ERCOT, PUC, and deregulation got us here

[BearSchlong 8231]

Electric coops make up a big part of my customer base and their grid management, substations, etc is physically separate, i.e. airgapped, from any publically internetworked system.  That's why many providers just build dark fiber and build their own standalone networks.

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11856]

Just now, BearSchlong said:

Electric coops make up a big part of my customer base and their grid management, substations, etc is physically separate, i.e. airgapped, from any publically internetworked system.  That's why many providers just build dark fiber and build their own standalone networks.

 

I can't speak to the effectiveness of that, but I did want to say that Pedernales EC is pretty good at fixing their shit when it comes to outages, at least in northern Hays Co. 

[Hornius Emeritus 12780]

Holy crap.  Comanche Peak Nuke came within three minutes of emergency shut off, taking another 2,600 mw offline.

Texas came a hair's breathe from a catastrophe that makes what happened look like a stroll through the park.

 

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

7 hours ago, Bookman said:

What criminal laws were violated?

the laws the republicans killed in the house and legislature since 2011

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

5 hours ago, softlynow said:

If we had a functional mob, we wouldn't need laws to get justice. Texans aren't what they talk themselves up to be. Everything's bigger but our balls, apparently. We repeatedly take it dry and ask for more. By the time the next national abortion/gay rights/trans rights/immigration/gun rights/police brutality story takes over the news all the anger and willingness to hold Texas Pubs accountable will be gone.

The Capitol should be surrounded by angry people demanding heads on pikes.

hence the scramble to pretend the past 10 years at the Capitol never happened

[cactusflinthead 27626]

6 hours ago, Llano Estacado said:

 

SitRep: FUBAR

If you find something with details please share it here or Oil Baron thread, but I’ve been looking for a few days and doubt we ever get conclusive specific reporting. Too many specific things went wrong in too many locals.

Gas followed ideal gas law and hydrates formed. Shit we need powered lost power. Shit that should have been winterized for a 10yr or 100yr storm wasn’t winterized. Maybe it’s a pressure control valve at substation XYZ. Maybe it’s the 3 best producing wells for field XYZ. Maybe it’s gauge 123XYZ that caused interlock and emergency shutdown.

 

Share it here too please.

[cactusflinthead 27626]

 

[tx 3 putt 78470]

4 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

 

abbott and patrick told him to play dumb. im just wondering who's going to be the sacarficial lamb ? maybe the board resignations are enough. the only thing im sure of, Texas consumers are going to get screwed over  

Edited February 26, 2021 by tx 3 putt

[JerrysJheriCurl 977]

23 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

abbott and patrick told him to play dumb. im just wondering who's going to be the sacarficial lamb ? maybe the board resignations are enough. the only thing im sure of, Texas consumers are going to get screwed over  

I’m not sure I agree with you a 100% on your police work there, Lou.

DeAnn is not going to be showing up on the Women over 40 or Sugar Baby threads, but I am pretty sure... she’s of the female variety. 

Edited February 26, 2021 by JerrysJheriCurl

[Homercles 10206]

Listening to NPR this morning learned Biden is coming today and then hear Cruz punchable voice saying they’re grateful for federal relief to more counties just made me rage.  

Republican administration touts reduced regulation and federal oversight as a boon to the free market...free market takes advantage by not implementing prudent controls to ensure system is stable...cascading events cause failure of entire system...my tax dollars go to helping fix the system as real people are now impacted...Dems derided by Muh Guns for bailing out big business, spending money and not handling stuff like infrastructure.  
 

Hmmm where have I heard that before?  

Edited February 26, 2021 by Homercles

[Dahobbs 18185]

14 minutes ago, Homercles said:

Listening to NPR this morning learned Biden is coming today and then hear Cruz punchable voice saying they’re grateful for federal relief to more counties just made me rage.  

