Category Archives: Electric Grid

How the electric grid works is important to understand they myriad ways it could fail, including lack of maintenance after deregulation, the essential role of natural gas as the backup since batteries, hydropower, and compressed air storage can’t be scaled up, the difficulties in setting up a smart grid, or a distributed grid and more

What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?

Posted on January 4, 2024 by

Preface. There are three posts on Ted Koppel’s book “Lights out”: Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months? Want to survive … Continue reading →

Posted in Blackouts, Blackouts Electric Grid, Electric Grid & Fast Collapse, Energy Books, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why is everyone afraid of AI taking over? It makes stuff up!

Posted on December 13, 2023 by

Preface. AI is not intelligent, it is stupid! AI not only makes stuff up as explained below, but I have found it to be highly inaccurate and incomplete. For example, I asked about hours and costs of wine tasting in … Continue reading →

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Want to survive Peak Everything? Become a Mormon

Posted on September 20, 2023 by

Source: Salt Lake Tribune. For Latter-day Saint families, preparing for emergencies is the norm Preface.  Ted Koppel’s book “Lights Out” highlights the many risks to the grid from cyber and physical attacks, electromagnetic pulses from weapons or solar flares, large … Continue reading →

Posted in Blackouts, Electric Grid & Fast Collapse, EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Energy Books, Where to Be or Not to Be | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

EV charging not possible when restricted or grid down

Posted on August 13, 2023 by

Preface.  I have many posts at energyskeptic on the myriad reasons the grid will fail or disrupted in the future. Climate change is causing droughts and reservoirs too low to generate much hydropower, and nuclear plants must shut down if … Continue reading →

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The electric grid could be down for years if LPTs destroyed

Posted on July 3, 2023 by

Large Power Transformer Source: ABB Conversations (2013) Preface. This post contains excerpts from two Department of Energy documents and one about large geomagnetic storms and how they would affect Large power transformers (LPT) and the U.S. electric grid. They are … Continue reading →

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Electric Grid, Electricity Infrastructure, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Interdependencies | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Risks of cyber attack on Infrastructure

Posted on June 5, 2023 by

Delacourt TP (2022) Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure as the New WMD. Homeland Security. Preface. What follows are several articles on how cyber attacks could harm our infrastructure across at least 16 systems we depend on.  Although it is the decline … Continue reading →

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Skyscrapers: A bad idea as energy declines

Posted on May 8, 2023 by

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 surprisingly, rents … Continue reading →

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Review of Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to you

Posted on April 3, 2023 by

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 you”. He explains why the grid is … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Blackouts Electric Grid, Books, Electric Grid, Electricity Infrastructure, Energy Books | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Hibernating freeze-thaw molten salt batteries for seasonal energy storage

Posted on November 25, 2022 by

Preface.  A 100% renewable grid can’t happen without long-term energy storage. Today that’s done with natural gas (with a little help from hydropower in the 10 states that have most of it). Meanwhile nuclear and coal chug along at a … Continue reading →

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How the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work

Posted on September 23, 2022 by

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) are important and why renewables don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Blackouts, Blackouts Electric Grid, Distributed Generation, Electric Grid & Fast Collapse, Electricity Infrastructure, Energy Books, Grid instability | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work