Originally Posted by
DEAR _JOHN
Blame Texas for opening up the electric energy with deregulation back in 2001. Back then Houston Lighting and Power owned their own power plants and they were responsible for their area only. When deregulation hit, HL and P sold all their power plants and NRG (Reliant) bought a bunch of them. So instead of HL and P (Center Point) having all the power plants, wires, and meters, they now just have the wires and meters. A vast majority of the blackouts were done by someone on a computer picking and choosing what substation and circuit had power. I did read where STP (nuclear plant near Bay City) had one of it's two plants down. Once that one got back online, the city of Austin, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and the greater Houston area were delivered many more Mw's
I dealt with Center Point and ERCOT on a daily basis and I can safely say that the people from ERCOT didn't think their shit stank. Well I guess this cluster fuck we just went through proves that we need another company to handle the flow of electricity in most of Texas. The best thing we can do is get more nuclear plants and go back to pre-deregulation days where each utility has their own area and is responsible for everything from power plants to meters. One thing mentioned before deregulation, when they were really trying to sell it, is that the electricity would be too cheap to meter. I still laugh at that.