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Some areas of Texas, United States, suffered snow, ice and freezing rain since the night of February 14 local time. At one point, more than 4.5 million homes and businesses suffered power outages. At the highest price of electricity, the price of electricity soared almost 200 times and more than 14.9 million people were left without water. As the largest energy state in the country, why has Texas’ water and electricity supplies been interrupted for many days and not restored? A local mayor said, “The government owes you nothing,” which revealed the underlying cause of the chaos: the nature of the American system that serves capital.
People’s lives have gotten worse due to power outages
Texas is located in the southern part of the United States and has a temperate and subtropical climate, many infrastructures were built without considering the impact of the severe cold. Han Xinyang, director of the Power Grid Department of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, told reporters that the sudden low temperature in the region brought power spikes and the three types of natural gas, wind turbines and coal generators they were affected by freezing to varying degrees, and the total power gap was huge.
Under the extreme imbalance between supply and demand, electricity prices in Texas skyrocketed. Wholesale electricity prices exceeded $ 10,000 per MWh, equivalent to 65 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity, which was almost 200 times the usual rate. Some residents received sky-high prices from the utility company.
Large-scale power outages also disrupted heating supplies. Many people in disaster-affected areas had to choose to burn firewood for heating and accidents occurred frequently. At least 14 people, including 7 children, were reportedly poisoned by carbon monoxide in Harris County, Texas alone.
In recent days, despite the gradual restoration of electricity supply, the water cut remains very serious. From insufficient water pressure to a complete shutdown of the water, the water supply system in many places did not work normally due to bursting of the water pipes due to low temperature.
As of the afternoon of 19 local time, more than 1,300 public water supply systems in Texas had interrupted the water supply and more than 14.9 million people were without water. In Houston, bottled water at the local grocery store has been stolen and people can only drive to the government designated place to collect bottled water.
Profit-seeking capital and energy states have become “electric islands”
A severe cold exposed the fact that it is difficult for ordinary people to pay attention: As an energy state, Texas is an “electric island.”
“Texas only retained direct current with a total capacity of 1.25 million kilowatts connected to the out-of-state grid, which was less than 2% of the total electricity load this time, and it was just a drop in the bucket at the in the face of emergencies, “Han Xinyang said.
In Texas, the overall aging of the electrical grid infrastructure is prominent, with 30% of the equipment in service for more than 20 years. Many experts believe that the failure of the government and energy departments to upgrade power generation and transmission facilities for protection against the cold is the “man-made disaster” that caused the blackout.
In 2011, a similar cold current hit Texas and caused a blackout. However, the Texas government knew that severe cold would threaten the electrical system, but left it up to private power companies to decide whether to upgrade equipment, and as a result, most companies did not do so due to cost considerations.
Private equity and profit-seeking attributes are the genes of America’s power grid development. These private power companies will naturally not spend more to upgrade utility grid equipment for occasional extreme weather conditions, nor will they actively merge with power grids in other regions and lose their unique “fat.” After all, electricity prices can be temporarily increased when there is a power shortage. Compared to tangible profits, what is public hunger and freeze?
In recent years, China has continuously increased investment in power grid infrastructure and has continued to make progress in building a strong and world-class smart grid. Power grids at all levels have already made the transition from “village to village” to “house to home”. Statistics show that China is one of the countries with the cheapest residential electricity bills in the world, and the safety margin of home network operation is significantly higher than that of Western countries. When there is a problem with the home power grid, the management principle is to focus on the people, first to ensure the cooling and heating and people’s living and production needs, which is in sharp contrast to the capital seeking characteristics of the US water supply and power supply system.
During this year’s Spring Festival, the State Grid ran smoothly and the average daily power generation nationwide increased by 1.73% year-over-year. Many electric power workers stick to production and operation positions, rushing to substations and special line patrols to ensure the safe and stable operation of electrical grid equipment and a reliable power supply.
Ignoring people’s suffering highlights the failures of the capital-centered system
A lot of Texans experiencing power and water outages are struggling in the cold winter, but Austin, the capital of Texas, hosted a “Tale of Two Cities”: Downtown is brightly lit and neighboring communities they are completely dark.
Colorado, Texas Mayor Tim Boyd posted on social media: “We don’t owe you or your family anything. The local government’s responsibility is not to help you in times of trouble. People without electricity or water. You should find one. way to survive yourself instead of being lazy and waiting for others to save. ”Around the same time, Texas Senator Ted Cruz was exposed to flying to Cancun, a Mexican tourist destination with his family.
“These words and deeds precisely reflect the cruel nature of the capitalist system, which believes in the law of the jungle and the supremacy of interests,” said Li Qingsi, a professor at Renmin University of China and deputy director of the Center for American Studies. The families of ordinary people suffer and the city center and wealthy areas are not affected, clearly showing the local government’s position to serve the capital, not the people.
In the prevention and control of last year’s epidemic, flood prevention and disaster relief and poverty alleviation, the Communist Party of China has always insisted that the people are supreme, life is supreme, address difficulties and turn crises into opportunities, fully demonstrating the advantages of China System and winning the people’s sincere support. The broad popular masses feel deeply that when storms strike, strong party leadership and the authority of the party’s central committee are the strongest backing.
On the other hand, the United States, as the most powerful country in the world, has been constantly defeated in the face of the epidemic, causing great losses to ordinary people. Faced with power and water outages caused by the cold stream, government officials can ignore the abnormal deaths of dozens of people. Reality and publicly stating that “the government does not owe you” … In America, these things are like a series of chaos under the new crown epidemic, and people have become commonplace. Li Qingsi said that for a long time, because the United States is economically strong, it seems to have held the heights of moral command in the international community and become a “beacon” that the world admires, so that the cruel side of its El system has been hidden and even embellished. When disaster strikes, these deep-seated contradictions that have existed are fully exposed and teach people a vivid lesson.Return to Sohu to see more
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