Chris Tomlinson: How the Grid Failed Texans
March 18, 2021
Chris Tomlinson is an energy writer for the Houston Chronicle.
(Pro tip, if you want to follow energy issues, you really should subscribe. It’s become indispensable to me)
There are so many nuggets from my interview with Chris following the Valentine’s Day Blackout Debacle, that I had to spend some extra time picking thru them.
One thing I wanted to understand was how it was that so many Texans have gotten enormous power bills following a week where many of them actually lost power for a significant period of time. Chris gave me the best explainers for that, and I post those here.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
March 18, 2021 at 6:44 pm
The economics of desperation can be wonderfully profitable– providing electricity to people who have no alternative source to go is just like providing travel documents to people who need to escape persecution: your customer will pay (and promise) anything to get what they need. In the end, it’s just like health care: if it’s treated as a market- driven, economic project, the rich get wonderful service, the poor die– and many in the middle go bankrupt.