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2020-21 Winter weather; bring it on


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Hey you-- that summer talk belongs in the hell-scape fire-dome thread.
Maybe a week ago, I thought I read someone who said it looked like we were going to get another polar blast a couple weeks from now.  Was that just a feverish dream brought on by sleeping in a freezing house for 3 nights?
 
 

Better not see anything like last
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53 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Hey you-- that summer talk belongs in the hell-scape fire-dome thread.

Maybe a week ago, I thought I read someone who said it looked like we were going to get another polar blast a couple weeks from now.  Was that just a feverish dream brought on by sleeping in a freezing house for 3 nights?

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if we did to be honest.   Once a major polar blast hits like it did last week, another one will hit a bit later on.  May not be as major, but it's definitely a possibility. 

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13 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Ate lunch outdoors today and it was a balmy 77. Exactly one week ago at this time, I was warming my numb, frozen fingers over a burner on my stove while it was 17. 

Just 17?  I'm pretty sure it was quite a bit lower than that in Big D.  

Also, just got my "Ambit Energy Alert."  According to them, I used 194kWh last week, compared to 153 the week before and should have a fairly moderate monthly bill.

Either I am having a complete brain cramp as to the last time I reupped on a fixed rate plan (unlikely), or I am on a pretty normal-type default retail variable rate plan.  I think we've established that those variable rate plans vary by the month, not the week, day, or hour.  Just in case anyone was wondering about that.

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8 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if we did to be honest.   Once a major polar blast hits like it did last week, another one will hit a bit later on.  May not be as major, but it's definitely a possibility. 

According to what? A gut feeling? Come on, man. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

In Amarillo this afternoon

75 degrees, calm, no clouds.

Blizzard Warning for northwest Panhandle and OK panhandle from 1AM tonight through 7PM.

Snow accumulation only 1-4".  Winds up to 60MPH.  Whiteout conditions possible.

Damn...that's quick.

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something, something...fast blowing white loads accumulating on your mom's panhandle.  

Nothing like Amarillo, but will get cool again for next few nights in Austin until Saturday.  Was looking forward to that time of year where you don't have to run heat or A/C (we did enjoy that last couple of weeks), but will probably have to turn on upstairs heater for the girls at night.  But that looks like it's it until A/C season in month +.  which is good, because then it's time to flush the lines with vinegar solution, clean evaps and condensers, and see what it's pulling on amps, and then pressure.  Easy enough to do during the A/C season, I just like when I know nobody is gonna go fucking with the thermostat while I'm up in the attic and I'd really like to see our downstairs unit make it one more summer before needing replacement.  But those furnaces lasted us well during the ice storm, while they had power anyway.  They could use a staycation. 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/travis-county/travis-countys-winter-storm-death-toll-more-than-doubles-since-last-dshs-update/

Quote

In its latest update Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services increased the death toll from February’s winter storms to 210 people.

The agency moved the statewide death toll up from its May update of 151 as it “continues to reconcile information about causes of death.” Confirmed deaths happened from Feb. 11 to March 5, the agency said.

Quote

DSHS says it tracks the deaths attributed to the storm three ways:

  • Medical certifiers submit a DSHS form specifying that a particular death was related to a disaster.
  • Medical certifiers flag a death record as disaster related.
  • DSHS epidemiologists match public reports of disaster-related deaths to death certificates.
Quote

Most of the deaths have been from hypothermia, DSHS says on its website, but deaths have also been from car crashes, carbon monoxide poisoning, exacerbation of chronic illness, falls and fires.

 

 

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KHOU: Report finds companies were paid to cut off power during February storm

Dozens of mostly natural gas facilities, including some directly supplying fuel to power plants around the state, were paid to have their electricity cut off in an emergency like February’s devastating winter storm, according to a report released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

The UT researchers said that 67 sites, mostly gas refining and pipeline infrastructure locations around Texas, were allowed to sign up for a voluntary “emergency response” program coordinated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which runs the state's power grid.

Of those 67 locations receiving payments from ERCOT, at least five sites “later identified themselves to the electric utility as critical natural gas infrastructure,” according to the UT researchers.

Most power plants in Texas use natural gas for fuel. A key cause of the February blackouts was power plants not being able to get the fuel they needed to operate.

Natural gas companies were widely criticized after February’s winter storm for not designating parts of their systems' critical infrastructure so that they would not be cut off in an emergency.

