“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.
6th Great extinction Abrupt Climate Change Alberta Anti-Nuclear Arctic News Blog Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation-AMOC Atmospheric CO2 Brush Fire Collapse CounterPunch Dahr Jamail Dr. Guy McPherson Dr. James E Hansen East Timor El Nino First Blue-Ocean Event in Arctic Great Barrier Reef Imperialism IPCC John Pilger Michael E Mann Mike Sliwa Nafeez Ahmed Nature Bats Last New Webpage New Zealand November Speaking Tour with Guy McPherson Nuclear War Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum–PETM Pauline Panagiotou Schneider permafrost PM John Key Podcast PRN Professor Paul Beckwith RobertScribbler Robin Westenra Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Sam Carana Subsea Methane TEPCO The Collapse of Industrial Civilisation Thom Hartmann Truthout Updates
6th Great extinction Abrupt Climate Change Alberta Anti-Nuclear Arctic News Blog Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation-AMOC Atmospheric CO2 Brush Fire Collapse CounterPunch Dahr Jamail Dr. Guy McPherson Dr. James E Hansen East Timor El Nino First Blue-Ocean Event in Arctic Great Barrier Reef Imperialism IPCC John Pilger Michael E Mann Mike Sliwa Nafeez Ahmed Nature Bats Last New Webpage New Zealand November Speaking Tour with Guy McPherson Nuclear War Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum–PETM Pauline Panagiotou Schneider permafrost PM John Key Podcast PRN Professor Paul Beckwith RobertScribbler Robin Westenra Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Sam Carana Subsea Methane TEPCO The Collapse of Industrial Civilisation Thom Hartmann Truthout Updates
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.
Kevin Hester 
LikeLike
LikeLike
Exponential growth in use of electricity and a frail, aging grid. What could go wrong?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yesterday YouTube started putting in my recommended feed a man who did talks over 8 years ago telling people all this will happen. About the changes in atmospheric water due to climate change an also about shocks to utilities.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jeremy Rafkin is the man
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Kevin,
Thanks so much for this. Yes, I’m also a subscriber to Guy’s feed.
And you have probably seen the Sid Smith talk https://youtu.be/5WPB2u8EzL8?feature=shared from 2019? I watched that again last night. He’s a mathematician by training and provides a “100K feet” perspective about energy availability and our inevitable consumption of all available resources.
So fascinating/sobering/horrifying/tragic to grapple with how little control we had over this entire trajectory.
Thanks again,
Nicola
LikeLike
This showed up on Medium and I actually had two entire articles show up. Guess they were my ‘free’ ones to try to get me to subscribe at the start of the month. I cut them & pasted both to send to my retired biologist neighbor but forgot to copy the first one’s weblink. Both were on collapse.
So here is the link to the 2nd one which is…ummmm, rather dark but probably damned accurate knowing what we have discovered the other collapsed civilization of the last 9,000 year (all 21 of them):
View at Medium.com
___
As for the ‘shortage’ of electricity, absolutely no doubt of that. And my solar batteries have all died and they are way too expensive to replace. I’m on the grid of the Columbia River dams but…with the kind of winter we’ve had (and Canada where the fires are still going from last year) I’m sure the water situation isn’t improving…
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Kevin, Ironically enough Ontario is largely dependent on ‘renewable energy’ if you include nuclear power plants. Toronto is very near the Pickering plant, the oldest one in Canada, and it has just had its operating license extended well past its estimated lifetime. This is obviously the reason, but I was scared when I saw how close it really was to this city. Quebec now sells hydro to New York City. I wonder why they can’t sell it to Ontario; an arrangement had been bruited about for years but never seemed to jell. They still call electricity ‘hydro’ in Ontario since it all used to come from generators at Niagara Falls. Most of Quebec’s power is water generated.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Kevin,
This article from the GUARDIAN is chilling.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/02/ais-craving-for-data-is-matched-only-by-a-runaway-thirst-for-water-and-energy?utm_source=eml&utm_medium=emlf&utm_campaign=MK_SU_SOINewsletterv2Canvas&utm_term=Email_ROW&utm_content=variantA
LikeLiked by 1 person
In response to Derek Baum’s piece…
In addition to growing food, learning to forage would be strongly advisable. We should have all been learning this stuff for years.
