Texas Electricity rates doubled!

[Ecomike]

Intro: I think you guys in California got nailed by this a few years ago, back just before Enron collapsed, and from what I read and heard Enron was partly to blame. Not sure what it's like there now. But this is just one more piece, just like sky high oil, natural gas, & gasoline and Diesel prices and the colapsing stock market, bankruptcies wiping out pension plans, investors being wiped out by corporate fraud, the list just goes on and on. While this RANT relates directly to Texas Electric rate problems and how consumers are getting screwed right now, this is the home state of the Bush Republican administration(s) and their policies are at the heart of this and similar problems that are in the process of ruining this entire country. At the rate things are going It won't be long before we are all broke, unemployed, and living under an overpopulated highway bridge begging for handouts from a bunch of Arabs.

Here is the latest fallout from the Electric utility deregulation in Texas thanks to the Reagan Republican Movement that started in the 80's to deregulate everything under the sun and let a so called free market control prices. Only problem is the markets are not free, they are being controlled by scoundrels and crooks now, not by a free market, with no government oversight left to keep the crooks in check. They deregulated banks, insurance, lending institutions, credit cards, PENSIONS, utilities like electric service, and now WE are paying the price. They essentially scrapped the Glass - Steagal Act that was put in place during the Great Depression to stop another collapse like the one that started the Great Depression. And now we are seeing the results of that.

Here are the latest bad results from PUC deregulation of electric service in Texas.

http://www.puc.state.tx.us/files/POLR_052908.pdf

http://www.electricitybid.com/elect...ricity-electric-company-no-longer-in-business

"Beginning May 16, the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) switched approximately 8,400 customers of Pre-Buy Electricity to a POLR. ERCOT has announced beginning Wednesday, May 28, it will switch approximately 15,000 customers of National Power Company to a POLR or another designated retail electric provider (REP). ERCOT initiated these switches because Pre-Buy and National Power defaulted on payment obligations.
Customers that were on a variable rate plan with National Power are being switched to Amigo Energy, which is not a POLR. Amigo has agreed to honor the terms of the customers plan with National Power. Customers on a fixed rate plan will be switched to a POLR."

Thank God they have not privatized Social Security! If they ever do it will no doubt go the way of Enron and Bear Stears.

They can NOT blame this one on the Democrats in Texas because they are an almost nonexistant minority.

"Many people may remember a few months ago we saw Riverway Power Company and National Power Company with outstanding low electric rates on the Power to Choose website. They were for 6 month and 12 month fixed electric rate terms and were a couple cents cheaper then the other electric providers. The government Power to Choose website gives any company listed on their a bit of authority as many people including myself assume that the rate must be accurate if the Texas government lists it on their site. This however has not been proven to be true as these two companies sold one thing and then a few months later told their customers, “Sorry looks like we will have to raise that “fixed rate” on you a
few cents higher.”


"This rate hike on a supposedly fixed electric rate had a huge backlash as their energy customers contacted about every consumer protection agency in existence telling them they had been dupped in a bait and switch scheme by a Texas electric provider. The Public Utility Commission of Texas did not take this lightly but instead abruptly took these two electric companies rates off their website. The PUCT made National Power honor their original fixed electric rate they offered their customers and as of today they have gone out of business. Up until National Power went out of business
they were asking customers to stay with them as they would be honoring the original advertised electric rate. Now National Power customers are left searching for another electric provider when the Texas electricity market is close to an all time historical high."

http://www.electricitybid.com/elect...d-it-national-power-is-going-out-of-business/

"Electric companies in Texas work from very small tight margins. When an electric company sells straight MCPE rates as fixed electric rates and do not hedge the price of the energy they either have to eat the loss if the price goes backwards or attempt to pass that cost onto the customer. The PUCT has recently put a stop to allowing electric companies to pass on the cost to the customer. A major problem with National Power company and Etricity Electric provider is that they have $200 - $300 deposits entrusted to them by their customers that these customers will never see again. Another company by the name of Prebuy Electric did not require a deposit but some customers who prepaid for their electricity never received that electricity and were switched to the POLR rate before they could run out their prepaid electric service with PreBuy Electric. A lot of people who really need that money no longer have it. f you are an Etricity customer you have been switched to the Provider of Last Resort by the Texas government and are paying anywhere from 22 - 30 cents kWh.In comparison a cheap 12 month fixed electric rate as of June 4 2008 goes for about 14 - 15 cents kWh. If you were an Etricity customer you need to sign up with a new provider ASAP to avoid paying the 22 - 30 cent kWh rate."

