Temperatures in Grand Rapids, MI collapsed from 85 to 71 after 1:53am Saturday July 20th as storms knocked out power to thousands in West Michigan

The Sams Club in Kentwood lost power in the early morning storm, closing down the store and gas station for the day Saturday, which is quite unusual.

Workers there were observed after 1:00pm at the rear of the building tossing no longer refrigerated and frozen foods.

Consumers Energy crews were observed near the intersection with the store attempting to restore power in the sweltering heat.

The heat index not much later soared to 108 by 2:53pm.

A second round of storms after 4:00pm Saturday crashed actual air temperatures from 89 to 74, complicating the on-going power restoration efforts.

More than 500,000 without power in Michigan a day after ‘worst storm’ of the year:

While there are outages across the state, the Southeast Side of Michigan has the highest concentration. DTE Energy this morning said 375,000 of its customers remain without electricity after what it called the “worst storm” its line workers have dealt with this year.

" ... The weather event downed 1,100 power lines, making this the worst storm our region has experienced this year and one of the largest since the March 2017 wind storm," the utility said. ...

In West Michigan and the central part of the state, Consumers Energy was reporting about 122,000 customers without power today. Great Lakes Energy added to the tally with nearly 5,000 outages, mostly in Lake, Oceana and Osceola counties. ...

While there were strong wind gusts across the Lower Peninsula on Saturday, the most damaging happened in the areas of Kent and Ottawa counties [in West Michigan], the National Weather Service said. The damaging winds that took the house apart in the Jenison area were described as a “microburst.”

Last week we nearly had no natural gas in Grands Rapids, Michigan, this week an ice storm took out the power

Another one-two punch for us here in western lower Michigan from Mother Nature, where it's now 45F and the ice storm has melted away. Going down to 17F by midnight, though. Been there. Doin' it again.

When news reports boast that Michigan's Consumers Energy has 300-350 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage, that's not really true either

Working gas available is hardly 49% of the current 308.8 billion cubic feet total storage reported by Consumers Energy, or only 150.9 billion cubic feet.

From all companies in Michigan available working gas in storage is only 671 billion cubic feet, not the much-vaunted 1.1 trillion cubic feet. Still, Michigan has more capacity than any other state. Its stored working gas would supply the needs of 4.3 million average households for one year before needing to be restocked, or about 11 million people for one year. Michigan's population is 10 million. Business users are not included in this math.

But when a mere compressor fire nearly incapacitates one utility's ability to service all of its 2 million customers when they need heat the most, think what an Electro Magnetic Pulse event might do.

That's what keeps me up at night. 

The Michigan Public Service Commission clearly states in footnote one to "Michigan Natural Gas Storage Field Summary":

Working gas means the maximum gas that can be cycled in and out of straoge [sic, read "storage"].  Base Gas means gas that is not cycled in and provides pressure support. 

In 2016 Consumers Energy's three main natural gas storage fields had working capacity of 95 billion cubic feet

Michigan's natural gas debacle last week went misreported because of an opaque, indifferent utility and stupid reporters

Over and over again we heard that the facility where there was a fire last week accounted for 64% of the utility's supply of natural gas to its customers in Michigan. And we're still hearing that today in some reports. Unfortunately, this isn't really true. It's unnecessarily alarming. 

The Ray field at Macomb has 41 billion cubic feet of stored natural gas, as only The Detroit News noted at the time, but during a normal winter when Consumers Energy pumps 2.5 billion cubic feet a day, the utility is supplying 150 billion cubic feet in two months' time. It can't all come from Macomb's storage, obviously. It's piped in from all over to be compressed at Macomb and at other stations. The problem isn't the supply, just as the utility indeed kept emphasizing, stating in various reports that Consumers has 300-350 billion cubic feet of stored gas. The problem was too much of the utility's compressor capability (64%) is centralized at Macomb, which they didn't want to emphasize when it suddenly went off-line automatically in the wake of the fire. Examine the news accounts and you will see that the reporters simplistically characterized these details and misled the public.

Critics of Consumers Energy's paltry $3 million in infrastructure spending over the last five years have a point. This utility in Michigan is notorious for spending more dark money than any other to influence politics. Now that they've had this fire, they'll have to spend more on infrastructure, but it remains for Consumers Energy to install more redundancy in its system to prevent against what happened last week. But don't hold your breath. The utility is as unlikely to do what is best for Michigan as reporters are likely suddenly to become more intelligent.