Republican administration touts reduced regulation and federal oversight as a boon to the free market...free market takes advantage by not implementing prudent controls to ensure system is stable...cascading events cause failure of entire system...my tax dollars go to helping fix the system as real people are now impacted...Dems derided by Muh Guns for bailing out big business, spending money and not handling stuff like infrastructure.  
 

Hmmm where have I heard that before?  

Fundamentally the problem is that the market participants don't have a strong enough incentive to ensure operation during events that may happen once every few years. The power generators that went down suffered a few lost days of profit. The power generators that stayed up saw a few days of increased profits. But none of that is sufficient to account for the tens of billions in damages and many lives lost as a result of the outage. Regulatory oversight is good to make sure the market is working as intended, but I don't think regulation by itself is an efficient way to fix problems created by externalities.  We should create the market incentive  by connecting those externalities to the market, either directly through legal liability or indirectly through a capacity market (or both).   

[TwiceHorn 31987]

8 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Fundamentally the problem is that the market participants don't have a strong enough incentive to ensure operation during events that may happen once every few years. The power generators that went down suffered a few lost days of profit. The power generators that stayed up saw a few days of increased profits. But none of that is sufficient to account for the tens of billions in damages and many lives lost as a result of the outage. Regulatory oversight is good to make sure the market is working as intended, but I don't think regulation by itself is an efficient way to fix problems created by externalities.  We should create the market incentive  by connecting those externalities to the market, either directly through legal liability or indirectly through a capacity market (or both).   

Private enterprise in the utility "arena" is fine as far as it goes.

But the nature of the utility arena is that it is too imbued with public interest to just let the market run wild.  This shouldn't be a controversial proposition.

[SydneyCarton 49325]

This is a short article, but pretty much sums up everything and points the blame at the appropriate parties. This Hirs character should be the fucking head of ERCOT. 

 

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/ed-hirs-predicting-blackouts/

[wildcat09 29556]

I don't see any benefit of even maintaining a retail electric market. Seriously, who really benefits aside from a few dozen brokers?

[C-Man 27685]

18 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Holy crap.  Comanche Peak Nuke came within three minutes of emergency shut off, taking another 2,600 mw offline.

Texas came a hair's breathe from a catastrophe that makes what happened look like a stroll through the park.

 

Define "catastrophe that makes what happened look like a stroll through the park."

We talking if the grid had gone down, the entire state would've been without power for weeks?

[SydneyCarton 49325]

30 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I don't see any benefit of even maintaining a retail electric market. Seriously, who really benefits aside from a few dozen brokers?

I've addressed this repeatedly all over this thread, but the retail electricity industry tangentially supports well over 100k jobs (direct employees (sales, marketing/pr, energy traders, accounting staffs, HR, operations, support staff), door to door sales, call center representatives venders and partnerships, and additionally folks who consistently shop the market pay about 20-30% less in electricity. It's also prompted massive innovation in a stagnant industry to improve customer service with shit like bill pay, online account portals, tracking usage, etc. None of that exists in other states, for the most part. 

 

El fenix disagrees but if you include all of the vendor and partnership relationships, I think deregulated electricity in Texas supports close to 200k jobs. 

[SydneyCarton 49325]

37 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I don't see any benefit of even maintaining a retail electric market. Seriously, who really benefits aside from a few dozen brokers?

Or I could ask this question a different way...The major cell phone providers don't own any of the cell phone towers. They rent space/bandwidth. Why do do have more than one cell phone provider? 

[wildcat09 29556]

2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've addressed this repeatedly all over this thread, but the retail electricity industry tangentially supports well over 100k jobs (direct employees (sales, marketing/pr, energy traders, accounting staffs, HR, operations, support staff), door to door sales, call center representatives venders and partnerships, and additionally folks who consistently shop the market pay about 20-30% less in electricity. It's also prompted massive innovation in a stagnant industry to improve customer service with shit like bill pay, online account portals, tracking usage, etc. None of that exists in other states, for the most part. 