So, my son just received a notice a that his retail electric service provider (REP, National Power) is bailing out of the Texas market, so he is being transferred to the POLR (basically the highest rates in Texas, Provider of Last Resort) which will probably triple his light bill due to summer rates, and the highest summer rates I have seen, in spite of the fact that he
honored his agreements with National Power.

To add insult to injury it seems that Centerpoint Energy (the part of Reliant Energy that handles and services the grid) drags their feet for 6 to 8 weeks doing the switch over of REPs, when all that is involved is reading the meter and switching who gets the paperwork in a computer for billing. So in other words, when you suddenly get raped by your REP on the electric rates (something I ran into this month myself) and want to "Choose" a new provider in Texas, the www.powertochoose.org becomes www.powertoRAPE.org , or maybe we should call it power to get screwed, as they drag their feet for 6 to 8 weeks forcing you pay the old providers rates and highest rates for another 6 to 8 weeks when they suddenly decide to raise rates. But if the current REP goes out of business, they switch you over immediately.
Hmmm?

So why can't they do all the switch overs immediately?

If you are, or have been screwed over by your REP recently, here is where you can file a complaint to the PUC. Probably a waist of time as the PUC is probably controlled by TXU and Reliant (Free Market, hands off....), but at least our complaints can be viewed by the news media (public access to complaints history and data) and broadcast on news stories that can affect the next and future elections.

https://www.puc.state.tx.us/WebApp/Public/Apps/complaint/pgComplaintForm.asp?TXT_ACTION=2


http://www.puc.state.tx.us/files/POLR_052908.pdf

"An ex-employee at NPC has provided some information on the status of National Power as of today (June 6 2008). Apparently they are shredding documents. This may be a good or bad thing. Since all their customers credit card information is on file in hard copy they may be trying to destroy that information so that no one steals your information. If that is the reason then good for them. They only have a couple accountants left there and a few phone customer support people. According to the ex-employee they are going to tell you whatever they have to in order to collect your balance.
From the employees and customers of National Power’s experience, NPC has been lying to collect balances due. Be careful when speaking with them in being lured into them telling you what they have to to get you to
pay up. They broke your fixed electric rate agreement, not the other way around."

found at:
http://www.electricitybid.com/electricity/index.php/2008/06/06/shredding-documents-at-npc/

"The latest issue I have seen is with Texas Retail Electric Providers requesting that you sign a 12 month contract to be on their variable rate. The issue we have with this is that these energy companies are working with a base energy rate that they do little in the form of hedging. This means if the rate skyrockets they pass that issue on to you and you end up
paying a really high bill one month when the variable market goes through the roof. To request that the customer sign a contract to a rate they have no guarantee on is a bit insulting to me."

Bear Stears:

http://www.thestreet.com/funds/followmoney/10372963.html

" Bear Stears executives, Greenberg, Molinaro, Cayne and Spector sold $57 million of stock before the crisis hit."

Not to mention oil hit an all time high friday, and natural gas prices are exploding, while the Stock market took its biggest loss in about 15 years on Friday. And from what I read unemployment took a one month jump, 0.5% the highest since the 1980s! And mortgage forclosures hit an all time high of over 1 million homes, the highest since the 1980s depression. (the Republicans called it StagFlation, gave the depression a new name).

Do we really want more 4 more years of this?

 

[JNickel101]

And you think it will get better with a Dem in office?

No domestic drilling
No nuclear power plants
No new refineries
No wind power ("it ruins the aesthetics/scenery")
No coal to liquid plants
Higher taxes
"Universal" health care (which people like me will still pay into...just like now, I have to pay medicare/medicaid...and for what??? And don't get me started on why the f*ck I have to pay social security...)

prepare to have gas prices shoot up even more, electricity prices skyrocket...lots of bitching from the Dems about the farce that is global warming...yet ZERO solutions.

