Free Republic

Among the many dumb and harmful things Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has voted for over the decades -- and there are some doozies, for example, adding trillions to the national debt, creating the unneeded and unaffordable Medicare Part D prescription drug entitlement (2003, Roll Call Vote 457), and, even more outrageously, funding Obamacare (2013, RCV 206) -- one of the dumbest has to be the light-bulb ban (2007, RCV 430). The bill Senator McConnell voted for contained a federally mandated phase-out out of the traditional incandescent light bulb in favor of those annoying folded-tube fluorescents. Compact fluorescents, as...

Electric grid compounds across the country have faced an uptick in unauthorized intrusions by unknown individuals, causing concern that the U.S. grid is “inherently vulnerable” to widespread sabotage, according to a recent oversight report issued by New Jersey’s Regional Operations Intelligence Center (ROIC), which monitors the threat level. Following at least eight “reports of intrusions at electrical grid facilities in New Jersey” from October 2013 until January 2014, the ROIC’s Intelligence & Analysis Threat Unit issued a report warning that the U.S. electrical grid is “inherently vulnerable” to attacks that could wipe out power across large swaths of the country.

Why electricity demand is falling, and what it means By Nathan Lim on 6 March 2014 It is a multi-generational truth that electricity consumption only increases. This is best seen in the US where, since 1949, electricity demand has marched upward in a nearly uninterrupted pattern with the country never experiencing two consecutive years of negative growth.Even here in Australia with data going back to 1961, we have never experienced two consecutive years of negative growth either.Figure 1 – US and Australia Electricity Consumption (Billion Kilowatt hours) Electricity demand falls in USA in four of last five yearsHowever, in the...

With the switchover to daylight saving time just around the corner, you might wonder why we go to the trouble of springing forward and falling backward every year. It turns out that more daylight gives us more time to shop, drive, grill and perfect our golf game. What it doesn't do is cut our energy use, as is the intent, says Michael Downing, a lecturer in English and author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. In fact, when we lose an hour's sleep at 2 a.m. on March 9—beginning the eight-month DST season—it will not reduce...

The booming oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin has created a voracious demand for power in West Texas, one that the grid is struggling to keep pace with, a Texas grid manager said Thursday. “Growth out in the far West is 20 to 25 percent year over year. It has just exploded and it is all oil field load,” said Brad Jones, vice president of commercial operations for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the grid for most of Texas. Jones was one of several speakers at a morning panel at the IHS CERAWeek energy summit...

A new commercial is attempting to make Michigan residents fear electricity deregulation. It claims that Texas "decided to experiment with deregulating their electricity," and subsequently, prices "shot through the roof" and "blackouts threatened communities." It then tells that a proposed bill in this state that would "deregulate Michigan's electricity." Michiganders need not fear, however, for this commercial is charged with only half-truths. For starters, state policymakers are not considering electricity deregulation. The cited legislation — Rep. Mike Shirkey's House Bill 5184 — merely lifts the cap on the portion of consumers who would be able to choose an alternative electricity...

Someone is installing a solar power system in the U.S. every four minutes. Generous state and federal tax credits for hooking up solar panels on roofs or in fields make solar energy attractive to homeowners and businesses. Another bonus is that those who generate solar energy can roll over what they don’t use as credit against their next utility bills, like rollover minutes on a cellphone bill, or sell excess energy back to the utilities. Utility companies aren’t happy. As the solar industry thrives, states are bracing for more showdowns this year between solar advocates and utility companies over how...

If the White House and the EPA is permitted to implement the MATS regulation the economy will dramatically decline. Life in America will resemble that of third world nations. It is entirely based on lies

But January’s polar vortex changed all that, as frigid temperatures sent prices soaring for thousands of New Jersey customers like Jung, whose alternative energy suppliers purchase electricity on the volatile spot market, which is subject to daily price shifts.

The electricity price index soared to a new high in January 2014 with the largest month-to-month increase in almost four years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, data from the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates that electricity production in the United States has declined since 2007, when it hit its all-time peak. The U.S. is producing less electricity than it did seven years ago for a population that has added more than 14 million people. ... Between 2007 and 2012, the nation's annual coal-fired electricity generation declined by about 25 percent,...

