My incompetent Michigan utility Consumers Energy can't deliver electricity for four days but thinks free ice cream will substitute for doing its job

How about not hectoring me day in and day out about conserving energy?

How about not retiring generating capacity and having to buy power from other states?

How about concentrating on delivering energy from reliable sources instead of risking our future on tenuous green schemes?

How about hiring more workers to keep the gas and power flowing to the people who pay your salaries?

 

Michigan is increasingly like a third world shit-hole: Day four without electrical power from Consumers Energy, over 81k still affected

My electric power went out Tuesday night at about 11pm.

It is still out.

Over 81,000 customers, just of Consumers Energy, remain without power four days after a line of storms came through.

The utility runs ads on the radio incessantly saying "Count on us"!

It spends more time and money trying to get consumers to curtail electric usage than it does providing it.

It decommissions coal fired generating capacity and then turns around and buys electricity from Indiana. Under Democrat Gretchen Whitmer we are increasingly like California. 

The utility is a cruel joke, especially this week as humidity levels soared with the heat. Indoor temperatures at night above 80 degrees F make for miserable sleeping, when sleeping occurs at all.

The air is full of the sound of generators, day and night. Lines are long at gasoline stations where people wait to fill their cans to get them through another night.

Green energy isn't green, and the power company doesn't provide it, green or otherwise.

 

 

You fools who won't have enough electricity for air conditioning this summer have only yourselves to blame

From the story:

Peak temperatures are forecast to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46°C) in interior California through the week, according to the state's electric grid operator, which warned the biggest supply deficit could occur on Thursday after the sun goes down and solar power is no longer available. ...

On Wednesday, solar power was providing about 30% of California ISO's supply, and the grid warned that it would be unlikely to be able to rely on additional supplies from other states due to the extreme heat hitting much of the Western United States.

The ISO was currently getting 13% of its power from other states. The ISO has said it expects to have about 50,734 MW of supply available this summer, but some of that comes from solar.

102,000 MW of coal-fired electric capacity was retired from 2010-2019, over 38,000 MW alone in 2012, 2015 and 2018. Another 17,000 MW is scheduled to be retired by 2025. 

The EIA blamed "flat electricity demand growth" during the decade for the retirements.

It should have blamed Obama, under whom real GDP grew at a rate worse than during the Great Depression.

But YOU elected him.

Twice.

 

 

LOL, Michigan's rapacious utility Consumers Energy delays roll-out of new Summer Peak Rate program due to COVID-19

 

Due to COVID-19, Peak Pricing has Been Delayed Until 2021:

Given the economic challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are delaying the implementation of the summer peak pricing period until 2021.

While you will still see this rate code (1001) on your bill, we will not be moving forward with the peak pricing for this summer as initially communicated. You will instead have a flat rate for electricity throughout the remainder of 2020.

The Summer Peak Rate includes a peak period from June 1 through September 30. The peak period consists of “on-peak” and “off-peak” rate prices:

• “On-peak” rate price – From 2 to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, your electricity rate will cost about 1.5 times higher than the “off-peak” rate price.
• “Off-peak” rate price – customers will pay a lower rate price for electricity used outside of on-peak times. This is the same rate you would pay October through May.

Blow up all the hydroelectric plants and dams on the way out, though

New summer "Time of Use" rate coming for millions of Michigan customers of Consumers Energy in 2020 between 2pm and 7pm Monday through Friday: Penalty electricity rate rises 13.7% over summer 2019 penalty rate

The smart meter installation roll-out everywhere in recent years now affords the utility the ability to measure usage of each customer for the designated five hour period. In future customers are promised that ability also, in order to monitor their own usage hour by hour, through an online dashboard for their accounts.

Presently penalty electric rates are imposed in the summers for all use above 600 kWh without regard to time of day. Once you hit the threshold, you pay at a higher rate for the electricity. In my case that usually happens by day 20 of the month. This new way eliminates the 600 kWh threshold. Use energy during the five hour window on day one and you pay the penalty rate, period.

Some will be able to game this because they aren't home during the day anyway. For the rest of us, however, it will be a different story, shifting energy use to the mornings before 2pm and the evenings after 7pm, or to weekends, and perhaps turning off the A/C and shifting activities to the basement to beat the heat. 

Latest estimates put more than 800,000 without electric power in immediate aftermath of Michigan storms

After more than 800,000 lose power across Michigan, some won’t be restored until mid-week:

At one point in the immediate aftermath of Friday night and Saturday’s storms, nearly 600,000 DTE customers lost power [in Southeast Michigan]. Consumers Energy had about 67,000 homes and businesses still without power [Sunday night], compared to the 220,000 of its customers affected overall [in West Michigan]. ... DTE officials called the multiple storms one of the worst events its crews have ever dealt with. ... Since Friday, DTE says it has receive [sic] reports of more than 2,000 downed wires.

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.”

By the way, electricity from renewables is up 268% in 2017 from 2007, but . . .

renewables still provide less than 10% of total generation.

Unfortunately, America produced less total electricity in 2017 than it did in 2007, too, by 3.1%.

And the price of a kilowatthour is up 14.8%.

Reducing energy production and making it more expensive is no way to grow an economy, son.

 

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.

The utility companies in Minnesota wouldn't have to say this if natural gas were reserved for residential heating and coal for electricity

Extreme Cold Straining Xcel Energy’s Natural Gas System, Residents Urged To Turn Down Thermostat:

“We need those in Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to reduce use of natural gas. Until further notice, you are urged to turn down your thermostat to 60 degrees or lower and avoid the use of other natural gas appliances including hot water,” Xcel Energy said. WCCO’s Reg Chapman said shortly before noon Wednesday that Xcel Energy is asking customers to lower thermostat to 55 degrees. Xcel Energy says residents’ cooperation is critical to prevent widespread natural gas outages. The company also suggests using electric space heaters.

