Science Snippets: Much of North America Faces Electricity Shortages this Year- 2024

“MORE than 300 million people in the US and Canada face the growing possibility of electricity shortages beginning as early as this year and continuing to 2028. In a recent report, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation – an international regulatory authority – projected that a majority of regions in the US and Canada will have insufficient electricity supply to reliably meet demand during extreme weather conditions. A few may even see interruptions under normal weather conditions.”

“Let’s return to that first sentence: “MORE than 300 million people in the US and Canada face the growing possibility of electricity shortages beginning as early as this year and continuing to 2028.” Wait, what? Electricity shortages will stop after 2028? How? Naturally, there is no mention of aerosol masking, the best-kept secret in climate science. Professor James E. Hansen has said and written many times that the aerosols will fall out of the atmosphere in about five days. According to a peer-reviewed, open-access paper published on 15 June 2021, the loss of aerosol masking will lead to a substantial increase in planetary warming: 55% globally, and 133% over land. Most of us live on land. As I have indicated previously in this space, we passed the 2 C Rubicon several months ago, according to governmental bodies representing a few countries. These governmental bodies were catching up to Andrew Y. Glikson, who wrote that Earth had surpassed the 2 C mark in his 9 October 2020 book, The Event Horizon. Furthermore, as nearly as I can tell, additional heating of Earth is a one-way street. Once the planet warms, cooling it is a rather challenging task.”

“According to a member of a think tank in Washington, D.C. as published in the paper by United Press International: The report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation found that North America’s peak demand – the highest amount of electricity needed in a given period – is rising faster than at any time in the past five years. The sharp increase also represents a reversal of a decades-long trend involving falling or flat growth in demand.”

All of the above written, slightly edited, and spoken work, is from my friend and colleague Professor Guy McPherson. Subscribers to Guy’s Sub stack posts can comment directly and read the whole embedded script at the following link: Science Snippets: Much of North America Faces Electricity Shortages this Year

After being intrigued by this latest analysis, the electrician in me decided to dive in deeper and have a closer look at the threat.
For the record, I had full electrical registration in Aotearoa NZ and have a High Voltage Switching and Protection Qualification from the London Electricity Board. I worked at the Sun Alliance Computer Centre located at Lennox Wood, West Sussex in 1987, only after working there for 6 months did, I find out the computer centre, one of Britian’s first “Intelligent Buildings”, what an oxymoron, was a backup computer installation for the British Ministry of Defence. All of the Group 4 security guards were supposedly ‘ex’ military but over beers, after long runs together, I realised I was working in the belly of the beast. The entire property was surrounded by a moat, and we had the same electronic gate system that was installed at the US Embassy in Beirut.
One day my pager bleeped, and a message came up saying: “Blocker discharge”. I made my way to the security gate and found a small car with its rear axle and suspension ripped off and hanging form the blade of the ‘blocker’ that was built into the road, anyone following a pre-approved car into the complex without swipe access discharged the blocker and ‘bam’. The poor young woman who was running late for work just had her car ripped in two.
As a result of obtaining that HV qualification, I worked on high voltage substations when rehabilitating the port of Beira in Mozambique in support of the front-line states resisting the Apartheid State to the south.
The point of all of the above Is I have some expertise in this field and feel reasonably qualified to comment.

Delving into the story I discovered:
“Musk also indicates that the growth of generative AI in computing in the form of chatbots has been rapid, allowing users to generate content and images within a moment’s notice. He added that the adoption and rapid growth of the technology in computing is increasing by a factor of ten every six months. “I’ve never seen any technology advance faster than this,” says Musk.”
Can anyone else spot the exponential function here?

“Elon Musk says we’re on the verge of the biggest technology revolution with AI, but there won’t be enough power by 2025.

To my knowledge the energy required to power AI has not been fully incorporated into the paper above that Guy quotes so, as always, it’s worse than previously thought.

Elon Musk Predicts AGI, Self-driving, Unlimited Energy, Robots Coming SOON

Readers of this blog will know I have a long-standing involvement in the anti-nuclear movement. On that note, I’d like to specifically address this aspect of Guy’s blog piece: “As if those challenges are not bad enough, there is also the issue of nuclear facilities as one means of generating electricity. Nuclear power plants require grid-tied electricity to operate. What happens when the grid fails, even locally?”

