Senator Markey: Massive Electricity Market Corruption

10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Peach Bottom Units 2 and 3

Feb 13, 2013

　
CFR 50.73(a) (2) (v) (D), "In the event a condition that could have prevented the fulfillment of the safety functions of structures or systems that needed to mitigate the consequence of an accident." I still can't get over that. Exelon is cutting their dividend and they're cutting their capital budgets, and they're not upgrading any of their nuclear plants to the tune of $2.3 million, billion dollars, excuse
me, got to get my Bs right.

I mean, I just -- the pressures that are going on here in all these big plants, all these big companies, biggest utilities in the United States are tremendous, and a lot of people are worrying, and I worry NRC's asleep. Things are changing, and the -- like I said with budgets, inside a plant, you know, I mean, the first thing you realize is that how blind you are when you're going into the budget problems.
And the second thing that anybody has gotten burnt by these budget problems and cause institutional problem is you've got to ramp up your honesty 100 times and stuff like that. I mean, that's -- you've got to communicate more honestly and more completely. That's the only way -- if you have a budget crisis or lack of budgets, or limitations, priorities and stuff like that. You've got to communicate more between people and within the organizations and stuff like that. You just can't just sit there and say the easy way out is we're going to cut 5 percent and that'll be easy. You really have to do a lot of extra stuff.

You know, really it's -- what has the agency done? You know, what has the agency done to ramp up this honesty and kind of confront this? Why is-- that seems to be a lot of problems with plants now.

What is the root cause, what are the factors that cause this, what are the deeper factors that cause this and all that sort of stuff? Instead of just sticking there and, you know, looking at a threaded seal as an isolated part and not worrying and wringing your hands, and pulling out your hair wondering what's the big picture? I've got to know the big picture behind what's causing these little problems. And if you have a little problem here that's similar to another little problem here, you know, why ain't you pulling out more of your hair and stuff like that? Where's the worry? I don't see that. I see these -- I see the agency running around basically feeling comfortable that they're following the rules that the politicians wrote for them and stuff like that. I see a lot of agency people not having a conscience because they're probably going to get punished or pay a price if they look at the bigger picture, and challenge their conscience, and challenge their status and things, and try to make the agency be prepared for this falling off the cliff of most of our major utilities with natural gas.
This is a Hurricane Katrina. This is a Hurricane Sandy. This is a Blizzard Nemo that's coming down on you guys, and you can't operate like the way you've done in the past. And you should be banging on these politicians to help you out as far as rules and regulations, and to be able to see more, and to be able to use a sledgehammer to get people's attention at times, especially these executives and stuff like that.

We're really going to do damage to our nation if we don't get a handle on what's going on here. This is a climate change. This is a huge economic climate change that's going on in the industry as far as this natural gas business. We don't know how long this thing is going to last, but as it is now it's affecting so many people and stuff like that. You know, the politicians are supposed to be in there helping the agency to do the people's business.

You know, we can't have this independent agency out here disconnected from the politicians and stuff like that. We have to have the politicians helping us to manage our electric system, and especially this invaluable 20 percent component of our electric system. We really need a lot of people. You know, they're all mixed up in Washington, too busy doing this and being overwhelmed by that. They sit there and too many problems, and too many limitations, and too lack of vision. And it's -- I fear for the future if we don't wake up.

I'm Mike Mulligan, and thank you for this opportunity. I'm done.
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

 

Basically we got nothing but rate increases as the historically low national gas price was hitting the NE ISO...I say the majority of the utilities got that reduced 7 billion dollar cost driven by the decreasing cost of the natural gas. I'll bet you the utilities and private market, general the large power users who went off the utility split the difference. Going off system gets you rate reduction and staying in a utility as a captured consumers means you are in a death spiral with less of the big guys supporting the trouble electric system.

Right, this is the Republican ideology, empowering the elite class and those with money interest, while making the middle class, the poor and weak pay more and be totally under the power of their thumbs...

Right, this hard right Republican conservative and elite political gestalt...the extreme free market not under the control of "we the people"...this created the boomers epoch of massive price spikes and shortage of all our necessities including all energy and most of our foods. We should be ashamed of ourselves jacking up the price of foods for the poor in the name diverting foods and lands into producing energy worldwide.       

Grid chief warns of future NE power problems

By JAY LINDSAY

Associated Press / March 19, 2013

BOSTON (AP) — The chief executive of New England’s power grid manager warned Tuesday that a growing regional dependence on natural gas, combined with supply constraints, is threatening its ability to guarantee electricity whenever and wherever it’s needed.

