With winter blackouts looming, why aren't we investing in our grid?
If we fail to maintain our increasingly fragile infrastructure, people are going to suffer. They might even die.
Last week, the Transportation Safety Administration hit a major milestone when it ‘screened’ over 2.9 million individuals at airports nationwide. Thanksgiving Sunday (November 26) was the busiest day ever for air travel, the agency proclaimed on X.
Millions of people walking through brightly lit, air conditioned terminals, enjoying a vast trove of questionably useful stores filled with questionably useful stuff, and quaffing at a cornucopia of overpriced restaurants and coffee shops. Millions of people being checked in on computers, screened through x-ray machines and body scanners, all to get on planes that whisk them all over the continent and the world. Every part of that magical experience — which quite frankly is nothing short of a modern miracle — happened thanks to abundantly available energy.
With each passing week, the team at Collapse Life recognizes that, in no uncertain terms, energy is life.1 Access to energy is a prerequisite to maintain our (still relatively) stable civilization.
So when policymakers decide that the smarter way to run an industrial society is with wind turbines, solar panels, and unicorn excrement, the clear-eyed among us scratch our heads. And worse, when they prioritize new and quixotic projects over maintaining our increasingly fragile and aging existing infrastructure — which our current society is built and relies upon — we can’t help but wonder if there aren’t Malthusian undertones to the entire eco-agenda.
Then Robert Bryce’s recent substack — Bone Chilling — came into our feed and we recognized right away: the mismanagement of resources and ill-conceived strategies in the name of Gaia worship means we are actually running on borrowed time. Especially in the densely populated northeastern United States.
Bryce explains:
The most critical systems in our society — medical, water, wastewater, traffic lights, telecommunications, and lighting — depend on reliable electricity. But earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation issued their final report on a winter storm that hammered the northeastern U.S. last year. And that report proves that our natural gas grid is just as essential as our electric grid. Indeed, FERC and NERC have repeatedly said that the two grids are intertwined, interdependent, and irreplaceable. Indeed, a reliable and resilient natural gas grid is critical to our energy security, and therefore, our national security.
No surprise, gas pipelines and energy security are symbiotic. These pipes play a crucial role in transporting natural gas from production sites to distribution centers and, ultimately, to consumers.
As if to underscore policymakers’ brinksmanship with reality, Bryce quotes FERC’s report “Inquiry into Bulk-Power System Operations During December 2022 Winter Storm Elliott.”
The gas pipeline network in New York nearly failed last Christmas when temperatures plummeted during the bomb cyclone. Freeze-related production declines, combined with soaring demand from power plants, homes, and businesses, led to shortages of gas throughout the Northeast. The lack of gas, as well as mechanical and electrical issues, resulted in an “unprecedented” loss of electric generation capacity totaling some 90,000 megawatts. While the lack of electricity was dangerous, the possibility of a loss of pressure in the natural gas network should send a bone-chilling shiver through the sacroiliac of every politician and bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., New York and the Northeast.
If you think it’ll be different this year, think again. Not only have investments not been made, but everything is now a year older. NERC’s newest report warns that more than half the country is at high risk of winter blackouts this year because of increased demand, power generation shortfalls, and fuel delivery challenges.
Instead of pouring more money into subsidies for wind and solar, ignoring orthodox power generation, we should be investing in maintaining the infrastructure that currently provides reliable power. But even when utilities try to increase spending to maintain aging pipelines, they get pushback from regulators.
As the Washington Post recently reported:
Companies including PG&E, ConEd and PSEG have proposed investing billions of dollars to bolster their pipeline networks, which will remain in use for years even as more customers use electricity to cook and heat their homes. They say such spending is necessary in part to maintain safety and reliability as they work to shrink their gas systems over time.
But some regulators have balked at the spending proposals as they study whether pipeline additions or replacements will become stranded assets, or facilities that retire before they pay for themselves, potentially creating future financial burdens for utility customers. They are also evaluating concerns that prolonging the life of gas infrastructure will lock in future use of the fuel.
Climate activism also stands in the way of expanding natural gas pipelines. A recent article in Grist, gleefully titled ‘How activists successfully shut down key pipeline projects in New York,’ details the tactics grassroots activists used to shut down four major pipeline projects that would have brought energy to millions of people in the Empire State.
“This is smart, good organizing done by groups working together,” environmentalist Pete Sikora told Grist.
We wonder what Mr. Sikora, who lives in New York, would proclaim had Winter Storm Elliott done its worst. And the storm’s worst would have been nothing short of a catastrophe. The storm spanned five days, from December 21 to 26, 2022, and had disaster not been averted, Bryce estimates:
Thousands or even tens of thousands of people could have died.
Residential and office buildings would have sustained billions of dollars in damage. Burst water pipes alone would have rendered huge numbers of buildings unusable in New York City alone.
Financial markets would have experienced mayhem and uncertainty, not to mention other major industries headquartered in New York. Just think of all the bank and media headquarters in Manhattan that would have had to shutter when the heat, elevators, computers and internet went down.
Millions of New Yorkers would have needed to be evacuated, an unprecedented and herculean effort that would also have required re-homing them for as long as needed to fix the grid. Never has high-rise living been so precariously existential.
We need to get our heads on straight in the collective West. If we continue to force the closure of reliable energy sources without putting reliable replacements in place, people are going to suffer and worse, even die. If this isn’t Malthus at work, what is it?
And, it goes without saying, if you have not put personal plans in place for ‘black swan’ events — even if it’s just a go-bag with essentials, you might want to think about it before we hit the depths of this winter season.
“They might even die”.
I do believe that’s the goal, sadly.