Free Republic

Utility commission says repricing power markets too difficult, despite recommendation that overcharges during storm be reversed The Public Utility Commission of Texas on Friday signaled it didn’t intend to reverse $16 billion in electric overcharges that an independent market monitor had flagged as stemming from the state’s weeklong blackouts. Commission Chairman Arthur C. D’Andrea said it was too difficult to reprice the energy markets and involved too many uncertainties. “It is impossible to unscramble this sort of egg,” he said. Mr. D’Andrea said there were so many hedges and private transactions outside the view of the commission that taking a...

The Texas blackout is over, and water has also been restored. It didn’t get as much press as the loss of electricity, but water pipes froze and broke across a wide swath of the state, causing inconvenience that for many was greater than the power outage. The ultimate source of both problems was the same: the relevant authorities failed to anticipate record-breaking cold. One question that I have not seen asked is this: why didn’t the relevant authorities–the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and whatever municipal governments and private contractors have been responsible for water pipes–anticipate a “worst case” cold...

Nearly 4 million Texans lost power during a historic ice storm last week, a storm that ravaged a broad swath of the country. As PJ Media’s Bryan Preston noted, two highly-touted forms of green energy, wind and solar, took big hits during the blackout. Natural gas energy production increased to compensate for it. Another energy source proved rather reliable during the blackout, however. This energy source does not involve fossil fuel emissions, but climate activists often ignore it. This more reliable energy source is none other than nuclear power. While nuclear power did take a hit during the Texas blackout,...