Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Thank you sir for the offer - it's much appreciated but we've been fortunate and won't need any assistance.

This is because modern society, TV, news, social media, puts so much emphasis on looking pretty and being youthful. We lock up our old people avert our eyes from aging and death. There's also the sense that with all our know-how and technology, we've earned a right to be somehow free from death or suffering, forgetting that human beings bleed when cut, and that we are mere dust motes - there are billions of us. The universe wouldn't think even once if one, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or even millions of us get crushed in an instant.

It's certainly scary to think of things in this way, but I also think it can be extremely liberating: there no need to be anyone. Anyone who is close to me in audio matters knows that I would much prefer to be seen as a clown taking infantile potshots at Sean Olive than establishing myself as anyone important.

One thing which I've found highly annoying through all this are the double-standards in the media. The news totally let Californians and their state government off the hook for the Woolsey and Paradise fires in 2018, blaming it all on the boogeyman climate change. Only after much of California burned again in 2019 did we start to see news articles and experts from NASA pointing to forest mismanagement and public regulators putting green power generation over power line safety as contributing factors to the fires.

With respect to the homes that burned down in my neighborhood during Woolsey. I am thinking half could have been prevented if nearby brush was cleared and palm trees were cut down. Of course no want likes to cut down beautiful trees. The local authorities sent letters to homeowners to clear the brush or the city will do it for them and bill them. However, those letters were empty threats. With respect to building code, none of these homes would have burned down had they had metal fireproof roofs built for this purpose. The problem is that these kinds are roofs are three times the cost of regular roofs. Our neighbors across the street who have lived there since the late 50s had a metal roof because they knew fires were a regular occurence.

I'm saying all this because I think it's funny how the news media never pointed out these things: on how Californians could have built better houses to survive forest fires, implemented stricter local regulations for clearing brush, prioritized power line safety before green power generation, better managed their forests. This for fires that have happened once every twenty years - at least for the areas near the Santa Monica Mountains from Agoura to Malibu.

Now when the once in a 120 year event in Texas occurs, the entirety of the Texas power infrastructure (own island, not federally regulated, true electrical market) is at fault. Sure there are things that can be made more robust - and there will be lessons learned from this event. But the likes of AOC should mind her own business in New York because Texans don't tell her what to do in her neighborhood.

 

BTW, this is something that I've recently learned. Texas is still the best power market in the union and possibly the world. The state pulled off what California tried to do in the late 90s. (California so mismanaged the effort, leading Governor Gray Davis to be recalled and replaced by the Governator. The machinations of Enron and Kenneth Lay didn't help either.).

There is no public monopoly on electrical power generation in Texas. I could literally buy 50 Honda gasoline power generators, hook them up to the grid, and wait until power demand hit peaks of $9000 to fire them up. Below is the wholesale market right now as a type this. It's a true supply and demand system with ERCOT being the referee. Right now, power is dirt cheap. In a handful of areas, putting power into the grid nets you negative money.



Consumers buy electricity from middle-men companies, of which there are hundreds of outfits, some respectable, some iffy (think some outfit run by Scarlett O'hara and Rhett Butler hiring ex-cons).

After this event, I would expect better processes for earlier identification of extreme weather events to increase power reserves and ensuring sufficient power generation was on standby - paying them to be on standby. The notion of winterizing power generation, particularly in south Texas is dumb. Long term, it may not even be an issue as more power generation capacity is being added by the day. And who knows with Elon Musk in Texas. If batteries become cheap enough, they would be a good way to ride out demand peaks. (Of course the unexpected would happen: the Tesla batteries would freeze over.)

I'm looking forward to Biden's visit next week, if he does visit. I hope he doesn't come off as an unempathetic dickhead scolding us about moar regulations and climate change when there is no evidence that global warming is responsible for this freeze.

