The Midnight Connection

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Texas's energy grid is largely disconnected from the rest of the U.S. That led to disastrous consequences last year when the state's grid was overloaded during a winter storm. Back in the 1970s, one company attempted to change the system in a secret, middle-of-the-night operation.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:06.3	February of 2021 was brutal for the state of Texas.
0:10.0	There were ice storms, single-digit temperatures, power lines got knocked down all over the
0:14.4	place.
0:15.4	And most Bouchel, you are KUT's energy and climate correspondent based in Austin, which
0:20.5	is where you were when the first snowflake started falling.
0:23.4	What was it like on the ground?
0:24.4	It was surreal.
0:25.4	It was Valentine's Day and it was just freezing cold.
0:30.2	Here in Houston and Southeast Texas, tonight it's record cold teens, single-digit.
0:34.2	There are 18 degrees here in Corpus Christi.
0:36.2	The temperature in Dallas already colder than in Anchorage, Alaska.
0:39.6	At first it was kind of exciting.
0:41.0	You never see snow like that in Austin.
0:43.5	But there was also this sense of foreboding.
0:45.5	Like everyone who knows about the Texas energy system knows that this could cause some serious
0:50.9	problems.
0:52.6	And it got scary pretty quick.
0:54.3	Good evening and thank you for joining us.
0:55.7	We're going to begin with breaking news tonight on the severe weather disaster that is
0:59.2	the first time in Texas, all 250 board counties are under a winter storm warning.
1:05.1	And the storm was just the beginning.
	...

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