Squadron7 said:
Not knowing the numbers, I'll ask the question: What is the larger amount between what it would have cost to winterize our plants and what has been spent subsidizing renewables?
Very complex problem.'
Events such as this are once in 50 years or so. 1983 was the last of this magnitude. Even lessor events such as Feb 2011 are destructive. But all in all these events for Texas are very rare.
Our climate allows us to build cheaper than up north or in say Co. Isolating homes and industry is expensive. This up front reduction in cost is one of several drivers of moving people and industry into Southern states.
But once in a while you have extremely expensive outside the bell curve event such as this. And between the events there is significant change: in 1983 Texas had 16 million people. Today 29.5MM of course the damage is going to be worse- much worse.
Texas, with its 5 cities of +1MM and 4 metros of 2.5M+ we are sometimes going to catch hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and killing freezes and heatwaves with horrific numbers.
Most of the time we live in a good climate but when things go Harvey or deep freeze 2021 bad. Lots of people are going to suffer.
Its all Math and math can be cruel. Do you want to pay up front or afterwards ?