Gordon van Welie of ISO New England testified in Washington, D.C., before a House subcommittee that ‘‘the status quo is unsustainable.’’

Van Welie said the region now gets just over half its power from natural gas and nearly a third from nuclear power. That’s a shift during the last decade from more reliance on oil and coal sources, which have been squeezed out by cheaper gas and tight environmental rules.

A switch to lower-cost, lower-emission natural gas — which also is widely used regionally for heat — has major economic and environmental benefits, he said. But it’s straining the existing pipeline infrastructure, which isn’t sufficient to allow New England full access to abundant gas supplies from the west and south.

The effect of the bottleneck was seen this winter in a price increase. Van Welie noted that in late January, New England was paying more than eight times what other regions were paying for natural gas, even though temperatures weren’t especially low and power demand wasn’t high.

‘‘Wholesale electricity prices rose significantly during this period because of physical constraints moving the lowest-priced natural gas into New England,’’ he said, according to prepared remarks.

A massive storm in February, which was accompanied by widespread power outages, also highlighted problems, he said.

Van Welie said at one point, 6,000 megawatts of electricity — about a fifth of the region’s total capacity — wasn’t available, in part because gas generators couldn’t find fuel.

That showed a clear need for more flexibility in the gas supply system, since the gas market operates only on weekdays, and it was a weekend storm, van Welie said.

But he also emphasized the need to beef up fuel inventory, such as by building more storage facilities, making contracts with liquid natural gas suppliers and investing in pipelines.

‘‘It is clear that the gas system is inadequate to meet the demands of electric generators during peak periods,’’ van Welie said.

Van Welie suggested some of the roughly $7 billion in wholesale power costs that New England saved with increased natural gas use in the last five years could be used to expand infrastructure.

Other solutions the ISO is pursuing include changing market rules so natural gas-fired generators have more time to get the fuel they need on a given day. Other rule changes could aim to increase private investment in the needed infrastructure.

Also, the ISO said installing ‘‘pay-for-performance’’ incentives could increase financial rewards for those that provide energy reserves when the system is under the most pressure. 

Feb 20, 2013: 

Honestly, the DEO/FERC multi state implementation of the New England Independent System operator is nothing but a private horse racing tract without effective federal and state oversight and regulations.

We broadly privatized the oversight of the regional wholesale electric market and the operation of the grid. Privatized means a almost total lack of the release of information and near zero interaction with the public.

If it was a governmental market or grid operator, then the public would have a opportunity to gain information based on our Constitutional guarantees.

I make the case with the hard right wing Republican gestalt and the extremism of the hard right wing republicans utilities...now the intense political pressure of mega sized and merged utilities...a unregulated private market without government oversight...that never has a fundamental requirement for government like transparency. The super sized utilities on steroids is a private political force our local, state and federal agencies has never dealt with before. We drastic changed the forms and concentration of power with the merged utilities...nary a change occurred with the government...local, state and federal oversight over decades.

It has a fundamental requirement of the NE ISO to protect propriety, competitive and corporate interest...but not disclose information that would create grid stability and minimize consumer prices...

These are the political themes that got us to the severe NE grid crisis today...a extremely right wing from of government electric deregulation and mostly no government responsibility and accountability of our electric system.

And the Democrats went right along with this as long as the powerful utilities bankrolled their campaigns and provide direct support to the politicians independent of ideology...

SHORT SUMMARY OF TESTIMONY

GORDON VAN WELIE, PRESIDENT & CEO, ISO NEW ENGLAND BEFORE THE HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY & POWER

“AMERICAN ENERGY SECURITY AND INNOVATION: THE ROLE OF REGULATORS AND GRID OPERATORS IN MEETING NATURAL GAS AND ELECTRIC COORDINATION CHALLENGES.”

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013

 ISO New England is the independent system operator for the New England power grid with three major areas of responsibility: operate the bulk electric system on a 24x7 basis, administer the region’s wholesale electricity markets, and conduct long-term planning of the transmission system. 

 In a little more than a decade, New England has seen a transformation in its generation mix, moving from a mix of oil, coal, nuclear, and natural gas generators, to a system with more than half of the electricity production coming from natural gas generation (52%). In addition, the region is seeing the retirement of coal and oil generators, and the introduction of a diverse set of renewable and demand resources. 