About 39% of utility-scale electricity generation in Minnesota came from coal-fired electric power plants in 2017, down from 49% in 2014.

Increasing amounts of natural gas are fueling electricity generation in the state. In 2016, about one-seventh of the natural gas consumed in Minnesota went to the electric power sector, more than double the amount of natural gas used for electricity generation in 2011.

Yellow Vest protests against high prices of essentials like fuel, electricity, food and water spread to Tel Aviv

Copycat protests are popping up everywhere, in some cases adapted to pre-existing political factions representing disparate issues such as marijuana legalization, which is hardly what it's about in France.

'YELLOW VEST' PROTESTERS SWARM THE STREETS OF TEL AVIV:

The movement which only started a week ago, in mid-December, in Israel, followed the wave of "yellow vest" protests in France that started in May 2018, mainly objecting the high coast of living and rising fuel prices. 

The Israeli copy has similar objectives- stop the rising electricity and water prices, which they believe will directly affect food prices.

Over three months after Hurricane Maria, electricity won't be restored to all of Puerto Rico until May 2018

Way to go, Brownie!

Story here.

Striking electrical workers suspected in cable vandalism leading to 80,000 New Yorkers losing cable, internet and phone

I felt a great disturbance in The Farce.

From the story here:

Spectrum crews spent the day fixing cables on Henry and Sackett Streets, blaming vandalism and pointing to the rise in outages since its electric workers went on strike. ... Over the summer, charges were dropped against a striking worker blamed in similar sabotage pending further investigation.

Mother Of All Bombs tested on the wrong target in Afghanistan, prolonging the 16-year war

They bombed caves. If they had meant to end the war, they would have bombed the Kajaki dam instead, ending electricity and opium production in Helmand Province instantly:

Hillary Clinton is a clean energy CRACKPOT

Hillary Clinton said today in Johnstown, PA, here:

"We're going to install half a billion solar panels and generate enough clean energy to power every home in America within 10 years."

Oh where oh where to begin?

Your average residential customer used 911 kWh/month in 2014.

Where I live where the sun gives me about 4 to 4.5 sun hours per day, this means I'd need a 9kw system.

A complete do-it-yourself system (!) of that size will cost me $17,600! (And let's not even mention all the things that will not do for me that the current grid does).

But guess what? It's composed of 36 PANELS!

500 million panels divided by 36 yields just south of 14 million homes equipped like mine.

But in 2014 there were almost 134 million households, so 120 million of you are OUT OF LUCK!

Meanwhile the cost for the lucky 13.8 million is about $243 billion, which I'm sure Hillary will make Donald Trump pay for.

Solar power still accounts for just 1.07% of total US electricity in 2016 despite Barack Obama's many promises to expand it, about 43.2 TWh using the most generous assumptions.

Residential customers alone consumed 1,407.2 TWh of electricity in 2014, about 34% of total 2014 consumption.

To come close to doing with solar what Hillary Clinton promised today would cost well in excess of $2 trillion.

Not. Gonna. Happen. Ever. 

Obama's war on coal kills Peabody Energy, the US' largest coal company

Number two Arch Coal went belly up in January.

Story here.

Meanwhile 7 coal-fired power plants in Michigan are closing this week to meet new EPA emission regulations. Almost 1,000 megawatts of electricity generating capacity go away as a result, to be replaced by north of 500 megawatts of capacity from a natural gas plant.

Details here.

Supreme Court decision staying EPA power emissions rule means states likely to win in court

So reports The Hill, here:

The decision means that the EPA cannot enforce the rule until the litigation against it is finished.

It also means that the court believes that the states, companies and groups suing the EPA are likely to win their case when its merits are considered.

A big victory for electricity from coal and for Laurence Tribe: Supremes stay EPA rule implementation shutting down 53 plants

The New York Times reports here:

WASHINGTON — In a major setback for President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants. ... “We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule’s immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues,” said Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, which has led the 29-state legal challenge. ... In a second filing seeking a stay, coal companies and trade associations represented by Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, said the court should act to stop a “targeted attack on the coal industry” that will “artificially eliminate buyers of coal, forcing the coal industry to curtail production, idle operations, lay off workers and close mines.” ... Mr. Tribe added that the plan “will cause the closure of 53 coal-fired plants in 2016 and another three in 2018.”

Jeb Bush is a total hypocrite about eminent domain, taking an old man's home from him in 2005 when he was Florida Governor

As Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush in 2005 used eminent domain to take 70 year old Jesse James Hardy's house and 160 acres he built and owned since 1976.

From the stories here and here:

It was harsh, unlovely land, miles from anything, with rocky ground, slash pines, swamp cabbage and sand gnat swarms so thick he had to hold his breath. No electricity or sewer or water. Hardy built a shed, then a house. Dug a well. For 30 years, nobody bothered him. Now they won't leave him alone. ... 

Hardy spits fire when he talks about having to move next month to his new $750,000 house that has just a few more amenities than the rustic cabin he built in the Everglades with his own sweat more than a quarter-century ago.

Here's Bush in last night's New Hampshire debate:

But what Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City. That is not public purpose, that is down right wrong. And here's the problem with that. The problem was, it was to tear down -- it was to tear down -- it was to tear down the house...