Free Republic

The White House on Friday called Moscow’s latest attack on Ukraine’s energy grid an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to “plunge” the country “into darkness.” “Overnight, Russia launched one of its largest aerial assaults against Ukraine’s energy grid since the war began—depriving many people across the country of heat, water, and electricity in the still cold days of early spring,” said National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson in a statement.

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...

Juice: Why Wind and Solar Make Our Power Grid Less Reliable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNS7Qojr1JQ John Stossel 920K subscribers 18936 views Mar 5, 2024 Politicians and activists tell how “renewable" energy will save us from the climate “crisis.” They don’t tell us about the real costs of green power.

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...

New York’s Near Zombie Apocalypse The city came close to an electric grid shutdown last winter. ...While gas supply fell, demand for electricity and heating surged, causing the pressure in interstate pipelines that supply downstate New York to plunge. Allowing shale fracking in upstate New York might have mitigated the gas supply shortage at the margin, but former Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocked that. The climate lobby’s antidote is electric heat pumps, but that would have increased strain on an already stressed grid. If New York City relied mostly on electricity for heat, millions could have lost both power and heat...

10 December 1981: Cases of a virus that weakens the body’s disease-fighting system have been reported across the US

While investments in renewable energy have doubled since 2010, power grid funding has remained ‘static.’.. Electricity grid capacity available in the world isn't keeping pace with the rapid growth of "clean energy" technologies, possibly putting governments' climate goals at risk, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In order to achieve climate goals set by global governments, more than 80 million kilometers (49.7 million miles) of electric grids have to be added or refurbished by 2040, which is the “equivalent of the entire existing global grid,” according to the Oct. 17 IEA report. Even though “electrification...

In recent weeks, we have seen a troubling trend develop. Five million Americans have been removed from Medicaid rolls, and many millions more are on the verge of losing coverage as a result of the Medicaid enrollment cuts. This represents the single greatest threat to our progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in years. During the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment grew by an estimated 20 million people, contributing to the uninsured rate dropping to the lowest level on record in early 2022. But, after a three-year period during which states provided continuous enrollment in exchange for enhanced federal funding, some states...

Residents of Palm Springs, California, are a bit butt-hurt over a proposed AIDS memorial sculpture looks suspiciously like a human anus. The design, which is meant to honor individuals who have lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, is facing backlash for its “inappropriate connotations,” according to KESQ. Palm Springs residents are not fully convinced that this should be the artistic representation of these deadly diseases, according to the outlet. Mock-ups of how the Downtown Park installation might look show a nine-foot-tall wheel of limestone with striations converging on a hole in the center. The donut-shaped sculpture by Phillip K....

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...

California’s Independent System Operator (ISO) warned of high temperatures and increased electricity usage during the coming week as the grid operator prepares for tight conditions works to ensure adequate supply. In a notice released on Saturday, ISO said it is closely monitoring the power grid as widespread heat waves can cause supply shortages, with resources stretched thin across multiple Western states. ISO said energy supplies are sufficient to meet demand.

*Proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for power plant emissions could spur blackouts in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid region and cost stakeholders nearly $250 billion in the coming decades, according to comments filed in response to the rule by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).*The average annual cost to stakeholders of building enough capacity to stave off the blackouts CAE projects in the MISO region is greater than the average annual benefit the EPA estimates its proposals will bring for the entire country by 2055, according to CAE’s analysis.*“This is the regulatory equivalent of studying...

The dad of missing 13-year-old James Yoblonski passed a polygraph test related to his son’s disappearance Thursday, nearly two months after the boy left his Wisconsin home in a possible attempt to survive “off the grid.” William Yoblonski, of Reedsburg, told local ABC-affiliate station WKOW that he was given the test by the Sauk County Sheriff Thursday morning — though the distraught father is not considered a suspect in the teen’s June 12 vanishing. “Maybe that’ll relieve people,” he said. “I had nothing to do with my son’s disappearance.” Last month, the worried dad said he would remortgage his home...

The PJM fuel mix is balanced and diversified between different fuel types and we have adequate generation resources to serve the anticipated needs of our system today. However, as we look further out, maintaining an adequate level of generation resources will be essential for PJM’s ability to reliably serve electrical demand through the energy transition. Our recent analysis observed four trends that increase the risk that we may have difficulty maintaining such an adequate level of generation resources with the necessary attributes over time.1: The rate of electricity demand is likely to continue to increase from electrification and increasing deployment...

Energy providers could have the option to switch off home EV charging stations remotely to reduce pressure on Queensland’s electricity grid.The proposal is part of the Australian state’s Queensland Electricity Connection Manual (QECM), which provides a framework for the grid’s operation.Section 8 of the QECM proposes that EV charging equipment may be limited or switched off by operators Ergon Energy and Energex (distributed network service providers or DNSPs) if it has an output of more than 20 amps—a standard domestic single-phase EV charger uses 32 amps.The use of such “demand management” schemes is largely unique to Queensland and is also...

The PJM fuel mix is balanced and diversified between different fuel types and we have adequate generation resources to serve the anticipated needs of our system today. However, as we look further out, maintaining an adequate level of generation resources will be essential for PJM’s ability to reliably serve electrical demand through the energy transition. Our recent analysis observed four trends that increase the risk that we may have difficulty maintaining such an adequate level of generation resources with the necessary attributes over time.1| The rate of electricity demand is likely to continue to increase from electrification and increasing deployment...

Rebecca “Becky” Vance had an irrepressible urge, a genuine need to get away. Despite little preparation and with amateur outdoor survival skills, Vance, 42, convinced her sister Christine last summer to “live off the grid” with her and her son in rugged western Colorado, leaving behind their lives in Colorado Springs. Becky — said to be an anxious loner further exasperated by society during the pandemic — wanted to start anew by fleeing into the wilderness, where extreme weather and other potential pitfalls awaited in the Rocky Mountains. But she couldn’t be stopped, her stepsister told The Post.

America’s increasing reliance on intermittent power sources and batteries is creating novel risks, according to grid specialists who testified before Congress on July 18.Many of the greatest among them emanate from a key geopolitical rival, China.That’s partly because the new technologies frequently use inverters. When solar panels, wind turbines, and battery systems generate or store direct current electricity, inverters turn it into the alternating current electricity that flows through the grid.Paul N. Stockton, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, opened what he called a “rabbit hole” in response to a question on inverters during the House...

The punishing heat dome that has settled over Texas is putting unprecedented strain on the state's electricity system, leaving officials scrambling to keep the lights on and the air conditioners cranking. State officials are increasingly turning to an unexpected technology: giant batteries. These Mack truck-size systems, which can quickly spew stored electrons onto the grid when power plants sputter, played a crucial role in avoiding outages over the past week, as scorching temperatures shattered records across Texas. And they are renewing debate about the role of clean energy in stabilizing the Texas grid, as the batteries are ideal for harnessing...