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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer

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Speaker 1: Paul Mission control of decades. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know. As always, this these episodes are

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Speaker 1: for all our fellow conspiracy realists out there. Today's episode

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Speaker 1: is especially for our friends and family in Texas and

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Speaker 1: for all your friends and family in Texas as well. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is an ongoing situation. It's kind of it's kind

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Speaker 1: of wild, to say the least. We've been on an

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Speaker 1: infrastructure kick lately, ever since our earlier strange news segment

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Speaker 1: about that hacker in Old Smar, Florida. You know, the

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Speaker 1: one who uh tried to poison the city with lie

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Speaker 1: I believe it was, which apparently is a thing that

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Speaker 1: goes in water in some small amount and he just

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Speaker 1: upped the anteam yep. And then we talked about the

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Speaker 1: Brian that gets produced that maybe radioactive. No, it is

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Speaker 1: radioactive in making energy from fracking and other processes. Who

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Speaker 1: new infrastructure could be so terrifying and fascinating and still

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Speaker 1: so boring. That's why, that's why it's a sleeping giant

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Speaker 1: of conspiracy, corruption, and problems. Like, if you're reporting for

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Speaker 1: a news site, you know that a story about infrastructure

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Speaker 1: probably won't get you a ton of clicks or eyeballs.

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Speaker 1: If you are running for office, railing about the danger

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Speaker 1: of failing infrastructure probably isn't good to do much to

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Speaker 1: help you get elected. And if you do fix this stuff,

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Speaker 1: people will usually not bother to acknowledge or thank you

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Speaker 1: for maintaining or fixing it, not because they're being dicks,

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Speaker 1: but because infrastructure, when it works, becomes invisible. Right. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of like when you have to buy new tires

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Speaker 1: for your car, or like a new battery that's like

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Speaker 1: the least sexy fun purchase ever. You just resent it

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Speaker 1: because it's just supposed to work, and when it doesn't,

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Speaker 1: it makes you angry, and then you're resent having to

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Speaker 1: spend the money. But then you know it's nice when

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Speaker 1: it does work, but then you forget all about it. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: We only notice this stuff or care about it when

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Speaker 1: it breaks, when the lights don't come on, when you

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Speaker 1: flip the switch, when the water doesn't come out of

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Speaker 1: the faucet, when you turn the knob, and then immediately

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Speaker 1: we scramble for someone to blame. It is boring as

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Speaker 1: hell to be prepared. But if you ask any boy,

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Speaker 1: scout or any text in nowadays, they'll tell you being

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Speaker 1: prepared can save lives. Our story today is about the

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Speaker 1: ongoing winter storm crisis in Texas. Here are the facts

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Speaker 1: to figure out what happened. Uh. You know, first, this

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Speaker 1: storm was not restricted to Texas. It hit parts of

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Speaker 1: northern Mexico. It hit huge swaths of the US and

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Speaker 1: the rest of the North American continent. But Texas had

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Speaker 1: a unique situation due to their power grid. And there's

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Speaker 1: an old story behind this, right, a story that begins

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Speaker 1: in Texas in the dawn of the previous century. In

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Speaker 1: the years following the construction of the first US power

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Speaker 1: plant by Thomas Edison in Manhattan, in two small plants

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Speaker 1: started popping up. I guess maybe that's where plants came from,

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Speaker 1: because they're like plants popping up around different areas of

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Speaker 1: the nation. Including Texas, and as time went on, these

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Speaker 1: utilities began to become interconnected to one another. UH. And

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Speaker 1: the phenomenon on of this interconnectedness accelerated during the First

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Speaker 1: World War because it was necessary absolutely and expansion continue

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Speaker 1: more and more folks living further and further away from

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Speaker 1: city centers. And guess what in World War Two, that

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Speaker 1: expansion continued and the interconnectedness grew more connected, solidified. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what we can want to call it connecting? Yes, yes, um.

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Speaker 1: And something else interesting happened during the World War two

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Speaker 1: times here in the US, specifically out Texas Way, UH,

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Speaker 1: utilities there in Texas began joining together to ben you've

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Speaker 1: written in the outline here vultroning up. And I love

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Speaker 1: that that concept of all of the different plants and

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Speaker 1: electrical mini grids. They're just vultron ing to become one giant.

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Speaker 1: What's what's bigger than a mega watt or kill a

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Speaker 1: watt giga watts power rangering up, becoming a megatron of sorts, right,

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Speaker 1: or they assembled the Avengers. Look, we we spend a

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Speaker 1: lot of time. Yeah, So they formed something collectively known

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Speaker 1: as the Texas Interconnected System. Let's call it the t

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Speaker 1: I S for the sake of brevity. This had some

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Speaker 1: tremendous advantages in the beginning, both for the businesses and

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Speaker 1: for the customers. First, it allowed these this network really

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Speaker 1: allowed for the transmission of extra electricity to these factories

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Speaker 1: that have massively ramped up production for the war effort.

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Speaker 1: They're working around the clock. You gotta feed the machine.

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Speaker 1: But second, in the longer term, it allowed these utilities

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Speaker 1: to link to ginormous dams along Texas rivers. And this

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Speaker 1: is this is where our first plots starts. So for

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Speaker 1: a very long time, this t I S was actually

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Speaker 1: a group name for two distinct entities, one in northern Texas,

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Speaker 1: one in southern Texas. They were different, but they worked

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Speaker 1: together because they were on the same page about pretty

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Speaker 1: much everything. They had one primary ulterior motive, and it

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Speaker 1: was not to provide the best service to customers watch rights.

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Speaker 1: Their ulterior motive was to stay independent from larger oversights,

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Speaker 1: avoid the constraints and big brotherhood and those silly regulations

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Speaker 1: that come in at the federal level, which is a

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Speaker 1: thing kind of at the heart of like Texas history, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're they've always kind of threatened to secede

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Speaker 1: from the Union or formed their own you know, mega

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Speaker 1: state or whatever. Um. It seems to be that that

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Speaker 1: autonomy and that fear or resentment of big government is

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Speaker 1: very much ingrained into the history of the state of Texas.

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Speaker 1: And remember another thing, there's a reason it's called Texas

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Speaker 1: t oil. That is, there's a reason. It's because that's

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Speaker 1: a resource that is all over the place in Texas

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Speaker 1: and has been for a long time. And that meant

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Speaker 1: that being independent from the other larger systems across North

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Speaker 1: America was easier for Texas, right because they've got so

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Speaker 1: much natural energy already existing there soil. Also, they don't

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Speaker 1: want anyone coming in and drinking up their milkshake, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they've got Texas is a resource rich state in a

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Speaker 1: resource rich country. Uh, they don't just have oil, they

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Speaker 1: have natural gas and coal, and natural gas plays a

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Speaker 1: big part in today's story. There was really interesting study

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Speaker 1: I read a number of years ago about which US

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Speaker 1: states could function autonomously like with like just in terms

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Speaker 1: of providing resources for the people who already lived there

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Speaker 1: than geopolitical about it. And you know, California is on

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Speaker 1: that list, but Texas is on that list. Too. It's

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Speaker 1: a big, big place with a lot of stuff, very

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Speaker 1: climate um you know, a ton of agriculture as well.

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Speaker 1: So with all this, with all these resources already at

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Speaker 1: their fingertips, the powers that be in Texas were able

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Speaker 1: to fuel their power plants with in state resources. This

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Speaker 1: was very important because it meant that they had encapsulated

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Speaker 1: this industry all within the state lines. On both ends.

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Speaker 1: They were kind of think of it as like growing

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Speaker 1: or harvesting their own power. And then they were also

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Speaker 1: only sending it to places in Texas. That's the way

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Speaker 1: they wanted it because otherwise Uncle Sam gets involved and

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Speaker 1: makes you do silly things like be prepared. Back in

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Speaker 1: back in Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, who was the president at

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Speaker 1: the time, signed something called the Federal Power Act into law.

