Texas Faces Blackouts In 100 Degree Heat

Blackouts have been a partner to extreme heat for decades. The most well-known are massive city-wide blackouts in New York City, which started in the 1970s. Get ready for a big one in Texas.

Accuweather says, “The summerlike heat will cause the energy demand across Texas to approach record territory. ERCOT provides power to most of the state and is anticipating an energy demand of nearly 84,000 megawatts Wednesday afternoon. This would be just shy of the all-time energy demand of more than 85,500 megawatts set during the summer of 2023.” The utility has said that before. Temperatures could rise above those forecasts, partially as measured by the heat index. 

The Weak Grid

Texas is a prime example of how grids and energy sources can be strained. It has become a major Bitcoin mining region, which uses huge amounts of electricity. Regular periods of very high heat are another drain. Eventually, AI server farms will be part of this equation. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Congress that 99% of all electricity use would go toward AI applications. Anything close to that today would be electricity would be rationed. Residential electricity supply would be the first to go. 

100-degree heat will become a political problem nearly as fast as infrastructure. Legislators will be the referees. Then, money becomes involved, as it always is in politics. People facing blackouts because of heat are in trouble

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