God forbid we have an EMP. I doubt any of this infrastructure would function properly after such an event, redundancy or no.

That's what alarms me. 

Critics call for overhaul after Consumers Energy CEO, who makes $6.8M, asks Michiganders to turn down heat:

On Wednesday night, as temperatures dropped to -43 degrees with the wind chill, Consumers Energy sent an emergency message to Michiganders' cell phones asking them to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees. 

That followed a similar plea from Consumers Energy CEO Patti Poppe, who reported a Wednesday explosion that damaged a Consumers Energy facility that accounts for 64 percent of its supply. In a Facebook message, Poppe urged Michiganders to "protect the system" by turning down the heat. 

But many Michiganders responded to Poppe's plea with defiance on social media during the emergency, frustrated with being asked to pay ever-increasing rates to a private company that essentially runs a monopoly.

The facility where there was a fire is a compressor facility tasked with the job of pressurizing natural gas for its pipeline network. The facility accounts for 64% of pressurized supply, not 64% of supply, a key detail still not reported clearly in the media, which at the time unnecessarily alarmed the public during a period of dangerous, bitter cold weather. 

Consumers Energy investigates fire that led to state natural-gas alert:

The Ray plant contributes a maximum of 64 percent of the company's daily average of 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas to customers. Before gas can be put into the pipeline system, however, it needs to be compressed. The Ray station sits above Consumers' largest underground natural gas storage area with a capacity of 41.2 billion cubic feet of storage. Overall, Ray can compress 117 million cubic feet of gas per day, reaching pressures of 1,800 pounds per square inch. ...

"Most of the damage was on plant two. We have plant one flowing and three mostly has heat-related damage. We are working on that now," [VP Garrick Rochow] said. "Plant three will take maybe three weeks to get back online. Plant two is more significant. It was closer to the fire and flames and heat. It looks like it originated there. It is out for the season, but not going to impact ability to deliver to customers."

The layout of the Ray facility, which was built out over time, is three separate buildings and three separate plants on the site at 69338 Omo Road, in Armada Township. Station No. 3, which was built in 2011, is the largest of the three.

"We don't know what activated the fire gate system," Rochow said. "We are looking at that. We do know that in the process of venting the gas that the natural gas caught fire. There was a fireball like in the pictures. As a precautionary measure, plant 1 and 2 were in operation and fire-gated. Personnel fire-gated the entire facility. When that occurred, probably 50 yards separated the buildings .... gas from plants one and two caught fire."

Rochow said it is unclear why automatic controls vented the system and how the gas caught fire. "We can see the sequence of events but still looking at the reasons," he said. ...

But Rochow said one lesson Consumers might have learned is that the plants might still be too close to one another, given the fact that venting of gas of all stations at the same time led to the fireball igniting everything at once.

"We have systems there and the proximity of the systems has eliminated (favorable) redundancy," he said. "We will learn from it and think about how investments can create more redundancy on that particular site."

The NSC wouldn't be telling us in Michigan to obey our masters if Consumers Energy really had 350 billion cubic feet of stored natural gas

The NSC must know Consumers Energy had more like only 64 billion cubic feet before the Macomb fire, not 350 billion or even 300 billion.

How much was lost of Macomb's 41.2 billion cubic feet?

One third? All of it?

The NSC wouldn't get involved over the loss of just 11.77% of a utility's supply, now would it?

 

It reads as if Consumers Energy both vented-off gas into the atmosphere without burning and burned off gas in Macomb compressor incident

Consumers Energy asks customers to reduce natural gas use following fire:

On the coldest day of this winter, an equipment malfunction at the utility's Ray Natural Gas Compressor Station on Omo Road near of 32 Mile in Armada Township apparently resulted in the fire that burned for about five hours, according to fire and utility officials. ...

Wednesday's fire at the compressor station -- one of three stations at the Armada Township site -- was reported about 10:30 a.m. after personnel at the facility first saw flames, utility officials said. 

Residents reported hearing an explosion, followed by flames that burned into the air and were visible for miles.

Consumers Energy officials said automatic equipment known as a fire gate shut off the flow of gas to the fire, which limited damage to the site and vent out the gas.