To get an idea of how people will react at prospect of “no food in stores”, reflect on Hurricane Katrina survivors: One was featured in a news clip, storming into a little shop asking for a loaf of bread, when there was none left, and then angrily turning down a bag of flour! Most of us will not do well. It will be worse than we can imagine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Another problem with McKinsey’s and Goldman’s forecasts is their narrow focus. They largely ignore the feedback loops introduced by the new layers of complexity that AI will introduce into society.”
“For example, Elon Musk recently warned that AI and EVs (electric vehicles) will produce an electric power shortage by 2025.”
https://www.artberman.com/blog/technology-and-innovation-are-overrated-implications-for-ai/?fbclid=IwAR2UlhmagyIEitUzwj88WfBVWjMSuAEWFE4tGsk4YC5j3X8eJl5uj4JMIYw
LikeLike
“New England could see resource adequacy troubles even with billions in investments: ISO-NE”
“Batteries make up 46% of ISO New England’s interconnection queue, but the grid operator said that as peak demand grows they may “struggle to recharge during the winter months.”
Fancy that!
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electrification-extreme-weather-will-challenge-new-england-energy-resource-adequacy/710660/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue%3A%202024-03-19%20Utility%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue%3A60198%5D&utm_term=Utility%20Dive&fbclid=IwAR234JvReLF8lTuBS9l_MgxS4EFr1BjzKcarY6nBLNy–oWiajlqUD64P_w
LikeLike
Rethinking electricity grids. (youtube.com)
LikeLike
What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?
What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months? | Peak Everything, Overshoot, & Collapse (energyskeptic.com)
LikeLike
“The relatively high probability of a nationwide grid collapse, which would lead to multiple nuclear disasters, emphasizes the need to expedite the transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage.”
Spent nuclear fuel mismanagement poses a major threat to the United States. Here’s how. – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (thebulletin.org)
LikeLike
Yep, all around us we are stewing in our own waste….
Landfills Bake the Planet Even More than We Thought
https://grist.org/science/us-landfills-emit-far-more-methane-than-previously-known/
and then there is this one:
Landfills in Washington and Oregon leaked ‘explosive’ levels of methane last year
https://grist.org/accountability/landfills-in-washington-and-oregon-leaked-explosive-levels-of-methane-last-year/
___
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
Another science snippet:
USFWS Proposes Plan To Kill Nearly A Half-Million Owls
https://weather.com/nature/wild-animals/video/usfws-proposes-plan-to-kill-nearly-a-half-million-owls
___
Starvation has decimated gray whales off the Pacific Coast. Can the giants ever recover?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-27/starvation-has-decimated-pacific-coast-gray-whales
___
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
The latest hard facts from Alice!
Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
LikeLike
It’s becoming clear that the aging US power grid won’t be able to support the surge in AI data centers and the electrification of the economy. In “The Next AI Trade,” we outlined investment opportunities for powering up America.
Sam Altman Powers Up America With Clean Energy Startup Investment | ZeroHedge
LikeLike
Like everything right now, the cost of maintaining Maine’s power grid is going through the roof. The lines are old and the equipment is outdated which means they fail more often. That translates into higher bills for customers as utilities have to pass the costs on to us. Not to mention the recent 83% increase in the cost of supply of electricity and the 11.5% increase in the cost of delivery of that electricity for Mainers. Things are just getting expensive.
Read More: Why Have Power Outages Become Much More Common in Maine? | https://wcyy.com/why-have-power-outages-become-much-more-common-in-maine/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Why Have Power Outages Become Much More Common in Maine? (wcyy.com)
LikeLike
“AI could drive a natural gas boom as power companies face surging electricity demand”
Fancy that:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/05/ai-could-drive-natural-gas-boom-as-utilities-face-surging-electric-demand.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2paQUZ2jv4yvg-t_BiTxCNdg7zaYT45JzZOsfPdPwp9iJGpp6jl9TvJRs_aem_AWHCaJcy5uIJKHHQwM3dJsM_xAGvN-wWffJkFKxdA8Whs57DpPHiei7ddr0vPFwq220R-ENEzyNgQckBo0Tyr6iZ
LikeLike
Great stuff that ‘natural’ gas, eh?