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Speaker 1: This gave an outfit called the Federal Power Commission the

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Speaker 1: ability slash mandate to oversee all interstate electricity sales. The

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Speaker 1: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission replaced it, and that they currently

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Speaker 1: handle all this stuff today. So what was texas solution

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Speaker 1: to what they saw as federal overreach? Just never cross

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Speaker 1: the state line. Just don't ever do it, and then

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Speaker 1: we will be fine here. With our loan star approach

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Speaker 1: to energy and the rest of you. You other forty

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Speaker 1: nine states, well there weren't fifty at that point. Can

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Speaker 1: continue your own song and dance, just leave us out

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Speaker 1: of it. It makes me think of something Hank Hill

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Speaker 1: might say, is like, Wow, what I ever want to

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Speaker 1: leave Texas exactly? And also good luck to you Hawaii

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Speaker 1: and Alaska getting power lines out to where you are

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Speaker 1: right the caption says laughs in Texans. Uh yes, So

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Speaker 1: Texas have flirted with the idea of regularly san at

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Speaker 1: various points and uh until the nineteen seventies, they have

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Speaker 1: virtually no regulation. In nineteen seventy, something you've probably heard

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Speaker 1: a lot of in the news recently was formed. It's

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Speaker 1: the Energy Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOTT. Not to

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Speaker 1: be confused, as we discussed earlier with ERGOT poisoning or

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Speaker 1: EPCOT at Disney. Arcott is not as bad as RGOT poisoning,

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Speaker 1: and it is probably not as fun to visit there

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Speaker 1: as it is to visit EPCOTT. So I feel like

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Speaker 1: that's a very fair way, a fair spectrum pitter caught off. Sure, well,

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Speaker 1: you definitely can't get a Belgian beer while walking around

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Speaker 1: parts of URKOTT. I don't think it works that way.

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Speaker 1: You're right, that's true. You also probably won't get spasms, diarrhea, mania, psychosis, headaches, nausea, vomiting.

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Speaker 1: The squamation, that's not that's not EPCOT. That's that's that's

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Speaker 1: not what got's about. Man. Uh. The squad ation is

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Speaker 1: a grizzly word of the day. It's it's uh. Its

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Speaker 1: street name is skin peeling. Anyway, anyway, before I take

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Speaker 1: us too far down the wrong rabbit hole or cop

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Speaker 1: was formed UH largely in reaction to a massive blackout

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Speaker 1: in November of nineteen sixty, which some of our listeners

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Speaker 1: may may remember. When Texas went back to deregulation in

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Speaker 1: the ninet nineties, this agency, this institution, URCOTT assumed additional responsibilities,

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Speaker 1: and the entire time they kept that old, that old goal.

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Speaker 1: They stayed beyond the reach of the fetes. There are

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Speaker 1: complications because the thing about these sorts of grand, multi

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Speaker 1: generational schemes with many moving parts, because they never work

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Speaker 1: out one I wish people would just say that at

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Speaker 1: the top of this kind of stuff, they never work

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Speaker 1: out a percent. There are always exceptions, They are always missteps.

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Speaker 1: They're always plot twist and over the years, Texas itself

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Speaker 1: has breached its energy independence a couple of times out

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Speaker 1: of necessity, I would say, yep. Once it happened during

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Speaker 1: World War Two, when special provisions were made to link

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Speaker 1: Texas to other grids. Uh in time of crisis. Obviously

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Speaker 1: makes sense. Um, glad they went along with it, but

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Speaker 1: I guess they could probably have had their arms twisted

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Speaker 1: as well. Uh. Then there's uh nineteen seventy six, during

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Speaker 1: an event known as very sexy event named the Midnight Connection.

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Speaker 1: It's also our that's the inspiration for our stuff. They'll

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Speaker 1: want you to know R and B bands. Yes, And

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Speaker 1: that was when a Texas utility on purpose flipped a

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Speaker 1: switch and sent power to Oklahoma just for a few hours. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this was what the Feds were hoping for, and

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Speaker 1: it set off a massive legal battle that could have

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Speaker 1: brought Texas to their knees in terms of you know,

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Speaker 1: power autonomy under federal regulators. Ultimately, Texas did win the

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Speaker 1: day and ended up saying off those larger grids. And

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Speaker 1: this wasn't the only event. That's one of the big ones, right,

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Speaker 1: there are several others, and Texas ended up in a

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Speaker 1: bit of a have your cake and eat it to situation.

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Speaker 1: I love I love the concept there. In two thousand eleven,

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Speaker 1: the States started getting some power from Mexico during another

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Speaker 1: set of issues where they were rolling blackouts where they

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Speaker 1: kind of had to force some people to go without

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Speaker 1: power in order to get power to the places that

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Speaker 1: it needed to be. The expression and have your cake

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Speaker 1: and needed too is always really fascinating. You know. It

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Speaker 1: makes me think of Schrodinger's cat. Uh we call it

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Speaker 1: like it's there and not there at the same time,

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Speaker 1: which is we just started referring to that as Schrodinger's cake.

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Speaker 1: I like that, and and we we say it this way,

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Speaker 1: having your cake and eating too. Because this connection to

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Speaker 1: Mexico a couple this one connection that we just mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 1: It means that Texas right now does have several power

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Speaker 1: connections to Mexico as well as to the larger energy

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Speaker 1: grid in the United States. What it doesn't mean they're

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Speaker 1: being regulated by the FEDS. They've they've they've still got

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Speaker 1: some regulation. When it comes to ERCOTT, that Energy and

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Speaker 1: Reliability group that we're talking about here, they are kind

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Speaker 1: of looked over in a way. It's kind of strange

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Speaker 1: when you read some of the some of the ways

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Speaker 1: it works online, but they're they're kind of overseen by

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Speaker 1: the Public Utility Commission of Texas. And I only say

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Speaker 1: kind of because it feels a little strange sometimes at

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Speaker 1: least from an outside perspective about who is actually in

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Speaker 1: charge in many situations. Yeah. Absolutely, because we've talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about the territoriality of different stakeholders in the

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Speaker 1: energy industry. The Public Utilities Commission has been accused of

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Speaker 1: being toothless in the past. Uh and that's why you

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Speaker 1: see er Coott getting a lot of the a lot

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Speaker 1: of the sp light of infamy and controversy. Right now,

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Speaker 1: Arcot does have they have three ties to Mexico, two

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Speaker 1: ties to the larger Eastern Grid. The US think of

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Speaker 1: it in terms of three big grids for the country.

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Speaker 1: They're not very creative with the names. One is the

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Speaker 1: Western Interconnection, one is the Eastern Interconnection, and the other

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Speaker 1: one is Texas. Of Texas falls under the purview of

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Speaker 1: ARCOT and uh well as as I think we mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: the parts of Texas that we're in that ten percent

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Speaker 1: or were in areas that hadn't fully deregulated, weathered the

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Speaker 1: literal storm better than their neighbors. So all five of

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Speaker 1: those links to these other grids can be used to

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Speaker 1: move commercial power, and they can also be used in emergencies.

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Speaker 1: But to your point, Matt, they do not they do

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Speaker 1: not trigger federal oversight, which is what these organizations want.

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Speaker 1: Everything was going fine now under a deregulated market. Yes,

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Speaker 1: uh many people in Texas were paying more for power

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Speaker 1: than they would have in a in a more regulated market,

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Speaker 1: but that wasn't necessarily the priority of these companies. Things

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Speaker 1: start to go wrong earlier this month, in early February,

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Speaker 1: the s hit the fan. And by s we mean

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Speaker 1: massive winter storms. I really thought, you're the same massive winter.

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Speaker 1: We'll keep the we'll keep this part in just where

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Speaker 1: we could just bleep the storms. Remember that line from

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Speaker 1: that that robot voice track on Okay computer. He says

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Speaker 1: for all and winter, Yeah, let's keep this whole thing. So,

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Speaker 1: uh so there was this because we'll need the levity

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Speaker 1: in a second. Um, there was an unprecedented Matt. You've

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Speaker 1: heard there was a mass of storm. There were actually two.

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Speaker 1: There was a pair of winter storms that caused record

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Speaker 1: low temperatures across the state. First one hits February to

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Speaker 1: February eleven, and then another one in February to February seventeen.

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Speaker 1: Just for a step shot, temperatures in Dallas Fort Worth

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Speaker 1: plummeted to negative two degrees fair kneit minus nineteen degrees celsius.

