It's not the infrastructure that (temporarily) costs this much. It's the power that runs through it. There was simply no power.
> Unusually frigid temperatures knocked out nearly half of the state’s power plants in mid-February
They were short on the futures/forward contracts, i.e. they had to provide electricity, but there was none. When shit hits the fan someone has to foot the bill, and here it is them (among other such players).
I mean that the power that is still online doesn’t suddenly cost 500x more to produce. The plants are paid extra for.. not being prepared? This is why regulations exist.
Yes, it did in fact cost 500x more to buy, temporarily. Price is not determined by the cost of production but by supply and demand. Haven't you seen the extent of damage in Texas? What do you think people were willing to pay for electricity to not have this damage?
Otherwise you can have a command-and-control economy, like the Soviet Union had (I'm not being sarcastic). Then a person/group in charge would decide who gets the remaining supply, rather than the price-driven market.
Energy has always been a very delicate piece of engineering, sensitive to short term disruptions. Whether or not that energy is distributed via capitalist markets or not, whether it's electrical energy, gas or oil or whatever else.
Again, this is why regulation exists, in many markets. It’s nothing new and as far as I know how the majority of states operate. As a society we don’t want the vulnerable to be looted in times of need. Equating that to communism, is well, plain stupid, so I’ll refrain from commenting further.
> Unusually frigid temperatures knocked out nearly half of the state’s power plants in mid-February
They were short on the futures/forward contracts, i.e. they had to provide electricity, but there was none. When shit hits the fan someone has to foot the bill, and here it is them (among other such players).