2/19/21
For millions of people who live in Texas, this week has seemed like hell. With the electrical grid collapsing, people were left to freeze to death in their living rooms while others watched their homes literally fall apart as frozen water pipes burst. But this is all simply a matter of perspective. For electricity providers in Texas, this has been the best week ever. The same goes for natural gas companies. And coal companies. And drilling companies. And on down the line. The entire energy industry has seen a tremendous surge of profit. That surge was so great that on just two days this week, Monday and Tuesday, providers could easily have cleared more profit than they do in a full year of ordinary, full-scale production. Not providing adequate electricity to Texas is much more profitable than providing every Texan with the power they need. By design. On Friday, as the electric grid begins to recover and people survey what’s left after days of no power and no water. But the energy industry is ecstatic. They’re coming down from a sugar rush that has sent an injection of billions straight into their pockets, and all they had to do to collect it was be bad at their supposed jobs. The Texas energy market, as managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) isn’t just a market that’s designed to protect investors and harm consumers in each instance of disaster; it’s a market that’s tailor-made to induce disasters.
Texas suffered massive blackouts in 1989 after a cold snap raised demand far above supply. This happened again in 2011, leaving many Texas without power for days and leading to a federal investigation that suggested the system desperately needed to be winterized and prepared for future events. That didn’t happen. And The Dallas Morning News can explain exactly why it didn’t happen. Not only did electricity providers make more money in two days than they would have made in a year, there was a real trickle down effect. Just not to consumers. That last sentence can be translated as “we made a killing while selling far less gas.” Which is easy to do in a market where prices have gone up 30,000% in a week. celebrations are being held by speculators at all levels—as well as by drilling industry analysts, who expect the failures of the gas industry to be met with demands for more of the same source that just failed. They are confident not only that Texas Republicans like Gregg Abbott will not be able to hold off making any significant changes to the market by blaming the problems on “green energy,” but that the Fox News bullhorn will stir up funds for more gas exploration and fracking.
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