 

El fenix disagrees but if you include all of the vendor and partnership relationships, I think deregulated electricity in Texas supports close to 200k jobs. 

So essentially the employees and vendors of the few dozen brokers and people with the time and wherewithal to "consistently" shop (how consistent are we talking about?), and retail users got some useful apps to play with.

Look man, I don't really want to shit on makework because that's probably at least a third of our national economy and destroying those jobs is typically what Republicans do to help funnel more money to billionaires, but I don't love the idea of it here where enormous property destruction and loss of life is the inevitable result of a shitty market. No matter what changes are made around the edges, we're dealing with monopolies in power distribution and I have a hard time seeing how inserting energy traders into the process provides a real material benefit to the rest of us.

It's obviously impossible with the state government we've got, but I'd like to think that most of those people you mention could be repurposed to do similar or more productive work if we had a more regulated industry and a government actually interested in keeping shit working. There would still be a private market for equipment, there'd still be a need for accounting and HR, etc. 

[SydneyCarton 49325]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

So essentially the employees and vendors of the few dozen brokers and people with the time and wherewithal to "consistently" shop (how consistent are we talking about?), and retail users got some useful apps to play with.

Look man, I don't really want to shit on makework because that's probably at least a third of our national economy and destroying those jobs is typically what Republicans do to help funnel more money to billionaires, but I don't love the idea of it here where enormous property destruction and loss of life is the inevitable result of a shitty market. No matter what changes are made around the edges, we're dealing with monopolies in power distribution and I have a hard time seeing how inserting energy traders into the process provides a real material benefit to the rest of us.

It's obviously impossible with the state government we've got, but I'd like to think that most of those people you mention could be repurposed to do similar or more productive work if we had a more regulated industry and a government actually interested in keeping shit working. There would still be a private market for equipment, there'd still be a need for accounting and HR, etc. 

I mean, I feel like I've explained this 100 times. The retail electricity market and the energy generation market, while they came about at the same time, are completely unrelated. 

The energy generation market, the politicians, the "regulators" all fucked up. Entirely. That is your property market, and nothing to do with the existence of a retail electricity market. There are functioning retail energy (electricity and/or gas)  markets in NY, NJ, IL, MD, PA, OH, GA, MA, CT and several more to come. Those states also regulate the equipment and make sure they're winterized. Texas could do the same, it didn't. This is completely unrelated to being able to have retail choice.

If you're in Texas, did you notice that the cell phone service sucked fucking ass last week while all this was going down? There's a reason for that. Cell Phone tower companies decided they didn't need to winterize their fucking towers south of Dallas because it just never gets cold. No one is talking about it, but they made a calculation based on money. A bad one, and it sucked for all of us. No one is paying attention to it, however, because way bigger fish to fry. But because an independent tower company decided not to pay to winterize their shit, you're suggesting that T-Mobile should probably not be in business. It's the same thing. 

[Dahobbs 18185]

5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

So essentially the employees and vendors of the few dozen brokers and people with the time and wherewithal to "consistently" shop (how consistent are we talking about?), and retail users got some useful apps to play with.

Look man, I don't really want to shit on makework because that's probably at least a third of our national economy and destroying those jobs is typically what Republicans do to help funnel more money to billionaires, but I don't love the idea of it here where enormous property destruction and loss of life is the inevitable result of a shitty market. No matter what changes are made around the edges, we're dealing with monopolies in power distribution and I have a hard time seeing how inserting energy traders into the process provides a real material benefit to the rest of us.

It's obviously impossible with the state government we've got, but I'd like to think that most of those people you mention could be repurposed to do similar or more productive work if we had a more regulated industry and a government actually interested in keeping shit working. There would still be a private market for equipment, there'd still be a need for accounting and HR, etc. 

One benefit is creating a market for specific types of energy, e.g., renewables. Absent a retail market, one couldn't purchase "renewable only" plans, which do help promote growth in renewables. Also, hard to argue with some of the customer specific benefits you can get it thanks to some competition (e.g., online bill pay and usage tracking). 

