Jon Sanders writes about this latest trend from governments:
It already seems as if people are being conditioned to expect talk of rolling blackouts whenever the weather outside seems frightful.
To be very clear: rolling blackouts are not now, nor have they been, normal in the US. Therefore, having to expect rolling blackouts going forward would be abnormal. Nevertheless, as utility providers and power grid monitors have recently warned, the more grids are saddled with intermittent, unreliable wind and solar facilities, the more unreliable they are becoming. They’re more prone to capacity shortfalls and blackouts.
And this, my friends, is utter bullshit.
I don’t want to live under the constant threat of “rolling blackouts”, “load shedding” or any of the other cutesy little euphemisms these bastards come up with to disguise their incompetence.
I expect — no, I demand — to have uninterrupted electricity, 24/7/365, no matter the weather conditions or for any other reason.
If this means that power generation is achieved through burning coal, gas, oil or hippies, I don’t care.
Despite what the Greens and other eco-freaks think, electricity is not an indulgence or a luxury; it is as important to our civilization as food or water.
And I demand that our elected governments come to terms with that reality, and make the decisions that ensure it — or else be replaced by voters.
Enough of this climate change nonsense, its lies and its fantasies.
Occasionally, the power will fail in modern urbanized areas, and usually it will be the result of an unexpected “act of God” such as an ice storm, a lightning strike, or earthquake. I get that. There are things that utility companies can plan up the b*tt for, only to find their preparations were one step short. These things happen, and your next planning session will include whatever you missed in the last one.
“Power outages” are not “rolling blackouts.” Rolling blackouts are a sure sign of corporate mismanagement. Failure to expand production capacity not to meet demand butt to anticipate demand is mismanagement. Failure to protect utility lines year after year when it is obvious to all that high winds could cause them to arc out and start wildfires, that is mismanagement. Allowing your utility company to be controlled by the whims of outsiders based on what makes them “feel good” and not what makes sense is also mismanagement.
Solar panels and wind turbines are all kinds of touchy-feely nice, but it’s the coal and natural gas, the hydroelectric and nuclear generation that will keep the lights on.
Don’t forget critical spares! There are too many components out there with no spare, no back-up, and at least an 18 to 24 month lead time to get a replacement. Our power grid is dangerously susceptible to, shall we say, unwanted mischief by third parties that can cause months to years of problems for us.
As for the power company trying to do things right, here’s a little example. In east Texas during one of the hurricanes, the high winds blew down 100 ft tall pine trees that landed on power lines suspended at maybe 60 feet. Snapped them and caused a power outage. Thus a new rule to clear trees to a minimum distance. My family has some property over which they built some of the super high transmission lines, maybe 200 ft tall. The company, because of the new rule, wanted to come in and chop down a bunch of 100+ year old oak trees that are maybe 50 ft tall and cannot, in no way whatsoever, fall over and hit those lines. We’re still fighting them over that.
Oh, and instead of perhaps saving some of the wood for specialty lumber, or at least smoker grade firewood, they were going to 100% turn it all into mulch. Fucking bastards.
Given what I know (damned little, but I am an engineer with project experience), even if they dedicated several billion (with a B) dollars tomorrow for a project to shore things up, don’t expect any big improvement for at least 5 to 8 years. That’s with competent engineers working on it and no graft. Going get worse, my friends. But first we need to send more money to the motherfucking Ukraine. We’re ruled by bastards, all of them.
“electricity is not an indulgence or a luxury; it is as important to our civilization as food or water.”
Well, that’s what makes it a target for them.
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Yes. Looks increasingly that way.
Governmental stupidity – getting people to buy EV’s when they can’t even supply enough electricity to power current needs.
The Democrats want to put you on your feet again!
Over 100 gigawatts of coal fired generation has has been removed from the system in the past 10 years. Virtually none of that has been replaced.
Voodoo energy can never meet the needs of the baseload.
Something I wrote last week, at Rand Simberg’s. It’s applicable in many modern situations:
First we abjured mediocrity
Then we disavowed mediocrity
Then we simply would not tolerate mediocrity
Then we began to accept mediocrity
Then mediocrity became common
Then mediocrity became expected
Now we are supposed to revel in mediocrity.
Those in power should remember the lesson of the UK in the 1970s, when Ted Heath was Prime Minister and we had blackouts. He failed to crush the miners’ unions – as Thatcher did a decade later – so they were his undoing.
Nuclear power nowadays is, and has been for at least 30 years, safe reliable and relatively inexpensive when managed effectively (large caveat there given the amount of government interference in power supply issues).
The failure to invest adequately beggars belief, and now we about to reap the whirlwind.
Fuck them all. Forget the multi rope gallows. Here we require the multi nozzle flame thrower. Or maybe sawing in half with the eco friendly wooden saw blade.
I like the way you think.
Wood chipper for crowd pleasing sound.
Welcome to Green Utopia.
Come for the rolling blackouts, stay for the food rationing.
Mountains east of Sacramento.
My sister operates a semi… older, mechanical (no computers), and exceptionally maintained.
Apparently, the noodniks want her to go on welfare and move to the city, putting her out of business by banning any Medium Duty or Heavy Duty rig older than the arbitrary ‘2010’:
http://www.motorbiscuit.com/2010-older-big-rig-bus-in-california-now-banned
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An aside:
She drives sixty (60) hours a week to support the family farm, buried in taxes, taxes on taxes, and taxes on taxes on taxes.
In her free time, she joins my tottering brother-in-law and his canes, disabled from Viet Nam, to keep the old place going.
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Should we sell to the subdivision crowd?
Should we continue to pretend we have any chance at succeeding?
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Should we invest a quarter million in a new rig… but could that get banned as easy as sharpening a Number Two pencil and doing some scribbling another new ‘law’?
[That should read ‘a quarter million plus 12 (twelve) percent federal taxes’, or about thirty grand, before the rig earns a nickel.]
Could she move to Nevada?
Can California ban trucks registered out of state that meet federal standards? That sounds like interfering with interstate commerce to me.
Something that occurs to me, reading all these responses. Someone is out there “vandalizing” power stations across various parts of the country. What if it’s not just half-drunk good ol’ boys having a “hold my beer” moment. it doesn’t matter if it’s organized sabotage by bands of evil-doers or just some idiot doing it because he heard about it on the news and discovered for himself just how easy it is. The results are the same: areas of the city or county without electricity for hours or days.
If we do not take this as a worst-case scenario and respond accordingly, we are fools.
“but could that get banned as easy as sharpening a Number Two pencil and doing some scribbling another new ‘law’?”
We joke that ‘1984’ was not intended to be a manual. I have a sinking suspicion that ‘Unintended Consequences’ will become a manual.