“Vulnerability to extended power outages stemming from grid collapse triggered by terrorism, technological accident, cyber attack or geomagnetic storms is understood to mean the widest possible spectrum of immediate and downstream consequences for our nations critical infrastructure. Regrettably few realistic plans are in place for dealing with this risk especially as it pertains to three primary energy systems of strategic significance to the United States – nuclear power, chemical manufacturing and natural gas supplies. The author argues that greater sustained attention is needed to upgrade the resilience of these systems, foster greater sharing of remedies among them to offset the worst effects of grid collapse which exceeds 15 consecutive calendar days and build collective avenues of enhanced risk mitigation against such scenarios.”
From the ResearchGate paper: Grid Collapse Security, Stability and Vulnerability Issues: Impactful Issues Affecting Nuclear Power Plants, Chemical Plants and Natural Gas Supply Systems



Feel free to add your comments below and as always, I will update the comments section with additional information as it comes in, until the lights go out, pardon the pun.


Abrupt Climate Change Alberta Arctic Methane Emergency Group Arctic News Blog Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation-AMOC Atmospheric CO2 Brush Fire climate climate-change CounterPunch Dahr Jamail Dr. Guy McPherson Dr. James E Hansen El Nino environment Feedback loops First Blue-Ocean Event in Arctic global-warming Great Barrier Reef IPCC Michael E Mann Mike Sliwa Nafeez Ahmed Nature Bats Last November Speaking Tour with Guy McPherson Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum–PETM Pauline Panagiotou Schneider permafrost PM John Key Podcast Politics PRN Professor Paul Beckwith RobertScribbler Robin Westenra Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Russia Sam Carana science Subsea Methane Sustainability The Collapse of Industrial Civilisation Thom Hartmann Truthout Updates

Unknown's avatar

I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.

Posted in Aerosol Masking Effect, Dr Andrew Glikson, Electrical Grid threats, Energy Industry, Nature Bats Last, Nuclear Threats
136 comments on “Science Snippets: Much of North America Faces Electricity Shortages this Year- 2024
  1. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Here’s a new snippet. Realize that Indonesia should be in their dry season by now:

    Flood Bursts Through Wall, Swamps Road

    https://weather.com/news/weather/video/flood-breaks-through-wall-in-jakarta-indonesia

    __

    Nothing is as it should be. I had the first 94’F/34’C at 5pm yesterday afternoon; 26May. I checked the 2022 calendar and that year showed the first 94’F/34’C day on 26June. In three years the heat has shifted a full month earlier…

    This does not bode well for the coming summer I don’t think.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  2. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Watch the first 3 minutes, better with the sound off. After 3 minutes it gets far too repetitive:

    “This could become Switzerland’s LARGEST DISASTER EVER”

    Almost reached Blatten -Glacier Accelerating

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajF0Icv7O48

    __

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  3. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Mountains that used to hold a glacier collapses in Europe. And Canada has been burning for a week, but erupts into two different provinces today. Evacs are running from wildfires today.

    This is bad. Very bad. It isn’t even June yet but the wildfires are roaring already to the north of me, and it’s drying out very, very quickly in these mountains, too, with the heat that landed this week.

    __

    Canada calls for international aid as two provinces declare state of emergency over wildfires

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enLcX9JC8pU

    17,000 Manitobans under wildfire evacuation order

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S4StlhYvyg

    __

    Oh, and that glacier that blew the side of that mountain down yesterday? It seems that it turned into a lake so the houses that didn’t get crushed are ALL underwater. Cute little Swiss lake now!

    Aftermath of glacier collapse leaves Swiss town in ruins

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r3J2wFhabQ

    __

    What kind of seatbelt works for wildfires? I don’t exactly know how to ‘buckle up’ for this fire season. Holy Hell!

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  4. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    The Lungs Of Our Planet Are On Fire

    https://weather.com/science/environment/video/forests-are-burning-worse-than-ever

    __

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  5. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Personal snippet: Today the thermometer read 100’F/38’C at 5:20 in the afternoon under a blasting sun in a clear blue sky. I pulled out last year’s calendar to check, and it was as I remembered; July 4th was the first 100’F day.

    This is a full month earlier than last year. 2023 saw the first even later in July.

    Had to go back to 2021’s June ‘Heat Dome’ to find this hot a June. That monster smothered the West Coast which broke the all-time record here in my county at 120’F, and burned the BC town of Lytton completely down with their record of 122’F but that was 30June not the as the start like today.