[SydneyCarton 49325]

6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

No matter what changes are made around the edges, we're dealing with monopolies in power distribution and I have a hard time seeing how inserting energy traders into the process provides a real material benefit to the rest of us.

It's obviously impossible with the state government we've got, but I'd like to think that most of those people you mention could be repurposed to do similar or more productive work if we had a more regulated industry and a government actually interested in keeping shit working. There would still be a private market for equipment, there'd still be a need for accounting and HR, etc. 

I'll tackle the second half of this post now. You fail to see how a couple hundred thousands of dollars and folks shopping for energy saving 20% offers a material benefit? 

Tell me where the energy traders get repurposed to if there's no energy trading? You'd like to "think" these folks get repurposed, but you dont know. Because let me tell you, REAGULATED entities don't have bustling PR deparments, social media departments, IT and tech development departments and the like because they don't have to, because they don't have competition. 

Again, you're conflating energy generation and retail electricity sales. I can't really help you understand that these things are completely unrelated in a practical day to day sense any more, man. 

[wildcat09 29556]

14 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Or I could ask this question a different way...The major cell phone providers don't own any of the cell phone towers. They rent space/bandwidth. Why do do have more than one cell phone provider? 

Funny you bring that up, I'm preparing for closings on some cell tower acquisitions for a client. That's basically how the industry works now, though legally speaking the carriers still own most of towers. Typically, Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile still own their towers but lease them to a tower operator, which then licenses tower space to all the carriers (and some other smaller customers).  There's a lot of different portfolio agreements between carriers and operators that give the operators an option to purchase the towers in the future, but I don't think any of those options are exercisable yet. But I'm not sure the industries are quite comparable because there are multiple operators that actually operate the towers that they market and the carriers license tower space to put their own equipment on the towers, they're not just buying an amount of airtime or data from a monopoly operator to sell to retail customers. I haven't thought through the comparison much and I've got to get some work done here, but this would be interesting to get into later.

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

30 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Define "catastrophe that makes what happened look like a stroll through the park."

We talking if the grid had gone down, the entire state would've been without power for weeks?

48 million people lost power in the 2003 blackout and total restoration took 4 days

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

[SydneyCarton 49325]

7 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Funny you bring that up, I'm preparing for closings on some cell tower acquisitions for a client. That's basically how the industry works now, though legally speaking the carriers still own most of towers. Typically, Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile still own their towers but lease them to a tower operator, which then licenses tower space to all the carriers (and some other smaller customers).  There's a lot of different portfolio agreements between carriers and operators that give the operators an option to purchase the towers in the future, but I don't think any of those options are exercisable yet. But I'm not sure the industries are quite comparable because there are multiple operators that actually operate the towers that they market and the carriers license tower space to put their own equipment on the towers, they're not just buying an amount of airtime or data from a monopoly operator to sell to retail customers. I haven't thought through the comparison much and I've got to get some work done here, but this would be interesting to get into later.

I mean, no industry is going to have a perfect overlap. But it's the best analog I can do on short notice for a practical item that folks use every single day. 

The real intent was for to separate the difference between Generation (Equipment Ownership) and Retail Electricity (Sales, Customer Service, Product Suite). You could try to make the comparison for the physical cell phone (apple, samsung, etc) as opposed to cell service providers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verison) as well, I suppose. But when a Galaxy phone blows up in someone's ear no one says "You know what, Fuck Sprint they should be out of business." 

Edited February 26, 2021 by SydneyCarton

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

18 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

 T-Mobile should probably not be in business. It's the same thing. 

T-Mobile is a German company that purchased Sprint and provides cell service worldwide.

100+ companies supporting 100000(?) jobs in Texas for a Texas-only grid (all parts of it) by analogy is like having 100+ companies with their own hardware on every "cell tower".

