“Energy market participants took full advantage of the declared disaster, or did not take the appropriate steps to stop the exorbitant and unconscionable prices.”Įnergy Transfer said years of investment meant it was able to keep its pipelines running and sell gas from storage, providing critical supplies when others could not. This is “the most massive wealth transfer in Texas history,” said Ron Nirenberg, mayor of San Antonio. Energy Transfer posted its highest quarterly net income on record, more than three times its previous best quarter. What Abbott didn’t mention was the massive windfall key industry players made during the freeze. Even though gas failed in its role as a reliable backup fuel during the freeze, Abbott pushed regulators in a letter to strengthen incentives for fossil fuel and nuclear generators while increasing “reliability costs” for intermittent renewable power sources. This week, Governor Greg Abbott appeared to double down on his early assessment that wind and solar were prime culprits of the freeze. Texas lawmakers have set aside $10 billion to help natural gas utilities cover their natural gas costs from the storm through low-interest, state-backed bonds.Ī special legislative session convened Thursday but the agenda did not include any measures to fix the power grid. Millions of Texans are now faced with the prospect of paying higher gas prices for years as utilities seek to spread the cost over a decade or more. The BNEF estimate is based on spot prices at major hubs assessed by S&P Global Platts rather than private contracts, so is likely an upper limit of the total cost. A further $3 billion was spent by utilities providing gas for cooking, heating and fireplaces. The cost of gas for power generation alone was about $8.1 billion, or 75 times normal levels. Soon customers will be saddled with the bill.Īnd it’s a big one: The total comes to about $11.1 billion for a storm that lasted for just five days, according to estimates by BloombergNEF analysts Jade Patterson and Nakul Nair. Power producers were forced to pay top dollar in the spot market for whatever gas they could find. As the flow of gas cratered, everyone scrambled to secure enough supply, sparking one of the wildest price surges in history. Interviews with energy executives and an analysis of public records by Bloomberg News show that natural gas producers in the Permian shale basin began to drastically reduce output days before power companies cut them off. It’s now becoming clear that while millions of Texans endured days of power cuts, the state’s gas producers contributed to fuel shortages, allowing pipelines and traders to profit handsomely off them. In papers filed after the verdict, Trump’s attorneys argued that the jury’s conclusion that he sexually abused Carroll “could have included groping of Plaintiff’s breasts through clothing, or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape.(Bloomberg) - The official autopsy of the great Texas winter blackout of February 2021 quickly established a clear timeline of events: Electric utilities cut off power to customers and distributors as well as natural gas producers, which in turn triggered a negative feedback loop that sunk the state deeper and deeper into frigid darkness. Trump’s lawyers said the sex abuse award was grossly excessive and the rest was based on pure speculation. Most of the rest of the $5 million award was for defamation. The jury awarded $2 million in compensatory damages for sexual abuse. Trump did not attend the trial, though extensive excerpts of his recorded October deposition were shown to jurors.Ĭarroll, 79, testified that Trump, 77, turned a flirtatious and fun chance encounter between the two into a violent sexual assault inside a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the spring of 1996, leaving her so traumatized that she never had another romantic relationship. In doing so, the attorneys said Trump’s lawyers had unjustly tried to mischaracterize the May verdict, which resulted from a two-week trial. Jean Carroll, to less than $1 million or let another jury hear evidence about damages and make its own determination. The lawyers urged a federal judge to reject a request by Trump’s attorneys that he lower the amount for sexual abuse and defamation awarded to the writer, E. NEW YORK (AP) - Former President Donald Trump’s claim that a jury sided with him when it agreed he didn’t rape an advice columnist in a luxury Manhattan department store in the 1990s was an erroneous interpretation of the jury’s $5 million award and its finding that he sexually abused her, her lawyers said Thursday.
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