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Speaker 1: It is clearly like unprecedented to to be fair, maybe

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Speaker 1: is the right word. Uh, this is something that's never

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Speaker 1: really happened there before, right right, yet, this was a

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Speaker 1: record that hadn't been broken for seventy two years at

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Speaker 1: the very least in Dallas. But but you absolutely rights

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Speaker 1: unprecedented for all two hundred and fifty four or so

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Speaker 1: counties in Texas to have winter storm warnings. And then

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Speaker 1: things get even worse. Just imagine it. Demand for power

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Speaker 1: skyrocketed as people were trying not to freeze. To supply

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Speaker 1: plummeted because you see, the power plants were also affected

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Speaker 1: by the storm, and one by one they started going

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Speaker 1: dark when the people needed them the most. As a

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Speaker 1: result of this, more than four point three million homes

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Speaker 1: and businesses in Texas alone lost power for some amount

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Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, and that we know of people lost

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Speaker 1: their lives as a direct result of this absolute catastrophe,

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Speaker 1: and the causes of death here range from the actual

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Speaker 1: cold itself leading to someone's death, to carbon monoxide poisoning

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Speaker 1: from people attempting to find creative ways to find heat

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Speaker 1: to get heat to their bodies and into the house,

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Speaker 1: to drownings to house fires to hypothermia. There were automobile

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Speaker 1: accidents related with this whole thing. Uh, it's just it's

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Speaker 1: been tough, and I think I think the way you

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Speaker 1: put it as a catastrophe is is it's almost a

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Speaker 1: two light of a word, but it's a terrible thing

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Speaker 1: that has gone on. It's certainly a step up from

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Speaker 1: a disaster because it's like literally a perfect storm where

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Speaker 1: so many things went wrong at the same time, exactly

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Speaker 1: well put. And this leads us to our question what

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Speaker 1: happens when things go wrong? How did we get here,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps most importantly, what happens next. We'll dive into

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Speaker 1: this after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it

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Speaker 1: gets crazy, corruption conspiracy. Since Texas did not have federal

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Speaker 1: oversight the various people that would be described as stakeholders

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Speaker 1: in this energy game, we're not mandated to do things

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Speaker 1: that other other organizations in other states do have to do.

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Speaker 1: They didn't institute certain safety measures like winter rising equipment

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Speaker 1: and facilities. Winter rizing is being thrown around like a buzzword,

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Speaker 1: but it just means weather proofing, you know what I mean, Like,

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Speaker 1: it just means let's get maybe insulator material around various

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Speaker 1: equipment and components and structures. On a smaller scale, it

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Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of what happened here in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: several years ago with the snow apocalypse. On a much

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Speaker 1: smaller scale. This was more a situation of massive inconvenience.

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Speaker 1: I believe a few people maybe died in traffic situations

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Speaker 1: like cars sliding off the roads and all that, but

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Speaker 1: it was just they just weren't prepared, you know, for

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Speaker 1: that level of icing of roads. Uh. And this is that,

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Speaker 1: but on a completely fundamental level that affects so many things.

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Speaker 1: Because again that word interconnectedness, and we're gonna get to

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Speaker 1: a lot of that. But one of the reasons that

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Speaker 1: it is not quite the same, but it is applicable here.

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Speaker 1: The suation in Atlanta during snow apocalypse is that Atlanta

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Speaker 1: as a city learned from what occurred. And I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you guys remember, but we've had some pretty

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Speaker 1: intense snow since that time, and there is now an

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Speaker 1: infrastructure built up around it, and the infrastructure has been

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Speaker 1: improved to the extent where the highways at least are

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Speaker 1: not going to be a place where a ton of

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Speaker 1: motorists get caught up for a couple of days, have anything.

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Speaker 1: They overprep now or they overreact, you know, I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that'll last, because we have to

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Speaker 1: we have to be very conscious folks, and we're it's

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Speaker 1: our city, so I think it's fine for us to

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Speaker 1: dunk on it. We live in a city where part

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Speaker 1: of the interstate will just sort of drop out of

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Speaker 1: the sky. Like remember one time bridge just like part

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Speaker 1: of it just wasn't there, and we got a really

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Speaker 1: sketchy story about people starting a fire a bridge, which

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Speaker 1: is like an episode of Always Sunny. They also blamed

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Speaker 1: on like the homeless population, smoking math or something that

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Speaker 1: ended up being a complete fabrication or at the very

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Speaker 1: least a real reach. I am not I'm not speaking

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Speaker 1: to this nonsense of which you are speaking. This is nonsense,

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Speaker 1: and I agree with all that stuff ridiculous. Watch my

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Speaker 1: video on YouTube, which you can still find I think

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Speaker 1: on our YouTube channel of the of the burning of

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Speaker 1: a highway in Atlanta. But what I mean is a

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Speaker 1: very specific thing occurred that was a major problem, and

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Speaker 1: let's be honest here a pr issue for sure for

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Speaker 1: the city. Uh and steps were taken, sure, yeah, but

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Speaker 1: then we also have to consider again It's like the

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Speaker 1: argument I set up at the very very top people.

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Speaker 1: There's a there's a great quote in literature. Maybe it

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Speaker 1: was check off. Someone check me on this, check me

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Speaker 1: on my check off. I can't remember which authors said it,

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Speaker 1: but they said, like the mark of a good story

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Speaker 1: and a good writer is when the author becomes invisible.

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Speaker 1: That's the mark of good infrastructure as well. I know

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Speaker 1: this might be maybe unpopular, is something people don't want

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Speaker 1: to hear right now, But if we look at this

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Speaker 1: situation from the perspective of the companies, the various people

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Speaker 1: at every point in the energy flow of Texas in

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Speaker 1: that business, we can understand their logic. They're in a

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Speaker 1: tremendously competitive, even cutthroat market, So why bother preparing for

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Speaker 1: blizzards when sub freezing temperatures are so infrequent? Like from

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Speaker 1: their perspective, just for comparison, imagine you live in Miami,

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Speaker 1: why would you invest in apparent Why would you invest

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Speaker 1: in a set of tire chains. They're probably never going

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Speaker 1: to leave your garage because you'll probably never need to

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Speaker 1: drive in the snow. And that's, of course the same

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Speaker 1: logic with Atlanta. And it's a three snow plows. And

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Speaker 1: there were even people, you know, real uh thrift talks,

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Speaker 1: very fiscally conservative people who are saying, why are we

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Speaker 1: even wasting money on this? This is these snowplows are unnecessary.

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Speaker 1: It's wasteful government spending. And then it turned out that

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Speaker 1: even that spending wasn't enough. But we'll see how these

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Speaker 1: words taste if we have to eat them in another

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Speaker 1: snow apocalypse in Atlanta. But as Michael Weber pointed out

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Speaker 1: he is energy resources professor at the University of Texas

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Speaker 1: in Austin, their plans were flawed because their plans were

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Speaker 1: based on precedent. As we said earlier, the storm is unprecedented.

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Speaker 1: They were using outdated weather patterns. And if you use

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Speaker 1: those outdated weather patterns, not saying there was something better

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Speaker 1: available to them at the time, maybe future modeling, which

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Speaker 1: is predictive, but you can have a wild margin error.

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Speaker 1: If you're using that outdated weather as as your roadmap,

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Speaker 1: then of course you're going to say things don't freeze,

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Speaker 1: you know it just it makes sense. Well, they also

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Speaker 1: didn't learn from past occurrences where this very thing has happened.

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Speaker 1: And then not like not that long ago that we

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Speaker 1: mentioned in our our our episode that we already that

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Speaker 1: we've mentioned this in before, we talked about how it's

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Speaker 1: happened several times in the past where this very thing occurred. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, and this um it's important to understand

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Speaker 1: that perspective because also picture yourself like you're the You're

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Speaker 1: the mover and shaker, the CEO of some company in

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Speaker 1: the energy industry in Texas, and your business starts failing

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Speaker 1: because you invested so much in winterization, and people are

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Speaker 1: coming to you and saying, why did we waste millions

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Speaker 1: and millions of dollars on this? We have to spend

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Speaker 1: that money fighting for our lives as a business, because

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Speaker 1: there are other hungry people out there they want to

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Speaker 1: eat our electric lunch. Is this a byproduct of of

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Speaker 1: of the complete isolation of their power system, having no

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Speaker 1: subsidization and no assistance from Uncle Samuel. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: this is something that comes out of the deregulation for sure.

