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Comment by newbie789 | Hacker News Reader

So, to answer my specific questions

1. So basically, this is the worst winter in the history of Texas to such an extent that nobody could have possibly predicted this?

That sucks.

2. Can you answer my question about the spot price increase? What does that accomplish in immediate terms?

As a sub-question, the article that I'm asking about says that electricity generators haven't been able to make money for over a decade. Why have they been providing this for free (or worse at a loss!) for so long? That sounds like some top-notch philanthropy! Is this an issue of the private company providing electricity at a loss statewide for so long that they can't stand the financial hit of maintaining their systems when strained for more than a couple days?

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> So basically, this is the worst winter in the history of Texas to such an extent that nobody could have possibly predicted this?

It's a bad winter, but not "nobody could have possibly predicted this" bad. Some cities are breaking records, but quite a few haven't. For example Austin's Tuesday low of 7F is cold, but not quite as low as the record from December 23rd 1989 (6F). San Antonio recently tied their all time low from December 22nd 1990. Obviously "coldest winter in 30 years" is quite the statement, but it's still well within living memory and not the distant past. Chances are most of the policy makers and system designers for the TX energy system personally remember the winters of 1989 and 1990.

There's also a 2011 report recommending that TX winterize its power systems in case this exact thing happened. So at least back in 2011 energy experts saw this as a distinct possibility.

>So basically, this is the worst winter in the history of Texas to such an extent that nobody could have possibly predicted this?

More like "to the extent that people who were actually accountable for how money was spent couldn't justify spending the money to hedge against it".

Could you justify to your boss spending 5% per year on a project to hedge against something that happens every 50-100yr and has a 10% chance of really screwing you when it does? Exactly this but applied across every utility in an entire state.

Know-it-alls on the internet, love to tell other people how to spend their money but the real world is more complex and doesn't have the luxury of hindsight.

Plus they are not really screwed, they lost 5 days revenue from not being able to pump/generate, surely at elevated prices - but these businesses will not feel this event in a negative way on their annual report

I could for a 10-20 year contingency, particularly if lost property and lives were my liability (which they should be for this case).

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