The revelation that some of them voluntarily took money so that their power could be cut off alarmed some experts.

“It does seem counterintuitive from a reliability aspect that locations that are associated with getting fuel to power plants would be allowed to be turned off during the times when they are needed the most,” Joshua D. Rhodes, a research associate in mechanical engineering and one of the co-authors of the report said.

Rhodes said Tuesday that the state did not provide them the names of the companies that own or control the 67 fuel sites that were taking payments in exchange for being on the cut-off list. “We do not know who they were, or necessarily where they were,” he said.

 

Researchers said that, in total, there’s an annual $50 million cap on payments to companies to incentivize them to participate in the program, which is designed to save electricity when statewide demand for power exceeds supply.

ERCOT responds

“If an entity is considered critical infrastructure, then it should not be offering to participate in the ERS program,” ERCOT said in a statement late Tuesday, referring to the voluntary Emergency Response Program’s acronym.

ERCOT would not reveal which companies are being paid through the program because it said it doesn't know. ERCOT, according to a spokeswoman, doesn’t actually sign up companies or run the program in-house. It relies on an outside contractor to take the money ERCOT allocates for the program and actually pay the companies that sign up. ERCOT itself also does not cut power to the participating companies.

“Since they do not register with ERCOT, we cannot provide customer details," spokeswoman Leslie Sopko said in a statement.

ERCOT has been reluctant to provide detailed information to the public following the February storm, and has been widely criticized for mismanaging the crisis.

In February, about 4.5 million homes lost electricity in one of the most serious winter weather blackouts in Texas history.

In mid-February, temperatures stayed below freezing throughout Texas for nearly a week. By some estimates, hundreds died from the cold and lack of power and potable water which was in short supply because of frozen and burst water pipes.

 

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We have 4 nuclear power facilities in Texas, what's to stop us from getting a handful of those new micro-reactor that still generate 300 megawatts and have their "risk island" stop at the facility property line?  They're all over the rest of the world and functioning safely.  Not like Bastrop or Elgin is gonna suffer a tsunami.  

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We have 4 nuclear power facilities in Texas, what's to stop us from getting a handful of those new micro-reactor that still generate 300 megawatts and have their "risk island" stop at the facility property line?  They're all over the rest of the world and functioning safely.  Not like Bastrop or Elgin is gonna suffer a tsunami.  

Now who in Texas could be behind stopping something like that? Who could it possibly be? Yep it’s a mystery.
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4 hours ago, Captainant said:

KHOU: Report finds companies were paid to cut off power during February storm

Dozens of mostly natural gas facilities, including some directly supplying fuel to power plants around the state, were paid to have their electricity cut off in an emergency like February’s devastating winter storm, according to a report released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

The UT researchers said that 67 sites, mostly gas refining and pipeline infrastructure locations around Texas, were allowed to sign up for a voluntary “emergency response” program coordinated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which runs the state's power grid.

Of those 67 locations receiving payments from ERCOT, at least five sites “later identified themselves to the electric utility as critical natural gas infrastructure,” according to the UT researchers.

Most power plants in Texas use natural gas for fuel. A key cause of the February blackouts was power plants not being able to get the fuel they needed to operate.

Natural gas companies were widely criticized after February’s winter storm for not designating parts of their systems' critical infrastructure so that they would not be cut off in an emergency.

The revelation that some of them voluntarily took money so that their power could be cut off alarmed some experts.

“It does seem counterintuitive from a reliability aspect that locations that are associated with getting fuel to power plants would be allowed to be turned off during the times when they are needed the most,” Joshua D. Rhodes, a research associate in mechanical engineering and one of the co-authors of the report said.

Rhodes said Tuesday that the state did not provide them the names of the companies that own or control the 67 fuel sites that were taking payments in exchange for being on the cut-off list. “We do not know who they were, or necessarily where they were,” he said.

 

Researchers said that, in total, there’s an annual $50 million cap on payments to companies to incentivize them to participate in the program, which is designed to save electricity when statewide demand for power exceeds supply.

ERCOT responds

“If an entity is considered critical infrastructure, then it should not be offering to participate in the ERS program,” ERCOT said in a statement late Tuesday, referring to the voluntary Emergency Response Program’s acronym.