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Speaker 1: And at this point I suggest that we we pause

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Speaker 1: for a moment, not for a word from our sponsors,

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Speaker 1: but from for a word from some of our fellow

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Speaker 1: listeners were in Texas and who have written to us,

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Speaker 1: and some of our own personal experience, which we don't

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Speaker 1: always do, but we, like millions and millions of other people,

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Speaker 1: do have friends and family in Texas. Matt, you just

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Speaker 1: spoke with your uncle not too long ago, correct, How's

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Speaker 1: he doing? I guess it was a little while, like

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Speaker 1: it was last Thursday as we're recording this, when when

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Speaker 1: they were still very much in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: power outage. He lives in Houston, in a suburb just

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Speaker 1: two I want to say, the southwest of Houston. And

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Speaker 1: he said the power at that time had been out

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Speaker 1: for two days. Then it came on for about five hours,

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Speaker 1: then it went out again. And um, thankfully he and

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Speaker 1: in the family were able to store some food outside

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Speaker 1: because it was cold enough to preserve food for an

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Speaker 1: elongated amount of time at that time. And another great thing,

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Speaker 1: and this is a reason to have a fully gas

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Speaker 1: stove a setup. Uh, he didn't need power in order

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Speaker 1: to start that gas stove. You just turn the knob

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Speaker 1: and then get a source of fire like a lighter

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Speaker 1: or anything else or a match put over there, and

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Speaker 1: you can cook anything you need to. Um, So that

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Speaker 1: was very very good. The big problem, he said, was

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Speaker 1: the water and gaining access to water during all of

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Speaker 1: this uh stuff, Because if busted burst pipes are just frozen.

429
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: They're a couple of factors. Partially burst pipes because of

430
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: the freeze, right, and water expands when it freezes, and

431
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:52,640
Speaker 1: then partially because the water treatment plants also had called

432
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 1: offline and that can lower that can result in lower

433
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: water pressure those two factors, and at us certain threshold

434
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,640
Speaker 1: of water pressure, when it goes below a certain threshold,

435
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,479
Speaker 1: people will be advised to boil water. But then how

436
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: do you boil water if you don't have electricity, right,

437
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to build a fire. You're gonna have

438
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: to be like Matt's uncle and have a gas stove

439
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,959
Speaker 1: or something like that. Well, and also remember if you

440
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 1: don't have a way to heat the water, then imagine

441
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: what it's like to try attempt to bathe or attempt

442
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: to do anything that would require warmer water that is

443
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: not you know that you're not gonna boil, then I

444
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: guess mixed with some cold water and pour on yourself.

445
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: It becomes a big issue. Just dealt with this when

446
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: our water heater went out. Speaking of brush pipes and

447
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: just firsthand accounts, John Oliver did a really great segment

448
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: on this and and showed some really shocking images of this,

449
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: uh this stuff, these scenes in people's homes and businesses,

450
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: and one of them was a ceiling fan literally dripping

451
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: with these like stalag what is it stillag tights that

452
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: go down these you know, ice crystals coming down off

453
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: of the ceiling fan blades, which could only have been

454
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: because of burst pipes and water leaking through the ceiling right.

455
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: And then another one of a of a car wash

456
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: where like the you know, the cool foamy stuff that

457
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: that's colorful that when you go through and everyone makes

458
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: the Instagram videos of it going down their windshield. But

459
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: one of those tanks, I guess burst and that stuff

460
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: exploded out and it's frozen and it looks like literally

461
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: like some kind of magical cave you know, in fairyland

462
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: or something, but way more terrifying, and the sinister and

463
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: then uh, you know, you can also see heartbreaking accounts

464
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: of people burning whatever was flammable in their house, like

465
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: furniture and so on, to keep their kids warm, people

466
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: sleeping in cars or charging their phones off their car battery.

467
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: Trying to find where water is in any emergency situation.

468
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: By the way, uh, once you have found some modicum

469
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: of physical safety, you're very next thing, no matter what,

470
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: your very next thing is to figure out where you

471
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: are going to find potable water the you can. You

472
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: would be surprised how long people can survive without eating

473
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: and without having permanent damage to their system from doing so.

474
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: But dehydration will rock your and you can die within

475
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: four days, you know, And this your mileage may vary.

476
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: There are people, of of course, we've all seen survival

477
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: stories of people who managed to stay alive, but they

478
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: didn't thrive past that point. And you are very much

479
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: on a ticking clock. Uh. The moment you realize you

480
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: can't find water, please take it seriously, even if you think,

481
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: you know, even if you think I'm just camping somewhere

482
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: and there's a clearly marked trail and I can walk

483
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: half a mile to the parking lot, just take some

484
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: water with you, you know what I mean. And one

485
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: last thing to add here. My uncle lives in a

486
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: very nice area. And on our previous episode where we

487
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: were talking about this situation, it was mentioned at least

488
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: rumors that power was being sent to very wealthy communities

489
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: before it was going to be sent to anywhere else,

490
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: or diverted well where there was an inequality in in

491
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: power distribution depending on essentially a zip code or a

492
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 1: neighborhood or something like that. I can't speak to all

493
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: of those, but I can tell you I've been in

494
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: my family's house. It is lovely, isn't a ridiculously nice area?

495
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: And they still lost power just as frequently as everybody else. Sure,

496
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: and I don't know exactly where Senator Ted Crews lives,

497
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: but his house apparently got cold enough that they decided

498
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: to piss off to uh what is it? Cancoon? Yeah,

499
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll look into that a little bit later

500
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: in the episode two. Before we move on, I want

501
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: to thank Miles b uh Nathan G. Jacob d and

502
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: a number of other people who reached out to us

503
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: to give us their experience during this massive catastrophe. Jacob

504
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: especially noticed noted something that one of my relatives in

505
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: Austin noted, which is that people's odds of having power

506
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: did seem to be better if they were um, if

507
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: they were around something like emergency responder building or a

508
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: hospital something like that. Uh, Jacob. You also noted that

509
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: the story from our cot kept changing as far as

510
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: wind power would be restored, how Roland blackouts would work, etcetera.

511
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: Uh and said Encore was giving updates like, oh, power

512
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: is gonna be on in fifteen minutes, Oh, your power

513
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 1: is on. Power was not on right right, And there's

514
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: there's kind of a fog of war with this too.

515
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many moving parts, but here's to appen.

516
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: When the power outages began, natural gas plants, utility scale

517
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: wind turbines, coal and nuclear plants, all of those started

518
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: to trip, meaning, you know, they fell off the grid

519
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: because they didn't have the investments necessary to keep them

520
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: online during sustained low temperatures. They just couldn't function this way.

521
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 1: Even if there wasn't a surge in demand for power

522
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: like that. That's an important note. Even if it had

523
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: just been the storm and there had not been an

524
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: increase in demand for energy, a lot of these facilities

525
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: still would have failed just because they could handle it.

526
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: And that's why our coot. But that's their logic for

527
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: ordering utilities to institute rolling blackouts, which are probably familiar

528
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: to in Ron fans in California, if there are any

529
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: in Rod fans left after after their massive debacle. And

530
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: this is a big note that been mentioned here. I

531
00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: just want to make sure we're not going to go

532
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: over it too quickly. These were all sorts of different

533
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 1: types of energy generating plants. If no matter what you're

534
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: reading online or what anybody is saying, this, this is

535
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: affecting all parts of It is not just the green sector.

536
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: It's not just coal or you know, natural gas or whatever.

