Unprecedented winter storm leaves millions without power in US

Lets hope we don't let politics really get in the way of handling the issue. Most people I'm sure will be ok for a while, but the more efficiently we can fix this, the better.

Here in Texas my electricity just came back on after being out for 30 hours. Temperature inside got down into the 30s while outside it was in the single digits. Trying to sleep last night without heating was miserable. Still snow and ice outside and we are expected to get more tonight.

These comments are absolutely disgusting so far maybe instead of pot shooting and pushing your options on science and the like have some sympathy for the 2.5 million with out power in below freezing temperatures

I love how one Fox news host started her attack on green energy. If you weren't paying close attention you would miss it but she says; "millions of Americans in the cold and dark are saying it's because of green energy policies." How do you not see how Fox is politicizing this when the senior director of electric reliability in Texas stated THE MAIN FACTOR was frozen oil, natural gas and nuclear infrastructure. And since when did millions of Americans saying something make something a fact or the truth? Good god what abysmal reporting 🤦‍♂️

As some one who lived in -40 weather, I hope the people affected can find a way to stay war and safe. I don't know how this was not taken into consideration when planning green energy sources like wind turbines.

Maybe God is pissed off? Or just Mother Nature.....

Blame the grid not the wind turbines that failed, ok.

There's a whole lot of $tup!d in texas obviously. https://www.rawstory.com/texas-republicans-2650547175/

God is pissed at how they hate gay people

Texas purposefully kept its grid separate to avoid federal regulations. And it undermaintained the grid to avoid eating into profits: "But thanks in part to deregulation passed in the early 2000s, the state's whole electricity and production system has been gone without many needed upgrades or maintenance, as investing in backup capacity or a rugged distribution system would have eaten into profits (and pricing rules make it risky to invest in extra capacity). "The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union," energy analyst Ed Hirs told the Houston Chronicle. "It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances." (To be fair to Texas, it is not the only state that has cheaped out on its power infrastructure.) That problem is compounded by the fact that ERCOT is largely disconnected from neighboring states. It is entirely contained within Texas (though a few remote regions are part of other grid systems) because the state wanted to avoid federal regulation during the New Deal. Where other states can and do buy large amounts of power from neighbors when disaster strikes, in Texas this is difficult because there are only a few connections to other states and Mexico." https://theweek.com/articles-amp/967062/what-texas-blackout-reveals-about-americas-climate-vulnerability?utm_source=links&tum_medium=website&utm_campaign=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

I'm in Dallas, Texas. A state of emergency (in my opinion) was unfornunately declared too late. The roads got bad very quick. We don't have plows, sand, or salt so we're all losing control of our cars to get essentials like food incase the power goes out, or go to loved ones when our the temp becomes below freezing. I'm very lucky to have not lost power but others haven't had power since Sunday afternoon. Shitty buisnesses refuse to shut down because they're "essential" and firing those who physically are unable to come to work despite the fact that nobody wants fast food right now. Have some respect for those who are struggling right now.

How much of this is due to the fact that Texas is on its own power grid and cannot easily share power between other states? Obviously the weather would have caused outages, but just wondering if having its own grid (and possible mismanagement) has caused this situation to be as bad as it is? I don’t know much about the Texas grid, but find it interesting that they have their own

Historic lows for weather. Dang you global warming for making it so cold. Oh my mistake now its called "climate change."

Power cuts in the most powerful country!?

You cannot rely on wind power to be there when you need it. This was good slap of reality

Good to see the red states getting hit hard and going down hard.

Yeah, we lost our wind generation, as the turbones froze over. That normally accounts for ~20% of our power, with the lion's share of energy in the state coming from Natural gas. We're mostly selling our oil at this point, but we still maintain some oil usage for our energy needs. Texas gets a storm like this roughly once a decade. The problem is actually dumber and more bureaucratic than most think. You see, it costs more to maintain the equipment required to clear roads and in some cases maintain winterization of various systems than it is to shut down the city for a week and rebuild/replace what breaks every 10 years. Some of these storms are worse than others, and people tend not to rely too heavily on government here, so it's our community that tends to come together in these times, much like we do during and after hurricanes. For a place that's never prepared for snow, Things are rough but we're doing ok for now, at least in my area north of Austin. Hopefully, this blows over soon.

"Global Warming" is being renamed to "Climate Change" until spring.

Probably beceuase of climate change

Go nuclear or go cold.