{"id":236933,"date":"2022-12-30T15:42:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T14:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=236933"},"modified":"2022-12-30T15:42:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T14:42:12","slug":"blackouts-for-christmas-a-sick-grid-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=236933","title":{"rendered":"Blackouts for Christmas, a sick grid gift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0David Wojick<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many people got a blackout for Christmas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or for Christmas Eve Day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or even worse the Night Before Christmas, when it was zero at my place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was lucky as my 8 hour blackout was Friday, so all I lost for Christmas was phone and Internet. But I had already received the four day blackout the Thursday-Sunday a week before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geez!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh but I also got an actual Christmas gift. An email from my power company (if you can still call them that) with this holiday request: \u201cPlease Conserve Energy During the Extreme Cold\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much I wondered?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Christmas dinner? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No holiday lights? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently so, for this is (part of) what they said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere are some simple ways you can reduce energy use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Turn off non-essential appliances, equipment and electric lights \u2013 including HOLIDAY LIGHTS \u2013 that you do not need or are not using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Postpone using major electric household appliances, such as STOVES, dishwashers and clothes dryers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No lights, no stove, no Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a semantic note the relevant definition of \u201cconserve\u201d is \u201cTo prevent the wasteful or harmful overuse of (a resource)\u201d. Doing without lights and food to prevent blacking out is not conservation. It is painful abstinence, especially at Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I have said before, America\u2019s grid is sick and getting sicker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See my\u00a0https:\/\/www.cfact.org\/2022\/11\/29\/save-americas-grid\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But I am going to let someone else rant about it this time, a blogger I just discovered named Mike Smith. He is an award winning meteorologist who has also noticed that replacing reliable power with unreliable power makes power unreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is part of Smith\u2019s Saturday post, titled simply \u201cUnfortunate Vindication\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose of us who have been pleading that politicians listen to our factual presentations that \u2018renewables\u2019 were making the grid unreliable have been \u2014 unfortunately! \u2014 hugely vindicated today. It gives me no pleasure to state this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the grid is so fragile that turning on stadium lights (the delayed kickoff of the Titans game in Nashville this afternoon) risks crashing the system, it is all proof that is needed: America\u2019s power grid is crumbling to third-world status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no quick fix because more wind farms are being erected every day. The next snow, just like this last, will cover existing and future solar panels rendering them useless in winter\u2019s cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had correspondence with a reporter this afternoon. She indicated the people she spoke to were surprised about the electrical issues from the cold wave. I directed her to my December 13 cold wave forecast. That\u2019s ten days advance notice!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Se his http:\/\/www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com\/2022\/12\/unfortunate-vindication.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is right about the forecast. I watched my NWS Christmas Eve forecast hover around zero for over a week. They too warned of power outages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also interesting that my humbug email was for all of the massive PJM Interconnection, America\u2019s biggest Independent System Operator. I had watched, and written, with some detachment when California, Texas, New England and the Midwest were repeatedly warned about looming blackouts. But as they say here in the West Virginia mountains, what goes around comes around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meager good news here is that PJM includes the fantasyland of Washington DC and the surrounding living quarters for our top federal fools, who let this happen. How\u2019s that \u201ctransition\u201d to raw turkey in the dark working out for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, like many astute policy analysts Mike Smith misses an important hidden term in the equation of grid failure. I call it the silence of the power engineers. The utilities know perfectly well that the grid is going to hell. But they are making a fortune restocking their asset base with billion dollar renewable projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See my\u00a0https:\/\/www.cfact.org\/2022\/06\/02\/silence-of-the-power-engineers-nerc-does-nothing\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But Smith\u2019s solution is right over target (so will get lots of flak):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongress and state legislators: are you paying attention? It is past time for an embargo on shutting down fossil fuel electric generation (which was done earlier this week) units. We need a crash program to bring more fossil fuels online until nuclear can be built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s to making America\u2019s Christmas bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n