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Not imaging it: more power outages

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BGbreeder

Active Member
Jun 19, 2020
1,670
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Bay Area
New Associated Press analysis finds storm related outages up 200% over the last two decades.

PV and storage...

All the best,

BG
 
Lol, and California wants to ban gas powered generators in a few years; so people can't even do the simple-route and have a standby generator to keep their fridge going in a pinch.

But the industry that is winning is the bollard industry. bollards bollards everywhere you find batteries.
Bollards seem to be all over. We had a condo that had a set for the water heater and another set by the step from the garage to the inside. Someone in the legislator must own a bollard making company.

And I still have my Honda generator I bought for Y2K. I run once a year just to make sure it still works.
 
Argh, I used to have so much respect for the AP and all of that has gone so far downhill with this pseudoscience explainer journalism...

Yes, of course, power outages are more frequent - we have an aging grid, more people, and more demand for electricity than any other time in history. But to draw the causation to global warming through two layers of indirection just screams agenda rather than facts and delegitimizes the true need for clean energy and a robust grid. It's embarrassing the AP publishes this garbage.

This claim is the most egregious: "Outages tied to severe weather rose from about 50 annually nationwide in the early 2000s to more than 100 annually on average over the past five years."
Sounds awful but does not correct for the fact that the US population rose from 281.4m in 2000 to 331.5m in 2020 (with the majority of that being costal growth, most at risk for weather events) nor the fact that US electricity usage has increased the same during that same time from 3.4 trillion kwh to 3.8 trillion kwh nor the fact that the grid is 20 years older between those two time periods. Counting outages and comparing time periods directly is a useless statistic at best and deceptive at worse.

Hurricane Dorian and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane both hit Florida with 185 mph windspeeds (highest of an Atlantic landfall hurricane in US recorded history). Dorian caused $5.1b in damage in 2019 dollars while the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane only caused $0.9b in damage in 2019 dollars. Is that because Dorian was 5x more powerful and destructive due to GLOBAL WARMING!?!? No, its because Florida is an order of magnitude more built up today than it was 85 years ago.

I'm a zealot for clean energy and grid robustness but this is absolutely the wrong way we get to that goal. I'll get off my soapbox now.
 
Argh, I used to have so much respect for the AP and all of that has gone so far downhill with this pseudoscience explainer journalism...

Yes, of course, power outages are more frequent - we have an aging grid, more people, and more demand for electricity than any other time in history. But to draw the causation to global warming through two layers of indirection just screams agenda rather than facts and delegitimizes the true need for clean energy and a robust grid. It's embarrassing the AP publishes this garbage.

This claim is the most egregious: "Outages tied to severe weather rose from about 50 annually nationwide in the early 2000s to more than 100 annually on average over the past five years."
Sounds awful but does not correct for the fact that the US population rose from 281.4m in 2000 to 331.5m in 2020 (with the majority of that being costal growth, most at risk for weather events) nor the fact that US electricity usage has increased the same during that same time from 3.4 trillion kwh to 3.8 trillion kwh nor the fact that the grid is 20 years older between those two time periods. Counting outages and comparing time periods directly is a useless statistic at best and deceptive at worse.

Hurricane Dorian and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane both hit Florida with 185 mph windspeeds (highest of an Atlantic landfall hurricane in US recorded history). Dorian caused $5.1b in damage in 2019 dollars while the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane only caused $0.9b in damage in 2019 dollars. Is that because Dorian was 5x more powerful and destructive due to GLOBAL WARMING!?!? No, its because Florida is an order of magnitude more built up today than it was 85 years ago.

I'm a zealot for clean energy and grid robustness but this is absolutely the wrong way we get to that goal. I'll get off my soapbox now.


How would you propose they message the general grid unreliability in a way that an average newsreader would understand? Humans have an easy time comparing historical experience with current/future, since they instinctively attempt to draw correlations based on time (right or wrong). So people tend to explain things on a time-basis when speaking to average normies.

California is clearly facing "something" to its grid other than sheer population growth. We've entered 365-day fire seasons. We're seeing "once in a generation" high/low temps on a frequent basis. The drought is the worst ever recorded since all the indigenous people were massacred. One day 0.1 inches of rain is knocking out power; the next day high heat is driving the utilities to report brownout possibilities; and the next day PSPS due to high winds.

If this isn't climate-change-global-warming-blah-blah per-se, it'd make for a pretty dumpy article if they didn't attempt to even explain what could be the cause of these conditions that manifest in an unreliable grid.

PS, I've had to close the breakers on my air conditioning units in April because it's going to be over 90 degrees today. APRIL??? WTF.
 
This claim is the most egregious: "Outages tied to severe weather rose from about 50 annually nationwide in the early 2000s to more than 100 annually on average over the past five years."
Sounds awful but does not correct for the fact that the US population rose from 281.4m in 2000 to 331.5m in 2020 (with the majority of that being costal growth, most at risk for weather events) nor the fact that US electricity usage has increased the same during that same time from 3.4 trillion kwh to 3.8 trillion kwh nor the fact that the grid is 20 years older between those two time periods. Counting outages and comparing time periods directly is a useless statistic at best and deceptive at worse.

The main point is that more blackouts related to weather are happening and affecting more people. Your explanation about the causes is valid but I don't see how it would change the main point.
 
If this isn't climate-change-global-warming-blah-blah per-se, it'd make for a pretty dumpy article if they didn't attempt to even explain what could be the cause of these conditions that manifest in an unreliable grid.
Good journalism is supposed to be dumpy. I expected better from the AP than sensationalized articles. The grid was going to be unreliable regardless of any change in weather events and more people will be effected as, well, there are more people. Here's an actually decent article from USA Today saying that hurricanes are on the decline but the damage is increasing because (drumroll please) there are more people living on the coasts!

"Although there may be fewer tropical cyclones (the umbrella term for hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones), the damage they cause is increasing, basically because we have more valuable things in the way. "We find a significant increase in global damage caused by tropical cyclones, primarily due to growth in population and wealth along the coastline," Klotzbach said."

Is climate a factor? Of course - and that's called out at the appropriate level in that article because its "not statistically significant".
The main point is that more blackouts related to weather are happening and affecting more people. Your explanation about the causes is valid but I don't see how it would change the main point.

"Climate" is the 7th word in the article's title. It's not talking about how our increased reliance and population growth is causing these problems, it's pointing blame at the climate change boogie man which actively detracts from the real issues.

If we could snap our fingers and have a consistent climate we'd still have an unreliable grid and increased effects of outages. In some ways it may even be worse as there would likely be more hurricanes more often. The AP calling out climate change as the reason for our grid issues is awful journalism.
 
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You can spin an article anyway you want with math.
Does it have anything to do with more houses since there's more people now? More houses = increased number of people reporting power outages.

You can spin things like the cause of global warming is due to the decreased number of pirates on the seas since the 1800's.