 

[ehall]

Electricity use climbs as a result of high oil costs and specious claims of mankind's creation of global warming, producing greater demand. Meanwhile the NIMBY and environazi crowd ensures that no new power plants are produced and that no high transmission lines go through their neighborhood, producing restrictions on the ability for supply to keep up.

Then they blame the resulting market prices on right wingers.. lol

Want cheap electric? Build a bunch of nuke plants, and put them close to the customers.

 

[WB9YZU]

Why does it look like someone found an old BLOG piece and attached it to an into?

 

[Mudderoy]

Why does it look like someone found an old BLOG piece and attached it to an into?

In retrospect they should never have deregulated the power industry in Texas. Normally deregulation is a good thing, but oil going from $10 a barrel to $140 is pretty damned weird, along with the increases in natural gas.

Environmentalist are to blame for lack of domestic drilling, nuclear power plants, use of our 200 year supply of coal. I think there are more democrat environmentalists than republican.

Remember not all democrats are bad, some are quite good if you take the time to season them properly! :laugh:

 

[Mudderoy]

And you think it will get better with a Dem in office?

No domestic drilling
No nuclear power plants
No new refineries
No wind power ("it ruins the aesthetics/scenery")
No coal to liquid plants
Higher taxes
"Universal" health care (which people like me will still pay into...just like now, I have to pay medicare/medicaid...and for what??? And don't get me started on why the f*ck I have to pay social security...)

prepare to have gas prices shoot up even more, electricity prices skyrocket...lots of bitching from the Dems about the farce that is global warming...yet ZERO solutions.

No wind power ("it ruins the aesthetics/scenery") <--- And kills birds!

The person that runs on the plateform of nuclear reactors in everyone's home gets my vote! Not only is it cheap energy, everyone is their own night light!

 

[ehall]

You know, I especially love how market prices are used as a justification to essentially nationalize power industry. Does anybody really think the cost of producing energy will go down with a unionized govt monopoly in charge of it? Oh that's not the promise though, the "promise" is that they will shift costs elsewhere, and they will be more efficient in consumption, ie brownouts for everyone.

 

[5-90]

No wind power ("it ruins the aesthetics/scenery") <--- And kills birds!

The person that runs on the plateform of nuclear reactors in everyone's home gets my vote! Not only is it cheap energy, everyone is their own night light!

"This is nice. What's that blue glow?"
"Cherenkov radiation."
"What causes that?"
"Well, my guess is that the Smith's reactor went critical while they were asleep, they didn't SCRAM the pile, and now it's a runaway."
"Is that bad?"
"Nah - happens all the time."

The 'killing birds' thing is what I usually hear as an argument against wind power. I liken that to the assorted lawsuits you see about spills in stores thta are about to get cleaned up, or walking past a "wet floor" sign and slipping - if you're too damned dense to watch where you put your feet, you shouldn't be profiting from it. You don't have to go through life with your head down, but at least keep an eye on where you're walking.

Wind turbines and windmills are just a mechanism to eliminate the more stupid birds. Hell, they've had windmills in the Netherlands for, what, a couple hundred years by now? You don't hear them kvetching about whacking a few birds...

 

[Mudderoy]

"This is nice. What's that blue glow?"
"Cherenkov radiation."
"What causes that?"
"Well, my guess is that the Smith's reactor went critical while they were asleep, they didn't SCRAM the pile, and now it's a runaway."
"Is that bad?"
"Nah - happens all the time."

The 'killing birds' thing is what I usually hear as an argument against wind power. I liken that to the assorted lawsuits you see about spills in stores thta are about to get cleaned up, or walking past a "wet floor" sign and slipping - if you're too damned dense to watch where you put your feet, you shouldn't be profiting from it. You don't have to go through life with your head down, but at least keep an eye on where you're walking.