[Nivek 17330]

14 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've addressed this repeatedly all over this thread, but the retail electricity industry tangentially supports well over 100k jobs (direct employees (sales, marketing/pr, energy traders, accounting staffs, HR, operations, support staff), door to door sales, call center representatives venders and partnerships, and additionally folks who consistently shop the market pay about 20-30% less in electricity. It's also prompted massive innovation in a stagnant industry to improve customer service with shit like bill pay, online account portals, tracking usage, etc. None of that exists in other states, for the most part. 

 

El fenix disagrees but if you include all of the vendor and partnership relationships, I think deregulated electricity in Texas supports close to 200k jobs. 

And the reason you need lawyers is to protect yourself from lawyers.  

And the reason we need a complicated tax code is because TurboTax/Accountants need jobs too.   

The reason we need to subsidize cotton farming to to make military uniforms.  And the reason we subsidize sugar is because they are a vital industry in Florida even if they are not economical on the world market.    

 

 

 

[SydneyCarton 49325]

18 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

T-Mobile is a German company that purchased Sprint and provides cell service worldwide.

100+ companies supporting 100000(?) jobs in Texas for a Texas-only grid (all parts of it) by analogy is like having 100+ companies with their own hardware on every "cell tower".

Listen, Captain Pedantic, it's a fucking analogy. And again, the Texas Only Grid would be completely unrelated to Retail Electricity. Did you literally miss the multiple posts on this thread, including one on the last page, listing out the 10 or so other states that are on an interconnected gird that aren't independent? Just fucking stop it. And yeah, it's nothing like your analogy at all because there's no "hardware" required on the fucking energy generation plants for 100 different companies. They're fucking gas stations. They buy fuel and they re-sell it to their customers, and the more efficient and smart they are buying it and managing their business, or how clean and amazing their bathrooms are, and the how clever their commercials and advertising are is how they stay in business and fucking succeed. But you know what, fuck Buccees because they don't buy and refine their own gasoline or own oil reserves in the North Sea. Those shitheels clearly bring nothing to the market so put them out of business.  

Edited February 26, 2021 by SydneyCarton

[The Royal We 3090]

The existence of the retail electricity market in Texas is no doubt beneficial to consumers, I'm not sure there is a reasonable argument to be made to the contrary. 

Where I get hung up is that "deregulated" should not equal "no regulation at all."  i.e., if you want to sell power to the ERCOT grid, then you need to satisfy X, Y and Z AND we are going to come check on X, Y and Z periodically to ensure you are actually compliant.  I'm not a fan of all regulation, but when it comes to things like reliable electricity and safe drinking water then I think the free market has shown repeatedly that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing and reasonable regulation is necessary.

Edited February 26, 2021 by The Royal We

[SydneyCarton 49325]

2 minutes ago, The Royal We said:

The existence of the retail electricity market in Texas is no doubt beneficial to consumers, I'm not sure there is a reasonable argument to be made to the contrary. 

Where I get hung up is that "deregulated" should not equal "no regulation at all."  i.e., if you want to sell power to the ERCOT grid, then you need to satisfy X, Y and Z AND we are going to come check on X, Y and Z periodically to ensure you are actually compliant.  I'm not a fan of all regulation, but when it comes to things like reliable electricity and safe drinking water then I think the free market has shown repeatedly that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing and reasonable regulation is necessary.

Thank you. 100% this. The media and everyone else have done a horrible job not distinguishing between Retail Electricity and Deregulated Electricity. They get smashed together but they're completely independent. 

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

23 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

One benefit is creating a market for specific types of energy, e.g., renewables. Absent a retail market, one couldn't purchase "renewable only" plans, which do help promote growth in renewables. Also, hard to argue with some of the customer specific benefits you can get it thanks to some competition (e.g., online bill pay and usage tracking). 

I would like to purchase a solar plan from the farms in southern nevada, western arizona and eastern california, because at a national level that is the best use of that land for the united states.

