The DOE announces $1.5B for four transmission projects – including connecting the Texas grid to the Southeast grids for the first time ever.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announces $1.5B for four transmission projects – including connecting the Texas grid to the rest of the US for the first time ever.

The projects, spanning multiple states, will add nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission lines and increase grid capacity by 7,100 megawatts (MW). They’ll boost grid reliability, lower energy costs, and support the clean energy transition.

  • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
    2111·
    2 months ago

    I’m glad the non-assholes in Texas are going to see improvement from this, even if the Conservatives get to ride on their coattails.

    • ALQ@lemmy.world
      91·
      2 months ago

      I agree. As much as I’d love karmic retribution for the ones who deserve it, I don’t want it at the expense of the ones who don’t.

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5614·
      2 months ago

      I’m not, we’re bailing them out from their arrogant stupidity.

      They’re going to end up gaming us like Enron, selling power to us when it’s most expensive and taking it only when it’s free.

      Then eventually they’ll go back to playing games to make sure everyone in the country has brownouts they can profit off of.

      Never, EVER trust Texans in energy, they’re worse than the mafia.

      • mozingo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        434·
        2 months ago

        Okay, but I’d really like to not freeze to death this winter. I can’t afford to move right now.

        • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
          336·
          2 months ago

          Yeah but that’s always the way it is, and in the meantime everyone else suffers.

          I remember in 2006 when gas prices skyrocketed and there were Texas towns celebrating, I also remember enron fucking over California’s and bragging about how smart they were.

          I’d gladly donate to a fund to help people escape the south, it was brutal for me to get out and I had family, but they’re destroying the country.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 months ago

      Im from Texas and even die-hard Republicans hate ERCOT and the entire system. It’s one of the few areas where they aren’t brainwashed.

      When it gets cold, the power gets super expensive as they sit down plants. When it gets hot, the power gets super expensive as they shut down plants. If they’re anticipating a heat wane, they start shutting down plants for “maintenance” to drive up the price of power as demand peaks. They got too greedy in the last few years, and I think things may actually change.

      In Texas you can go attack women, LGBT folk, educators, non-Whites, Hispanics, Jews (but not Israel), children, and religous group that isn’t a hateful branch of Christianity. That’s all fine here.

      But don’t you fucking dare touch our air conditioning.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    32·
    2 months ago

    Texas fails its people routinely. All they do politically in the media is meant for distraction from that consistent fact.

    Wherever you see them talking about the border, abortion, voter suppression tactics, unisex bathrooms, Dr. Seuss, etc, remember this is really a distraction from things like ERCOT, a clear example of how they fail and can’t fix anything, even while Texans suffer and die avoidable deaths on a regular schedule now…

    Repeat after me everyone. ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ted cruz ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT greg abbot ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT louie gohmert ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCO ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT madison cawthorn ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT john cornyn ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT dan patrick ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT ERCOT

    So the ENTIRE western half of the United States is on one power grid and the ENTIRE East Coast is in another power grid. All that unity and then Texas decides, “nah man, not for me, iM a FrEeDuMbb!!!”

    So they have their own poorly designed and neglected power grid that is routinely failing, year after year - when it’s too cold and when it’s too hot. It has broken, aging equipment that they know needs to be replaced, yet they ignore things like proper winterizing to save on cost.

    If you recall any of the winter storms that froze Texas for weeks in the past several years? They lose their electricity, make weak attempts to blame it publicly on things like wind power and the border. That third Texas-centric failed power grid (the body that controls it) is called ERCOT.

    Early in the pandemic, ERCOT lost power for the whole state due to sustained, avoidable neglect of their equipment. After written warnings and a lack of safety regulation in Texas to force them to maintain. Then, while Texans were dying, literally freezing to death without access to food, fresh water or some medications, the coward ted cruz famously abandoned his constituents to try to sneak away to the Ritz Carlton in Mexico with his family to warm up a bit. When caught at the airport, he then blamed his daughter, changed his planned return flight to an earlier time and pretended that he was only dropping his family off. Then of course text messages came out later from his wife texting their wealthy neighbors basically saying, “who wants to go get warm at the Ritz with ted and me while these poor fuckers freeze to death?” (and yes, that is the same wife that trump publicly called ugly publicly, only for Ted to lick his lifted boots for the past decade). All of this was during the height of first wave COVID of course and with international travel restrictions still in force in many places.

