Excellent review of how Winter Storm Elliott overwhelmed the eastern grids, leading to massive rolling blackouts. Thank you Energy Bad Boys and Merry Christmas!
Here’s a suggestion (for those who can safely do so): consider a dual-fuel home generator with at least one fuel that you can (safely) store on site.
Natural gas home generators can be great, until the underlying natural gas pipeline system is overwhelmed (due to lots of demand or power loss, freezing etc). When another Winter Storm Elliott hits, if you’re depending on cheap nat gas to flow through that pipeline network, don’t be surprised if you have sky-high gas bills. In a worse case scenario, you might not be able to get gas at any price if the compressor that run the pipeline go offline (as pointed out in the article).
But if you have a dual-fuel generator with fuel stored on site, you might avoid that. For example, a natural gas/ propane generator. If nat gas prices skyrocket or if supplies fail during a cold snap, you can just switch the generator over to propane. (Assuming it’s installed, winterized, and maintained correctly.)
Of course, that’s a solution for people with homes or individuals with cash to spare. People who live in apartments (even if they can afford the costs) can’t typically safely have a generator. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, a generator is low on the list of things to buy. And it goes to the social costs of declining grid reliability. A unreliable grid tends to impacts the poorest first.
The first and harshest impacts of almost everything hit the poorest among us. Our wealthy, Ivy League educated elites don’t have any contact with people in lower income levels and have little understanding of the damage caused by their Utopian net-zero schemes. Do you think John Kerry has any idea how damaging his plans will be to billions of people around the globe if they are implemented? Of course not. Remember someone like Kerry has no choice but to use private jets to hob-knob around the planet to climate conferences that tell others how they must reduce their carbon emissions.
Austin lost power in February because tree branches undermined the grid—it had nothing to do with what fuels power plants. And a few months later East Texas/NWLA got hit by hurricane force winds that guess what?? Destroyed the grid!!! Tens of thousands were without power for days even though the power plants were fully functional. And DFW basically had a Phoenix summer this past year and so going without AC is dangerous. Bottom line—a whole home natural gas generator is the way to go because tree branches falling in summer and winter undermine the grid!!
Very informative. I learned lots of things, even though I thought I was already up to speed on this. Your explanation "“The most important thing to know about the electric system when it comes to blackouts is that electricity must be generated at the exact instant it is consumed." is a really simple and clear point. The point that coal and nuclear plants can store plenty of fuel to have on hand when needed is something I hadn't thought of. Your example of the shortcomings of wind farms ( the entire MISO wind fleet of 22,040 MW generated less electricity than the Coal Creek Station (1,151 MW) in North Dakota for multiple hours during the frigid temperatures despite having 19 times more installed capacity than the coal plant.") is amazing - I had no idea the difference could be that great. I also didn't realize there were problems with the supply of nat gas. Your post makes a great addition to My Two Cents post "https://alchristie.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-phasing-out-fossil-fuels".
Thanks, Al! The final Elliot report was very enlightening and knowing how wind and solar often fail to perform when needed most makes blackouts seem like a certainty in the future.
Natural gas production generally dips in February (cold weather) and September (hurricanes)…but the weather events in TX/Louisiana from August 2020-March 2022 were unprecedented and led to big declines in production which contributed to inflation. So once it was clear Louisiana wouldn’t get hit by a hurricane in 2022 then our energy situation significantly improved.
A politician that campaigns on energy sustainability and readiness using all available sources including fossil fuels and nuclear, with renewables that won’t litter the countryside and seascapes after what appears to be short lifespan, as well as strengthening the nation’s electrical grid, could easily zoom into a strong position to lead the Congress or the country.
The weather dependent energy enthusiasts are going to cause much harm to many unsuspecting people. Keep up the good work in sounding the alarm. I would suggest you send this article to Senator Martin Heinrich of NM. He is an enthusiast for both electrification and weather dependent energy. Maybe he will slow down a bit the push in these areas if he is exposed to these facts. I don’t have high expectations of him because he seems to be a Utopian with cult like blinders that prevent him from seeing the truth, but you never know.
So things to watch "next time". If you can find it, watch you RTO/ISO "ACE" value (area control error). If the number starts growing, that's not good. Keep an eye on their alert page. If you start seeing a bunch of alerts for the whole system, not good. If you see "EEA", buckle up.