The utility's onsite incident management team determined the fire was contained and allowed a controlled burn to exhaust natural gas product remaining in the pipes.

Armada Township Fire Chief Dan Reynolds said a team of firefighters arrived at the scene and consulted with utility officials, but were advised to let the fire burn itself off.

"The fire looks dramatic but there is no risk to the general public," the chief  said.

"I just saw some video on (WXYZ-TV) Channel 7 and it looks like Armada is burning down. But the reality is, this is out in a field and is contained at this point."

The fire eventually burned out by 3:30 p.m. ...

The Armada Township facility accounts for about 64 percent of the utility's supply, officials added.

News reports don't add up about how much natural gas Michigan's Consumers Energy lost in the 4.5 hour compressor fire

News on the day of the blast had indicated total supply at 350 billion cubic feet, but a day later down to 300 billion cubic feet, without making a single reference to the discrepancy in the light of the explosion and 4.5 hour fire at the Macomb compressor station.

The Detroit News, below, repeats as others have that the site of the fire is where Consumers Energy has 64% of its supply, which would be, theoretically, 224 billion cubic feet of 350 billion cubic feet, if that's truly how much they have. Yet the story below says the Ray Compressor Station, Consumers' largest storage field, has only 41.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage. If that's really true, Consumers Energy total supply was never 350 billion cubic feet, let alone 300 billion cubic feet, but barely 64.4 billion cubic feet.

Do you know how far that would go? It certainly wouldn't supply the natural gas needs of Consumers' customer base of 1.8 million. In fact, it would supply just 413,000 average single family households for one year, that's it.

None of these stories add up.

Someone is not telling the truth, either about the real quantity of total available natural gas stored by Consumers Energy for its customers, or about how much gas was lost in the controlled burn, or both. 

The unprecedented and repeated appeals by Consumers Energy and Michigan Governor Whitmer to residents of Michigan to dial back their thermostats to 65F during a massive below-zero blizzard which shut down hundreds of schools and businesses for almost a week suggest that Consumers Energy never had the massive supply it claimed and that Michigan's population was at real risk of disaster. 

Appeals flood consumers: Use less gas after utility fire:

Consumers said the Ray Compressor Station, where the fire occurred, accounts for roughly 64 percent of its supply. ...

The fire erupted at 10:33 a.m. at Consumers Energy's Ray Natural Gas Compressor Station on the 69300 block of Omo Road, north of 32 Mile. ...

Consumers said despite the blast and burn-off of natural gas, the utility had filled 15 large storage facilities with extra supply for their 1.8 million natural gas customers across the state in preparation for winter fuel usage. 

Personnel on hand who handle emergencies at the Ray station contacted emergency responders, who contained the fire while letting it burn until 3 p.m., said Garrick Rochow, the company's senior vice president of operations.

" ... It's the best way to make sure all of the gas is used up," Rochow said of the contained burned [sic, read "contained burn"]. "Next, we'll do a root-cause evaluation ... It's too early to know what caused this." ...

Consumers Energy's Ray Compressor Station on Omo Road, just north of 32 Mile in Armada Township, has 41.2 billion cubic feet of storage. It is the company's largest underground natural gas storage and compressor facility. (Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News) ...

The blast that accompanied the fire was felt miles away. Sherry Ventimiglia lives about two miles from the Ray station, said she thought something had happened to her home.

"It felt like something fell against the house, like a tree or something like that," Ventimiglia said. "It shook the whole house. ... I literally went running through my whole house to make sure nothing had exploded or fallen. It was very intense."

Did Michigan's Consumers Energy lose 50 billion cf in the compressor fire this week?

On Wednesday the utility was reported to have 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage. Tonight it is reported that the utility has 300 billion cubic feet, 50 billion cubic feet less than a day before. That would mean 14% of its storage went up in flames in the fire in Macomb County.

No one was bright enough at today's press briefing to ask about this.

This was a catastrophic loss of capacity during the most severe cold snap in twenty-five years, rescued only by the efforts of consumers and businesses who voluntarily cut their consumption while the utility scrambled to bring reserve fields on line.

You can turn your heat back up after midnight, Consumers Energy says:

The Jackson-based utility has 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage across Michigan. On Wednesday, the company broke a record, needing 3.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

How much natural gas does Consumers Energy have for its customers in west Michigan?