537
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: It's everything across the board was being affected. So the

538
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: logic here is theoretically sound. Orcott says, look, we have

539
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:28,879
Speaker 1: to we have to kind of cut off an arm

540
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: to save the body temporarily. Right, We're going to strategically

541
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 1: reduce temporary demand through a somewhat arcane process that is

542
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: very vulnerable to corruption or maybe some phone calls from

543
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: powerful people asking for little favors. Anyway, they said by

544
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: reducing demand at certain times in certain areas, they would

545
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: be able to prevent the entire circus tent of Texas

546
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: Electricity from collapsing. And that's a rock and a hard place, Honestly,

547
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 1: if the entire grid failed, the and Texans would have

548
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: been out without power for weeks, even months, and it

549
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: could have affected all the other pieces of infrastructure right

550
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: including water treatment. But that's a hard thing to square

551
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: when you are in the midst of a rolling outage

552
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: that was supposed to last for like a couple of

553
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: hours and it lasted days at a time that happened

554
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:27,879
Speaker 1: to millions of people. We're gonna pause for a word

555
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and then we're going to dive into

556
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 1: the unpleasant story of people who did keep their power

557
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: for at least part of the time. Doesn't in the

558
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: way you suspect. We're back, Okay, So imagine you are

559
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: one of the lucky few, through accident, fate, or design,

560
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: managed to keep your power for some or all of

561
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: thet outages. You're not in a super great place because

562
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:08,720
Speaker 1: the people who did have power found that their bills skyrocketed.

563
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: Skyrocketed is not the right word. Your bills launched into orbit.

564
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: They space rocketed. Yeah, and you know it follows the

565
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: concept of supply and demand, but you don't typically think

566
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: of that in terms of like things that people need

567
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: to survive, as that being a calculus. And yet here

568
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 1: we are. There's a little bit inside baseball here. But

569
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:37,280
Speaker 1: here's what happened. One megawatt of what's called wholesale power

570
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: went from fifty bucks to nine thousand dollars. Wholesale power

571
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: is something that a business will buy and then they

572
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: will sell it or provided to consumers. So this wouldn't

573
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,399
Speaker 1: affect you. If you add what's called a fixed rate plan,

574
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: that's a very common thing here in the US, you're basically,

575
00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 1: as a customer, forced to gamble at the power company,

576
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: and you you can make one of a couple of

577
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: you can make a couple of types of bets. One

578
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: of the bets is saying, hey, I will pay this

579
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: much per unit of power all the time, and I'll

580
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: do that for twelve months. So if there's a surgeon

581
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: price or demand, I won't have to pay more than

582
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: my you know, thirty cents or but thirty five or whatever.

583
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: But if the price goes lower than that dollar thirty five,

584
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 1: I still have to pay the dollar thirty five. So

585
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: you're kind of in a casino with a power company.

586
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: I always wondered. I mean, I guess it really is

587
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: up to the individual. But do you see obviously the

588
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: benefit here was was alarmingly apparent. But in general, what

589
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: would you recommend, Ben, I'll tell you. I look, I'll

590
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: give you my opinion. I've been I've been officially paying

591
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: for power now since two thousand four, so I've been

592
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: paying a separate power bill since a thousand four. Um.

593
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 1: I have attempted the variable style once and it's the

594
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: only time I had to pay ridiculous amounts of money

595
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: for power. Uh and did the same thing with heating

596
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: bills only once you got me once, never will do

597
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: it again. I've always felt it fixed rate seemed like

598
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: the safest bet, and I'm a fixed rate man myself. Yeah, agreed. Again,

599
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 1: these are our personal experiences. Your mileage may vary. But

600
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: there are power monopolies here in Georgia, so you have

601
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 1: so you are forced to deal with them, and they

602
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: want you to gamble, and and I I personally am

603
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,240
Speaker 1: not a big fan of gambling. And I do think

604
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,240
Speaker 1: you know, you could say I'm being hyperbolic or whatever

605
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: by describing it as this, but it is it is

606
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,879
Speaker 1: gambling And I had an experience like you met um.

607
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: Variable can work if you like astute lee time it

608
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: and you pay attention and pay close attention. Fixed rate

609
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you're just paying more for the

610
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: certitude and the predictability. So, uh, fixed rate is pretty good.

611
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people in Texas were

612
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: on fixed rate too, So let's talk about the people

613
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: who were with a variable rate. I don't know what

614
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 1: the smallest place all of us listening today have ever

615
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: lived in is, But there was one woman in Texas

616
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: who had a seven hundred square foot apartment, pretty small.

617
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:26,439
Speaker 1: She was keeping it at sixty degrees. She didn't lose

618
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 1: power for very long. When she got her power bill,

619
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: it was one thousand dollars. Is this like by design?

620
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: Are they really thinking people are going to pay this?

621
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: Are they really going to hold people to these absurd bills?

622
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: Is it supply and demand or is it price gouging?

623
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: It's is an accident? Yeah, I just I don't know, Well,

624
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: the bill is not an accident. That's how much the

625
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 1: energy cost when they were attempting REMP when they're going

626
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: through this crisis. If energy was being supplied to your home.

627
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: The supply demand. Baby, it's messed up. It's really messed up.

628
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: We can get into that a little more as we

629
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: get to the conclusion here, but yeah, the the big

630
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: thing is that a lot of people dealt with something

631
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 1: like that huge in the thousands bills that were coming

632
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,840
Speaker 1: to and ultimately, as we'll see, this will have to

633
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:25,959
Speaker 1: be decided in the courts, I think. Uh. One guy

634
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: was talking to NBC News and he said, I have

635
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: a two bedroom home. My power bill is usually fifty bucks,

636
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: but this month it's more than three thousand dollars, which

637
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: caught me by surprise. I am editorializing a little. Another family,

638
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: one really extreme example. Another family told the same team

639
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: at NBC that they were able to keep the power

640
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 1: in their home, which had three bedrooms. Uh, and then

641
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: they found their bill ended up being ten thousand dollars

642
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 1: and the price gouging didn't stop there. It didn't stop

643
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: with power bills because remember, this is a crisis. Well yeah,

644
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: and I get that, and I understand that this is

645
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: a crisis for the energy end of it, to the provider,

646
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 1: but again it's it's kind of their fault. Uh, So

647
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem fair that they would pass this on

648
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: to the consumer, but I guess that's what utilities do.

649
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: But would would they have been notified? Would they have

650
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 1: just known this was happening from maybe the news, Like

651
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: like I just I just feel it would have been

652
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:28,399
Speaker 1: in the responsibility of the energy coming to say, hey,

653
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 1: heads up, this is about to get real expensive. Right. Yeah,

654
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: it's tough. And it also we have to remember it

655
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: was happening so quickly, you know what I mean, people buzzy,

656
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: real prep time. But as we record today, Texas officials

657
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: are cracking down on businesses that have been accused of

658
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 1: hiking the prices of food and water and hotel rooms,

659
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: especially while the state is still battling through the shortages,

660
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: uh that were caused by these storms. Like people were

661
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:00,720
Speaker 1: going to hotels, not even nice hotels. It was finding

662
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: that the price had been hyped up to nine hundred

663
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 1: bucks because folks will pay it. There was there was

664
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: something I found especially wholesome in a very dystopian way.

665
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: There was a store, like a you know, like a

666
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,479
Speaker 1: little grocery store that or a gas station that had

667
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: closed down because of the storm and uh because they

668
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: didn't have power, and some locals have been like breaking

669
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: into this place to get water. But then they started

670
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: paying on an honors system, and so there's like this

671
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: pile of cash on the floor and a nice little

672
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: like a nice note, which I thought was a really

673
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 1: I thought that was a really human thing, which I

674
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: mean is a compliment. But back to the water, More

675
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: than twelve million people found the water service disrupted. More

676
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: than two hundred thousand people in Texas live in areas

677
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: where water systems were completely non operational. We've got, especially

678
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: in rural Texas, we've got a lot to people who

679
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: have wells, and generally I think that is an awesome idea,

680
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: but we had some folks contact us and say, you know,

681
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 1: we thought we'd be okay, but our wells, our wells

682
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: were frozen. You know what I mean. We're not on

683
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: the grid, So what can we do? Can't access that

684
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,439
Speaker 1: water if it's all locked up in ice well. There's

685
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: an additional thing they would like depending on where that

686
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: water is coming from that well, where it's you know,

687
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 1: where it's dug into. Just imagine all the chemicals and

688
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: stuff that are going into land across parts of Texas. Yikes,

689
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: because of what fracking mostly Yeah, that's right. That's a

690
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: good point that because the fracking is still in the

691
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: chat very much the fract chat. Yeah, hold on what

692
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: and this is where we get to uh some much

693
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: needed levity here. Uh. Something happened in the ensuing information

694
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: war or narrative war. Uh. That would be hilarious if

695
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: it was not so so very dumb whild people were dying. Uh.