Few thoughts in the beginning ; first it is not just cold that shuts down renewables, it's also ice. Elliott started as freezing rain and gave everything a nice coat of ice before the temperature dove, then it snowed. The sun cannot penitrate ice and it unbalances wind turbines. Second the weak link in the natural gas plants is they are almost all gas turbines. Ingesting freezing air into any internal combustion engine is complex. A mass flow gas turbine is no different with it's own gear boxes a d lubrication systems. Third coal plants are boiler plants burning a solid fuel, probably the most bullet system available. Boilers have poor thermal efficiency but rock on through anything. They also move far less air than a gas,turbine.
But coal pollution degrades quality of life. So a big reason we hemorrhaged jobs to China from 2002-2009 was because China was willing to poison its citizens with coal and diesel pollution and displace millions with new hydro dams. And it’s not a coincidence that we started adding manufacturing jobs when the fracking revolution got underway in 2010. Americans demand less pollution and so any solution must result in less pollution and higher quality of life.
Nobody wants new coal plants…they could barely get built under Bush/Cheney when oil and natural gas got more expensive every year and it appeared we had hit peak production.
We got the business model for nuclear wrong—nuclear should be for moving water and peak demand and not for base load. Imagine having a 4 GW battery in the middle of the country for when we need some more electricity during unprecedented weather events…we could easily have that if we used Grand Gulf to move water from the Atchafalaya Basin west but kept its connection to the grid. Grand Gulf is approaching 40 years in operation so it would be a great time for the federal government to purchase it as part of a national water infrastructure project.
Excellent review of how Winter Storm Elliott overwhelmed the eastern grids, leading to massive rolling blackouts. Thank you Energy Bad Boys and Merry Christmas!
Here’s a suggestion (for those who can safely do so): consider a dual-fuel home generator with at least one fuel that you can (safely) store on site.
Natural gas home generators can be great, until the underlying natural gas pipeline system is overwhelmed (due to lots of demand or power loss, freezing etc). When another Winter Storm Elliott hits, if you’re depending on cheap nat gas to flow through that pipeline network, don’t be surprised if you have sky-high gas bills. In a worse case scenario, you might not be able to get gas at any price if the compressor that run the pipeline go offline (as pointed out in the article).
But if you have a dual-fuel generator with fuel stored on site, you might avoid that. For example, a natural gas/ propane generator. If nat gas prices skyrocket or if supplies fail during a cold snap, you can just switch the generator over to propane. (Assuming it’s installed, winterized, and maintained correctly.)
Of course, that’s a solution for people with homes or individuals with cash to spare. People who live in apartments (even if they can afford the costs) can’t typically safely have a generator. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, a generator is low on the list of things to buy. And it goes to the social costs of declining grid reliability. A unreliable grid tends to impacts the poorest first.
The first and harshest impacts of almost everything hit the poorest among us. Our wealthy, Ivy League educated elites don’t have any contact with people in lower income levels and have little understanding of the damage caused by their Utopian net-zero schemes. Do you think John Kerry has any idea how damaging his plans will be to billions of people around the globe if they are implemented? Of course not. Remember someone like Kerry has no choice but to use private jets to hob-knob around the planet to climate conferences that tell others how they must reduce their carbon emissions.
Austin lost power in February because tree branches undermined the grid—it had nothing to do with what fuels power plants. And a few months later East Texas/NWLA got hit by hurricane force winds that guess what?? Destroyed the grid!!! Tens of thousands were without power for days even though the power plants were fully functional. And DFW basically had a Phoenix summer this past year and so going without AC is dangerous. Bottom line—a whole home natural gas generator is the way to go because tree branches falling in summer and winter undermine the grid!!
Very informative. I learned lots of things, even though I thought I was already up to speed on this. Your explanation "“The most important thing to know about the electric system when it comes to blackouts is that electricity must be generated at the exact instant it is consumed." is a really simple and clear point. The point that coal and nuclear plants can store plenty of fuel to have on hand when needed is something I hadn't thought of. Your example of the shortcomings of wind farms ( the entire MISO wind fleet of 22,040 MW generated less electricity than the Coal Creek Station (1,151 MW) in North Dakota for multiple hours during the frigid temperatures despite having 19 times more installed capacity than the coal plant.") is amazing - I had no idea the difference could be that great. I also didn't realize there were problems with the supply of nat gas. Your post makes a great addition to My Two Cents post "https://alchristie.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-phasing-out-fossil-fuels".
