Warren Buffett group lobbying Texas lawmakers for deal to build $8 billion worth of power plants for

[thackney]

Warren Buffett group lobbying Texas lawmakers for deal to build $8 billion worth of power plants for emergency use
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/warren-buffett-texas-power-plants/
MARCH 25, 2021

As the Texas Legislature debated how to respond to last month’s winter storm-driven power crisis, executives at billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy were pitching lawmakers an idea: The group would spend over $8 billion to build 10 new natural gas power plants in the state. Lawmakers would agree to create a revenue stream to provide Berkshire a return on its investment through an additional charge on Texans’ power bills.

Representatives for Berkshire Hathaway Energy have been in Austin meeting with lawmakers and state leaders for the past week and a half, according to a person working closely on the issue.

The proposed company, which would likely be known as the Texas Emergency Power Reserve, would build and maintain plants that sit idle during normal times, according to a slide deck obtained by The Texas Tribune. Whenever demand for power in the state threatened to surpass supply, these new plants would kick in to make up the difference, if ordered to do so by the state’s grid operator.

“When you flip that switch and say, look, demand has exceeded supply, it has to come on in 10 minutes,” Chris Brown, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said in an interview Thursday with the Tribune. “That’s the Texas Emergency Power Reserve promise — that’s the promise that we’re making to the citizens of Texas.”...

[thackney]

Experts aren't buying Warren Buffett's $8.3 billion plan to build more Texas power plants
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Buffett-folo-16056231.php
 March 29, 2021

Warren Buffett’s $8.3 billion proposal to build more Texas power plants fails to address the cause of February’s deadly power crisis, analysts say, and guarantees a hefty profit for his energy business that would be paid by consumers.

The proposal that Berkshire Hathaway Energy is shopping around to Texas leaders and lawmakers would add natural-gas powered generating capacity for use during emergencies and provide the Omaha billionaire’s company a 9.3 percent return on investment, paid by electricity customers.

But Texas had enough gas-fired power plants, said Jim Krane, an energy fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Half of them, however, weren’t functioning because of the unprecedented cold that swept the state....

...During the freeze, the state’s supply of natural gas to power plants was hampered by frozen lines that weren’t built to withstand the near historic low temperatures and the failure of electric pumps that didn’t have power.

“People couldn’t get natural gas to their plants and the plants sat idle,” said Chris Moser, executive vice president of operations at NRG Energy, which owns retail power brands such Reliant Energy, Direct Energy and Cirro Energy....

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Worthless to build emergency only Nat Gas Plants without the fuel to run them.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I say run the other way Texas.

Buffett knows little about energy, just about making money.

And you will be played.