As I write this, Texas has already cleared up and is warm again ... but the effects of a week spent below freezing (with temperatures reaching below zero) will be felt for a long time.
via Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Even though it had not snowed here in for several days, the Rolling Blackouts continued through the end of the week. It is hard to believe Texas does not know how to handle six inches of snow. Having grown up near Boston, I recognize that with no plows, no sanding, and no salt ... you stand little chance of keeping the roads clear. At some level, it is just idiots slipping, sliding, and waiting for the sun to come out. But who would have thought that would describe top leaders of the State and its ability to provide basic human needs like power, water, and heating (let alone WiFi and battery power)?
The ice storm and cold snap weren’t so bad for me (compared to some of the stories I’m hearing from other people in our office). Yes, we lost power, water, and the Internet ... but only for a few isolated hours. I was lucky (and so was our data center), but millions (including several Capitalogix employees) suffered due to lack of water, electricity, or heat, and to add insult to injury – burst pipes.
Despite the fact that the temperature is back in the high 50s, here is a photo I took at our local supermarket this weekend. Let's say things aren't quite back to normal yet.
I've seen a lot of political mudslinging from both sides trying to avoid blame. The reality is that this mess is a disaster that doesn't need to be politicized (and should be used as the raw material to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again). While Texas rarely sees weather like this, this wasn't the first time we have, and it won't be the last.
Two major factors came into play.
First, Texas chose to stay off the national grid to avoid federal regulation. The Texas grid is called ERCOT, and it is run by an agency of the same name — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. We joke about Texas seceding from the Union, but the reality is that many Texans are fiercely independent and crave less federal regulation (which is a discussion for another day) so the choice resonated with constituents. Especially since Texas is a very energy-rich state. Unfortunately, not being on the national grid means that when our grid is overtaxed, we're mostly on our own. In the winter of 2011, when our power sources couldn't keep up with needs we imported energy from Mexico to keep up, but this year much of Northern Mexico was struggling as well.
Second, Texas chose not to winterize its power sources. After 2011, a proposal was floated to winterize energy plants by adding insulation, heating pipes, etc. but it was very costly and wasn't adopted. Many Texans (including politicians) were quick to blame it on the underperformance of renewables, but in this case, according to ERCOT, natural gas, coal, and nuclear were affected.
All of these energy sources can be winterized, and renewables work fine even in Antarctica. This isn't an argument for renewables or for joining the national grid. Just an acknowledgment of the current situation.
ERCOT claimed that they were ready for the storm, and warned their plants to "winterize" how they could, but clearly, it wasn't enough. With more preparation locally and on the state level, Texans should be fine to handle these types of episodes in the future. With that said, it shouldn't take episodes like this to enact change.
Regardless, crises like this are opportunities to come together, and I've been very happy to see how many people have offered food, water, and their homes to people in need.
Thank you to all who reached out to check in on us.
What The Perseverance Rover Reminded Me About
Last week, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars. It's not the first time we've landed a rover on Mars, but it's still incredible to see.
via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
It's a feat of engineering and human will. It's also a good reminder.
History is littered with tales of once-rare resources made plentiful by innovation. The reason is pretty straightforward … scarcity is often contextual.
Imagine a giant orange tree packed with fruit. If you pluck all the oranges from the lower branches, you are effectively out of accessible fruit. From that limited perspective, oranges are now scarce. But once someone invents a piece of technology called a ladder, the problem is solved.
When we first went to the moon, calculators referred to people charged with doing the complex math needed for the Rocket to make it into Space (rather than the device that could do the math instantly with no errors) and the computing power it took to get to the moon took up many rooms at NASA.
In comparison, you now have dramatically more computing power in your pocket than NASA used to get to the moon.
Likewise, we now have people living in space, posting videos from the ISS, and the ability to stream high-resolution images (and even movies) of space and galaxies near and far.
What was once scarce and unobtainable has become abundant and accessible. It is a story repeated countless times.
Still, as humans, we're wired to think locally and linearly. We evolved to live our lives in small groups, to fear outsiders, and to stay in a general region until we die. We're not wired to think about the billions and billions of individuals on our planet, or the rate of technological growth - or the minuteness of all that in contrast to the expanse of space.
Nonetheless, we have created better and faster ways to travel, we've created instantaneous communication networks across vast distances, and we've created megacities. Our tribes have gotten much bigger - and with that, our ability to envision and enact massive change has grown as well.
Our quest to conquer Space became the poster child for a type of innovation we now call "moon shots". While 'moon shot' originally meant "long shot," it's increasingly being used to describe a monumental effort towards a lofty goal — in other words, a "giant leap."
Today, with technology as a catalyst, we see those leaps happen in many areas (like A.I., medicine, longevity, space exploration, etc.).
It's hard to comprehend the scale of the universe or the scale of our potential ... but that's what makes it worth exploring.
Pretty cool!
Onwards!!
Posted at 05:17 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Film, Gadgets, Ideas, Market Commentary, Science, Trading Tools, Travel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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