Thanks, Al! The final Elliot report was very enlightening and knowing how wind and solar often fail to perform when needed most makes blackouts seem like a certainty in the future.
Yes, I think blackouts are inevitable in the next few years. I did a little thought experiment a couple weeks ago, imagining what would happen if the climate folks got everything they're asking for - https://alchristie.substack.com/p/imagine-the-electrification-of-everything
Then a natural follow-up post was https://alchristie.substack.com/p/how-to-prepare-for-lengthy-blackouts
Natural gas production generally dips in February (cold weather) and September (hurricanes)…but the weather events in TX/Louisiana from August 2020-March 2022 were unprecedented and led to big declines in production which contributed to inflation. So once it was clear Louisiana wouldn’t get hit by a hurricane in 2022 then our energy situation significantly improved.
A politician that campaigns on energy sustainability and readiness using all available sources including fossil fuels and nuclear, with renewables that won’t litter the countryside and seascapes after what appears to be short lifespan, as well as strengthening the nation’s electrical grid, could easily zoom into a strong position to lead the Congress or the country.
I hope that’s true. I think other issues will be front and center until the lights don’t come on.
The weather dependent energy enthusiasts are going to cause much harm to many unsuspecting people. Keep up the good work in sounding the alarm. I would suggest you send this article to Senator Martin Heinrich of NM. He is an enthusiast for both electrification and weather dependent energy. Maybe he will slow down a bit the push in these areas if he is exposed to these facts. I don’t have high expectations of him because he seems to be a Utopian with cult like blinders that prevent him from seeing the truth, but you never know.
The highest natural gas prices in history were because of Hurricane Katrina—that’s weather!
So things to watch "next time". If you can find it, watch you RTO/ISO "ACE" value (area control error). If the number starts growing, that's not good. Keep an eye on their alert page. If you start seeing a bunch of alerts for the whole system, not good. If you see "EEA", buckle up.
This is great info. Thanks, Kilovar!
You want section 8
http://www.nerc.com/pa/Stand/Reliability%20Standards/EOP-011-1.pdf
Few thoughts in the beginning ; first it is not just cold that shuts down renewables, it's also ice. Elliott started as freezing rain and gave everything a nice coat of ice before the temperature dove, then it snowed. The sun cannot penitrate ice and it unbalances wind turbines. Second the weak link in the natural gas plants is they are almost all gas turbines. Ingesting freezing air into any internal combustion engine is complex. A mass flow gas turbine is no different with it's own gear boxes a d lubrication systems. Third coal plants are boiler plants burning a solid fuel, probably the most bullet system available. Boilers have poor thermal efficiency but rock on through anything. They also move far less air than a gas,turbine.
But coal pollution degrades quality of life. So a big reason we hemorrhaged jobs to China from 2002-2009 was because China was willing to poison its citizens with coal and diesel pollution and displace millions with new hydro dams. And it’s not a coincidence that we started adding manufacturing jobs when the fracking revolution got underway in 2010. Americans demand less pollution and so any solution must result in less pollution and higher quality of life.
???? and has what to do with cold weather power generation performance? Your point in the context of the conversation escapes me.
Nobody wants new coal plants…they could barely get built under Bush/Cheney when oil and natural gas got more expensive every year and it appeared we had hit peak production.
Issac and Mitch a big thank you for what you’re doing here! I am thoroughly enjoying reading you, and learning more every installment.
Thanks Zak! We aim to please
We got the business model for nuclear wrong—nuclear should be for moving water and peak demand and not for base load. Imagine having a 4 GW battery in the middle of the country for when we need some more electricity during unprecedented weather events…we could easily have that if we used Grand Gulf to move water from the Atchafalaya Basin west but kept its connection to the grid. Grand Gulf is approaching 40 years in operation so it would be a great time for the federal government to purchase it as part of a national water infrastructure project.