Texas power crisis is getting worse with millions left in dark
17 Feb 2021 - 22:21
A man crosses Main Street in downtown during record-breaking temperatures in Houston, U.S., February 17, 2021. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
Bloomberg
The crisis that has knocked out power for days to millions of homes and businesses in Texas and across the central U.S. is getting worse, with blackouts expected to last until at least Thursday.
Texas’s grid operator cut power to 2.8 million homes Wednesday morning, just hours after restoring service to 700,000 households. Load on the state’s power system fell overnight to the lowest level since early Monday when the agency instituted rolling blackouts to keep the grid from total collapse amid an extremely cold blast. The data signal that the agency has made little to no progress in getting the lights and heat back on.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a record closing high on Tuesday as cyclical sectors gained on the prospect of more fiscal aid to lift the U.S. economy from a coronavirus-driven slump.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a record closing high on Tuesday as cyclical sectors gained on the prospect of more fiscal aid to lift the U.S. economy from a coronavirus-driven slump.
The Nasdaq, however, dipped as technology stocks moved lower, while concerns over rising interest rates kept the benchmark S&P 500 little changed.
Sectors poised to benefit the most from a reopening economy, including energy and financials, had the biggest percentage gains. President Joe Biden has pitched a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill and is pressing Congress to pass it in the coming weeks in order to get $1,400 stimulus checks to Americans and bolster unemployment payments.
Wall Street’s main indexes were set to open at all-time highs on Tuesday, with investors piling into economically sensitive stocks on hopes of more fiscal aid to lift the world’s biggest economy from a coronavirus-driven slump. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp rose about 1.7% each .
Freeze Could Keep Texans in the Dark for Days: Energy Update
Bloomberg 2/17/2021 Joe Carroll and Naureen S. Malik
(Bloomberg) The deep freeze that has forced the shutdown of U.S. refineries, oil wells and meat plants, disrupted shipments of soybeans and corn, and is still leaving more than 3 million customers without electricity could continue to keep parts of Texas in the dark for several days.
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Operators have been slow to get power generation back online and data showing the availability of generation has little signs of improvement. Without any additional supply, rolling blackouts are likely to be needed Wednesday to prevent the total collapse of the network. On Tuesday, the blackouts spread to North Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.