    Not going to be a nice summer I’m thinking…

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  6. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    To the north of me it’s already raging, and it’s not even halfway through June yet…

    Canadian Wildfires: 8 Million Acres Burned So Far

    https://weather.com/safety/wildfires/video/canada-wildfires-smoke-northern-plains

    __

    I’ve got blazes springing up in Oregon to the south, and others here in my state. So far the local ones have been stomped on very damn quick by local crews. The one along the Columbia River (I-84 in the Gorge Oregon side) prompted ‘run now’ evac notices…

    Going to be a loooong summer in the Northern Hemisphere, dude.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  7. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    National Weather Service Issues First Heat Advisory Ever For Alaska This Weekend, But There’s A Catch

    This is the first of its kind ever issued for the entire state.

    https://weather.com/forecast/regional/news/2025-06-13-fairbanks-alaska-first-heat-advisory

    __

    Ain’t this a bitch?

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  8. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Yeah, well, but we’re already at 2’C, right?

    When Will Extreme Heat Become Unlivable?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hBMbQ9de1g

    __

    This people still minimize even while they keep up the positive outlook don’t they? I guess they can’t help themselves…

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  9. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    No weather warning, no idea it was going to rain like this, the weather weenies gave no warning… The river rose 26 feet in an hour…at 4 in the morning. Holy hell, everyone dead asleep. One girl went 17 miles downstream and found alive in a tree 12 feet up…with no sign of her parents, sister, and aunt & uncle that were swept away.

    Texas flooding: At least 24 dead, several still missing

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uMNEQ0ixec

    __

    And this is going to get worse, and worse, and worse as the weather destabilizes. Worldwide. This is going to be normal.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  10. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Yeah, in a way it is just basic Irony being as it’s freaking Texas.. You know, the state where oil is king and there ain’t no such thing as Climate Chaos/Destabilization/Collapse!!

    Or else it must mean their god is really pissed at these fundie zealots and killing their kids in instant floods is a very good way of teaching them manners, yes?

    Then there is the dust storms, the tornadoes, and the heat domes….and locusts, can’t forget the locusts!

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Kevin Hester's avatar Kevin Hester says:

    The insatiable monster marches on and it proves beyond a shadow of doubt that electrifying everything puts our climate crisis on steroids.
    The USA dodged a bullet last year with the grid largely held up, by the skin of its teeth.
    We can’t and won’t keep being lucky!
    Electric utilities will invest more than $1.1T by 2030 to meet demand growth: EEI | Utility Dive

    Like

  12. Kevin Hester's avatar Kevin Hester says:

    The US grid and regulatory system looks like a dog’s breakfast of disorganization and conflicting interests.
    In an emergency the state is always the lender of last resort, the taxpayers pick up the bill when there’s losses, the corporations pocket the profits in the good times.
    It’s almost if the system is rigged.
    Why California might plug into a fossil fuel energy market

    Like

  13. Kevin Hester's avatar Kevin Hester says:

    The Algorithm Ate the Grid Washington handed over your power supply to corporate server farms. Your lights are next.

    The Algorithm Ate the Grid – by General Azmundus

    Like

  14. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    The comet/rock 3-i-Atlas that the Hubble picked up is heading through our solar system at 130,000 miles an hour. Nobody knows where it came from (what solar system how far away), and nobody knows just what it’s going to do or where it will be aimed once it disappears behind the sun and out of our limited view. Until it pops out again later.

    It’s the size of Mt. Everest.

    If it happens to shift orbit and comes out aiming for this planet, at that speed, and at that size, the damned thing would probably go right through the planet like a bullet through a bowl of ice cream.

    Don’t Look Up.

    https://weather.com/science/space/video/interstellar-comet-breaks-speed-record

    __

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

    • sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

      I just love this quote:

      Nuclear energy presents a potential solution for meeting some of the growing electricity demands of data centers, with its reliable and clean energy profile,

      __

      REALLY? So it’s a “potential” solution for SOME of the RADICALLY increasing demands of corporate profits…and what happens when they can’t cool the damned things because of drought? Or one of these mad downpours floods the damned plant (2 sides of the same climate coin) and it wrecks the controls and it starts a melt-down like what has been ongoing in Japan for 14 fucking years? No ocean to dump the highly radioactive water into so it’ll just head downstream… All these monsters need enormous amounts of water to cool them or you end up with 800 tonnes of blazing corium burning through the ground like Japan has found itself

      Being inland they will do a Chernobyl, which is still a no-human exclusion zone of course, and the wind patterns around the Susquehanna plant go in which direction? The East Coast of the US is far more densely populated than out here in the west.

      It sure was kind of interesting just how fast the remains of 3 Mile Island melted-down reactor was scooped up and disappeared… and downplayed in nearly all the MSM and government reports. Now they want to start up the closed Unit 1 reactor again?

      By the way, the EPOCH TIMES quoted in this article is a right-wing rag of dubious repute and good for nothing but wrapping fish or letting puppies pee on it in my opinion.