Anyway, I thought the electrical market concept realized here in Texas was pretty awesome and I'm shocked that "government" could pull it off. As an ex-Californian, one thing that I am still getting use to is that Texas citizens (regardless of red or blue), demand more from their government and expect it to be accountable. Hey Mr. Newsom, how's that high-speed rail project going after $22B spent?

 

It's likely accurate.

As I mentioned, there are electricity middle-men (actually retailers) who are iffy, run by the likes of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.

Griddy offers "wholesale" variable rate spot pricing, passes that through, with markup and a monthly fee. As such, their customers, most of the time (96%) are going to reap electrical rates about 20% less (delivery costs are an extra handled by local monopolies) than most other providers. Griddy "assures" their customers that their rates will exceed $0.30 only 0.5% and $1.00 only 0.1% of the time. Unfortunately for their current customers, that small percentage of the time just occurred for a extended period this past week when wholesale prices went up to $9 per kWh. Griddy isn't being straightforward about it when they say "Wholesale beats the TX average 96% of the time" because they omit how they charge markup (is it fixed or is it a percentage) or what happens that other 4% of the time. Griddy instead offers simple graphs on their website downplaying the risks and highlighting their savings.

Think of signing up with Griddy like an APR loan, except with interest rates that can go between 2% and 1000%. Griddy does provide tools, smartphone apps, that inform their customers what their current rate is and their usage. It's not like they leave their customers totally in the dark.

I opted to sign up for a fixed-rate plan with a more honorable outfit run by a Jimmy Stewart type with good customer service ratings. This plan comes with a one-year contract. This longer term plan which has a higher rate than Griddy (most of the time) allows my provider to ride out the price fluctuations so that I do not have to.

The thing about Texas is that the state allows people to be stupid. Some people can't handle freedom. State Rep Gene Wu in that video has a good point in that the state should look into whether people are signing up for things which they do not understand.

Now before people go off on how evil Texas is for not being the guardian of dumb people, we only need to look at Silly Con Valley's Robinhood who never really informed their customers of the risks of margin buying, playing with derivatives, possible limitations on trading during unexpected high volumes, and their salami-slicing of customer transactions Richard Pryor styles in Superman 3 (nod to @Psalmanazar). Then again, the Millennials who lost money of GameStop seem to have been satisfied that they lost it for a good cause - taking it to man (little did they know that they got played by an inner circle of ex-traders at r/wallstreetbets).

 

That's a brilliant idea. With the kids getting older, having their own bathrooms, and wanting to take longer showers, I'm finding myself SOL more often with respect to hot water. I dislike turning up the heat because I know I will scald myself.

The first tank almost acts like a holding tank getting temps up to ambient. I'm sure it effectively will be in the summers.

 

Pretty much, but it goes both ways and even in the middle - toward moderates (sellouts, rinos, gutless, etc.). Heck, even water pipes' propensity to freeze in the winter gets politicized.

 

Well, I don't see things as having to be so black and white. It's the age-old argument of how much the state should be involved. Sure there is a side of me that would like to say, f**k these people, it's their fault because they are dumb. However, this isn't a very pragmatic approach. Lots of people suckered into $1600 to $16000 electric bills doesn't do a community any good. It's better to have people who can economically contribute to the community rather than people taken out of it because of monstrous bills from a predatory electric outfit. And let's face it, the Griddy website does a great marketing job while avoiding any disclosure of the real risks.

I found out that teen drivers in Texas are required to take a Impact Teen Driver course as part of their drivers education. The Impact course is like modern equivalent of Red Asphalt for those of you old enough to remember these films. The funny thing is that the Texas course is modeled after the work from the California non-profit, but unlike California, Texas actually made it mandatory.

The state doesn't need to prevent people from being stupid, but it can help educate people into not being stupid or require honest to goodness disclosures of the risks. Of course the state can also go too far: I'm pretty sure everything in California causes cancer per the Prop 65 warning.

 

My soon to be 16yo "wants to drive" sorta - in that we have to remind her if she wants to drive.

I guess it's different for kids these days. The smartphone is today is the driver's license of yesterday.