ERCOT would not reveal which companies are being paid through the program because it said it doesn't know. ERCOT, according to a spokeswoman, doesn’t actually sign up companies or run the program in-house. It relies on an outside contractor to take the money ERCOT allocates for the program and actually pay the companies that sign up. ERCOT itself also does not cut power to the participating companies.

“Since they do not register with ERCOT, we cannot provide customer details," spokeswoman Leslie Sopko said in a statement.

ERCOT has been reluctant to provide detailed information to the public following the February storm, and has been widely criticized for mismanaging the crisis.

In February, about 4.5 million homes lost electricity in one of the most serious winter weather blackouts in Texas history.

In mid-February, temperatures stayed below freezing throughout Texas for nearly a week. By some estimates, hundreds died from the cold and lack of power and potable water which was in short supply because of frozen and burst water pipes.

 

I will summarize this for you: if in times of crisis things work as they should (for the end user), you should be surprised.  

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those 67 sites, and the most espectially the 5 fucking critical NG infrastructure sites better hope to hell they dont get outed, cause there will be hell to pay if they get outed. 

I doubt it and they won’t even need to pay back that incentive money
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Not like the "shortage" of natural gas enabled them to charge exorbitant and predatory rates leading to 11 BILLION in profits for the NG companies during the freeze. 

... What's that? It did?

Well shucks, at least they increased shareholder value at the low cost of at least 200 deaths. 

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  • 2 years later...

Sooo....there's a lawsuit in Harris County which alleges that the 2021 Icepocalypse and power outages shitshow was a result of market manipulation by gas companies to get more profits. Interesting read. I'm sure it will go nowhere because in this state O&G companies own our legislature.

Remember that CFO of the O&G co backed by Jerry Jones saying tha they "hit the jackpoint" when the the price of MWh hit $9K a few days after the blackout? 

 

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4896585-texas-gas-manipulation-lawsuit-uri/

Lawsuits allege deadly 2021 Texas blackouts were an inside job

 

Those companies, plaintiff’s lawyer Andrew Gould argued on Monday, “diverted natural gas before winter, to create artificial scarcity — thus driving up the price.”

The defendants in the case include nearly three dozen major Texas gas extraction, pipeline companies and banks: Companies like CenterPoint Energy, BP, Energy Transfer Partners and Morgan Stanley.

The Hill has reached out to these companies, but only CenterPoint responded, to say that it does not comment on pending litigation. 

But on Monday, company lawyers argued that even if the claims were true, the Harris County courthouse didn’t have jurisdiction, because the 2021 state legislative session had established a process which, ultimately, ruled that the sky-high profits by the defendants were fair.

The plaintiffs “could have participated in that regulatory process, and could have raised all the complaints that they’re raising now about utilities,” Weston O’Black, an attorney for CenterPoint, said on Monday.

Had they missed that opportunity, O’Black argued, the only other means of challenging those conclusions was to do so in Travis County district court — an opportunity that has now expired.

 

But CirclesX attorneys charged that the harm to Texans had happened long before that legislative process began. Its suit comes on the heels of courts in Oklahoma and Arkansas finding market manipulation by pipeline companies during Winter Storm Uri — as well as a wave of other suits that allege manipulation in Texas.

It also follows widespread, bigger-picture allegations of market manipulation and racketeering by the oil and gas industry — like the July lawsuit by the city of Baltimore that argued oil and gas driller pioneer had illegally conspired with foreign governments to inflate the price of oil and gas.

The charges aired in court on Monday were a far more limited version of CirclesX’s broader, more explosive claims: For decades, Texas’s major pipeline companies have covertly squeezed gas supplies before cold snaps and hurricanes.

In doing this, the plaintiffs argued, they have driven up the price, and then using the ensuing disaster as a cover to break existing contracts, freeing up their gas supplies to be sold for newly-soaring prices on the spot market.

“Winter Storm Uri followed this playbook,” the suit argues, “and indeed represents the most egregious example of Defendants’ manipulation and their greatest heist yet.”

In this alleged “heist,” the suit contends, the gas companies starved their contracted customers of gas, helping ensure the shortages that led to blackouts, hundreds of deaths and costs of hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Simply stated, the ‘failure to winterize’ narrative is misleading,” the CirclesX lawyers wrote. 

