The news continues to report on the problems in Texas. But why is Texas being hit so hard when the colder areas just north of there seem to be surviving?
Well, there a lot of reasons, including the fact that they don’t often get weather like this in Texas so they had not designed the place to work in these conditions. That’s why we talk about climate change these days, not global warming – because the effect we see is weather extremes, not warmer days.
But one of the things that is behind the electricity problems is treating electricity supply as a market place, and a deregulated one at that.
We hear about people not having electricity – but we are not seeing reports here about the effect of the deregulated electricity market on the people that still have supply.
The TV programme “Law and Order” had an episode recently that had a scenario where suppliers shut down power plants to raise prices. You see some contracts have variable rates per kWh. And as electricity gets in short supply the cost rises. Some contracts pass this on to the consumer.
So there are now people with electricity that cannot afford it. Some bills are doubling, and there are even people with bills in the thousands of pounds.
So the next time you hear about “getting rid of red tape” remember red tape is what stops us ending up like Texas.