Friday, November 1, 2024

Minus FJ's Tinfoil Hat Is Insanely Stylish


"Why would the government be so concerned with banning gas vehicles and gas stoves and changing everything to electric?"...

This is a meme the far right bl0gger Minus FJ linked to in a recent comment on his bl0g. The comment says that he wants the United States to abandon electric vehicles.

His fear (as per the meme) is the US government's plan to get Americans bigly dependent on electricity. So they can use the power grid as a way to control The People. "Do what we want or we will turn off the power". Power outages cause great economic damage. Power outages result in people dying.

Is this what happened in Texas in February of 2021? The "official" story is that the power outage in Texas was caused by inclement weather. rightturds placed the blame on green energy. The main culprit (in their delusions) was frozen wind turbines.

But what if placing the blame on "three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11" was a convenient excuse? One those in charge used to test run their ability to "turn off" the power and cause mass suffering among the citizens of Texas?

The g00gle AI Overview says "The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) ordered power cuts to millions of customers to maintain grid stability". There you go... they did it on purpose. They admit it! The excuse being that they didn't want the power grid to fail, which would have been a bigger disaster. So they had no choice.

Yet, they DID do it on purpose. Were the power cuts to millions of customers during extremely cold weather really necessary to "maintain grid stability"? That sounds plausible, but could also be a lie. When it comes time to implement the plan to cut power to maintain control of the citizens of Texas -- they now have the data concerning how such an action would play out.

An estimated 246 to 702 deaths can be attributed to the cold and the power outages. The cost of the power grid "failing" is estimated to have been around $195 billion. The next time the power is turned off it could be much worse. With this threat being held over their heads The People will certainly comply with whatever orders the government issues.

If I was a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic, I absolutely might believe that. As opposed to blaming incompetence. "While some state officials initially blamed frozen wind turbines and solar panels, data showed that the primary cause was the failure to winterize power sources, principally natural gas infrastructure. The drop in power production from natural gas was more than five times greater than that from wind turbines" (response from the Perplexity AI).

But the tinfoil-hat-wearing Minus FJ goes with the "blame green energy" conspiracy theory. Of course. He says (regarding the people who died in Texas) "those deaths were caused by the luxury value of green energy being imposed by elites upon Texans".

That's false. Texas politicans libertarin approach to Texas power grid infrastructure caused the crisis (see debunk below). That the crisis can be attributed to the "luxury value" of Green Energy is complete bullpucky.

Debunked! The Green Energy "luxury value" (imposed on the citizens of Texas by elites) did not cause the deaths of Texans during the 2021 Texas power grid crisis.

Perplexity: ...there were warnings before the 2021 Texas power crisis that were largely ignored by the Texas legislature and regulators. Here are the key points...

1. Warnings from 2011: After a similar winter storm in 2011, a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned that more "winterizing" of power infrastructure was necessary. The report stated that more thorough preparation for cold weather could have prevented the outages in 2011.

2. Lack of follow-up: Ed Hirs, an energy fellow and economics professor at the University of Houston, stated: "This should have been addressed in 2011 by the Legislature after that market meltdown, but there was no substantial follow up". The state politicians and regulators essentially continued with "business as usual".

3. Voluntary guidelines: Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, acknowledged that there was no requirement to prepare power infrastructure for extremely low temperatures. The winterization guidelines were voluntary, not mandatory.

4. Limited regulations: Texas' decision not to require equipment upgrades to better withstand extreme winter temperatures left the power system unprepared for the winter crisis.

5. Isolated Grid: Texas' choice to operate mostly isolated from other grids in the US also contributed to the system's vulnerability.

6. Insufficient improvements: While some generators implemented new winter practices after the 2011 freeze, and new voluntary "best practices" were adopted, these efforts were "not sufficient to keep these generators online" during the 2021 storm.

In summary, the Texas power grid was not adequately prepared for extreme winter weather despite clear warnings from the 2011 incident. The legislature and regulators failed to mandate necessary winterization measures, instead relying on voluntary guidelines. This lack of mandatory preparation, combined with Texas' isolated grid system, left the state vulnerable to the severe winter storm in 2021.

IMO, what happened in Texas is that Texas's Libertarian approach to their power grid killed Texans. Though Perplexity says "while the Texas approach to its power grid does have some libertarian-leaning aspects, however, it would be an oversimplification to characterize it as purely libertarian or to directly attribute the 2021 power crisis solely to libertarian ideology". This, Perplexity says, is a more nuanced analysis.

I'm not buying it. I say it absolutely was libertarianism that cost upwards of 720 lives and 190 billion dollars. That, or Texas "turned off" the power on purpose as a dry run for when they'll do it again to control Texas citizens. I think that totally is something the psycho murdering Governor Greg Abbott would do.

btw, gas stoves and gas vehicles have not been banned. They will not be banned. Efforts will focus on phasing out gas-powered vehicles. While (eventually) the goal is to prohibit the manufacture of gas powered vehicles, any such nation-wide ban is far off in the future. And gas stoves have definitely not been banned.

Post authored by the Liberal/Progressive Leftist blogger Dervish Sanders, a Proud Harris-Voter. wym330.

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