Landmark Study Reveals Gas Stove Emissions Boost Childhood Asthma
https://popularresistance.org/landmark-study-reveals-gas-stove-emissions-boost-childhood-asthma-rates-adult-deaths/
___
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
“To meet that target, the country needs to more than double regional transmission capacity and expand interregional transmission capacity more than fivefold, a U.S. Department of Energy study said in November.”
Well, we know that won’t happen!
US overhauls electric grid to make way for more renewables | Reuters
LikeLike
Oh hell no. Here in the US it’ll just be more brown-out due to building more of those fucking ‘internet cloud’ monstrosities that are already a main source of electricity over-use! Monsters like the one in Draper Utah is using up millions of gallons of drinking water, too, for that matter.
___
And here’s a quick peek at how tornadoes in the US are not only increasing and getting stronger, but are shifting east towards far more populated areas of the US than the traditional grain-belt ‘Tornado Alley’ it’s always been:
547 between Jan & April this year? Holy fuck because MAY has always been the worst month for the damned things:
Something weird is happening with tornadoes
Tornado season is changing. That could have major consequences.
https://www.vox.com/climate/24155885/tornado-season-twister-clustering
___
Funny how nobody seems to be ‘sure’ it’s caused by climate destabilization but everything they are blaming this on is directly climate related!!!
Wouldn’t want to piss of the dumbass right-wing Southern voting blocks who think shooting Clorox Bleach and drinking horse de-wormer will cure Covid and think Global Warming is just a leftie hoax, ya know?
So far 7 $1billion dollar+ disasters in the US this year. And May is the worse month for twisters, and we’re just waiting for hurricane season to start next month.
Still no word on the Category 6 designation for hurricanes yet.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
Latest hurricane forecast, and the Atlantic Ocean has off-the-charts heat cooking it still so…it’s likely going to be real bad. The breakdown continues:
https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/video/weather-company-hurricane-season-forecast-increases
___
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
Last year was the hottest summer worldwide in the last 2,000 years? How come this isn’t ‘common’ knowledge?
Scientists Reconstructed Summer Temps Dating Back Centuries
https://weather.com/news/climate/video/scientists-reconstructed-summer-temps-dating-back-centuries
___
Houston Texas Mayor talks about somehow ‘preparing’ for obvious increase of storms after what just hit Houston Texas yesterday, and even mentioned “Global Warming!”
To hear that actually shocked me a bit as it’s always the bullshit ‘climate change’ equivalency comparing changing a baby diaper to something like this. A windstorm being compared to Hurricane Ike’s damage citywide, that’s how strong it was. And it WASN’T a hurricane! But 100mph+ winds roaring through the high rise office buildings raining blown-out windows from way up high covering the streets is a quite scary scenario, ya know?
Ramping up quick, Kevin. How is the insurance companies going to deal with this kind of shit? Answer: they won’t, they can’t. Just continue to cancel policies everywhere.
Mayor John Whitmire talks Houston’s deadly weather
___
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whoops! Looks like this is going to be worse since, without power, the coming temperature is expected to jump over 32’C/90’F next week.
Double Disaster Potentially Brewing In Houston, Where Power Outages Could Linger For Weeks
https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2024-05-16-houston-severe-weather-tornado-rain
___
No power. That means no water flowing in pipes for drinking. OR flushing toilets. No refrigeration for food, no traffic lights, no gas pumps working, no hospitals except for whatever back-up they have..and there won’t be any gas/diesel to run generators for long because it takes electricity to run the gas pumps.
What, NO CELL PHONES? NO TV? The youth are going to freak the hell out!!!
And possibly for weeks in some areas. Those freaking giant transmission towers pictures are incredibly twisted, aren’t they? Destroyed by wind!
Just as Governor MAGA redneck Racist pardons a white guy who murdered a BLM protester three years ago and effectively ends Trial By Jury in that state, this happens! Coincidence? This could (almost) turn me into a believer because, in their way of thinking, god is really pissed at Fascist Texas and Texans who are Racist Fascists…but a whole lot of other people who are much better people are certainly going to…suffer a little discomfort, eh? Weeks they said?
And Texas decided years ago fuck the federal government (except for subsidies and hurricane relief and, you know, stuff like that). Hence they did NOT want to be connected to the US grid so they opted out. How’s that gonna work? Like it did a couple of years ago when Texas had that big freeze? At least you could burn your furniture for heat, yes?
Wait until the grid goes down for good.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person