696
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,280
Speaker 1: Several pundits and politicians in the beginning of this crisis

697
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: tried to blame the power failures on renewable energy, specifically

698
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: wind mills. That's right. They are the villain of this story,

699
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 1: big wind, which sounds like, you know, a street name

700
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 1: for someone who has flathle it. But this, this is

701
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,240
Speaker 1: really easy to disprove. I know, we all saw the clips,

702
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: but honestly, folks, maybe twenty three of texas Is energy

703
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: comes from renewable sources, like all of them together. It

704
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: sounds a whole lot like a pay no attention to

705
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: the man behind the curtains scenario, you know what I mean,

706
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 1: they look over here misdirection. And also it's obviously an

707
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: agenda as well, because as we discussed, I mean Texas

708
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: as a history of of fossil fuels and fossil fuel extractions.

709
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: So they're best in and and they don't want to

710
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: be told what to do by big government, you know,

711
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: and something like this, this creepy green new d exactly exactly.

712
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: And you know, natural gas powers most of that grid

713
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:09,760
Speaker 1: because you looked at the statistical breakdown. So really, natural

714
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: gas is the first thing you should be looking at

715
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: in these power related emergencies. And production of natural gas

716
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: had plummeted due to the freezing conditions, right, which made

717
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: it difficult for power plants to get the fuel necessary

718
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:29,000
Speaker 1: to generate electricity. So you can have a working car,

719
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: but if you don't have the gas, you're not going anywhere.

720
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: That's what happened to a lot of these plants. They

721
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: don't store a bunch of fuel on site. It has

722
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 1: to be brought to them continually. But that being said,

723
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: here is a let me know if we should keep

724
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: this in guys. Um Here here is a hot take

725
00:45:52,840 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is known were

726
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: his uh somewhat opinionated Facebook post trying very hard to

727
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: be fair here, yep, that's right. Uh Miller said we

728
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,760
Speaker 1: should never build another wind turbine in Texas. We should

729
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: never build another wind turbine to Texas, full stop, full stop.

730
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe he's just a big fan of birds

731
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,760
Speaker 1: and he's just triggered by wind turbines, you know, because

732
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: because whatever, maybe just scare the windmills. Maybe scared the windmills.

733
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: Maybe he's a Don Quixote type figure. And then he

734
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:38,800
Speaker 1: had another Facebook post where he said, insults added to injury.

735
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: Those ugly wind turbines out there are among the main

736
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:48,399
Speaker 1: reasons we are experiencing electricity blackouts. Isn't that ironic? Don't

737
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,240
Speaker 1: you think that's an alone that's more set reference. Yeah, Anyway,

738
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: he continues, he goes so much for the unsightly and

739
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: unproductive energy robbing Obama monuments. At least they show us

740
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: where it's live. Oh my, you know who he sounds like?

741
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: I can you think? I think you know who he

742
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: sounds like? Just Trump. Yeah, that's a familiar tone that

743
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: we haven't been hearing as much of lately. Uh it's

744
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,319
Speaker 1: in terms of that just out and out, you know,

745
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: name calling and hyperbole. Uh yeah, Obama monuments. He should

746
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: just call on the next extra mole and call them

747
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: Obama means yeah, you know, I do like that. I

748
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: gotta say I objectively like the cadence. Uh, there's something

749
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: about those three ms how they kind of ride the

750
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: beat in that in that phrase Obama monuments. You're right,

751
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: but I agree with you that as a portmanteau. Oh

752
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 1: what what was obuments? Oboluments? Yeah, there it is. Uh,

753
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: there's there's something else here. We received some correspondence from

754
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: a lot of our fellow listeners, including our main man, James,

755
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: who was who told us that there there appears to

756
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: be some corruption reguarding who was able to keep power.

757
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: It appears that some wealthy residents or people residing and

758
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: wealthy zip codes got preferential treatment. We do know that

759
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: are caught and the utilities were able to direct these

760
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 1: blackouts right to a degree because they prioritize things like

761
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: keeping the power on at the fire station, or the

762
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 1: power on at the hospital or the precinct, you know

763
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: what I mean. And those are normal things to do

764
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: during a disaster. The question is, did, for instance, someone

765
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: who like, let's say you're a high up person in

766
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 1: like industry or local politics, are you able to then

767
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: call the person running things at your local utility and

768
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 1: say Hey, the power and my ZIP code stays on,

769
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: and they're like, you got it. Just remember me at

770
00:48:54,440 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: the next uh, I don't know, illuminating alumatic aluminatic look

771
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: out uh. And for the next uh, the next bohemian

772
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: propane grove. Uh. Okay. So so that now we're looking

773
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: at the aftermath and this is still happening. By the way,

774
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: where this is this should just be considered a kind

775
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: of one oh one explainer of the opportunities for corruption conspiracy.

776
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: The situation and weather are improving, but still tons and

777
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: tons of people don't have power and don't have clean water.

778
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: And by the way, I just got my friend Vanessa,

779
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 1: who lives out I think near in the Fort Worth area,

780
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: just called me back and left a voicemail. But I

781
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: don't have access to that, um we we. I may

782
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 1: get a text in a moment, just to give an

783
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: update on the ground. So we'll do that before this

784
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,280
Speaker 1: episode ends, if if we can, and there is hope

785
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: on the horizon, folks, we didn't want this to end

786
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 1: with total gloom and doom. Senator Ted Cruz, who was

787
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 1: witnessed abandoning his state during the going disaster for an

788
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 1: a board of trip to cam Kun officially returned when

789
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: the press caught the story. Nah, he was always coming back.

790
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: He was always coming right back. He he just had

791
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 1: to go to be a dad for for a day,

792
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: to make sure you get the kids all settled in

793
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: to the was it the four seasons? I believe, And

794
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 1: then he was always going to come right back, you know,

795
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:25,400
Speaker 1: with a giant rolling suit. I'm sorry, I'm being uh snarky.

796
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 1: I just yeah, people only do stuff they're supposed to

797
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:29,839
Speaker 1: do when they get caught. And I don't know how

798
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: he thought he would get away with this money. Money.

799
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 1: As we've said numerous times and Ben, this is a

800
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 1: mantra that we have on this show. Money is a superpower.

801
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 1: It's the closest thing you're gonna get to it. Trus

802
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz has some money. He was like what is

803
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,719
Speaker 1: this what? Nah? And he got out of there. Look,

804
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: I know it's not a good political look and I

805
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: know it's terrible and a lot of people are very

806
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: very mad at him, but like, can you really blame him?

807
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: He has the superpower to be able to go to

808
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: can Kun when stuff goes bad. So this is the thing, Um,

809
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 1: regardless value feel about the guy, he caught a lot

810
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:11,280
Speaker 1: of bad press, and rightly so, because he kept changing

811
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:14,840
Speaker 1: his explanation for the trip. He kept changing his description

812
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: of the trip. And he's really bad at it too.

813
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,839
Speaker 1: He's really bad at like lying in this way. Yeah,

814
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying I think he's a great guy. Literally,

815
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 1: just leave that. They're walking back a little bit. It's

816
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: like the you guys, if you guys don't listen, if

817
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: any of you out there doesn't does not listen to

818
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 1: the show. This is important on I Heart Radio. You should.

