Comments on: Just where are those grid killing tornadoes anyway?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:43:18 +0000

Evan Mills defends his graph!!!!

http://eetd.lbl.gov/EMills/pubs/grid-disruptions.html

Not an example of confirmation bias. This is an example of confirmation BLINDNESS. He can’t see the unreliability of the data when it’s staring him in his face.

By: _Jim

_Jim — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:46:13 +0000

TonyS (02:30:57) :

Could it be that the electric utility companies in the last decade invested less in their grid in order to increase their profits? To stay competitive with all those fancy new financial products that offered those high profits? And that led to a worse grid conditions with more outages?

Just a thought.

Perusing through some of the reports, plans, reliability reports on the NERC website, I would say that is not quite the case, and maybe not even close, but I might be challenged to support that contention so won’t go quite that far.

New routes/Transmission lines *have* been proposed *and* built.
.
.
.

By: _Jim

_Jim — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:37:16 +0000

Mike Lorrey (12:05:29) :

the big grid disrupting storms were ICE STORMS in the WINTER with extreme cold, that took down trees overgrown over powerlines all over the northeastern US. So, a sign of global cooling, not warming.

Hmmm …

a) actual ‘grid’ collapses or -

b) simple loss of residential distribution lines due to tree entanglement?

The later, I would think.

Technically, you’re not really part of the ‘grid’ once out on one of the ‘spokes’ of the wheel (speaking of the topology) and into the ‘distribution’ part of the network (past the substation). Substations are/can be fed via one or more HV Transmission lines and this is where ‘the gird’ aspect can begin to come into play (more than one feed, feeds in parallel from several generations centers, ties/interties between different control areas, etc)
.
.
.

By: _Jim

_Jim — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:27:13 +0000

Melinda Romanoff (19:28:41) :

Of course, you MUST ignore UV degradation of PVC HV line coatings as a function of time. I’m sure those lines strung in the 50’s and 60’s are as fresh as a daisy.

???

Residential ‘drops’ (lines dropped from the power pole/transformer to the a residence or business) may be insulated, but I don’t recall ever seeing any distribution or HV Transmission lines being ‘coated’ with any material …
.
.
.

By: pkatt

pkatt — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:00:40 +0000

hmmm if I followed their links right the origonal sits at
http://www.globalchange.gov/

Weird .. I didnt even know such a site existed.. its frothy koolaid

By: Johnnyb

Johnnyb — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:42:57 +0000

Gee, has anyone thought to correlate the increase in weather related grid disturbances with the increase in wind power capacity?

By: Wally

Wally — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:01:14 +0000

Larry, The data in the report is not a mystery, you can look up the source data, it just has no meaning as far as climate change in concerned. The data behind the plot at least for 2002 to 2006 also showed drops in the amount of power interruptions for all causes. It was the total count that went up a lot. So lots more smaller incidents are getting reported than in the past.

By: Larry Hamlin

Larry Hamlin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:53:18 +0000

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) maintains consistently defined major U.S. grid disturbances statistics. This data shows major grid disturbances declining since 2002. The total number of major U.S. electric grid disturbances by year are as follows: 2002 – 24, 2003 – 23, 2004 – 19, 2005 – 15, 2006 – 12, 2007 – 15, 2008 – 15. This NERC data is far superior in quality and consistency than the mystery data contained in this propaganda climate fear junk article.

By: jkshaws

jkshaws — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:48:06 +0000

I have lived in Oklahoma City for 20 years. Last year and this year we have had a sharp decrease in Tornado activity.JS

By: Wally

Wally — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:38:04 +0000

I’ll take back the one house for an incident. The standard is to report over 100 MW, plus other things that could be smaller if they effect the national grid, like vandalism and fuel shortages. Many of the reported events are much smaller than 100 MW though.

By: Wally

Wally — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:19:16 +0000

“Mike Lorrey (12:05:29) :
the big grid disrupting storms were ICE STORMS in the WINTER with extreme cold, that took down trees overgrown over powerlines all over the northeastern US. So, a sign of global cooling, not warming.”

Some ice-storm produced power outages are a result of warmer temperatures. If an area that normally gets snow warms a little and gets ice instead. In areas that constantly get ice, most of the trees have already lost most of their vulnerable branches. Area that are normally colder may have a lot more tree damage from an equivalent ice storm.

I did look at the data for the plot for the years 2002 to 2006 and the number of incidents increases a lot more than either the total power out or the number of customers affected. Both went up because not much was reported in 2002. But both power and customers peaked in 2004 while the number of incidents kept increasing. It would have to be looked at in great detail but my guess is more things are being reported that may have been skipped in previous years.

Also the numbers are meaningless. One incident could mean 1 customer or the entire island of Puerto Rico. The 1 customer could be one house, or PP&G.

By: Pamela Gray

Pamela Gray — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:45:10 +0000

Re: maintenance. I have traveled to Jamaica. The power lines there snap regularly because of moss build-up on the lines. If there ever was a country fraught with poor maintenance of roads and other form of infrastructure it is that island. Much of their infrastructure was put into place by countries that “owned” them. Once they declared their independence, they were left to govern themselves and build infrastructure maintenance for infrastructure they did not create. Consequently the roads and wires are a patchwork of repaired and monkey-rigged sections that often fail in light of poor conditions and heavy storms. If we are not careful, we could be walking in their shoes with our own roads and wires.

By: Wally

Wally — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:47:20 +0000

went to the eia forms linked above and looked at this year to date. Some of the incidents involved 1 customer, Some 100,000s but quite the mix. A much better indicator than number of incidents would be total customers or total power in megawatts.

By: timetochooseagain

timetochooseagain — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:06:45 +0000

Why do they only show the aggregate of all effects? Why not show them separately? It looks to me like the “trend” is entirely due to windstorms and hurricanes….Look at temperature extremes-I don’t see any increase in the purple only, or light blue…or beige. Maybe some wildfire, and maybe some “undefined”…whatever that is.

By: Mike Lorrey

Mike Lorrey — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:05:29 +0000

the big grid disrupting storms were ICE STORMS in the WINTER with extreme cold, that took down trees overgrown over powerlines all over the northeastern US. So, a sign of global cooling, not warming.