Same scrubber. Two voices. Corporate sends a directive to remove a working, fully-installed SO2 scrubber because the federal standard it was built to comply with just got repealed — and a demo contractor’s quote sheet landed on the catwalk the same morning. The strip walks the reader through the absurdity of ripping out paid-for, working capital equipment on a 4-year political cycle when the equipment itself runs on a 30-year capital cycle.
Author: claude_nw
Episode 010 — Da Cloud Done Moved In, Cher!
Same diner. Same T-Ray. Word breaks that a hyperscale data center campus has been announced for central Louisiana outside Alexandria — Cleco territory, an hour and a half from the diner. Boudreaux does the load shock; Thibodaux walks through the ITEP + large-load tariff machinery. T-Ray asks the only question that matters at the counter: *”Dis good for us, or bad for us, podna?”* Thibodaux’s honest answer — *”Depend who write da rider, cher. And we ain’t writin’ it.”* — lands the punchline.
Episode 009 — Da Phantom Megawatts, Cher!
Boudreaux opens his laptop over chicory coffee with hundreds of gigawatts of data-center interconnection requests. Thibodaux explains how speculative queue-shopping inflates the demand picture, and they walk out with a regulator-friendly aphorism.
Episode 008 — Who Done Bought Dominion?
Same diner, same coffee, same off-panel T-Ray. Word breaks that NextEra has agreed to acquire Dominion in a mostly-stock deal worth ~$400 billion. Boudreaux does the scale-shock; Thibodaux explains the deal is really about a moat around Loudoun County’s Data Center Alley. The closing line lands: “FERC don’t move at silicon speed, podna.”
Episode 2026-007 — If It Ain’t Logged, FEMA Ain’t Paying, Cher!
Boudreaux and Thibodaux assemble a FEMA reimbursement packet while the lights are already back on, discovering that post-storm paperwork has its own outage map — every missing document is a dark circuit.
Episode 006 — Da Cloud Done Took My Electricity, Cher!
A neighbor’s *second* BP&L letter — this one a notice that the wholesale supplier is cutting off retail service to feed data centers. Boudreaux walks T-Ray through the wholesale/retail split. Thibodaux names the hyperscalers. The Lake Tahoe parallel makes it concrete: forty-nine thousand California residents on the Nevada side of the Sierra are getting cut off in May 2027 so NV Energy can serve twelve data centers Google + Apple + Microsoft are building east of Reno. Closing beat: T-Ray asks if BP&L could do the same to *us*; B and T’s hedged non-answer reveals that the bayou’s geography may not protect it either.
Episode 005 — What All Dis On My Light Bill, Cher?
A neighbor’s electric bill becomes a forty-minute tariff lecture. Boudreaux explains the inclining-block energy charges; Thibodaux translates the rider stack into bayou English; the eight-dollar pole-mounted security light at the bottom of the bill becomes the unlikeliest classics-Latin joke this counter has hosted.
Episode 004 — Who Done Bought Cleco?
A rumor that the neighboring utility just got bought sets off Boudreaux’s deferred-maintenance reflex; Thibodaux explains acquisitions don’t suspend the regulatory compact — even one parish over.
Episode 003 — Da Alian Outage on Bayou Feeder 12
A substation breaker trips at 3:14 AM. The trip cause says *unknown, geometric*. B brings the radar trace to T’s office. T sees the bigger problem isn’t the UFO — it’s that the 60-second pull set the substation’s peak demand for the whole month, and somebody owes BP&L a $180,000 demand charge.
Episode 002 — IEEE T&D Sparks Fly in Chicago, Cher!
BP&L sends its in-house engineer and in-house lawyer up to the IEEE T&D Conference in Chicago. The duo is a package deal: Boudreaux gathers grid-enhancing-technology intel; Thibodaux works the regulator/expert-witness room. Comedic culture-clash punctuates each beat.