Dark Thoughts: Philosophy and the Texas Grid Failure

by Adam Briggle

Some quotes from the article

[Hurricane] Uri’s damage was high. Some estimates put it north of $200 billion, which would make it the costliest weather disaster in Texas history: remarkable, given our frequent run-ins with hurricanes. Sixty-three people died in the storm, many from hypothermia, including an 11-year-old boy near Houston. As people burned their fences and furniture for heat, some died in house fires. Others died from carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to get warmth from unventilated cars and generators.
[...]
Despite our best attempts to dispense with them, energy paradoxes seep from philosophy into policy. The Texas grid failure demonstrates the way resilience and precarity as well as freedom and dependence give rise to one another.

PDF

Published March 22, 2021

Reviews

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, excellent philosophical oriented reflections on the fragility of electrical grids, best summed up by the following quote:

Despite our best attempts to dispense with them, energy paradoxes seep from philosophy into policy. The Texas grid failure demonstrates the way resilience and precarity as well as freedom and dependence give rise to one another.

Lightly but surely touches on the Many Hands Problems (who is responsible for switching off sections of the grid?), risk management and the political and social impacts of technology failures and thus would be highly recommended as an example or case study in an engineering ethics course.