819
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: They've got a segment with take what is it takebacks,

820
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,359
Speaker 1: apologies things like that, this is my take back. Sorry. Uh,

821
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: what I would say is watch SNL that just came

822
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: out this past week. There's a great cold open that

823
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: is describing what you guys are saying here right with

824
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: the corn Rows. Yeah, and this so you know the

825
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: Calvary returns. Uh. He got dunked on in the in

826
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: the media because he was changing the explanation description of

827
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: the story. Other facts came out. There were some leaked

828
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 1: text messages. Um people who loved dogs were mad that

829
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: they left their dog for what was sometimes described as

830
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: a four day trip or like the length of time

831
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: kept varying, but don't worry. After he changed his explanation

832
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 1: several times. Senator Cruz uh is now currently on the

833
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: ground and he's made sure to be photographed handed out

834
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: water bottles. Uh So, truly, it is the trying times

835
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: that bring out the hero and all of us. I mean,

836
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,919
Speaker 1: I basically think the man's a saying at this point yep. Yeah,

837
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing that by location is a

838
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: saint superpower, right, it's one of the miracles. So he

839
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: may still be in camcoun wouldn't that be cool? Or

840
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 1: maybe he has a clone. Anyway, he could have handled

841
00:52:56,640 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: the pr you know, fall out a little better if

842
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: he did have a clause or a better disguise or something.

843
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 1: You know, even with the mask he stuck out like

844
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: a sore thumb in the airport. Yeah, get a, get

845
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 1: a even a really lazy idea like travel is said

846
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: truths or something like that. But but now I mean

847
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 1: that that aside. We know their ramifications brewing for everybody.

848
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: For the businesses like Ted Cruz was getting tried in

849
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: the court of public opinion, but some of these energy

850
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 1: providers are going to you know, actual court. Well, it's

851
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:30,799
Speaker 1: like we said at the beginning, I mean it's it's

852
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: it's a when when these things start to break, it

853
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 1: just becomes a series of fingers pointing. And when a

854
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,319
Speaker 1: finger points at you, you point your finger at someone else,

855
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: and then that finger points at somewhere else, someone else,

856
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: and then it's up to the court to the side

857
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: who deserves the finger. That's why I point with my

858
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: whole hand, never never just one finger, the whole hand.

859
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: So what's I think presidents have to do? You have

860
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: to kind of like point with your thumb when you

861
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: talk so you don't look like a dictator. Someone got

862
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 1: paid to figure that out. Was that he figured it out.

863
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,359
Speaker 1: He was the first one someone told him to do that.

864
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: But right now as we speak, there's a class action

865
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:15,359
Speaker 1: lawsuit in the works for Texas Electric retailer named Gritty.

866
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:19,239
Speaker 1: They're getting sued for one billion dollars. Wait, Gritty like

867
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 1: the mascot of of Michigan, No PI, Philadelphia, No No

868
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 1: two d's. It's a cute sounding name, though I'm not

869
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 1: gonna lie true, it feels like an appeah. And for

870
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: sure that's not the only lawsuit that's coming out. There's

871
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,239
Speaker 1: there are gonna be so many happening just in the

872
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: next couple of years here because of the situation. And

873
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: we also know that or COT, that Energy Reliability Council,

874
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,799
Speaker 1: that's not the folks who are in charge of that

875
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: thing are not getting away scott free either. Has been

876
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,719
Speaker 1: a cascade of resignations, correct, Yeah, that's corrector at least

877
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: as of right now. I believe it's six people who

878
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: were leaving. That's a minor cascade. Let's say, yeah, yeah,

879
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 1: it was I know five initially five members of the board. Uh.

880
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 1: They all tendered their resignation, four of them I think

881
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:16,280
Speaker 1: in one message and then another one separately, and including

882
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,280
Speaker 1: I believe that's the head of the board, right the chair,

883
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:23,839
Speaker 1: the board chair left the yeah, yeah, people, These resignations

884
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 1: are all from the Board of Directors. But the headline

885
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: might be a little bit misleading in this one because

886
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: in the joint resignation letter that I think four of

887
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 1: these people wrote, they said that they were motivated to

888
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 1: resign because people had objected to the fact that these

889
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:48,240
Speaker 1: four people did not themselves reside in Texas. So they said,

890
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,240
Speaker 1: I like the way you would put it off air, Matt.

891
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 1: They basically through their hands up and We're like, okay, yeah,

892
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you guys deal with this. Oh that's cool.

893
00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 1: We'll get out of here. Buck passed official ruspering break forever.

894
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: So um, so we are we are, you know, we're

895
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: trying to handle this with with levity. But it is

896
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 1: it is true that regardless of you feel about the

897
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: role of government, the role of private industry, or how

898
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 1: you feel about the weather, these three things all played

899
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: a role in what whether through their absence or whether

900
00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:35,360
Speaker 1: through their strategies, they all played a role in this, uh,

901
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: in this terrifying series of events. You in these situations,

902
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: everybody wants someone to blame, like we said at the

903
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 1: very top of the episode, but really you can't blame

904
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:53,359
Speaker 1: a utilities commission for not being able to control the weather, right.

905
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: That's that's just something we all have to deal with.

906
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: And then when you think about winter rising, if you

907
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: did down in to the boring stuff about winter ization,

908
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 1: you'll see that, uh no, small number of experts are

909
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: saying at this point it might be better to build

910
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,799
Speaker 1: out new infrastructure that's already you know, created to be

911
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: weather proof than spending the money trying to winter rise

912
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 1: the existing stuff. And I think that the issue that

913
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 1: I have with with that idea of of you can't

914
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 1: blame them is the political stance of so many people

915
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: in power in a state like that involves climate change denial.

916
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: And this is an absolute, in my opinion, um, example

917
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 1: of the climate changing. So all these climate deniers that

918
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 1: are like you know, baring their head in the sand,

919
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: saying nothing to see here, nothing's going to happen. Then

920
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 1: stuff like this happens and they weren't prepared because they

921
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: denied it. I think that's you know, I think that

922
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: is a good point. I think it's a valid point. Uh.

923
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: And also the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable. If you

924
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: are lucky enough to have elderly people in your life,

925
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: family or friends, right, And when you say elderly, I said,

926
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like seventy plus. If you have people like

927
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 1: that in your life, and uh, you have some time

928
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 1: ask them how the weather was when they were growing up,

929
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:24,760
Speaker 1: You're you're going to if they haven't already told you.

930
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: I know there's a stereotype that older people like to

931
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: talk about whether but they haven't already told you. I

932
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 1: guarantee that you will see, uh from firsthand experience, that

933
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 1: there has been a noticeable change of whether over those

934
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 1: seven decades those people were alive, and that makes the

935
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: problem even tougher. That's the question we have to end

936
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 1: out a question, how can we prepare for things that

937
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: we can't predict? Can we afford to prepare for everything,

938
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:55,560
Speaker 1: no matter how unlikely it may seem? Should we? Should

939
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: we even do that? You know? Like, like, um, Matt, you,

940
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:02,640
Speaker 1: we have this thing where we put in related episodes

941
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 1: we're working on the show, and Matt, you you cited

942
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 1: a really great one that I didn't necessarily think about immediately,

943
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: which was our question about whether a solar flare can

944
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:16,600
Speaker 1: destroy civilization. The answer is yes, oh yeah, because the

945
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 1: whole point we I almost brought it up earlier. We

946
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 1: were talking about how long the power was out and

947
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: how long it could have been out right, and if

948
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: it was out for weeks, then you're dealing with potentially

949
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 1: the collapse of civilization in Texas. Man. That's exactly what

950
00:59:35,120 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: that episode was about, because when you're when you're out,

951
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 1: when power cannot be turned on for a certain amount

952
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 1: of time right now because of all of the infrastructure

953
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 1: and how everything functions, if it was off for long enough,

954
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 1: I don't have any headphones anymore. If it was long

955
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 1: enough for if it was out for long enough, it's

956
00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 1: absolute chaos. My son really wants me to tell you

957
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 1: guys about chaos and how is is he a proponent

958
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: of chaos theory? He's trying to get me to open

959
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: a root beer. I mean, look, we can see what

960
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,680
Speaker 1: you're talking about. That just by the series of events

961
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: in this story that happened over the span of like

962
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: several days, you know, I mean it really triggered an

963
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 1: absolute domino effect of things going horribly horribly wrong. So

964
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: you know, given a longer period of time, with the

965
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 1: right conditions, it absolutely would lead to the collapse of

966
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: civilization if if if things were you know, just wrong enough.

