When Will the Lights Go Out?
Alternative energy that generates electricity (wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, hydropower) depends on the electric grid, which is falling apart because of deregulation already. In addition it’s also...
View ArticleThe electric grid: fragile, filthy, poorly managed, polluting, inefficient,...
Most forms of alternative energy depend on the electric grid (nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower). But the Grid is falling apart. A book review of: Munson, Richard. 2008. From Edison to...
View ArticleBlackouts
The website Energyshortage.com is dedicated to keeping track of world-wide energy shortages and blackouts. Richard Duncan’s Olduvai theory predicts the fall of civilization (Olduvai cliff) will begin...
View ArticleClimate change will cause blackouts & brownouts as energy infrastructure...
11 July 2013. John M. Broder. Climate Change Will Cause More Energy Breakdowns, U.S. Warns. New York Times. The nation’s entire energy system is vulnerable to increasingly severe and costly weather...
View ArticleGerman wind and solar integration
Schiermeier, Q. April 10, 2013. Renewable power: Germany’s energy gamble. An ambitious plan to slash greenhouse-gas emissions must clear some high technical and economic hurdles. Nature 496: 156–158...
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Building a national super grid in America
Building a national super grid in America by Alice Friedemann June 3, 2015 A national supergrid is seen as essential for integrating renewable power into the electric grid. It is not clear if...
View ArticleA Nuclear spent fuel fire at Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania could force 18...
[If electric power were out 12 to 31 days (depending on how hot the stored fuel was), the fuel from the reactor core cooling down in a nearby nuclear spent fuel pool could catch on fire and cause...
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How climate change will affect energy production and transportation
[ Climate change and extreme weather will harm oil and gas exploration and production, fuel transport, thermoelectric power generation (coal, natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, solar concentrated...
View ArticleThe Lights are going out in the Middle East (New Yorker)
Robin Wright. May 20, 2017. The lights are going out in the Middle East. New Yorker. Six months ago, I was in the National Museum in Beirut, marvelling at two Phoenician sarcophagi among the treasures...
View ArticleBlackouts, firestorms, and energy use
Preface. Blackouts are more and more likely in the future from fires, hurricanes, natural gas shortages and more. Below is an account from a friend who had to evacuate due to a wildfire. Blackouts in...
View ArticleThe Next Big Thing: Distributed Generation
Preface. The first article below explains what microgrids will look like in the future. But first a brief look at what a microgrid is, as Angwin explains in her book “Shorting the Grid. The Hidden...
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Why wind and solar will cause more blackouts
Preface. Clearly fossil fuel plants need to be replaced with energy storage — batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air. Many hours of backup power will be needed since, unfortunately, over...
View ArticleHow the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work
Preface. This is a book review of Angwin’s 2020 “Shorting the Grid. The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid”. It is a good primer on how the grid works, especially why Volt-Ampere Reactives (VARs)...
View ArticleReview of Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it...
Preface. My books and energyskeptic.com explain why the electric grid can’t stay up. This is a book review of Makansi’s “Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to...
View ArticleSkyscrapers: A bad idea as energy declines
Preface. One reason Paris is such a lovely city is that it was built to human scale, with buildings of five stories or less, because that was about as high as people were willing to climb, so not...
View ArticleWhat is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?
Preface. This is one of three posts based on Ted Koppel’s book Lights out. There’s also: Want to survive peak everything? Become a Mormon” and a longer book review, which this post has excerpts from...
View ArticleBook review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
Major semiconductor producing countries rely on each other for different types of chips. Top semiconductor producers’ 2021 export values by source and destination, billions USD. Source: PIIE 2022...
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