You've seen the movies where someone is being choked or drowned and they are gasping for breath.
Now imagine you are a machine -- and the grid suddenly goes down. It creates total panic.
If you were watching the superbowl - you probably didn't notice. But a lot of other Texans did. Here's what happened.
The critical-care hospital safety nets for North Texas - Parkland, Baylor, Methodist, and Presbyterian Dallas - all endured rolling blackouts during the days of teen temperatures the first week of February. Sure the hospitals had back-up systems in place, but it took precious minutes and seconds to get everything back up and running when they switched from the power grid to the power generators. Manual ventilation of respiratory patients was required, and once the generators kicked in, resetting of vital-care machinery was necessary. Doing this for 15 minutes at a time in a rotating cycle created chaos in the hospitals!
But the NFL got their pass from the inconvenience imposed on the peons, and the Superbowl continued on schedule! No warning, no nothing. People woke up shivering in cold, dark houses with temperatures in the teens. Folks on ventilators in the hospitals woke up gasping.
God help you if you were sick, in intensive care, in surgery, or were going through dialysis at the time. Twenty dialysis patients had to have their blood hand-pumped back into their bodies. Operating rooms went dark in the middle of surgeries. One death of a hospital patient has been attributed to the blackouts.
ERCOT personnel were frustrated. "We just needed earlier warning," one administrator complained. (Obviously the Weather Channel is not on their cable channel line-up.) Energy companies got 30 minutes warning before the rolling blackouts commenced. Texas residents endured outages from 20 minutes to an hour, had power restored for 30 minutes, and then started the cycle all over again.
But it wasn't just the power grid that was affected. The blackouts contributed to drops in pressure in natural gas lines in parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and gas furnaces that were run by electrical thermostats shut down. Once power was restored, the gas lines couldn't handle the resultant surge in usage as hundreds of gas furnaces fired up.
Capitol Hill Is Looking For Answers
Texas state agencies and power industry executives met on Capitol Hill Monday, February 14th, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Texas's electric grid is separate from the rest of the country and not generally subject to federal regulations. However, there are still certain federal standards that have to be met to insure reliable delivery of electricity to consumers.
Many Texans believe that deregulation has contributed to the shoddy power grid and service that they receive. They think that greedy executives have created conditions where the consumer is pretty much at the mercy of whatever winds of fate ERCOT throws their way.
The thing is, America can do better than this. Any state in the union can do better than this. If power companies in the North can generate enough electricity to keep things running in sub-zero temperatures, surely Texas can figure out a way to keep the electricity flowing when the temperatures dip into the teens.
However, we may not have a chance to see what innovations we can come up with because of the Environmental Protection Agency. There will soon be a showdown between the EPA and House Republicans over the EPA's insistence that it has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases of any kind due to global warming. No matter that Congress tossed Cap and Trade on its head. No matter that this pseudo-science has been proven to be a hoax time and time again. Global climate change is the holy grail of the elitists, and the dogma will not die quietly or quickly.
This administration wants to shut down coal-fired plants. They do not want to invest in newer technologies that include nuclear power and clean coal. We can export all these resources and technology to every country in the world, but the peons in the United States are not worthy of the access.
That's Why You Should...
... have your own back-up system. Part of living off the grid and becoming self-reliant is knowing that you have the ability to direct your own fate, that you don't have to be subjected to the ill winds that toss and turn others who allow themselves to be led and manipulated.
To learn more about a simple solar solution to this problem CLICK HERE.