[The Royal We 3090]

@SydneyCarton I think you've done a great job at explaining all of this and the REPs are getting unfairly crammed into the middle of this shit-smeared clown car.

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

14 minutes ago, Nivek said:

And the reason you need lawyers is to protect yourself from lawyers.  

And the reason we need a complicated tax code is because TurboTax/Accountants need jobs too.   

The reason we need to subsidize cotton farming to to make military uniforms.  And the reason we subsidize sugar is because they are a vital industry in Florida even if they are not economical on the world market.

you forgot corn.  big al out front shoulda told ya.

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

12 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

fuck Buccees because they don't buy and refine their own gasoline own oil reserves in the North Sea. Those shitheels clearly bring nothing to the market so put them out of business.  

welp, they are aggy after all.

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

10 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Thank you. 100% this. The media and everyone else have done a horrible job not distinguishing between Retail Electricity and Deregulated Electricity. They get smashed together but they're completely independent. 

95%? of Texans do not understand this.  They pay for electricity and everything behind that bill is irrelevant and unknown to them.  What percentage of Texas electricity customers have changed their "provider" in the last 10 years?  Why doesn't the MSM run stories on the FANTASTIC opportunity Texans enjoy to "shop" for electricity?  Why isn't their a public education campaign PAID FOR BY THE INDUSTRY ITSELF to educate Texans about the FANTASTIC opportunity they enjoy?

If they are independent, then why did the pubs squash a half-dozen-odd attempts to force "winterization" (i.e. capacity-market-like service-level agreements) which would only force cost (less profit) on the manufacturers?  the "providers" (traders/arbitragers/makeworkers) would simply be trading a product that was slightly higher-priced, right?  vistra et.al. would not be affected at all, right?

ok i will stop being an ass now.  but i'm still mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore.

[SydneyCarton 49325]

1 minute ago, Hagbard Celine said:

95%? of Texans do not understand this.  They pay for electricity and everything behind that bill is irrelevant and unknown to them.  What percentage of Texas electricity customers have changed their "provider" in the last 10 years?  Why doesn't the MSM run stories on the FANTASTIC opportunity Texans enjoy to "shop" for electricity?  Why isn't their a public education campaign PAID FOR BY THE INDUSTRY ITSELF to educate Texans about the FANTASTIC opportunity they enjoy?

If they are independent, then why did the pubs squash a half-dozen-odd attempts to force "winterization" (i.e. capacity-market-like service-level agreements) which would only force cost (less profit) on the manufacturers?  the "providers" (traders/arbitragers/makeworkers) would simply be trading a product that was slightly higher-priced, right?  vistra et.al. would not be affected at all, right?

ok i will stop being an ass now.  but i'm still mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore.

I mean, I'm sorry 95% of Texans don't understand this. I really am. We've only been at this for 20 fucking years now, but yeah, it's PROBABLY been in the best interests of certain parties that many customers don't understand this, particularly the poor and the elderly. How do you want me to answer any of your questions? I mean, I can't. Do I wish more people fucking got it? Absolutely. Who do I blame? I dunno. I figured it out when I was 23 years old. I don't remember a public education campaign explaining to me how buying gas or cell phones worked. I mean, I'm not sure what you think fucking ADVERTISEMENTS FOR ELECTRICITY PROVIDERS ARE other than, you know, telling people about what great fucking deals there are available. You think anyone controls what the media writes about other than clicks and views? Gosh, it's not like I haven't spent an inordinate amount of time on this thread the past 3-4 days doing my fucking best to explain to everyone how it fucking works. 

Yes, you need to fucking stop, because I know you're intelligent and you're continued conflating of shit is really starting to piss me off because at this point it's bordering on deliberate. I dont know how many other ways to explain to you that retail choice and energy generation are DIFFERENT FUCKING BUSINESSES. 

Quote

If they are independent, then why did the pubs squash a half-dozen-odd attempts to force "winterization" (i.e. capacity-market-like service-level agreements) which would only force cost (less profit) on the manufacturers?

