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Will EV’s Break The Grid?

August 17, 2017

Will EV’s Break The Grid?

EV

While the UK government has vowed to end the sale of all new conventional gasoline and diesel cars by 2040, as part of a wider plan to fight air pollution, there is talk that electricity demand will lead to a fast and dirty response to a strained power grid.

But here’s what everyone’s missing in that debate: While EV sales are going to rise and electricity demand to power them will strain the grid and lead to less-than-ideal power generation solutions, the whole plan will help clean power generation to increase its market share.

Nothing is black and white. And big transformations are never immediate. We’re not talking about an overnight elixir that will magically clean up the air; we’re talking about a step-by-step process that is gradually less dirty.

Overloading the Grid (Mind the Gap)

The UK’s National Grid anticipates peak demand from electric vehicles alone being around 5 GW, which represents an 8 percent increase from today’s peak demand.

This peak demand forecast assumes what the National Grid calls the “Two Degrees” scenario, in which most cars would be EVS, with only 6 percent of them hybrids. But by 2045, only pure EVs would be on sale.

According to Wood Mackenzie, the UK plan to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040 “will have a massive impact on the refining sector and the oil markets.”

To handle the extra peak demand, the most flexible way is to build open-cycle gas power plants.

One of the options for a “rapid response” plug-in capacity to make up for shortfalls could come from certain open-cycle gas-fired plants that are more polluting and less efficient.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russian Hackers Said To “Penetrate US Electricity Grid” Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware

December 31, 2016

Russian Hackers Said To “Penetrate US Electricity Grid” Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware

Two days after the DHS and FBI released a report revealing what the US agencies alleged was the government-controlled Russian operation behind the “hacking of the US election” which they dubbed “Grizzly Steppe”, and which had a peculiar disclaimer according to which nothing contained in the report should be taken at face value or was even credible after the DHS said it “does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within”…

 … overnight the crusade against “Russian hackers” continued following news that Russian cyberspecialists had managed to penetrate the Vermont electric grid, after a state utility, Burlington Electric, announced it had found a notebook computer containing the same malware code that the FBI and DHS had touted as linked to the Russian hackers.

According to WaPo, “Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities.” On Friday night, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) called on federal officials “to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.”

As a reminder, this Thursday when Obama unveiled sanctions against Russia and announced the expulsion of Russian state workers in the worst diplomatic clash between the two nations since the cold war, concurrently the FBI and DHS released a joint report on the “Grizzly Steppe” a hacking operation which was supposedly linked to the Russian government, and alleged that it had targeted “US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An east-west power grid, Canada’s elusive national dream

February 14, 2016

An east-west power grid, Canada’s elusive national dream

Inter-provincial strategy would help environment, but political will could be lacking

The price tag for transmission lines can be hefty. The longer the distance, the bigger the sticker shock.

The price tag for transmission lines can be hefty. The longer the distance, the bigger the sticker shock. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

Constructing an east-west electricity grid in Canada is far from a novel idea. Politicians and other leaders have openly mused about the idea throughout the last decade.

Sharing power between provinces is once again on the discussion table, as B.C. Premier Christy Clark pushes the federal government to consider a national grid. The idea is being pitched as a way to combat climate change and to help Canada achieve its latest environmental goals, which are currently under development.

At first blush, an east-west power grid seems like a no-brainer. While some provinces are blessed with an abundance of hydroelectricity, others are still burning coal to keep the lights shining, cellphones charging and coffee makers gurgling.

The east-west grid is again a discussion point in the country, largely as a solution to combat climate change and as a way to help Canada achieve its latest environmental goals, which are currently under development.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is pushing the federal government to consider a national grid. She will host a meeting with environmental ministers from across the country in early March to figure out how Canada can reach the commitments it made at the UN climate conference in Paris.

BC LNG 20151014

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark is asking the federal government to help build new electrical infrastructure that would allow B.C. to sell hydro to Alberta. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Clark is asking for help from the federal government to build new electrical infrastructure that would allow B.C. to sell hydro to Alberta, which is in the midst of a massive shift away from coal-fired energy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Ted Koppel It’s Not A Matter Of If But When The Power Goes Out…

November 28, 2015

Ted Koppel It’s Not A Matter Of If But When The Power Goes Out…

Almost 1.7mn Crimeans on emergency electricity supplies, no power coming from Ukraine (PHOTOS)

November 23, 2015

Almost 1.7mn Crimeans on emergency electricity supplies, no power coming from Ukraine (PHOTOS)

On a street in Simferopol. Early on Sunday November 22, two electricity transmission lines from Ukraine were cut, causing a blackout on the entire peninsula. © Artem Kreminsky
On a street in Simferopol. Early on Sunday November 22, two electricity transmission lines from Ukraine were cut, causing a blackout on the entire peninsula. © Artem Kreminsky / Sputnik

Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat

June 8, 2015

Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat

It’s a BIG risk. And we’re doing little about it.

