This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, March 4, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Cold weather and a unique electrical grid left dozens of people dead and millions of

Texans without power, even as people were trying to figure out

how to meet their basic human needs, the ideological fights began with blame leveled at both

the failure of alternative energy and state-level deregulation.

Both stories have problems, according to Peter Van Doren, editor of Regulation magazine.

When I looked at a map of the various electrical grids in the United States, there was a big

hunk that just was Texas. What is the relevance of that fact to our discussion about these massive blackouts

with fatal consequences in Texas in recent weeks.

Some commentators think it has a lot to do with what happened.

I have questions, but I'm less sure that that has a lot to do with what happened but for our listeners

There are three alternating current

Interconnected transmission systems in the United States.

There's the Western Interconnection, West of the Rockies, the Eastern Interconnection, East of the Rockies,

and then there's Texas.

Texas does not have alternating current links with any other transmission systems in the United States.

It has a limited direct current links, but those are not that useful.

So the question is, would ability to transmit power

from neighboring states, also,

many of whom were cold during this blackout in Texas, did they have, did those

neighboring states have reserve capacity that was underutilized, which if it

...