Politics Natural gas prices are going way up

[JimHPTN]

Due to a massive cold front moving across the country, natural gas and electricity costs are going through the roof in the USA, at least at the wholesale level. Some residential customers have also been warned that their prices are going up. Electric prices are also going up dramatically.

Natural Gas ‘Madness’ Ensues as Arctic Plunge Ushers in Natural Gas Price Records - Natural Gas Intelligence

In what will likely go down as one of the wildest days in the natural gas market ever, cash markets stole the show on Friday. Gas buyers paid hundreds of

www.naturalgasintel.com

Riverton warns residents natural gas prices will rise

Riverton, ILL. (WAND)- The Village of Riverton is warning residents that because of the frigid temperatures the price of natural gas will go up.

www.wandtv.com

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Now here are some problems. Firstly, either the consumer is going to have to eat the costs, hurting a lot of people who just can't afford it, or the energy distributors and some producers that rely upon gas turbines and boilers are going to have to eat the costs, cutting into already low profit margins. Secondly, there might just not be enough to go around and that will put people at risk for cold weather related problems, from frozen pipes to hypothermia.

Frankly, in our headlong rush to go green, we've cut our traditional energy capacities way down. A lot of coal plants are out of commission (including ones with the latest scrubber technology) and solar panels just don't work when it's cloudy and they're covered with snow to boot. And while Biden's new executive orders aren't causing this immediate problem, they'll add to them and reduce our margins even further in the future.

 

[Telmar]

Texas has 2 nuclear power plants...the last one going on line 30 years ago almost.

Are there structural reasons for not having invested in nuclear since that time (heat, absence of large rivers, other...) that are impairing going nuclear? Or is it just state policy.

 

[JimHPTN]

Texas has 2 nuclear power plants...the last one going on line 30 years ago almost.

Are there structural reasons for not having invested in nuclear since that time (heat, absence of large rivers, other...) that are impairing going nuclear? Or is it just state policy.

From what I can tell, the reason for not investing in nuclear power over the last few decades was the Three Mile Island incident, or, put another way, it has been a political choice due to public pressure. There was an attempt back during the Trump Administration to restart nuclear power plant construction but I suspect that it might be cut during the current administration. One of the more interesting proposals is to set up a series of small nuclear reactors of the type used in USN ships. These would require substantially less footprint in any one area with lower risks. Also, we have firms in the US that currently build them.

 

[colin traveller]

Any Company that supplies Gas and is seen raising prices just because of a change in the weather should be deemed illegal and disgraceful .. and pathetic and heartless .. because you will have home owners who can't afford the increases .. will just switch off

 

[JimHPTN]

Any Company that supplies Gas and is seen raising prices just because of a change in the weather should be deemed illegal and disgraceful .. and pathetic and heartless .. because you will have home owners who can't afford the increases .. will just switch off

The issue is here is that we have a crime without a traditional criminal trying to get rich. In the case of natural gas distribution in this country, we have many steps in the chain from well to customer and it's not the well owner who sets the prices. In this case, the well owners are delivering gas to an exchange, so to speak. The buyers, who happen to be retail distributors, electricity generators, large corporations who use it for industrial processes, etc. go to the exchange and bid on the available gas. In normal circumstances, there is enough gas to go around so the bids don't go too crazy. Right now, there isn't enough supply due to well heads freezing along with dramatically increased demand for gas so the bidders keep bidding it up as they have legal obligations and customer requirements that might cost them more if they don't buy the gas even at high prices.

The real problem and crime here is that we've cut out our redundancy and our "excess" capacity in our energy sector at all levels, including at the consumer level, a redundancy that was much more prevalent even a few years ago. In short, we plan for ideal and "typical" circumstances with no room for abnormal events. Probably the worst part is that we're not teaching our children or ourselves about economics or the real world facts about energy.

 

[1645556315]

One of the more interesting proposals is to set up a series of small nuclear reactors of the type used in USN ships. These would require substantially less footprint in any one area with lower risks. Also, we have firms in the US that currently build them.

We already implemented this idea in practice with new Lomonosov floating NPP (70Mw). This is a great thing in the envoronment where it is used here in Russia (extremely remote area on the shore of arctic ocean), but in most other cases it is just have not any economic sense. At least 10 times less output then single modern reactor and same cost of infrastructure and safety measures.

 

[JimHPTN]

We already implemented this idea in practice with new Lomonosov floating NPP (70Mw). This is a great thing in the envoronment where it is used here in Russia (extremely remote area on the shore of arctic ocean), but in most other cases it is just have not any economic sense. At least 10 times less output then single modern reactor and same cost of infrastructure and safety measures.