Wind turbines and windmills are just a mechanism to eliminate the more stupid birds. Hell, they've had windmills in the Netherlands for, what, a couple hundred years by now? You don't hear them kvetching about whacking a few birds...

rofl!

 

[WB9YZU]

In retrospect they should never have deregulated the power industry in Texas. Normally deregulation is a good thing, but oil going from $10 a barrel to $140 is pretty damned weird, along with the increases in natural gas.

Environmentalist are to blame for lack of domestic drilling, nuclear power plants, use of our 200 year supply of coal. I think there are more democrat environmentalists than republican.

Remember not all democrats are bad, some are quite good if you take the time to season them properly! :laugh:

Increase of the price of Natural Gas is a no brainier.
Power Plants switched from cheap coal to NG to prevent having to buy low sulpher coal and to install expensive scrubbers. They also scrapped plans at the local level to ease burdens on the local landfills by burning shredded garbage as fuel. With the demand for NG increasing the price goes up.

Environmentalists are not the only reason some of these things never happened. A lot of it has to do with the "not in my back yard" attitude of the average American. The very same people who P&M about the price of XYZ being too high would never allow it's production in their neighborhood.

As far as the cannibalistic comment- :twak:

Windmills appear to be a nice option. I'm not sure how they detract from the scenery. I think a field of them gracefully spinning away is as good of a use of a corn field as any, and they don't interfere with the farmer.

 

[srimes]

I like wind farms. Not a big threat to birds, and changing the rpm mitigates the risk.

Nuke power as we do it here tends to be more expensive than gas or coal. I think a big part of that is how we do it. The navy should spec out and standardize every aspect of operation: they have by far the most experience and standardization make things cheaper and more reliable.

As for deregulation: it works for products that require relitively low capital investment. Who's gonna say, "These power companies are idiots. I can do better, I'll build a power plant that will serve this city better." One can't do that, so it needs to be regulated.

They're talking about a 40% rate hike here. "Green," energy efficient homes are gonna get way more popular w/ rising energy cost. Makes way more sense than hybrid cars, both financially and environmentally.

note: spelling mistake rate is higher than normal due to alcohol. I like to drink before mowing the lawn.

 

[Ecomike]

Nuke power as we do it here tends to be more expensive than gas or coal. I think a big part of that is how we do it. The navy should spec out and standardize every aspect of operation: they have by far the most experience and standardization make things cheaper and more reliable.

Oh my God, are you seriously suggesting that we let a government entity dictate how we build and use our NUKES for clean electricity? What about Free Markets, Free Enterprise, and unbridled Capitalism and the right to exploit consumers as we chose, like those elderly, retired, fixed income people, with no remaining family, that we still need to finish fleesing while the government is not looking.

But seriously, you are right. The French under De Gaul (? sp), (1950 to about 1970 ) designed one single approved standard power plant design then built hundreds of them all over France. But see, if we do that here we would be stepping on the Free market economy, :scared: and we would not be letting build design engineering firms design bigger better, more efficient, and more dangerous, Nuke plants, so they can run up the costs and stick the end users with the engineering bill. Haliburton learned well how to do that here in the 1970s. Good practice for what they did to us in Iraq with Dicks help recently!

Funny but the last I heard environmentalists were in favor of renewable energy like wind power.

 

[Ecomike]

Environmentalists are not the only reason some of these things never happened. A lot of it has to do with the "not in my back yard" attitude of the average American. The very same people who P&M about the price of XYZ being too high would never allow it's production in their neighborhood.

As far as the cannibalistic comment- :twak:

Windmills appear to be a nice option. I'm not sure how they detract from the scenery. I think a field of them gracefully spinning away is as good of a use of a corn field as any, and they don't interfere with the farmer.

X2

X2

X2

and I suspect the windmills would make much better scare crows for the corn fields! YES! Got to protect that ethanol feed stock, LOL.

 

[RichP]

I like wind farms. Not a big threat to birds, and changing the rpm mitigates the risk.

Nuke power as we do it here tends to be more expensive than gas or coal. I think a big part of that is how we do it. The navy should spec out and standardize every aspect of operation: they have by far the most experience and standardization make things cheaper and more reliable.

