Mark Christie, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has told Bloomberg:
“That’s a crisis that’s coming. It’s coming a lot closer and a lot nearer and a lot faster than even I thought a year ago when I first said we’re facing a reliability crisis,”
A recent article by Alex Kimani in Oil Price.com points out something a bit ironic. While there has been much fretting about the irregular supply of renewable energy sources, it turns out that power outages are on the upswing across America, and a key culprit turns out to be, wait for it, fossil-gas.
“The harsh reality is that natural gas plants, even relatively modern ones, are proving to have the worst failure rate when faced with extreme weather compared with other generation methods. During last year’s Arctic Blast, gas units accounted for 63% of the failures while representing just 44% of the total installed capacity.”
The article cites a sharp upswing over the last decade in power outages across the US.
“Power outages have increased 64% from the early 2000s while weather-related outages have soared 78%. According to one analysis, the United States now records more power outages than any other developed country, with people living in the upper Midwest losing power for an average of 92 minutes every year compared to just 4 minutes in Japan.
Notably – these cracks in our energy system are showing up prior to the electrification of most cars and trucks, and prior to the replacement of fossil gas home heating systems with electric heat pumps. If we think we have an infrastructure deficit now….just wait.
The article wraps with two telling statistics: One from Berkeley indicating that it will be economically feasible for the US grid to get 90% of its electricity from renewables by 2035. The other from Wood McKenzie – an energy sector analyst that forecasts it will cost America $4.5 Trillion to fully decarbonize. Where’s all that money going to come from?
Strap yourself in. It might be a bumpy ride.