I wish we could build full size plants here because they are more thermally efficient. Unfortunately, I'm just not seeing anyone in this country willing to go big with a reactor. It takes at least 10 years to build a plant and usually a lot more. During that time, things can change and a company doesn't want to invest billions into a reactor just to have it shut down before it starts for political reasons. For that reason, I suspect that a lot of smaller reactors would be more appealing for companies. I found an article on one company building such things. There's also talk of TVA doing similar things with some of the coal plants that they've shut down.

Oregon company gets approval to build nuclear power plants

Just last week NuScale got the go ahead from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to start building its unique nuclear power plants.

www.kgw.com

 

[morris]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

No one is being hit with this sobering reality more than the Europe’s premier green trailblazer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is currently in the grips of Europe’s record-breaking freeze this winter.

The reporter says the plan is that Germany will have to rely more on natural gas (from Russia)

 

[bfc1001]

The real problem and crime here is that we've cut out our redundancy and our "excess" capacity in our energy sector at all levels, including at the consumer level, a redundancy that was much more prevalent even a few years ago. In short, we plan for ideal and "typical" circumstances with no room for abnormal events. Probably the worst part is that we're not teaching our children or ourselves about economics or the real world facts about energy.

You could level that accusation at about every sector of any modern industrialised nation . Hospital beds in the UK in 1990 , 250 k plus . Hospital beds today around 120k . Not so great when there's a world wide pandemic going around but this is where we are . This is capitalism since the 1980s always immortalised by Mrs thatchers opinion on business that it should have " the right to manage " .

 

[JimHPTN]

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TX NG has been called out and the state has set up warming centers.

Oncor: Be prepared for extended outages to continue

Oncor sent new information to media outlets Tuesday regarding the widespread power outages across Texas amid record cold temperatures with another snowstorm on the way.

www.kxii.com

Looks like it might be Thursday before the power comes back up in some areas. Some of the problem is lack of generation and some is due to winter storm damage.

 

[Mordoror]

From what I can tell, the reason for not investing in nuclear power over the last few decades was the Three Mile Island incident, or, put another way, it has been a political choice due to public pressure. There was an attempt back during the Trump Administration to restart nuclear power plant construction but I suspect that it might be cut during the current administration. One of the more interesting proposals is to set up a series of small nuclear reactors of the type used in USN ships. These would require substantially less footprint in any one area with lower risks. Also, we have firms in the US that currently build them.

Nothing to do with large oil and coal lobbies in USA ?
Pardon my rethorical question ....

Another issue is the rampant underfunding of your distribution infrastructures (gas and electricity) that distords the price from the provider to the terminal user. This has been warned about for decades ...

 

[Ivan le Fou]

The “Green Energy” Wind Mill Farms in Texas Froze over.

So they sent a helicopter running on fossil fuel, to spray chemicals made from fossil fuel, onto a turbine made with fossil fuels, in order to make it produce green energy.

Achieving such a level of irony should be made illegal.

 

[Flagg]

You could level that accusation at about every sector of any modern industrialised nation . Hospital beds in the UK in 1990 , 250 k plus . Hospital beds today around 120k . Not so great when there's a world wide pandemic going around but this is where we are . This is capitalism since the 1980s always immortalised by Mrs thatchers opinion on business that it should have " the right to manage " .

That hospital bed issue is about optimisation.

While it’s not a binary choice, it is about optimising for two words:

Do you optimise for efficiency?

Or do you optimise for adaptability?

Empty hospital beds are like the most expensive hotel rooms sitting empty.

I would imagine that in future the west will largely stick with a focus on efficiency, but will add some level of regional/central funding for at least token surge capacity(adaptability) for outlier events.

Stan McChrystal’s book “Team of Teams” covers the efficiency(20th century) vs adaptability(21st century) issue.

 

[bfc1001]

That hospital bed issue is about optimisation.

While it’s not a binary choice, it is about optimising for two words:

Do you optimise for efficiency?

Or do you optimise for adaptability?

Empty hospital beds are like the most expensive hotel rooms sitting empty.

I would imagine that in future the west will largely stick with a focus on efficiency, but will add some level of regional/central funding for at least token surge capacity(adaptability) for outlier events.

Stan McChrystal’s book “Team of Teams” covers the efficiency(20th century) vs adaptability(21st century) issue.