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13 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Sooo....there's a lawsuit in Harris County which alleges that the 2021 Icepocalypse and power outages shitshow was a result of market manipulation by gas companies to get more profits. Interesting read. I'm sure it will go nowhere because in this state O&G companies own our legislature.

Remember that CFO of the O&G co backed by Jerry Jones saying tha they "hit the jackpoint" when the the price of MWh hit $9K a few days after the blackout? 

 

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4896585-texas-gas-manipulation-lawsuit-uri/

Lawsuits allege deadly 2021 Texas blackouts were an inside job

 

Those companies, plaintiff’s lawyer Andrew Gould argued on Monday, “diverted natural gas before winter, to create artificial scarcity — thus driving up the price.”

The defendants in the case include nearly three dozen major Texas gas extraction, pipeline companies and banks: Companies like CenterPoint Energy, BP, Energy Transfer Partners and Morgan Stanley.

The Hill has reached out to these companies, but only CenterPoint responded, to say that it does not comment on pending litigation. 

But on Monday, company lawyers argued that even if the claims were true, the Harris County courthouse didn’t have jurisdiction, because the 2021 state legislative session had established a process which, ultimately, ruled that the sky-high profits by the defendants were fair.

The plaintiffs “could have participated in that regulatory process, and could have raised all the complaints that they’re raising now about utilities,” Weston O’Black, an attorney for CenterPoint, said on Monday.

Had they missed that opportunity, O’Black argued, the only other means of challenging those conclusions was to do so in Travis County district court — an opportunity that has now expired.

 

But CirclesX attorneys charged that the harm to Texans had happened long before that legislative process began. Its suit comes on the heels of courts in Oklahoma and Arkansas finding market manipulation by pipeline companies during Winter Storm Uri — as well as a wave of other suits that allege manipulation in Texas.

It also follows widespread, bigger-picture allegations of market manipulation and racketeering by the oil and gas industry — like the July lawsuit by the city of Baltimore that argued oil and gas driller pioneer had illegally conspired with foreign governments to inflate the price of oil and gas.

The charges aired in court on Monday were a far more limited version of CirclesX’s broader, more explosive claims: For decades, Texas’s major pipeline companies have covertly squeezed gas supplies before cold snaps and hurricanes.

In doing this, the plaintiffs argued, they have driven up the price, and then using the ensuing disaster as a cover to break existing contracts, freeing up their gas supplies to be sold for newly-soaring prices on the spot market.

“Winter Storm Uri followed this playbook,” the suit argues, “and indeed represents the most egregious example of Defendants’ manipulation and their greatest heist yet.”

In this alleged “heist,” the suit contends, the gas companies starved their contracted customers of gas, helping ensure the shortages that led to blackouts, hundreds of deaths and costs of hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Simply stated, the ‘failure to winterize’ narrative is misleading,” the CirclesX lawyers wrote. 

Sounds extremely similar to the recent bullshit with Centerpoint where they could make pennies on the dollar for investments in maintenance and risk reduction - OR - they could hope for disaster so they can make a 2-3x return on investment asking for disaster relief funds while gouging their monopoly customers they've already betrayed. 

Also, watch out. You just called a pipeline company O&G, you sick bastard. 

Edited by Captainant
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Remember, people were calling out this market manipulation and profiteering on the cold dead bodies of Texans at the time, too.

https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2021-09-22/how-market-manipulation-might-have-worsened-the-texas-blackout

Quote

 

Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, said that presents obvious opportunities for gaming the system. Higher prices mean energy sellers can make more money selling less energy.

“When producers and generators can combine and withhold power from the market, they can drive the price up,” he told KUT last spring. “They can do it either willfully, or they can do it with willful blindness” by allowing their supply chain to break down.

In the Texas electricity market, withholding supply to drive prices up is against the rules. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

“This is behavior that's taught in MBA programs. We teach the electricity game at school,” Hirs said.

Experts say the rules are different when it comes to natural gas sales in Texas, where withholding supply may not even be a crime (more on that later).

...

The people making those accusations say the pattern of withholding was clear: before the storm hit, natural gas supply dropped and demand rose, leading to higher prices.

“We started seeing a doubling and tripling of the prices as we were getting to the end of the week just before the storm,” Paula Gold Williams, the head of San Antonio’s electric utility CPS Energy, told KUT.

At the height of the blackout, she said, natural gas was sometimes priced 15,000% higher than it was before the storm.

