- When Tesla CEO Elon Musk moved to Texas earlier this year to escape regulations and taxes, he couldn’t have predicted a cold snap that brought the state’s infrastructure to its knees. In a tweet this week, he lashed out at the state’s energy agency, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), quipping that the body is “not earning that R.”
- The historic deep freeze caused several persistent blackouts, plunging roughly four million Texans into darkness. ERCOT is now being investigated by TX Gov Greg Abbott, who called the company “anything but reliable” in a Tuesday announcement on Twitter. Compounding the trouble, Texas had previously shut itself off from the rest of the country’s electricity grid so wasn’t able to import power to keep its inhabitants from freezing to death.
- That also means Texas isn’t beholden to federal regulations — one of the qualities that drew Musk to the Lone Star state in the first place. A whole decade ago, grid regulations warned Texas that its power plants wouldn’t be able to survive plunging temperatures, as Bloomberg reports.
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Categories: Business, Government, Infrastructure
Economic Left 
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