>the de-regulation of the power grid[0] allowed looser operating temperature tolerances.
Absolutely silly tolerances, mind you. Texas was colder in 1930.
> the wind turbine is absolutely an easy narrative to "blame someone else" instead of "us" being the problem.
It's not only an easy narrative. It's an easy picture. It's easy to imagine a wind turbine frozen stuck. It's harder to imagine how extreme cold affects, say, a nuclear power plant.
It's fundamentally populist because nobody has to explain how it works. It's also obviously wrong: there are wind turbines in Canada. It's the kind of thing that allows people to think they understand, without any deference to an authoritative source of information.
It's a low-trust theory that suggests a United States in transition to a low-trust society[1], and that's the worst part.
> It's harder to imagine how extreme cold affects, say, a nuclear power plant.
From what I can tell, there are only two nuclear power plants in Texas, providing about 2.5 GW of power. But one of them is currently shut down because of a problem with a feedwater pump:
> United States in transition to a low-trust society
Trust, like rainforests, is a resource that can be exploited, sold to the highest bidder, and destroyed. Leaving those who benefited from the externlities worse off.
You say "low-trust society" like it's a bad thing. And it probably is, at least the interpersonal trust that your reference cites. But it also makes the point that trust in government is much lower, which is much more deserved and less of a problem than interpersonal trust issues.
I wonder if there's any analogy to "zero-trust" in IT security[0] that seems to be all the rage now. Put another way, is it possible that the current situations could be a crucible that re-forms trust in a better way?
(Like building some sort of "trust but verify" culture, along with whatever technology and social institutions to facilitate.)
Sorry if that seems overly philosophical - just musing.
Absolutely silly tolerances, mind you. Texas was colder in 1930.
> the wind turbine is absolutely an easy narrative to "blame someone else" instead of "us" being the problem.
It's not only an easy narrative. It's an easy picture. It's easy to imagine a wind turbine frozen stuck. It's harder to imagine how extreme cold affects, say, a nuclear power plant.
It's fundamentally populist because nobody has to explain how it works. It's also obviously wrong: there are wind turbines in Canada. It's the kind of thing that allows people to think they understand, without any deference to an authoritative source of information.
It's a low-trust theory that suggests a United States in transition to a low-trust society[1], and that's the worst part.
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/the-state-of...