 Wholesale prices are driven by natural gas generation, but the wholesale electricity markets do not provide adequate incentives for generators to provide electrical energy when called upon by the ISO during stressed system conditions, and in particular for gas generators that have not made adequate and reliable arrangements for fuel supply. 

 The region’s reliance on generation with “just in time” interruptible fuel-delivery arrangements has created operational challenges that are escalating rapidly. The region experienced significant operational challenges in January and February when a significant number of generators were unavailable due to uncertain fuel supplies or storm-related outages. We are seeing this more frequently and it is unsustainable. 

 The market-based solution to this problem is to strengthen the economic incentives in the wholesale markets to cause generators to make adequate and reliable fuel arrangements, so that they are ready to respond to the ISO when needed.  New England is urgently working toward solutions that include market changes that provide the incentives necessary to provide greater fuel certainty. 

3/19/2013: I am neither pro or anti natural gas or nuclear....I am pro telling the truth. I am a transparency freak!  I want an electric System wholly dependent on telling the public the truth. 

Senator Markey,

How come NE has some of the most expensive electricity in the nation and the green electricity is just making our competitiveness worst. I am for a green energy that make our lives better...not shaking the poor and weak with expensive electricity they can't afford... destroying their livelihoods and jobs...

So why not congressional hearings on the price of electricity this winter in NE....corruption of electric prices in NE. We need a FERC or DOE special investigation over the intersection of natural gas and electricity prices.

I  got tell you are hard truth, natural gas sourced electricity has been the linchpin source of massive corruption with the Northeast electric prices for decades...

Remember in the 2005 of so timeframe with shortages we had, the Natural Gas electric Peakers at over 100 to 250 bucks a megawatt hour. Right, the highest price sources sets the price on our ISO...so it is everyone's advantage to gin up excuses to bring in limited capacity sources to make it a payday for everyone else onto our grid.

So the limited source and ginned up by the peakers, a speculation source that collapsed in NE and many bankruptcies...they were the market price setters who damaged our economy and many good people in NE with expensive electricity and shortages in the lead up to the great recession. I can't begin to tell you the enormous and historic utility stock price speculative bubble stock price market this had created. Many great utilities are not even close to recovering their stock price highs from this 2007-2009 collapse.

So here we are in another speculation bubble based on the market setter source of electricity and insufficient natural gas pipeline capacity. Most of all our energy sources are about a market set up by the players, sabotaging each other to leverage the spiking cost of our energy to the good people of the USA. They are created to leverage expensive energy in the advance of a few...not to serve our greater national needs.

You have to see how our corrupt and expensive electricity has damaged the economy of the Northeast and hurt a tremendous amount of good people in NE...

Yea, I know it, these guys got a tremendous amount of power. I know the electric utilities and their associates play a prominent role in all the politicians' staffs. It is not popular, but cleaning out this rats nest could affect all the lives of the people in the northeast in a positive over many decades...than many other of the big political issues.

I can understand an electricity speculative stock spike and obscene manufactured electric and natural gas shortages in a economy on steroids with historic electricity high loads...but how do they do this in a near depression, the historic drop with electric grid loads and a new miracle of natural gas fracting creating a century worth of the new gas reservoirs and massive drop in natural gas prices.

In New England, a Natural Gas Trap

March 17. 2013 1:01AM

Reliance on natural gas fuels risk to grid

By DAVE SOLOMON
New Hampshire Union Leader
New Englanders braced for the coldest weather of the winter the week of Jan. 21, knowing temperatures were going to dip below zero. What they didn't know was that controllers of the New England power grid came dangerously close to imposing roving blackouts due to constraints on the supply of natural gas that fuels most of the region's power plants.

Then on Feb. 8, as the region braced for Winter Storm Nemo, it happened again.

"If we had lost one more big generator or a transmission line, we would have had to resort to our emergency procedures," said Vamsi Chadalavada, executive vice president and chief operating officer for the Independent System Operator of the New England power grid (ISO-NE), based in Holyoke, Mass. "Those procedures are to call on help from neighboring areas, then to call for voluntary conservation, and if that's not sufficient, to institute controlled power outages ... We came quite close."

Chadalavada described those tense moments in the control room at ISO-NE as the most stressful in recent memory. "And the period between them was equally stressful," he said, "because the uncertainty persisted. Although those were the peak periods of uncertainty, it did not disappear due to the continuation of the same conditions."