Maybe you should start by explaining to me how the fuck Champion Energy, who owns no generation, is in any way related to politicians or energy generation companies and politicians that squashed winterization. Because I can't. BECAUSE THEY'RE COMPLETELY UNRELATED. You're railing about one fucking industry and and shitting on both, and I'm about to fucking rip your dick off and shove it in your fucking mouth. Why don't you explain about why Steve Sarkisian can't do a better job of recruiting starting Pitchers for the fucking baseball team. I'm going to fucking cut you. 

 

[elfenix 34658]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've addressed this repeatedly all over this thread, but the retail electricity industry tangentially supports well over 100k jobs (direct employees (sales, marketing/pr, energy traders, accounting staffs, HR, operations, support staff), door to door sales, call center representatives venders and partnerships, and additionally folks who consistently shop the market pay about 20-30% less in electricity. It's also prompted massive innovation in a stagnant industry to improve customer service with shit like bill pay, online account portals, tracking usage, etc. None of that exists in other states, for the most part. 

 

El fenix disagrees but if you include all of the vendor and partnership relationships, I think deregulated electricity in Texas supports close to 200k jobs. 

200k is 1.5% of all jobs in texas.  for electric middlemen and those who generate a substantial portion of their income from electric middlemen. which doesn't even serve the whole state.  and isn't generation or infrastructure maintenance.  1.5% of the people the average texan meets generate a substantial portion of their income from that market?  that's too high. 

also, your notion that motivated, intelligent, educated people wouldn't be able to find work elsewhere is just, well, i don't know what it is. 

Edited February 26, 2021 by elfenix

[TwiceHorn 31987]

48 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Funny you bring that up, I'm preparing for closings on some cell tower acquisitions for a client. That's basically how the industry works now, though legally speaking the carriers still own most of towers. Typically, Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile still own their towers but lease them to a tower operator, which then licenses tower space to all the carriers (and some other smaller customers).  There's a lot of different portfolio agreements between carriers and operators that give the operators an option to purchase the towers in the future, but I don't think any of those options are exercisable yet. But I'm not sure the industries are quite comparable because there are multiple operators that actually operate the towers that they market and the carriers license tower space to put their own equipment on the towers, they're not just buying an amount of airtime or data from a monopoly operator to sell to retail customers. I haven't thought through the comparison much and I've got to get some work done here, but this would be interesting to get into later.

I don't think it's a very good analogy.  The equipment that goes on the towers is still proprietary and owned and operated by the providers.  And there's a good bit of difference between the services offered by the operators.

While REPs are not just selling a similar product, they are selling an identical product and one that is wholly fungible.  I don't think there's a real good analogy out there for it.

One way to look at it I suppose is that you give retail power sales back to the generators or the local grid owners and that would actually increase the monopolization aspect of it.

And whether or not many people actually switch is not entirely relevant.  Even the availability of cheaper power or power purchased from renewables, or whatever, keeps something of a lid on prices.

[SydneyCarton 49325]

9 minutes ago, elfenix said:

200k is 1.5% of all jobs in texas.  for electric middlemen and those who generate enough of their income from electric middlemen that don't even serve the whole state.  1.5% of the people you meet generate a substantial portion of their income from that market?  that's too high. 

also, your notion that motivated, intelligent, educated people wouldn't be able to find work elsewhere is just, well, i don't know what it is. 

It might be high. But I'm also including vendors, partners, and things that tangentially make money of this market. Folks who sell behind at call centers, but try to sell multiple products in the moving industry. Independent door to door sales companies, indy commercial electricity brokers...there's a lot of things such as that. 

It's not that folks won't be able to find work elsewhere. It's just that shit takes time, and often is disruptive to lives. Do you think a glut of qualified professionals suddenly scrambling for substantially less jobs, almost certainly in different fields, is a great thing? Having to relocate to another state? Because I don't usually view it as healthy. And it's completely unnecessary, because as I've illustrated repeatedly retail electricity doesn't have a damn thing to do with the problems Texas has had the last couple weeks.

