Free Republic

Blackouts are becoming longer and more common in Xcel’s Colorado service territory, with 90,000 customers experiencing 6 or more outages in 2024.. Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electricity provider, is having increasing difficulty answering customer calls, sending out bills and keeping the lights on, according to two reports by state utility regulators. Blackouts more than doubled in 2024 and customer complaints have jumped 100% in three years, according to a Colorado Public Utilities Commission briefing Wednesday on outages. Outages have become more prevalent across Xcel Energy’s service territory which includes zones from the northeast, near Sterling, to Greeley, the Denver metro...

Yesterday I put out a Substack article called Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light. The article was about the Gates backed UK government plans to provide 50-80 million pounds of funding and commence experiments to block out the sun. I covered this extensively in my book Gates of Hell: Why Bill Gates is the Most Dangeous Man in the World. A large part of that book was about the core problems with Gates, which are: 1. Totally undemocratic and unaccountable networks of power allowing one man with no elected role or mandate to direct public policy. 2. Totally...

Cuba’s power grid collapsed Friday night, triggering a nationwide power outage and plunging its more than 10 million people into darkness. “At around 8:15 p.m. tonight, a failure at the Diezmero substation caused a significant loss of generation in the west of #Cuba and with it the failure of the National Electric System,” Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said in a statement. Efforts to restore service are underway, the ministry added. Video filmed by CNN in the capital Havana showed streets and buildings shrouded in total darkness, as people used electric torches to navigate the streets. It marks the...

The U.S. Postal Service’s multibillion-dollar program to purchase electric mail delivery trucks is severely delayed, another bungled EV program to further tarnish Joe Biden’s presidency. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Postal Service’s ambitious plan to modernize its aging delivery fleet with electric vehicles is significantly behind schedule. The $10 billion project, which received $3 billion in funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, is a crucial part of outgoing President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda.

In 2018, the city council of Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia, had hoped to become the country’s first carbon-free city by 2030. About $415 million USD was invested in solar, wind and battery projects within 15 miles of the town of 19,000. These generators were supposed to supply enough electricity to power 117,000 homes. Then in October, a storm hit the region, destroying power lines connecting the town to dispatchable power from the New South Wales grid, and the entire town was plunged into rolling blackouts. While things gradually returned to normal over a few weeks, the region...

One of the best ways to create an environment in which an economy can thrive is to have abundant, reliable, reasonably priced energy; a sure way to destroy an economy is to make it so only the rich can afford the utilities.Here, Pakistan accepted China’s help, just like many poor countries around the world, and became energy dependent on China. Now, the Pakistani people can’t afford the energy bill, and Pakistan is in massive debt to China.Pakistan’s Reliance on Chinese-Built Power Plants Is Strangling Its EconomyPakistan turned to Beijing to solve a crippling energy shortage. Now, crushed under debt and...

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Thursday that it would provide up to $360 million in public funding to construct a 320-mile line connecting the ERCOT grid to power grids in the southeastern U.S. According to the DOE, the line, called the Southern Spirit, will be used to "enhance reliability and prevent outages" during potentially catastrophic weather events. ERCOT's grid, which can draw power from other grids but is otherwise contained in its own bubble, infamously failed in February 2021 during a significant freeze that gripped the entire Lone Star State. Also known as Winter Storm Uri, the freeze led...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered an alarming update on nationwide Russian bombings of his country on Monday, describing blackouts “everywhere” and significant harm to Ukraine’s power grid. The Russian military launched a sweeping drone and missile campaign on Monday in which it reportedly focused on bombing energy infrastructure. Some Russian media reported that the strikes impacted at least nine regions of Ukraine – including the capital, Kyiv – while Ukrainian state media listed at least “15 regions” suffering various negative effects from the “large-scale Russian attack” out of the nation’s 27. The attack is the largest Russian operation within Ukraine...

Assessments by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which analyzes the continent’s electricity supply reliability, have been warning that large portions of the U.S. grid are threatened with increased risks of blackouts. Jim Robb, CEO of NERC, said that risk is growing as more than 100 billion watts of thermal power generation, meaning coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, is slated for retirement over the next 10 years.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) admitted Thursday that the state still faces the risk of blackouts in heat waves despite investing in battery capacity to store electricity for use in times of peak demand. The Los Angeles Times reported: Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves. … Asked by reporters if California now had enough battery storage so that residents no longer had to worry about blackouts during times of high...