As for deregulation: it works for products that require relitively low capital investment. Who's gonna say, "These power companies are idiots. I can do better, I'll build a power plant that will serve this city better." One can't do that, so it needs to be regulated.

They're talking about a 40% rate hike here. "Green," energy efficient homes are gonna get way more popular w/ rising energy cost. Makes way more sense than hybrid cars, both financially and environmentally.

note: spelling mistake rate is higher than normal due to alcohol. I like to drink before mowing the lawn.

You can build a 100,000KW nuke plant inside a large three story 3 car garage not counting cooling towers which would be about the size of two famers tall silos as we know them in the east, with a core lifetime of 20 years. Build it modular and you can pull the core/reactor and drop a new one inplace in a few hours maybe a day at most. Yes, the Navy has the most experience, the power companies have engineers and designers that want to get their 'chops' on every friggin design so they can say in their resume 'I designed this', so every civilian plant is a custom job with custom parts and custom architecture.

As far as the Netherlands and windmills, I think they and France have been using them to grind grain for over 500 years or so. If we put them up on the coasts maybe we can thin out the frigging seagulls some...

 

[Ecomike]

For those of you old enough to remember what it was like back when Utilties were all operated as monopolies controlled by elected PUC officials here in the USA, how many of you prefer to spend your free time worrying and fighting with crooked utiltity companies over outrageous phone bills and light bills now compared to the good old days when you rarely got any surprizes in your utiltiy bill mail, and you could spend spare time enjoying a cold beer?

Back after WWII, President Eisenhower decided that a huge network of interstate highways, called FREEWAYs, not TOLLWAYs, got that people?, FREEWAYS!

They were called FREEWAYS, and a RELIABLE phone and electric utility system grid and power plants, and safe reliable drinking water were all determined by Eisenhower to be essential to the national defense and internal stability and security of this country. If we ever had to fight a real sustained war now, here on US soil, or overseas right now we would probably get our asses kicked as we got bogged down in this free for all we call a market economy. First off we would run out of oil in just months, not years. IN fact, one of the reasons we have such excelant roads and utilties is because the infrastructure was built by government controlled limited monopolies.

You can not blame our current quagmires on Democrats and environmentalists as they have been out of power, and not in control of Washington for 8 years now!!!!! In fact the Republicans had absolute control of Washington (and in my case Texas) for 6 years, and enough remaining control the last 2 years to stonewall any changes or progress on a badly needed energy policy for this country!!!! In fact the Republicans controlled the White House between 1980 and today, except the brief period of prosperity we enjoyed between 1992 and 2000. And the Republicans controlled the House and Senate between 1984 and 2006! So how you can blaim any of this on Democrats or democratic environmentalists? Last I heard the Democrats were not the environmentalists around.

Many countires world wide are decades ahead of us in their efforts to stop importing oil with out killing their economies. Spain ans Switzerland are both shinning examples of this. The US problem is political. Our currency is tied to oil, and oil is tied to our currency, but we no longer own or control the worlds oil reserves, Venesuella, Russia, and the Arabs in the Middle East countries do! So as long as we stick with oil company executives running this country we are screwed!

:hang:

It's funny but I can almost tell how hold many of you are by the comments you post here. If it were not for the big bad evil environmentalists back in the 1960s and early 70's we would all be glowing and burning and puking in the dark by now. We owe them a lot more than most of you know.

How many of you know about the people, contractors, that died from air pollution exposure while on the job at Area 51, as recently as 1990, because the military had to keep what they were doing there secret (B-1 bomber development) so they burned all the Area 51 wastes including radioactive wastes upstream of the base in huge bon fires so that the plume would not be detected off site? It was covered by ABC news back around 1994.

 

[ehall]

I'm disappointed in you ecomike, you missed a real opportunity here. Think about it, Rush Limbaugh is so compelling that we all sit in our cars with the engine running just to wait for him to finish his point, thereby resulting in millions of ton of excess pollution each year. Clearly the solution here is to elect Democrats who will take the necessary steps to end this threat.

