By Jo Nova
Bloomberg is softening everyone up for the blackouts
The latest Bloomberg puff-piece is straight out of Renewables-Marketing-Inc. It’s a plea for people to get used to rearranging their lives to accommodate the failing grid, but mostly it is pure Psy-Op to train the minions to blame grid failures and expensive electricity on hot weather. That way, if climate change causes the grid to blackout, the answer is “add more wind and solar power”, right?!
Firstly, get used to less power and more suffering
Girls and Boys, you can’t keep using that air conditioner, or charging your car at peak times. Put down your lifestyle Susie!
“Extreme weather events of all kinds – heat waves, hurricanes, flooding events – are putting immense stress on the grid and on people’s lives,” says Kit Kennedy, who leads the power division at non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council [NRDC]. Simple actions by consumers, such as avoiding charging your electric car during peak hours and raising air conditioning’s temperature, can ease grid stress, Kennedy says. “Flexibility is going to be the key.”
Bloomberg makes sure readers know Kit Kennedy works for a “non-profit” agency but forgets to mention that the same NRDC, has $462 million dollars in assets to spend, and their Chinese branch is sponsored by Chinese national agencies, the staff in the Beijing office used to work for the CCP, and the NRDC thinks China is doing a great job. If Kit were linked to Exxon instead, they’d make sure we all knew that.
Perhaps that explains why the Bloomberg team write like communist kindergarten teachers:
Here’s what you need to know about how extreme heat affects grids and how you can help prevent blackouts.
Remember, if you can prevent blackouts, that means when they happen, it’s your fault! Don’t blame us, children. You turned on the oven…
Extreme heat is distorting the Grid
Apparently hot weather now causes nameless “generators” to be less efficient, and transformers to heat up, and it “distorts the normal flow of electricity”, too. If only the world wasn’t heating by 0.1°C every decade!
Get ready for some of the worst science writing you’ve ever seen, almost like someone is trying to torture metaphors:
How Extreme Heat Hurts Power Grids
In a way, the grid functions like a seesaw: it stays stable if the power supply and demand are equal. But periods of high heat can throttle the efficiency of power generation and transmission, impairing the supply. Meanwhile, more homes, offices, shops and factories will turn on electric fans or ACs, sucking more juice out of the grid. When the demand and supply fall out of balance, a power outage can occur, says Timothy Wang, a managing director at consulting firm Filsinger Energy Partners.
Strangely, no one worried that hot days would “throttle the efficiency of generators” during all the decades that we relied on coal and gas plants? Since old coal plants operate at 540 degrees Celsius (1,000F) it’s “not likely” they give a toss about a 2 degree rise in global temperatures. The generators the Bloomberg team don’t want to name are the ones starting in S and W. Solar panels lose nearly half a percent for every degree above 25°C. If they reach 60C in the blazing sun they lose 10-17% of their generation. Wind turbines, might work in the heat, but often hot days are windless.
They could have just said new unreliable generators don’t cope in the heat.
The transformers needed to keep electricity flowing can also heat up, limiting their ability to handle rising power needs. Elevated overnight temperatures means equipment can’t cool when the sun sets. If the power load on the grid goes up too high, an aging transformer could blow up, likely causing a power outrage or worse, a fire, Wang says.
Lord help us all. Old things break at high temperatures. So, they probably break at freezing temperatures too?
Next your electricity bill will be attacked by spooky wave patterns:
Extreme heat also distorts the normal flow of electricity on transmission lines, causing the electronic appliances in your home to use more power, Marshall says. That’s because electricity travels across high-voltage lines in waves, and when those wave patterns deviate from what’s considered ideal, it distorts the power that flows into homes.That can add as much as 20% more on consumers’ electricity bills, according to an estimate by Whisker Labs.
What Whisker Labs is probably trying not to tell you is that solar panels can cause voltage surges at lunchtime, and that will increase some electricity bills. In Australia solar gluts have pushed up power to the 253V limit. The high voltage will make heaters, toasters, hair-dryers and old air conditioners draw more power than they normally use, hence one more cost imposition thanks to renewables.
Blame Climate Change for high electricity prices too!
Extreme weather causes higher electricity price spikes, it’s such bad luck…
The consumers who are lucky enough to keep the lights on may end up paying more for their electricity. Wholesale electricity costs can spike in extreme weather. These prices are passed on to consumers on their monthly bills, but by how much and how quickly will vary.
Lower those expectations people — you will be lucky if the lights stay on.