Intelligent, motivated folks who've really wanted work but been unable to find it has never been a real dilemma, right? If I really wanted to be a snarky asshole, I'd simply agree with you and post this:

https://findsomethingnew.org/

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by SydneyCarton

[elfenix 34658]

oh it would certainly be a disruption to pull the rug out now.   but had dereg retail not happened, most, if not all of them, would be happily and gainfully employed elsewhere, not having any idea that they could have been trading electricity.  you know, since we're talking about what benefit dereg retail electric has. 

[MoJames 8258]

Is there an argument going on right now about how many people make an income off of energy as though it should be considered when discussing those who died from not having power?

Granted I don't think you get rid of private energy in the state of Texas, but I don't think that is a good talking point.

[SydneyCarton 49325]

9 minutes ago, elfenix said:

oh it would certainly be a disruption to pull the rug out now.   but had dereg retail not happened, most, if not all of them, would be happily and gainfully employed elsewhere, not having any idea that they could have been trading electricity.  you know, since we're talking about what benefit dereg retail electric has. 

I mean, sure. If one of or even both the Winklevoss twins had beaten Mark Zuckerberg to death with a fucking cru oar, the world right now could arguably be a less divisive place. But I mean, if you kill Facebook now there's going to be a lot of disruption, and most of it really unpleasant.

Edited February 26, 2021 by SydneyCarton

[elfenix 34658]

3 minutes ago, MoJames said:

Is there an argument going on right now about how many people make an income off of energy as though it should be considered when discussing those who died from not having power?

independent REPs aren't the ones who didn't winterize anything and have no control over that.  we're discussing jobs due to the presence of REPs. 

Edited February 26, 2021 by elfenix

[elfenix 34658]

1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

and most of it really unpleasant.

[SydneyCarton 49325]

1 minute ago, MoJames said:

Is there an argument going on right now about how many people make an income off of energy as though it should be considered when discussing those who died from not having power?

Granted I don't think you get rid of private energy in the state of Texas, but I don't think that is a good talking point.

No, there's not an argument like that being made. But again, I've tried really hard to point out there are two completely separate businesses and industries, and only one is responsible for any of the misfortune of the last two weeks. Generalizing "Energy" is a big part of the problem here. 

To put make another crude comparison, it would be like talking about how the medical industry has failed and all the lost lives because of Covid, as if THAT's the problem. Or perhaps to blame the medical industry for the loss of lives for those that eat an unhealthy diet?

[MoJames 8258]

1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

To put make another crude comparison, it would be like talking about how the medical industry has failed and all the lost lives because of Covid, as if THAT's the problem. Or perhaps to blame the medical industry for the loss of lives for those that eat an unhealthy diet?

Nah we can just blame China on that one.

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

36 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm going to fucking cut you.

i said i stopped

[washparkhorn 9967]

18 minutes ago, elfenix said:

200k is 1.5% of all jobs in texas.  for electric middlemen and those who generate a substantial portion of their income from electric middlemen. which doesn't even serve the whole state.  and isn't generation or infrastructure maintenance.  1.5% of the people the average texan meets generate a substantial portion of their income from that market?  that's too high. 

agree - it's a Byzantine Rube Goldberg machine if that 1.5 percent number is correct (I understand Sydney was just ballparking).  Markets save money through efficiency (the current gold standard, until it isn't). 

 

[Hagbard Celine 11159]

my opinion: facebook disappearing overnight would be a positive for human civilization, although the disease it creates would just propagate elsewhere.

the jumping jesus number theorem did not envision the effect of stupidity on the road to the singularity.

[Bama Chick 28596]

I hope ProPublica and other good investigative journalists stay with this story.

Not letting the people forget about what happened is going to be key.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20834]

Texas Monthly is also going in without lube: