regional blackouts are kinda common in Texas. The article briefly mentions the AC frequency doing too can damage the grid. This damage can actually lead to months long power outages for large regions.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#29
post #2

So Texas almost got close to a blackout in the last 2 years? Is this newsworthy, are we reporting on things that almost happened?

It’s newsworthy if you live there when it’s 108 degrees in a house built such that it will easily reach 95-100 inside with just an hour of AC outage.

Which is basically every new house in Texas.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#30
post #9

The article states that the sharp drop in reserves was being “investigated,” and that it is “suspected” that a large power plant stopped working. Is observability of Texan infrastructure so poor that the _power company_ doesn’t have a comprehensive view of _which power plants are operational_?

It sounds like they're dancing around what may be a social issue; ERCOT sent an email asking people to "conserve", within 30 minutes they saw a negative impact. Is it possible some recipients saw the email and took the complete opposite action?

something something ... cold dead hands?
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