The pipes froze and the generators went offline, and just like that 7000 MW of electricity suddenly ceased flowing across the state.
That's 8% of our generating capacity in the second most populous state in the US, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was forced to for the second time since 2006 declare an electricity emergency and institute the rolling blackouts starting at 5:45 AM .
Instead of doing the logical thing and splitting Texas between the eastern and western US power grids, the state is on its own electric grid, so that compounded the problem. While one electric portal was opened to get excess power from Louisiana, guess where we had to get the rest of the power to make up the 7000 MW shortfall from?
Si. Mexico.
MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Mexico's state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages.
Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission "was determined to support Texas with electrical energy faced with the problems the state is suffering due to climatological conditions," a statement said."
Yep, the same nation that Rick Perry and his merry band of Tea Klux Klan wannabe secessionists demonized in the recent gubernatorial campaign. The same nation whose immigrants Texas owes for the population increase during the last decade that helped it gain three of the four congressional seats the state picked up, with the fourth seat being courtesy of Hurricane Katrina evacuees from Louisiana who stayed here.
Rolling blackouts in Houston, the city considered the energy capital of the planet and during Super Bowl Week in Dallas-Ft.Worth. ERCOT claims that rolling blackouts won't been necessary today, but we'll see.Proven conservative leadership at its finest.
To all you peeps that voted GOP in the last election and kept the Republicans in power in Austin to continue mismanaging the state because you are clueless and hate non-whites, chew on the delicious irony that your heaters and every appliance in your homes are being run on electricity produced in Mexico until the repairs are made on the offline generators.
One of the things I have not liked about the move back to Texas is that in this deregulated electricity market, I've experienced more blackouts since I've been back home than in the entire 8 years I was living in Kentucky. The ones I experienced there in 2004 and in 2009 were all severe weather related.. My power stayed on during a nasty ice storm weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ike knocked us offline..
The only thing thats making this lemon situation remotely humorous is the fact that the conservafools don't want to accept Mexican immigrants, but will accept their electricidad.
