Texas food & weather

We have Reliant, a mega Houston electric provider. I logged on to our account and because our energy use was much higher, we usually run the heat less than five days a year, the bill will be higher but they’re not jacking up rates like some suppliers did.

This is Texas and I’m trying hard not to turn the a/c on although I’ve run it in the car the last few days. :cold_face: :hot_face:

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I don’t think that’s a fair characterization. Some consumers chose variable rate power suppliers and you take the risk of higher rates in the hopes of lower ones. The gamble didn’t pay off in this case.

We have similar options for our home heating oil. We can pay a fixed rate for the contract season or follow the actual cost of oil and take that risk. It behooves the customer to be educated on the risks.

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I certainly agree there. If there is one thing we can be assured of it is that the media is not good at reporting facts, particularly on complex issues.

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Local TV news reported that the state was four minutes and thirty-eight seconds from total failure. Who knows, but the Texas Senate is meeting right now. Maybe we’ll get answers, or not.

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If people had just suddenly faced exorbitant bills during a disaster, under a brand new system with kinks remaining to be worked out, it would probably be excusable. But that isn’t the case at all; the exorbitant bills stretch back 20 years AND those exorbitant bills obviously haven’t gone into stabilizing or upgrading the infrastructure, nor have they apparently gone into any usable disaster fund.

Unless there are miraculous revelations in the next few hours or days, it’s disingenuous to refer to it as a complex situation, except at the most literal level that the bookkeeping hasn’t been transparent. The situation as a whole is not complex at all.

(i.e. “I’ve made sure no one can see what I’ve done with the money” is admittedly a complicated trick to pull off, but that doesn’t make the actual situation any different.)

I agree with @Auspicious 100% in that it is in fact an extremely complex situation, with the Texas grid nearing a complete failure. There are many discrete factors that contributed to the whole sorry scenario, and much blame to go around. It will become a cautionary tale to power providers everywhere. Very distressing what happened to Texans recently.

After the companies received an aggregate of 28 billion in extra money, over a span of 20 years, that they could have used to make improvements.

Yes, I get that point @DavidPF, but the reasons for Texas having unregulated rates are many and complex. Texas has been a maverick state, both politically and culturally, ever since they achieved statehood, and are proud of it. Corporate greed is in play of course, but it’s only one of the facets of the recent crisis.

Power is simply a commodity, and most companies are run for profit. We are highly regulated up here vis a vis rates, and rate hikes, due to the laws enacted in our state. Those laws vary nationally, according to state, of course.

There will probably be changes on the way for Texas, and learning lessons for other states, and the power providers that exist.

Hopefully, as we move forward in a time of climate change challenges, leadership, both governmental and corporate will look for better ways to contend with extreme weather events. Even a nearly perfect, and diversified power supply can have a tough time reckoning with the forces of nature.

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Do you have a footnote for that number? Have you looked at the reports for the public companies to see where the money went?

Good point! I feel I need to retract my statement in my last post about corporate/utility greed. I have absolutely no proof of that. At first blush, that is what one may assume. Providing power IS expensive, existing infrastructure needs to be maintained, or changed, with new projects in the works to keep up with demand.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone.

I’m kinda bored with this thread which is why I didn’t say anything else. You certainly haven’t offended me.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Good to know @Miss_belle. Everyone seems to hate their respective power companies/public utilities. :rofl::upside_down_face: Not me though, like Goldilocks I don’t like to be too cold or too hot. I need to be just right.

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The legislature has been holding hearings. I’m sure all will be surprised that the common refrain is that it was the other guy’s fault. But our former governor says we are ok with the occassional week of cold, dark houses if it means the power grid can remain free of federal interference.

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From the reporting I have seen including some from within the energy industry (my wife works in that sector) the fingers should be pointing at ERCOT. As is often the case public utilities commissions to provide for the resources within rates to maintain and recapitalize infrastructure. Operationally, the rolling blackouts cut power to some power infrastructure; in short the blackouts turned off power sources, especially natural gas.

The public confusion between baseload (natural gas, coal, nuclear, some hydroelectric) and intermittent power (wind, solar, pump-back hydro) doesn’t help any as the public piles on to the finger pointing.

Politicians should leave engineering to engineers.

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This just in from the front lines. I got my February electric bill for my mansion/apartment here in Houston.

It was one fifty and change, twice normal but I’ve never run the heat for five straight days, usually five total all winter.

I stuck with mega giant NRG and the rates never went up.

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We have a fixed rate so no problem. You never lost power??? Do you lucky dawg. I’m still traumatized.

On the other hand, I’m also fully vaccinated so I’ll be dining out much more often now!

I have visited the new Treebeard’s at Memorial city a couple of times and they have a gorgeous patio.

Yesterday, for old time sake, I had a campechana de Mariscos at Goode Co. They moved to a space next-door and the building they were in when we last met there is torn down. I love the new dining room it’s very open and airy and cool feeling. The campechana was not as good as I remembered though. Too tomato saucy.

I’ve also been a couple of times to a new Tex Mex restaurant that opened on Grisby out Memorial close to Hwy 6. It’s in that cluster of restaurants that includes the the original Lupe Tortilla and Watson‘s pub. It’s called Blue Agave and I can highly recommend it. The food is very much like Pappasito’s, but without the fancy price tag. They have great lunch specials and nightly specials like fajitas for two at a reduced price. The margaritas are good too.

Looking forward to getting back to normal restaurant behavior.

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We lost power 5 times for about 30 seconds on each occasion. I think they were trying to force rolling blackouts on us but they failed like everything else.

We had to reset the clocks each time. :dizzy_face:

The pipes froze for about 4 days so no water to rid the stairs of ice and snow so we were stuck here not wanting to tap into our ample bottled water supply. :cold_face:

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Shovel.

We don’t own one except at our place in the Rio Grande Valley.

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We have a thirtyfive-year old snow shovel we brought with us when we moved from the north. We call it our Texas dustpan most of the time. This year we got to use it for its intended purpose on two different occassions.

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