On Monday we covered the release of an open letter written to President Obama, issued by a committee of notable political, security and defense experts  — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — on the country’s concerning level of vulnerability to a natural or man-made Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP).

An EMP has very real potential for crippling much of our electrical grid instantaneously. Not only would that immediately throw the social order into chaos, but the timeline to repair and restart the grid in most estimated scenarios would take months to a year or more. Those curious on learning exactly how devastating an EMP can be can read our report on the topic from last summer.

This week, we’ve been fortunate enough to get several of the authors of that open letter to join us and explain in depth what they conclude needs to be done to protect against the EMP risk: former CIA Director and current Ambassador James Woolsey, Executive Director of the EMP Task Force Dr Peter Pry, and security industry entrepreneur Jen Bawden.

What’s frightening in this story is not just the carnage an EMP could wreak, but the apparent rabid intransigence with which the electrical power lobby is fighting any responsibility for defending against one:

Chris Martenson:   Now, we’ve had a commission to assess the threat to the United States from an EMP attack, which delivered a report back in 2008. In fact, I found no less than two congressional commissions, a National Academy of Science report, other U.S. government sponsored studies, including your own. All have raised heightened concerns about this issue. All have found, all of them, that the EMP threat poses a significant and existential threat to the United States, and yet here we are still talking about this. Why is that?

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

June 3, 2015

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

Establishment insiders are worried we’re too vulnerable

In the past here at Peak Prosperity, we’ve written extensively on the threat posed by a sustained loss of electrical grid power. More specifically, we’ve warned that the most damaging threat to our grid would come from either a manmade or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

A good friend of mine, Jen Bawden, is currently sitting on a committee of notable political, security and defense experts  — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — who are equally concerned about this same threat and have recently sent a letter to Obama pleading for action to protect the US grid.

Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:

We talk a lot about Peak Cheap Oil as the Achilles’ heel of the exponential monetary model, but the real threat to the quality of our daily lives, if not our lives themselves, would be a sustained loss of electrical power. Anything over a week without power for any modern nation would be a serious problem.  A month would lead to chaos and many deaths.

When the power goes out, everything just stops. For residential users, even a few hours begins to intrude heavily as melting freezers, dying cell phones, and the awkward realization that we don’t remember how to play board games nudge us out of our comfort zone.

However, those are just small inconveniences.

For industrial and other heavy users, the impact of even a relatively short outage can be expensive or even ghastly. Hospitals and people on life-assisting machinery are especially vulnerable. Without power, aluminum smelters face the prospect of the molten ore solidifying in the channels from which it must be laboriously removed before operations can be restarted.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

June 3, 2015

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

Last year, Elliott Management’s Paul Singer highlighted “one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence”– an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). As Michael Snyder previously details, our entire way of life can be ended in a single day.  And it wouldn’t even take a nuclear war to do it.  All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of acouple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere.  The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast.

 

 

As PeakProsperity.com’s Chris Martenson explains, the country is extremely vulnerable to an EMP…

In the past here at Peak Prosperity, we’ve written extensively on the threat posed by a sustained loss of electrical grid power. More specifically, we’ve warned that the most damaging threat to our grid would come from either a manmade or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

A good friend of mine, Jen Bawden, is currently sitting on a committee of notable political, security and defense experts  — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — who are equally concerned about this same threat and have recently sent a letter to Obama pleading for action to protect the US grid.

Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Whisper of the Shutoff Valve

May 7, 2015

The Whisper of the Shutoff Valve

Last week’s post on the impending decline and fall of the internet fielded a great many responses. That was no surprise, to be sure; nor was I startled in the least to find that many of them rejected the thesis of the post with some heat. Contemporary pop culture’s strident insistence that technological progress is a clock that never runs backwards made such counterclaims inevitable.

Still, it’s always educational to watch the arguments fielded to prop up the increasingly shaky edifice of the modern mythology of progress, and the last week was no exception. A response I found particularly interesting from that standpoint appeared on one of the many online venues where Archdruid Report posts appear. One of the commenters insisted that my post should be rejected out of hand as mere doom and gloom; after all, he pointed out, it was ridiculous for me to suggest that fifty years from now, a majority of the population of the United States might be without reliable electricity or running water.

I’ve made the same prediction here and elsewhere a good many times. Each time, most of my readers or listeners seem to have taken it as a piece of sheer rhetorical hyperbole. The electrical grid and the assorted systems that send potable water flowing out of faucets are so basic to the rituals of everyday life in today’s America that their continued presence is taken for granted.  At most, it’s conceivable that individuals might choose not to connect to them; there’s a certain amount of talk about off-grid living here and there in the alternative media, for example.  That people who want these things might not have access to them, though, is pretty much unthinkable.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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