The west will always adapt for efficiency because that's the only language it understands now . Bring in a group of well paid consultants , they swing the axe and a little money is saved . Said consultants walk away with a pat on the back and a nice bonus . Further on down the line a situation arrises which results in a far greater loss of capital , be it human or monetary and no one can adapt because there's no assets left to adapt with . Without major capital investment maybe at a level not seen since post WW2 then the west will continue to go into slow decline lurching from one crisis to another with no apparent way out . Meanwhile successive weak ineffective leaders will be trotted out in front of us to tell us to stay the course , everything will turn out good in the end . A self defeating prophecy .

 

[Gaz]

The “Green Energy” Wind Mill Farms in Texas Froze over.

So they sent a helicopter running on fossil fuel, to spray chemicals made from fossil fuel, onto a turbine made with fossil fuels, in order to make it produce green energy.

Achieving such a level of irony should be made illegal.

Viral Image of Helicopter De-Icing Texas Wind Turbine Is From Sweden

In the midst of a record cold snap where Texas’ grid has failed to meet demand, misinformation is running rampant. Among the most pernicious memes propagating online are that Texas’ wind turbines have frozen and that that has led to the blackout.

earther.gizmodo.com

 

[JimHPTN]

Nothing to do with large oil and coal lobbies in USA ?
Pardon my rethorical question ....

Another issue is the rampant underfunding of your distribution infrastructures (gas and electricity) that distords the price from the provider to the terminal user. This has been warned about for decades ...

From what I know, there hasn't been a lot of lobbying from coal or oil against nuclear power. If there has been, it has been minimal at most. The biggest opponents have been environmental groups and a general panic/fear on the part of the public after 3 Mile Island, followed up by Chernobyl and Fukushima. The other problem is the massive cost involved in construction and then follow on operation. A good friend of mine worked on nuclear quality assurance testing up until about a year ago when the company shut the program down. He was describing the costs of the tests for the materials, the costs of the materials themselves, and the costs of installation/construction. In a nut shell, if they were available at all, they were about 3-5x the cost of the same material procured on the regular commercial market. Most companies don't want to make those kinds of investments in this climate.

You're 100000% right about our infrastructure and that it has been going downhill for decades. It goes back to most companies/governments/people wanting to maximize short term gain over long term stability/redundancy. It's like @Flagg 's hospital analogy. Personally, I'd like to see new nuke plants and new coal plants as I think that we can build them in a perfectly safe, clean manner and those would be much more reliable than the other alternatives.

Just as an aside, despite all of the news reports to the contrary, we had some very cold winters across the country when I was a kid back in the 70s and into the 80s. The difference then was that we had an infrastructure with goodly amounts of redundancy plus on an individual household level many people still had functional wood burning fireplaces. That helped take a lot of load off of the system as well.

 

[morris]

 

[JimHPTN]

Here's an article that goes a little bit more in depth into the issue of frozen turbines.

Why on earth would right-wing people with connections to the fossil fuel industry lie about ‘frozen wind turbines’ in Texas?

Disinformation has been circulating about the cold snap in Texas, fed by Republicans and publication ‘experts’ with convenient connections to gas and oil

www.independent.co.uk

The short answer is that the turbines in question didn't have the optional winterization package. The ones in Germany didn't have enough wind to operate. Different problems, same outcome.

 

[JimHPTN]

At least 20 are dead so far.

Millions endure record cold without power; at least 20 dead across US

A winter storm that left millions without power in record-breaking cold weather claimed more lives Tuesday, including three people found dead after a tornado hit a seaside town in North Carolina an…

myfox8.com

It is now going to make its way to NC in the form of an ice storm.

‘Prepare for power outages’; Freezing rain expected to begin in Triad after midnight Thursday, last through the day

PIEDMONT TRIAD, N.C. — Thursday you may lose power, so now is your chance to prepare. A Winter Storm Warning goes into effect Wednesday night, and freezing rain is expected to arrive in the T…

myfox8.com

 

[Gaz]

Here's an article that goes a little bit more in depth into the issue of frozen turbines.

Why on earth would right-wing people with connections to the fossil fuel industry lie about ‘frozen wind turbines’ in Texas?

Disinformation has been circulating about the cold snap in Texas, fed by Republicans and publication ‘experts’ with convenient connections to gas and oil

www.independent.co.uk

The short answer is that the turbines in question didn't have the optional winterization package. The ones in Germany didn't have enough wind to operate. Different problems, same outcome.

In regards to Ivan's earlier post, he hadn't included a link so I did a google news search and the one I posted was in the top three results. It was literally only a week or two ago through work I found out that helicopters are used for offshore windfarm support in the North Sea where they winch people down to maintain them but the spraying part of it I hadn't heard of.