      __

      Then I read another article that caught my eye on this Zero Hedge page (which I’m not all that familiar with), the ‘Canadian Hikers Get Covid-style tranny treatment’ story having to do with the fire danger all across Canada. Hiking bans…to keep stupid idiots from starting massive wildfires like the ones that have been burning since fucking March….since most wildfires are human-caused I can see why. But using Covid as a backdrop was a bit bizarre. Especially since the Covid shots were NOT a vaccine (which would stop you from catching it) but a flu shot to lessen the death rates that were soaring. More than one out of every 330 people in the US died from the disease while 90% of Canadians had taken the shots and DIDN’T fucking die. So how does that match up with stopping wildfires by keep stupid humans out of the woods when they are torch-dry???

      Somehow I’m not sure this site has changed for the better in the years since I’ve read into it.

      __

      Wildfire smoke is settling in right now, very strong smell out my door and it’s becoming a bit hazy in the trees. Heading for another day of 38’C+ temperatures. So much for the ‘normal’ first frost around Labor Day that I moved to 20+ years ago, eh?

      sealintheSelkirks

      Liked by 1 person

  15. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    The Krill Paradox:

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QnqbnT2dWGU?feature=share

    __

    We kept them from collapsing completely…but now humans are doing it again.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  16. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    I love the question How would Zelden know it’s not like he had it right in front of him…and then look at the Fox News weather alert of 126’F heat alert in the lower right corner in Kennett Missouri…

    DJT’s EPA Director de-regulates to make the environment worse

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kb802pCKtC8?feature=share

    __

    I’m glad George Carlin left the planet. He would have had a blast with all this ironic shit…but his heart wouldn’t have been able to handle it. But I can always hear his voice in the back of my head when watching something like this…

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  17. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    A snippet of ocean reality:

    Sharks are losing their teeth due to all the damned carbon we’re dumping that ends up in the ocean. Acidifying sea water will get lobsters, shellfish, etc etc:

    https://weather.com/science/nature/video/ocean-acidification-sharks-teeth

    __

    Never any good news, eh?

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  18. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    ‘The Blob’ Returns: What Pacific Heat Wave Means For US

    Holy shit! Look how big this thing is! It’s through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean. Oh my!

    https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/video/pacific-blob-marine-heatwave-returns

    Going to be a strange winter I’m guessing.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

  19. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    185mph winds as Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica this afternoon. Oh my. One town in the mountains inland from the southern beaches clocked winds at 250mph as the back of the eye-wall brushed it. The warnings were explicit, total ‘compromise’ of structural integrity of buildings if it wasn’t made of concrete…

    250mph, dude! And this storm grew from a tropical storm to a Cat 5 within 24 hours. Is that some kind of record?

    Question: Wouldn’t a 250mph storm qualify as a Cat 6? I know there has been talk/articles in science circles about adding a new category due to the increased strength going on in the destabilizing climate.

    __

    Ran over the western portion of the island instead of taking out the capitol of Kingston which they thought it was going to hit before it wobbled a bit and kept heading west. Amazing satellite pictures of the perfect eye. I mean a PERFECT eye staring at me from the computer screen!

    The Montego Bay region was slammed, the n/w corner as it exited the land and hit water again heading for Cuba on a n/easterly course. No idea of the destruction of everything in its path but 50 inches of rain was expected because it was such a slow moving storm (moving 1-2mph at times). Steep mountains on that island… Probably hitting the US gulag torture/prison camp GITMO about now I’m guessing.

    They’re in darkness now so tomorrow is when overflights will start to show the damage.

    Strongest storm in modern records to hit Jamaica. Or so the weather people said.

    4th major named hurricane this season. It’s been quieter than expected, but only one more big one will make that prediction accurate.

    sealintheSelkirks

    Like

  20. sealintheselkirks's avatar sealintheselkirks says:

    Blue Whales Are Going Eerily Silent—and Scientists Say It’s a Warning Sign

    https://www.rsn.org/001/blue-whales-are-going-eerily-silentand-scientists-say-its-a-warning-sign.html

    __

    Piece by piece it all disappears. The largest conscious being on the planet goes under….

    sealintheSelkirks

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Kevin Hester

Kevin Hester is currently living on Rakino Island, a small island in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand, monitoring the unravelling of the biosphere and volunteering at the Rakino Island Nursery is currently developing a proposal to create a marine reserve near by. The Island has no grid tied electricity or reticulated water.  I catch my own water from the roof and generate my electricity from the ample solar radiation on the island.