 

[Ecomike]

You know, I especially love how market prices are used as a justification to essentially nationalize power industry. Does anybody really think the cost of producing energy will go down with a unionized govt monopoly in charge of it? Oh that's not the promise though, the "promise" is that they will shift costs elsewhere, and they will be more efficient in consumption, ie brownouts for everyone.

Sounds like you missed the whole Enron story of price manipulation, bribery, fraud, corruption, shutting down power plants in the middle of a heat wave just to drive prices higher in the name of profits, in the so called "Free Market" in the California electric market a few years back.

The point is the free market is not truely a free market when it is allowed to be manipulated by crooks, and speculators like Enron. It is also subject to excesses in overcapacity and undercapacity that makes the markets extreemely unstable that at times that can cause massive, undesirable interuptions in other businesses and markets, causing a cascade of failures that lead to recessions and depressions and bankruptcy for many of us.

I lived through the last oil - real estate boom and bust "Free Market" cycle here in Texas where 3/4 of the businesses, real estate developments, banks and people went bankrupt between 1980 and 1986 when the price of oil dropped back down to reality in 1980 after rising nearly 500% between 1976 and 1980. We had cities here in Texas with 70% unemployment at the peak back around 1983-85.

I am not interested in going through that again in the name of keeping so called "Free Markets".

I won't bother posting links to the stories and details, as I have no doubt you will call it left wing lies, but there are others who might want to read the story so here goes:

"In the summer of 2000 a drought in the northwest states reduced the amount of hydroelectric power available to California. Though at no point during the crisis was California's sum of [actual electric-generating capacity]+[out of state supply] less than demand, California's energy reserves were low enough that during peak hours the private industry which owned power-generating plants could effectively hold the State hostage by shutting down their plants for "maintenance" in order to manipulate supply and demand. These critical shutdowns often occurred for no other reason than to force California's electricity grid managers into a position where they would be forced to purchase electricity on the "spot market", where private generators could charge astronomical rates. Even though these rates were semi-regulated and tied to the price of natural gas, the companies (which included Enron and Reliant Energy) controlled the supply of natural gas as well. Manipulation by the industry of natural gas prices resulted in higher electricity rates that could be charged under the semi-regulations.
In addition, the energy companies took advantage of California's electrical infrastructure weakness. The main line which allowed electricity to travel from the north to the south, Path 15, had not been improved for many years and became a major bottleneck point which limited the amount of power that could be sent south to 3,900 MW. Without the manipulation by energy companies, this bottleneck was not problematic, but the effects of the bottleneck compounded the price manipulation by hamstringing energy grid managers in their ability to transport electricity from one area to another. With a smaller pool of generators available to draw from in each area, managers were forced to work in two markets to buy energy, both of which were being manipulated by the energy companies."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis



Shall I post more of the story? It is way too long to post here, so for those that interested in the rest of the story follow the link.

 

[Ecomike]

This just gets better and better!

"Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.
Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.
Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily."



http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051908a.html

 

[lancey3]

Don't blame Bush for the slowing economy. The world as a whole is slowing due to the oil bubble. Oil is the main energy source these days and we have to deal with that. With the stupid liberals limiting drilling opportunities and ruining our country how can you expect things to flourish.

The price of oil is artificially high because of inflation, the weak dollar, and OPEC's monopoly on the prices. Oil supply hasn't changed in a while and there is no reason for its to be $130+ a barrel.

Also, just because crooks control companies doesn't give the government the right to control things. The crooks get weeded out eventually and all is well, it is a natural cycle. Democracy and Capitalism are the some of the greatest concepts in the world and I'll be damned if I will let some pinko-commie socialists ruin that. Deregulation WORKS. Corruption is a human trait not an economic trait; we the people are ruining the free market system NOT the system itself. Fix the human flaw not the flaw in the system.


</rant>

 

[DrMoab]

Didn't Nancy (Blinky) Polosi promise us that if we elected a democratic congress a couple years ago they would lower our gas prices?

If you think this is all Bush's fault you are stupid, ignorant and a fool.

That isn't to say he isn't part of the problem but there is plenty of blame to go around.