“They’re going to put our grid at risk because of the power they’re drawing,” said state Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio) at a public hearing on June 12.
For more than six hours, senators on the Business and Commerce Committee pressed grid operators, public utility commissioners and representatives from industries, including manufacturing, oil and gas and cryptocurrency. Chief among legislators’ concerns was the massive growth in energy demand on the state’s main electrical grid, which is estimated to go from a peak demand of about 85,000 megawatts last year to 150,000 megawatts in 2030, according to estimates from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
It’s always wild to me how this free market small government shit comes back around and ends up being everybody else’s responsibility once the bills come due.
It gets harder and harder every year to maintain any level of empathy for the people that are stuck in places like Texas where they can’t even maintain a functional power grid to help their citizens survive through the effects of the climate crisis.
I want to continue to be a good person and care about other humans but it’s exhausting.