Twas The Fright Before Christmas

Poetry, by Davis Swan (h/t to Dr. Judith Curry)

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the town

The temperature was dropping, going down, down, down, down

The weatherman said that a front was to blame

A high pressure ridge from Alaska he claimed

It sat like a lump on the hard prairie stubble

Refusing to budge, clearly looking for trouble

On the map it was grinning, toothy and blue

From Montana through Texas to the Long Island zoo

And under that dome of slow falling air

Grew a problem so nasty it hardly seemed fair

For the flags hung like rags across the mid-west

Not a whisper of wind to wake them from rest

Outside of the town the turbines stopped spinning

On the weatherman’s map the cold front kept grinning

At the company office the manager frowned

As the power from the wind farms kept going down

A coal-fired plant was called and called fast

They’d always been there in a pinch in the past

We can’t help you out” was the somber reply

Our boilers have been cold since the 4th of July

It will take us all night with a talented crew

To get things in order and working like new

The manager hung up the phone with a sigh

He had one last option he knew he could try

He called up the plant that was fired by gas

“Can you give us more power?” the foreman was asked

“I would if I could but the answer is ‘No’

We’re going full out – any more and she’ll blow!”

So he hung up again – no more numbers to call

All attention was fixed on the instrument wall

The manager watched as the meter hit zero

He knew the next day he would not be a hero

The grid creaked and groaned then it finally buckled

It seemed like the weather map grin actually chuckled

And now it spread out like a fast moving fire

The blackout was coming the outlook was dire

In no time at all the breakers were flipping

The wires were sparking, transformers were tripping

One after one the streetlights went out

In the blink of an eye there was clearly no doubt

That this was a night that we all would remember

As the coldest darn night in the darkest December

Now some folks stayed warm by a hearth that was crackling

But for most bitter cold finally made them start packing

And in thousands of homes linemen pulled on their boots

As they headed outdoors trying to turn on the juice

And back to the coal-fired plants went the men

That had kept the lights on since I don’t know just when

They worked through the night and by noon Christmas Day

The dinners were cooking in the usual way

A few short days later the cold front receded

The wind farms spun up, coal no longer was needed

The utility manager decided to go

To visit a plant, maybe stop, say hello

They shared some bad coffee as they sat for a while

Then a grizzled old coal-man spoke up with a smile

“Now I’m a recycler and I love to hug trees

But wind without storage is just a big tease

Here is one thing that I know for a fact

You didn’t quite get it when you called for the MACT”

“My dirty old cold-fired plant had to close

But when it comes down to it everyone knows

My coal-fired plant you can count on to run

No matter what happens with the wind and the sun”

“If you really want power through all kinds of weather

Treat coal with respect – we can work well together”

The manager left but what stuck in his head

Were the words that the grizzled old coal-man had said

Energy storage is something we need

Without it “green power” is useless indeed

We can launch a sleek rocket, land a robot on Mars

We can build hybrid engines to power our cars

A storage solution can surely be found

If we dare to think different, turn our thoughts upside-down

Taleb and Khosla have shown us the way

It’s “Black Swan” ideas that are needed today.