967
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, you know, it's still

968
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:41,160
Speaker 1: kind of a gamble, arguably because when we take the

969
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: solar flare example, I'm just using that because it's like

970
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 1: an apocalyptic movie plot. Uh. In the solar flare example,

971
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 1: if you if you take the steps to harden elect

972
01:00:55,080 --> 01:01:00,680
Speaker 1: an electric grid right against this this unpredictable event, then

973
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 1: what happened, Like what if one doesn't come for fifty years,

974
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: then you just look like you're incredibly paranoid. Uh, there's

975
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 1: that other but there's this other example. We talked a

976
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:16,920
Speaker 1: little bit about off air. Uh. Back when the modern

977
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 1: London sewer system was being built. The guy was heading

978
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 1: it up said, look, we're only gonna do this once.

979
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: I've got all the estimates, everything that is reasonable, but

980
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:32,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna go way bigger. We're gonna make these pipes

981
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: like twice as big as they need to be because

982
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: if we don't, this is gonna come back to haunt us.

983
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: And everybody was like, you're crazy, dude. I don't know

984
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: what your thing with pipes is, but you need to

985
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: pump your brakes. Uh. And it turns out he was right.

986
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:50,240
Speaker 1: That's the only reason the London sewer system still works

987
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 1: is because someone had the foresight, uh to to think

988
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: about these future possibilities. And they also didn't have a

989
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:01,360
Speaker 1: problem with being mocked for them, like the guy who

990
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: talked about washing your hands and ended up in a

991
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:07,680
Speaker 1: sane asylum. Yeah exactly. And these are questions for you folks.

992
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 1: We we want to hear. I want to hear your thoughts.

993
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: What what's the answer here? How how do we avoid

994
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:19,440
Speaker 1: this massive tragedy and tragedies like this in the future. Uh,

995
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: is there stuff we should do? Is should there is

996
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 1: federal regulation? Uh? The answer for Texas, you know, a

997
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 1: lot of people are gonna say no, A lot of

998
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: people say that this is the point. Is better predictive

999
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: weather models? Do we just tell everybody constantly live as

1000
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: those civilization may collapse in the next seventy two hours.

1001
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: That's that's the one. That's the one. Uh. Speaking of

1002
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 1: my friend Vanessa just got back to me and it's

1003
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:49,640
Speaker 1: exactly this. I'm gonna read this verbatim to you. We

1004
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: are key preppers, so we were prepared, but we had

1005
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:57,320
Speaker 1: zero electricity, not rolling for eighty four hours. Eighty four hours,

1006
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: the temperatures in our home got to four degrees because

1007
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 1: in the forties we were okay, but we had supplies.

1008
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: The elderly in our area had it very hard, lots

1009
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:11,880
Speaker 1: of pipes and damage. But it's eighty degrees here today.

1010
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 1: Geoengineering is wacky. So basically, yeah, unless you are a

1011
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:21,800
Speaker 1: prepper essentially, or you see yourself as that way and

1012
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 1: are prepared for this stuff, um, you may not be

1013
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 1: ready when something like this goes down on the individual

1014
01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 1: level of the home level, the apartment level, whatever it is. UM,

1015
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:35,960
Speaker 1: it would be great if the companies and these big

1016
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: organizations and the profit centers instead were prepared right right now.

1017
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,760
Speaker 1: As we continue, doubtlessly more information is going to come

1018
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 1: out about how this catastrophe was handled, and that may

1019
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:55,200
Speaker 1: change everybody's view of the sequence of events. That's that's

1020
01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: just the nature of how these sorts of investigations work.

1021
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: On a side note, you guys, I finally did it.

1022
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:04,840
Speaker 1: I I achieved my dream of getting a French M

1023
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 1: R E, which is an R C I R. They're

1024
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: they're just streets ahead, chicken cordon blur. What are we

1025
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 1: talking here? They got some good stuff, like they all

1026
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: come with a petty. There's one that's like border petty

1027
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,160
Speaker 1: b o a r Uh. They've got some good stuff.

1028
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 1: I'll send you guys picks when they come in. But

1029
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 1: as long as there's something larange in the UM. I

1030
01:04:28,760 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: gotta ask you, guys though, Uh, in a year or

1031
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: guys again the year that has already felt like half

1032
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:37,120
Speaker 1: a year. Uh, let's just consider this a continuation of

1033
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: last year. Uh, just chock full of crazy, historical, unprecedented events.

1034
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:47,000
Speaker 1: Where do you think this one ranks? Tough to say honestly,

1035
01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:52,360
Speaker 1: because if the past several months have taught us anything

1036
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:58,280
Speaker 1: it is that the motto for the motto for this year,

1037
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 1: the motto for last year, model for last year was

1038
01:05:01,080 --> 01:05:05,919
Speaker 1: It's always something right, uh, and the motto for this

1039
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:10,880
Speaker 1: year may well be but wait, there's more. So I'm

1040
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:12,600
Speaker 1: having a tough time. I think it's a great question,

1041
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 1: and it's one we should send to you, our fellow listeners.

1042
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 1: How would you rank it? What else is not getting reported,

1043
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,000
Speaker 1: because we can assure you there's a lot. And also,

1044
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:29,040
Speaker 1: how would somebody untangle the complicated situation of Texas energy?

1045
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 1: What is the solution and how plausible do you think

1046
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:35,840
Speaker 1: it is for that solution to be achieved before another

1047
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 1: event like this occurs. We want to hear from you.

1048
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:40,960
Speaker 1: We try to make it easy to find us online.

1049
01:05:41,120 --> 01:05:43,320
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook and Twitter, where we

1050
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: are conspiracy stuff. On Instagram we are conspiracy stuff. Show

1051
01:05:47,640 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: those are you know? Easy ways to follow along with

1052
01:05:50,440 --> 01:05:52,960
Speaker 1: us and maybe right to us. Another way is to

1053
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:56,120
Speaker 1: join Here's where it gets crazy. That's our Facebook page.

1054
01:05:56,400 --> 01:05:58,040
Speaker 1: Lots and lots of us are already on there, and

1055
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:00,120
Speaker 1: it'd be great to see your face there too. And

1056
01:06:00,160 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 1: if you want to do a different kind of writing.

1057
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 1: Why not write us a nice review on Apple podcast

1058
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,640
Speaker 1: or the podcatcher of your choice, but preferably Apple podcast

1059
01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: helps us get up there in the rankings and helps

1060
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: people discover the show. It's true, and I want to

1061
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: thank everybody who uh reached out to me personally and

1062
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 1: said that we ruined their day with that episode about

1063
01:06:21,480 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 1: baby food. Sorry, but I think it's just better to

1064
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Speaker 1: know my hands are clean. I was on Adventures, you're

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01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:31,760
Speaker 1: on Adventures. That's correct. Uh. If you don't want to

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01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:37,600
Speaker 1: contact us via social media, absolutely understand. We have another

1067
01:06:37,640 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: way to get in touch with us. Uh. We went

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01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: legit and got we went semi legit and got a

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01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 1: call in number. We are one eight three three st

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01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: d w y t K. You have three minutes. Those

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01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:54,720
Speaker 1: minutes belong to you do with them what you will. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Here's what we suggest if you if you have an idea, UH,

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01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 1: tackle it this way. Tell us your name or your

1074
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 1: cool nickname or moniker at the top. Tell us your story,

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01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: your response, your topic suggestion. If there's anything that you

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01:07:08,600 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: want to just keep between us and the n ess A,

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01:07:11,280 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 1: then you can save that for the end and tell

1078
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:17,840
Speaker 1: us then, and perhaps most importantly, if you have an

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01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:21,400
Speaker 1: in depth story, or you have an in depth question

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01:07:21,560 --> 01:07:24,320
Speaker 1: or something you want to share with us. Don't feel

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01:07:24,360 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 1: like you have to edit yourself down to three minutes.

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01:07:27,480 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 1: Just go ahead and send us an email. We do

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01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 1: read them all, uh and we greatly appreciate them. You

1084
01:07:33,360 --> 01:07:35,920
Speaker 1: can hit us up there any time of day, any

1085
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:39,400
Speaker 1: state you're in, uh, mental or physical, at our good

1086
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:41,960
Speaker 1: old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at i

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01:07:42,000 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to

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01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:05,320
Speaker 1: know is a production of I heart Radio. For more

1089
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.