Williams and other power plant operators are now involved in lawsuits, hoping to determine whether natural gas companies intentionally withheld their energy supply to make more money.

The companies say they did nothing wrong. Many gas suppliers have blamed cold weather and power outages for some of the gas supply interruptions, and said individual utilities, like CPS, should have locked in contracts for lower-priced natural gas before prices rose.

But even if natural gas suppliers did withhold supply, it's not clear whether that would be illegal in Texas, Beth Garza said.

The natural gas market "doesn't have any specific rules limiting people in their market activities,” she said. “If your market doesn't have any rules against withholding, people will withhold because it's profitable.”

 

The natural gas market "doesn't have any specific rules limiting people in their market activities,” she said. “If your market doesn't have any rules against withholding, people will withhold because it's profitable.”

...

“Gas was such an important part of the failure and [gas suppliers] made such a profit,” sayid Michael Webber, professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin. “A lot of us might look at and say that doesn't feel right, that the people who underperformed get rewarded.”

Edited by Captainant
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22 hours ago, crash_davis said:

Sooo....there's a lawsuit in Harris County which alleges that the 2021 Icepocalypse and power outages shitshow was a result of market manipulation by gas companies to get more profits. Interesting read. I'm sure it will go nowhere because in this state O&G companies own our legislature.

Remember that CFO of the O&G co backed by Jerry Jones saying tha they "hit the jackpoint" when the the price of MWh hit $9K a few days after the blackout? 

 

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4896585-texas-gas-manipulation-lawsuit-uri/

Lawsuits allege deadly 2021 Texas blackouts were an inside job

 

Those companies, plaintiff’s lawyer Andrew Gould argued on Monday, “diverted natural gas before winter, to create artificial scarcity — thus driving up the price.”

The defendants in the case include nearly three dozen major Texas gas extraction, pipeline companies and banks: Companies like CenterPoint Energy, BP, Energy Transfer Partners and Morgan Stanley.

The Hill has reached out to these companies, but only CenterPoint responded, to say that it does not comment on pending litigation. 

But on Monday, company lawyers argued that even if the claims were true, the Harris County courthouse didn’t have jurisdiction, because the 2021 state legislative session had established a process which, ultimately, ruled that the sky-high profits by the defendants were fair.

The plaintiffs “could have participated in that regulatory process, and could have raised all the complaints that they’re raising now about utilities,” Weston O’Black, an attorney for CenterPoint, said on Monday.

Had they missed that opportunity, O’Black argued, the only other means of challenging those conclusions was to do so in Travis County district court — an opportunity that has now expired.

 

But CirclesX attorneys charged that the harm to Texans had happened long before that legislative process began. Its suit comes on the heels of courts in Oklahoma and Arkansas finding market manipulation by pipeline companies during Winter Storm Uri — as well as a wave of other suits that allege manipulation in Texas.

It also follows widespread, bigger-picture allegations of market manipulation and racketeering by the oil and gas industry — like the July lawsuit by the city of Baltimore that argued oil and gas driller pioneer had illegally conspired with foreign governments to inflate the price of oil and gas.

The charges aired in court on Monday were a far more limited version of CirclesX’s broader, more explosive claims: For decades, Texas’s major pipeline companies have covertly squeezed gas supplies before cold snaps and hurricanes.

In doing this, the plaintiffs argued, they have driven up the price, and then using the ensuing disaster as a cover to break existing contracts, freeing up their gas supplies to be sold for newly-soaring prices on the spot market.

“Winter Storm Uri followed this playbook,” the suit argues, “and indeed represents the most egregious example of Defendants’ manipulation and their greatest heist yet.”

In this alleged “heist,” the suit contends, the gas companies starved their contracted customers of gas, helping ensure the shortages that led to blackouts, hundreds of deaths and costs of hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Simply stated, the ‘failure to winterize’ narrative is misleading,” the CirclesX lawyers wrote. 

I just read The Hill article and looked to see if there was a thread about the lawsuit here. Hopefully the lawsuit stands up to the lack of jurisdiction argument and is allowed to proceed. The guy (owner of CircleX) who brought the suit has an interesting background - from Enron. He said his experience there where he watched Enron traders fuck over California 20 years earlier was what allowed him to spot the pattern of what they were doing to Texas.

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