In Portland, Oregon, this week, the recorded official temperature reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit, power cables for the city’s streetcars melted, sagging overhead wires forced the light rail to shut down, and more than 6,000 people lost electricity.
But it’s far from the first time extreme weather has caused serious problems with the power grid in recent months. During the winter storm that hit Texas in February, nearly 5 millionpeople lost power. In June, California suggested that residents charge their electric vehicles during off-peak hours to save energy. And for the first time ever, after power outages hit several neighborhoods during this week’s heat wave, New York City officials sent residents an emergency mobile alert urging them to conserve energy.
It’s abundantly clear that the power grid in the United States is not ready for the effects of climate change, including the extreme weather events that come with it. After all, climate change isn’t just increasing the demand for energy to keep people cool or warm amid heat waves and winter storms. It’s also damaging the grid […]
How does mass immigration affect our power grid?
What “mass immigration” would that be? Sources of your massive numbers, origins…etc of these parasitic power suckers.?
Lived in TX in the late 90s met some of the most wonderful, kind and generous folk found anywhere but Tx politics and economic policies are libertarian bs. Freedom if you have the money to buy it and otherwise you are on your own. Hence the near total collapse of the power grid and the failure to institute changes to rebuild better as that requires regulation to force changes necessary for capacity and reliability. Freedom, freedom..”Don’t Mess with Texas”. The late columnist Molly Ivans used to call Tx a laboratory for bad government.
We are seeing that Texas may be an extreme example of letting the market decide on life sustaining policies but are most other states really so much better as climatic extremes expose lack of preparations and funding for basic services. Sometimes a bad example can be more motivating than a good one.
Our power grid should not be controlled by a computer which can be hacked!