My Submission to the Ministry of the Environment
Kevin Hester, Dropping Anchor in an Exponential World
Follow Kevin Hester on WordPress.com
Blog Stats
  • 516,737 hits
Categories
Tags
2C 4C 5C 6th Great extinction 16 Ocean Passages Abrupt Climate Change Acidification of Oceans ai Alaska North Slope Alberta AMEG Anecdotes of Neil Finn and My Life "Colliding" Anthropogenic Climate Disruption-ACD Anthropogenic Emissions Anti-Nuclear apartheid Appearances Arctic Arctic Methane Emergency Group Arctic News Blog Arctic Sea Ice Artificial Intelligence Assassination Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation-AMOC Atmospheric CO2 Australian Greens Baseline Temperature Dishonesty Ben Norton Beril Sirmacek Bill McKibben Bleaching Event BRIC's Brush Fire Canada Capitalism Kills Captain Paul Watson Catastrophe Cenozoic Era China Chris Hani Chris Mooney Class war climate climate-change Climate-Exodus Climate Change Research Centre Climate Wars CO2 Warming Collapse communism Contagion Coral Reefs Coral Sea Cory Morningstar CounterPunch Cruise Industry Dahr Jamail David Korowicz Deep Green Resistance Dimitri Lascaris Donald Trump Doreen Fräßdorf Dr. Guy McPherson Dr. James E Hansen Dr. Mike Joy Dr. Vincent Gauci Dr Andrew Glikson Draught Dr Natalia Shakova Dying Oceans East Timor Ecocide Ecosystem collapse El Nino Endangered Dolphins energy environment Eric Draitser Erik Michaels Extinction Radio Feedback loops First Blue-Ocean Event in Arctic Food Crisis Forestry Fort McMurray Fukushima Daiichi Gaia gaza Gene Gibson Geneva Conventions genocide George Perkins Marsh global-warming Going Dark Grace Gifford Great Barrier Reef Greenland Green Movement Guests Gulf Steam Gulf Stream System Habitat Habitat Wars Harold H. Hensel health Heatwave Mass Casualties history Imperialism India Interviews Invitations IPCC IRA Ireland Ireland unfree Irish Freedom Movement Isis israel Jack Williams Jason Box Jennifer Hynes Joanna Macy John Kiriakou John McMurtry John Pilger John Schramski Joseph Mary Plunkett Karl Marx Katharine Hayhoe Katie Goodman Kevin's New Webpage Kevin Lister Kevin Trenberth Kris Van Steenbergen Larissa Waters Leon Simons Limits to Growth Livestream Mairead Farrell Malcolm Light Mangroves Mark Eakin Marshall Brain marxism Mass Marine Death Max Wilbert Mean Air Tempature Methane Michael C. Ruppert Michael Dowd Michael E Mann microplastics Mid-East Middle East Mike Sliwa Monarch Butterflies Most Abnormally Warm Month Recorded. Nafeez Ahmed Naomi Klein Nature Bats Last Nelson Mandela New Webpage New Zealand North Africa November Speaking Tour with Guy McPherson Novosibirsk Reservoir Nuclear Nuclear War Overdevelopment-Overpopulation-Overshoot P.M. Kohn Key-Eco Terrorist Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum--PETM palestine Patsy O'Hara Paul Beckwith Paul Craig Roberts Paul Ehrlich Pauline Panagiotou Schneider Pauline Schneider Paul Street Peak Oil Pepe Escobar Perfect Storm permafrost Peter Sinclair Phytoplankton plastic Plastic pollution PM John Key Podcast Politics Pollution PRN Professor Paul Beckwith Professor Peter Wadhams Prof Guy McPhersons Abrupt Climate Change Tour NZ 2016 Psychopathic Records of Air Tempatures Relief Analysis Richar Vivers RobertScribbler Robin Westenra Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Runaway Global Warming Russia Sam Carana science SeeMoreRocks Blog Seymour Hersch Siberia-Yamal-Taimyr Sinn Fein South African Communist Party South Florida Corals South Pacific Steve Bull Storms of Our Grandchildren-James E Hansen Subsea Methane Super Exponential Supply Chain Breakdown Sustainability Syria Syrian Conflict technology Temperature Anomalies TEPCO The Collapse of Industrial Civilisation The Coming War on China The Pain You Feel The Rape Of Nanking Thom Hartmann Tipping Points Titanic Tomas Reis Tour NZ 2016 Transport Truthout Ugo Bardi ukraine Umkhonto we Sizwe United Nations Updates US Presidential Elections war War Crimes Warmest February on Record Warmest Russian Winter Warnings Water Vapor Weather Channel wet-bulb temperature William Kallfelz World War World War Three
Social