Fire out at Consumers station, company relying on gas reserves, decreased usage:

Consumers has 15 storage fields with 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage, [Consumers Vice President Garrick] Rochow said.

"There's not only a large supply to meet our customers' needs for the entire winter, but there's the ability to pull even more gas into state through the pipeline system," Rochow said. "So there is no risk from a long-term reserve perspective."

The utility has 1.8 million business and residential natural gas customers.

Here's the math (I think):

350 billion cubic feet of natural gas = 350 trillion btu (1 billion cf = 1 trillion btu);

I use roughly 156 million natural gas btu per year, on average, in my single family household (approximately 150,000 cf X 1.037 million btu per 1000 cf.);

If all Consumers' customers were like me, which they aren't, Consumers Energy could supply 2.24 million such households for one year before needing to resupply the storage fields, or 59% of Michigan's households.

Michigan has roughly 3.8 million households X 2.55 people per household = 9.7 million. Estimated population in 2017 was just under 10 million.

Supplying electricity is a completely separate issue.

Michigan residents asked to keep thermostats no higher than 65F through Friday evening during cold snap

No heat interruptions yet, but Consumers Energy still asks Michigan to keep thermostats at 65:

A Wednesday night plea for customers to turn their heat down made an impact, [Consumers Energy spokesman Brian] Wheeler said.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took to Facebook to ask Michiganders to reduce usage and an emergency alert was sent to cellphones.

Residents should keep thermostats down through the end of the day Friday, officials said, to avoid the possibility of service interruptions.

I went out in the subzero temperatures to grocery shop yesterday, and it was chilly in the store: Now I know why

The natural gas company had a fire at a compressor station and basically had to burn off an entire natural gas storage field yesterday in a controlled manner in order to prevent an explosion. It was their main field supplying us here in Michigan for the winter. Now they'll have to tap reserves.

They're asking everyone to reduce thermostats to 65F to conserve gas in the meantime.

It's -11F this morning.

Now ain't that a kick in the head.

Mlive: 800,000 lost power in Michigan on Wednesday, two days later more than 615,000 still in the dark

Of those still without power, 515,000 are served by DTE Energy, 100,000 by Consumers Energy.

The story is here.

Detroit News: Almost 700,000 without power in Michigan according to just two power companies

The story is here.

Here's the Consumers Energy outage map, accounting for only about 194,000 customers who lost power today in the wind storm which gusted as high as 64mph here in Grand Rapids (our power never went out, oddly enough, even though our phone and internet did):

Your Michigan coalition to protect perversity includes Chambers of Commerce and big business, and The Nerd

The Nerd is a member of a PCUSA church, aka CPUSA

Reported here:

The Detroit Regional Chamber and Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce on Thursday joined a coalition seeking to add sexual orientation and gender identity protections to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976. ...

Gov. Rick Snyder "does not believe in discrimination" and remains "open to having a conversation with the Legislature" about changing the law, said spokesperson Sara Wurfel, noting he thinks "it would be great to tackle sometime this year." ...

The business coalition behind the push formed earlier this month with founding partners AT&T, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Consumers Energy, Dow Chemical Co., Google, Herman Miller, PADNOS, Steelcase, Strategic Staffing Solutions and Whirlpool Corp.

Chrysler, Pfizer, the Kellogg Company and a handful of other businesses also joined the coalition this week.

One Week Later, Michigan Ice Storm Still Had 30,000 Without Power Saturday Morning, But Only 8,100 By Evening

Story here:

In Michigan, roughly 30,000 Consumers customers remained without power, down from 399,000 since a weekend ice storm swept across the state. The worst-hit area continued to be around Lansing, where 3,000 customers were still in the dark Saturday morning.

But this evening, the number is down to 8,100 as reported here:

As of 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 28, 8,100 customers statewide remained without service. The majority of those people are expected to be restored by midnight Sunday, the utility says.

Over 200,000 Still Without Power In Michigan On Christmas Day After Ice Storm

Consumers Energy outage map showing some of Michigan's 200,000 without electricity on Christmas Day

According to The Detroit News, here:

Roughly 214,000 homes and businesses across lower Michigan were without power late Tuesday. Officials at the area’s major provider, Consumers Energy, described the storm that hit the region over the weekend as the largest Christmas-week storm in its 126-year history. Overall, it’s the largest storm in the last decade, they added.