Now that last week's record cold temperatures are behind us, Oklahoma utilities are hard at work trying to figure out new ways to ripoff Oklahoma consumers.
Yesterday, OG&E – our unreliable public utility that's too cheap to keep trees clear from powerlines, and wasn't prepared to handle supply demands during bitterly cold weather – announced it wants Oklahomans to spend the next 10-years paying for last week's cold spell.
Via KOCO:
OG&E officials on Thursday announced proposed plans to recover fuel costs related to the historic winter storms, saying that they will work to minimize the impact on customers’ utility bills.
According to officials, OG&E has filed an application with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to recover fuel costs associated with the recent winter weather event and minimize the impact on customer bills. Officials said the company’s fuel costs from February winter weather events estimated to be nearly $1 billion, which significantly exceeded fuel costs for all of 2020...
“Natural gas demand rose dramatically during the recent winter weather, which, combined with severe supply issues, caused a significant escalation in prices,” said Brian Alford, OG&E spokesman. “We estimate the cost to support our customers’ demand during the record-low cold temperatures to be approximately $1 billion in terms of natural gas and purchased power. To add perspective, this amount exceeds our total fuel costs for all of last year.”
I'm not totally naive here. Obviously, you're going to have higher electric and gas bills when you consume more energy to keep your home warm, but $1-billion for a week's work of fuel to keep our state running???
Maybe I've paid too much attention to the propaganda aired during OKC Thunder games over the years, but that seems excessive. I thought the big selling point for natural gas is that it's clean, affordable and abundant. If that's the case, why did prices increase exponentially when demand spiked, or better yet, why didn't OG&E have stockpiles of natural gas on hand for when they needed it most? It makes you wonder if those oil and gas companies, and their pal in the utility industry, aren't completely honest with us in their commercials, have the game rigged in their favor, only care about themselves and shareholders, and that maybe we should more openly question them and their motives.