Energy: What do you call an energy source that consumes vast tracks of open land and fries birds that cross its path? If you're the president, you call it "safe," "reliable," "green" and worthy of massive taxpayer subsidies. That, at least, is the case with the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station that covers a vast area of desert outside Las Vegas and, thanks to the generous support of the Obama administration, has officially opened. The plant points hundreds of thousands of mirrors at three towers to boil turbine-spinning water. But the heat rays aren't very friendly to the area's birds,...

The National Weather Service predicts that the major winter storm that dropped significant snowfall and ice on the Southeast yesterday will intensify as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard today. The accumulation of ice can damage the electric distribution system and make road conditions unsafe, which could hamper power restoration efforts. As of 3:30 p.m. yesterday more than 450,000 customers were without power from Florida to Pennsylvania, according to the Department of Energy's Energy Assurance Daily. States of emergency have been declared in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. The U.S. Energy Information Administration provides...

Regulations for new coal plants would increase electricity prices by as much as 80 percent, an Obama administration official told lawmakers on Tuesday. Julio Friedmann, deputy assistant secretary for clean coal at the DEPArtment of Energy, told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight board that carbon capture and storage technology was still not ready for prime time. “The precise number will vary, but for first generation we project $70 to $90 per ton [on the wholesale price of electricity],” Friedmann said. “For second generation, it will be more like a $40 to $50 per ton price. Second...

Sometime before April 16, 2013, one or more people scouted the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s high-voltage Metcalf substation off Highway 101 near San Jose, California. They went around the unmanned power station at a range of 40-60 yards, marking places from which the transformers’ cooling fins were clearly visible through the chain-link fence with piles of stones. According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, at about 1 a.m. on that April 16, someone cut the telephone lines going to the substation’s location in a manner calculated to be hard to repair. Within about another thirty minutes, shooters...

Electricity supports not just our comfort but also the necessities of life. Without electricity, America could not come close to supporting its current population. Electricity and its benefits has been with us for so long that we tend to take it for granted. That is a mistake. What if the grid were to go down nationally for a week, for months? Imagine what life would be like. The economic damage would be incalculable and in more places than I care to think the social fabric could literally be rent apart. Commonly discussed concerns about the safety of our electrical grid...

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook Transatomic Power (TAP) is developing an advanced molten salt reactor that generates clean, passively safe, proliferation-resistant, and low-cost nuclear power. This reactor can consume the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) generated by commercial light water reactors or use freshly mined uranium at enrichment levels as low as 1.8% U-235. It achieves actinide burnups as high as 96%, and can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor. Transatomic Power has greatly improved the molten salt concept, while retaining its significant safety benefits. The main technical change we...

Shooters armed with assault rifles and some knowledge of electrical utilities have prompted new worries on the vulnerability of California's vast power grid. A 2013 attack on an electric substation near San Jose that nearly knocked out Silicon Valley's power supply was initially downplayed as vandalism by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the facility's owner. Gunfire from semiautomatic weapons did extensive damage to 17 transformers that sent grid operators scrambling to avoid a blackout. But this week, a former top power regulator offered a far more ominous interpretation: The attack was terrorism, he said, and if circumstances had been just...

When Coloradans flip on their lights or crank up their heat, they expect their electricity to be affordable, and at the very least, reliable. But the state Legislature and Gov. John Hickenlooper are forcing the opposite on Colorado — expensive and unreliable wind energy. The wind lobby today is one of the fattest hogs at the corporate welfare trough. Rather than win customers through good prices and reliable products, the wind lobby uses political clout to force consumers to purchase its overpriced services. Currently, a state law requires that 12 percent of the state’s electricity be generated by so-called “green”...

Forecasts for the water supply at nearly every major water gauge in the states of California and Nevada were less than half of average seasonal norms as of February 5. The water supply situation has not materially improved since the governor of California declared a state of emergency on January 17. Several dry years have left California dealing with low water supply. The driest December on record has resulted in nearly 60% of the state now classified as being in a condition of extreme drought, the second-worst category in the U.S. drought monitor index. According to the California Department of...

Chances are you didn’t hear about it when it happened or the investigation that followed. Last April just outside of San Jose, California the grid system came under direct attack. Investigators have yet to identify any suspects, but the attack seems to have been well planned. First, someone accessed an underground vault housing fiber optic telephone cables and cut off communications to a large PG&E Substation. Then, for 19 minutes, someone opened fire from long-range. The sniper apparently utilized 7.62x39mm rounds, such as those used in an AK-47, to target the oil-driven cooling systems for 17 large transformers. The shell...