On 3/2/21 9:43 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 4:59:43 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 05:32:23 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Sunday, February 28, 2021 at 11:02:13 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sun, 28 Feb 2021 07:02:25 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 3:15:58 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 09:27:58 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 11:31:52 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:14:08 -0600, Jim Joyce
wrote:
On Fri, 26 Feb 2021 07:21:16 -0500, micky wrote:

Somone on NPR's Morning Edition excplained that the water in natural gas
is removed by the gas companies in the north, so thta it won't freeze,
but they didn't do that in Texas, so it did freeze.

I suspect they're not set up to do it even if they wanted to.
In Texas, like you said, the natural gas distribution system isn't
winterized. Likewise, the wind farms aren't winterized, which led to Gov
Abbott's bizarre claim that wind energy stops working in cold weather. I
guess someone should tell him that wind energy works just fine in cold
weather if you take steps to make it so. There are plenty of examples of
that around the world.

This isn't the first time the power grid partially collapsed in Texas as a
result of cold weather. Just like before, recommendations get made that
ERCOT should winterize their freaking equipment, but as before, they've
said they won't do it because it costs too much.

I suppose the customers have a say in that because that cost would
show up in their bill. These are cheap *******s and they might still
say no assuming this won't happen again any time soon.
You just have to think of those people who tied their bill to the
wholesale cost of power and got clobbered when the wholesale price
skyrocketed.
Other places are willing to pay extra for better reliability.
We actually understand we pay a little extra on our bills here in
Florida to cover storms. We had a "Storm Charge" on our bills for
years after Charley and Wilma but the extra we paid in on the regular
service charge was enough to cover the Irma damage so they didn't need
to tack on an extra charge to cover the shortfall.
And of course, the Texas electric grid is separate from the rest of
America, so they won't be regulated by the feds, but this means they
also can't take electricity from the rest of the country when they need
it, like last week. (Except for El Paso, which is connected to the USA
grid and iiuc not the Texas grid. )
There are actually 3 electrical grids in the US: West, East, and Texas.

Hence, no gas and no electricity.
Something is obviously very wrong when customers in TX who were getting $100
electric bills got bills for $10K because of the power problem. I can't even
begin to imagine that happening. You would think the power companies would
say hold those bills, let's work on this. Then go back at the suppliers, saying
this is nuts, we expect some increased costs, even substantial ones, but
$100 to $10K? And they should have told those suppliers to be reasonable,
fix it or we're going public to identify who's ripping you off, there will be
multiple investigations and it's unlikely you'll get away with it or even do
business in America again by the time it's over. But the bigger solution
would be some regulatory caps so that suppliers can't charge totally insane
and unjustifiable prices. Even if they built a new plant that day, it would
not justify those prices.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Those customers were playing the electrical commodities market with
the big boys and like most amateurs who get into commodities, they got
****ed.
I guess it's too much to expect that regulators in a Republican state would
prevent utilities being marketed as utilities when they are actually commodities
that can skyrocket by a factor of a hundred overnight. BTW, I have never
seen any commodity do that, increase by two orders of magnitude in a
day or two, not even in a month, ever. Nothing even close. If you have an example,
I sure would love to see it. I guess that's because the commodities market
is regulated and shysters can't easily pull such a stunt.
Bear in mind Bill Clinton signed the legislation that treated the
derivatives markets as commodities so seeing disasters happen is not
unprecedented.
I don't know of a commodity in particular that has had that much delta
in a day but I don't play the commodities game., It is certainly
possible tho.
It's never happened, nothing even remotely close and the TX electric disaster
has nothing to do with the commodity markets, derivatives, or Clinton.
It has to do with a lot of stupid in TX, including some
really glaring things, like the four ERCOT board members, the regulators,
who resigned. They didn't even live in TX. Or was it 6? But heh,
according to the Republican governor, it was wind mills that were the
problem. According to another Republican, windmills cause cancer.
Stupid is as stupid does.

Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to play the electrical
wholesale game. There were plenty of normal utility options open to
these people but they just got greedy. There are 3d party options for
who you buy your power from all over the country. It just comes with a
warning that this is not a regular utility deal. A few people ignored
the warnings.
Sometimes you just have to let the baby touch the stove.
Yes, no surprise you have no empathy for consumers, including many elderly,
and people of modest means who don't know any better.
that were just ripped off by totally unethical shysters. Screw them, they
should have know their bills would go from $100, to $10,000. That's the new
America, where lies and shysters prevail, screw whoever you can.
Next you can defend the companies collecting, putting the people out on the street,
becoming welfare cases so the taxpayers wind up paying for them.
More good Fretwell public policy.



Before Biden stole the election, gasoline was ~$2/gal.Â* Yesterday I filled up at $2.76.Â* ****in' democrats!