    It eventually became clear that a good chunk of the ERCOT board members that made these decisions to neglect maintenance of equipment or risk it failing catastrophically don’t even live in the state (therefore don’t have to suffer any direct physical consequences of their actions). One lived in Indiana, another as far away as Germany. And all the while, Texans dying due to incompetence AND THEN THEY RE-ELECT their abusers. The same politicians listed above are the ones that don’t regulate (or deliberately remove safety regulations) to enable ERCOT’s heartless failure.

    Texas is a national embarrassm, they can vote to change that.

  • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
    30·
    2 months ago

    So another lose lose for the rest of us. Texas gets to mooch off of us when their third world grid can’t handle the load and tax payers have to pay for the connection.

  • Crackhappy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    345·
    2 months ago

    I don’t like saying this, but you reap what you sow. This is pretty on par with what all the Texans I know believe. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. If your bootstraps are missing then it’s definitely someone else’s fault.

    • Adori@lemmy.worldEnglish
      188·
      2 months ago

      Not everyone is ignorant in Texas, you blinded by hate smh. Over generalizing and wishing harm on your fellow man and even the innocent ones doesn’t make you better than them.

      • Stern@lemmy.world
        142·
        2 months ago

        Not everyone is ignorant there, just enough of a voting majority to absolutely fuck themselves in a wide array of ways, and by extension, fuck up the rest of the country to a small extent.

        • thoeb@lemmy.world
          62·
          2 months ago

          You are completely disregarding the amount of voter suppression that exists in Texas. Sure, the majority of folks that voted maybe wanted this, but that doesn’t mean the majority of Texans agree with it. Voter apathy is a thing, but there is nuance.

      • ThiccSemperTyrannis@lemmy.worldEnglish
        52·
        2 months ago

        What are you even talking about? Nobody insinuated any of the points in your comment. OP mentioned anecdotally that Texans they know present in a certain way. That certain way is basically co-opted by Republicans. Texas has a governor, two senators, and a 2-to-1 ratio of House reps that were VOTED IN BY TEXANS that are Republicans. The policy of energy independence pushed by these representatives elected by majorities has led to awful, yet predictable, outcomes. This is the very definition of the state reaping what it has sown.

  • redditron_2000_4@lemmy.world
    27·
    2 months ago

    Unfortunately this doesn’t say if they (Ercot) are going to comply with national regulations, which was apparently why they refused to connect in the first place.

    We Texans don’t need none of that safety or reliability forced down our throats! 🇵🇷the starts at night, are big and bright! 🇵🇷

    (I know that isn’t the Texas flag)

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      15·
      2 months ago

      I mean, it still could, there’s absolutely no way they’re (not for “just” 1.5b anyways) getting online with the rest of the grid in ~30 days

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
        8·
        2 months ago

        But they SAY they are. Then people vote for them again, they move the football out of the way, grandma freezes to death, and Charlie Brown falls on his ass.

  • Konala Koala@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    2 months ago

    I think hell already froze over in Texas since Greg Abbott and Cancun Cruz kept getting into power there over Beto O’Rourke.

  • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 months ago

    Isn’t it a bit late in the year to be doing this? Like is this because we all know there’s gonna be blackouts in the winter months. Will this be completed in time to prevent that?

      • ABCDE@lemmy.world
        197·
        2 months ago

        The 2nd best time would have been 19 years, 11 months and 29 days ago.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
      14·
      2 months ago

      Engineering and planning will probably take 2 years. Then years more for eminent domain and actual construction.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      6·
      2 months ago

      It’ll probably take years to actually action, it’s not like they can flip a switch, they need to build a ton of infrastructure on both sides to support this.