The emergence of new technologies means demand is soaring for power across the country; in Georgia, "demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently," Evan Halper said for The Washington Post. Northern Virginia "needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all [its] new data centers," Halper said, while Texas faces a similar problem. This demand is resulting in a "scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid." At the same time, companies...

A solar flare slammed into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, causing radio blackouts, while a second is set to hit the Earth on Tuesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a geomagnetic storm watch on Monday, monitoring two large solar flares ejecting from the sun. Both left the sun on Sunday, the first hitting over the Pacific on Monday, while the second is projected to make contact on Tuesday. Despite the cosmic proportions of the event, NOAA said citizens shouldn’t be concerned. Some minor inconveniences could occur, such as minor power grid interruptions or an impact on radios, aviation...

NERC is a nonprofit organization that oversees the reliability and security of the North American bulk power system. It uses a results-based approach. After conducting their ten-year assessment, NERC sent a grim warning of our energy future. We face a serious electricity shortage beginning in the next few years that will exist for years to come. This isn’t news. It has been clear for some time that the elimination of fossil fuels before there is an adequate power supply to take its place will endanger the safety and security of Americans. It is also obvious that this has been engineered...

People should stock up on battery-powered radios and torches, as well as candles and first aid kits in order to prepare for power cuts or digital communications going down, the deputy prime minister reportedly said. According to the Times, Oliver Dowden described the supplies as “analogue capabilities that it makes sense to retain” in a digital age during a visit to Porton Down, the UK’s military laboratory. Dowden made the visit to coincide with his first annual risk and resilience statement, which he had promised to give last year when launching the government’s UK resilience framework. As part of the...

Renewable stocks are taking an outsized beating among other stocks in the utility sector, which was down more than 10% last quarter. Investors may be betting that going green will take longer and require more capital in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. “As utilities struggle with converting to more green energy, their operating margins are getting squeezed until they can get their utility rates increased,” Louis Navellier, founder of Navellier, a money management firm, told Yahoo Finance. Higher interest rates are impacting the renewable sector because clean energy projects are capital intensive. [snip] “There is an exodus from ESG products...

AI has shown dramatic potential in many fields, and there is no doubt that it will knock some occupations on the head. This article chronicles how AI may revolutionize fields such as medicine, automotive, agriculture, and entertainment. So anyway, all great stuff, right? Except…what does this mean for energy? AI is a power hog the likes of which it is, frankly, hard to imagine. And it is about to explode in size. Consider these few examples...... (Long read, but do it......)

We’re on the precipice of a radical experiment with a national electricity grid The AEMO (manager of the Australian grid) has finally released the major report on problems coming in the next ten years on our national grid, and it’s worse than they thought even six months ago. They euphemistically refer to the coming “reliability gaps”. They could have said “blackouts” instead, but a gap in reliability sounds so much nicer. Bizarrely, the lead graph of the 175 page AEMO report goes right off the scale, mysteriously peaking in the unknown and invisible real estate off the top of the...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has embraced "dirty" energy for California as he looks to stave off blackouts threatening the state's strained energy grid. While Newsom has pushed for a transition to renewable energy in California, the realities there have forced him to increasingly rely on nonrenewable energy sources to meet the state's energy demands. Fighting off heavy criticism from environmental activists, the California governor has countered by pointing out the practical necessity of using some nonrenewables while stressing his efforts to transition to renewable energy. ... "Gov. Newsom is committed to keeping the lights on while maintaining affordability for all...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NSF) - Florida utility regulators and other industry officials are objecting to a federal proposal aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. Regulators argue the changes could drive up costs for consumers and hurt the reliability of the state’s electric system. The Florida Public Service Commission on Tuesday approved sending a document to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raising concerns that the proposed rule could result in unjust and unreasonable carbon emissions performance standards that would risk the safety, reliability and affordability of electric service in Florida. The EPA released the wide-ranging proposal in May, saying it...

Sammy Roth is an energy & environment reporter for the LA Times. Last week he asked a serious question on Twitter: Would it really be so bad if we had occasional blackouts as the cost of transitioning away from fossil fuels sooner?Serious question for energy/climate people… How bad would it be if growing levels of solar on the grid — and continued gas-plant closures — resulted in occasional, relatively limited power outages on hot evenings? Assuming that only lasted a few years?— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) July 14, 2023I’m not an energy writer for a major newspaper but this immediately strikes...