Posted on 11/24/2023 5:50:57 PM PST by bitt
An energy watchdog group is warning that President Joe Biden’s energy policy has put more than half the country at elevated risk of blackouts this winter.
Citing a new energy report, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association pointed to Biden’s policies as a direct threat to the stability of America’s energy grid, according to Fox Business Network.
That threat may be acutely felt in the coming months, as AccuWeather is predicting a harsh winter season.
“A strengthening El Niño will make this winter … colder with plenty more snow for millions of people who live in major cities,” AccuWeather reported on Oct. 4, adding that the weather will be especially severe across the Central and Eastern U.S.
It could be a recipe for serious issues for the electrical grid, according to the Winter Reliability Assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).
The group explained that residents from Texas to New England could be subject to blackouts during the expected extreme cold this winter due to “inadequate generator weatherization and limitations to natural gas infrastructure,” the Washington Examiner reported.
“The confluence of both of those factors has year after year resulted in wide swaths of generators being unavailable for some of our most critical winter periods and hours where the system needs it the most,” said John Moura, NERC director of reliability assessment and performance analysis.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
Wait till millions of cars drain the grid...which doesn’t even exist...
Correct. The electric runs the fans and the circuit boards. It can also be run by a generator if needed.
A heat pump is 100% electric.
And even when you had backup plants, usually coal, those have to be kept running at a certain level, they just cant start up instantly. But at least you know what you’ll get from them, and it will be steady and reliable.
Just run out to your garage, sit in your electric car and turn that heater up!
A young lady in Sweden is weeping.
There are also “peaking plants” that are basically gas turbines, some with a co-gen system in the exhaust stream. The gas turbine can be up and at full production in minutes, while the co-gen takes about an hour or so to get up to full power.
The city of Edmonton had a decent sized peaking plant 8 blocks from downtown, but it’s a museum now due to the noise when it spooled up.
Keep Your Family Warm During A Power Outage With This $10 Part The DIY HVAC Guy - youtube
He has more videos on cheap and easy ways to supply power to your furnace or boiler when the electricity is out. Following is the link to his YT video page.
He has 161 videos so you might narrow it down to 'emerg. power to furnace' vids by checking his 'playlist' page. He explains things very well.
Joe has imported over 10 million humans over the last 3 years. That’s about the total population of Michigan. They all require energy in their lives. If we haven’t EXPANDED electricity production over the last 3 years, that drain is going to have to bleed out somewhere.
Exactly. Traditional plants were in three categories: caseload, mid, and peaking. Baseload is the big nukes and large coal plants that can reduce load very much and run best at a high capacity factor throughout the year. Mid plants can cycle up and down, but not quickly. Peakers can start up and be on line very quickly — these are gas turbines. High efficiency gas turbine combined cycle has a steam plant at the back end making steam from the gas turbine exhaust gases. They do not turn down very much either because they are so economical to run.
Throwing renewables into this classical generation mix and a transmission and distribution system designed for those supplies really upsets the apple cart. Once you get to 15% of your generation from renewables, you start getting into big trouble, especially if you’ve shut down your peaking and cycling (mid) plants.
All of this is well-known to any power engineer. What strikes me most about this incredibly stupid and short-sighted “green” transformation is that none of it was designed or analyzed by competent engineers.
“Green” only works if you have 100% backup of conventional fossil plants or you have 100% battery backup. The only other practical energy storage today is pumped hydro, but it’s almost impossible to built a new pumped storage facility. And cost-effective, utility-scale batteries simply do not exist.
Either way, you need to build two power plants if you go green — the windmills/solar cells AND a backup (fossil or batteries). So your capital costs soar.
We’ve seen realistic costs coming in lately because all the offshore wind jobs are getting cancelled.
Check out Iron Edison.
I got lots of solar equipment, now I need to start installing the stuff.
Just in case.....
True, yes. But for some reason they think natl gas is so bad, when its more efficient and less polluting than coal. Plus as you’ve said, they can ramp up significantly quicker.
Probably why they hate and demonize natl gas.
Buy a generator that runs on propane. Solar and battery are not a good solution in a winter blackout. Wasn’t much sun down here in SA when the rolling blackouts hit.
My propane fireplace doesn’t need electricity.
And, if necessary, I suppose I could bundle up and cook some meat on the gas grill.
bttt
Thank you Generac! Trouble free backup power for over ten years now.
Same battery, never added a drop of oil.
ZERO interest loan at Home Depot.
I have bought many BIG TICKET items (Cub Cadet tractors and snow blower etc.) and never paid a penny in interest.
Climate change has politicized the weather reporting. Weather predictions are now
meaningless. The weather predicted for our area was ten straight days
of cold rain. It never happened. I think it rained a bit one night and we
had a couple of cloudy days, but some beautiful fall days, too. This isn’t
the first time this has happened, it has become the norm for any holiday.
Thanks for the links. I need to investigate this before too long.
Unfortunately, the HOA rules of the retirement community I currently live in forbids generators (other than solar), I guess because of noise issues. Such a generator running from natural gas would be ideal, as I have natgas water heat and natgas central heat and stove.
I would do it more for the battery than for the solar. My actual preference would be whole-house battery WITHOUT solar to keep power to the electronics, air circulation of the gas central furnace, and lights and refrigerator. Where I live in San Antonio, the outages were hot hugely long, less than an hour.
Utilities are missing a bet by not encouraging more people to get grid-tied home batteries.
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