The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released its “2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment”, a 10-year-ahead look at threats to grid reliability. Not surprisingly, they see a lot of growing threats around the country.
Unfortunately, they ignore the greatest threat of all, which is blackouts caused by extreme, deadly cold weather. They also have ridiculously low projections for renewables, which will crowd out reliable generation. The looming, destructive “energy transition” is not considered.
NERC starts off well enough, recognizing the dual threats of renewables and extreme cold in general terms in the Executive Summary. Then, their detailed analysis ignores both.
The Executive Summary says this:
“This assessment provides clear evidence of growing resource adequacy concerns over the next 10 years. Capacity deficits are projected in areas where future generator retirements are expected before enough replacement resources are in service to meet rising demand forecasts. Energy risks are projected in areas where the future resource mix could fail to deliver the necessary supply of electricity under energy-constrained conditions.”
“For example, subfreezing temperatures can create energy-limiting conditions by disrupting the natural gas fuel supplies to generators, leading to fuel-related derates or outages and potentially insufficient electricity supply. Furthermore, disruptions in electricity supplies can further exacerbate the availability of natural gas, which is dependent on the delivery of this electrical energy. Periods of low wind are another example of potentially energy-constrained conditions if the resource mix is not sufficiently balanced with dispatchable resources to prevent electricity shortfalls. While the outlook is improving for some assessment areas where resource additions and delayed generator retirements are alleviating previously identified near-term supply shortfalls, a growing number of areas in North American face resource capacity or energy risks over this assessment period.”
That cold weather can cripple the gas-fired power system was discovered in the Texas blackout disaster and seen again in the nearly catastrophic conditions in PJM around Christmas 2022. PJM has levied fines of over a billion dollars on their gas power system for failure to meet firm contracts during the Christmas fiasco.
But NERC should be thinking of subzero temperatures, not subfreezing. Incredibly, their analysis fails to do this properly because they use average low temperatures, not the likely extremes that they should be planning for.
This deliberate oversight is well hidden. In a brief list of “assumptions” up front, we find just this easily missed partial sentence: “Peak demand is based on average peak weather conditions….”
Nothing more is said until we get to Page 126, where we find this single sentence: “Projected total internal demand is based on normal weather (50/50 distribution).”
This is then marked by Footnote 59, which in tiny print says: “Essentially, this means that there is a 50% probability that actual peak demand will be higher and a 50% probability that actual peak demand will be lower than the value provided for a given season/year.”
If there is a 50-50 chance that it will be colder each year, then it is virtually certain that it will be colder in the next ten. This is just like the probability of getting heads in ten coin tosses. In fact, it is likely to be colder than average roughly half the time.
Moreover, given the way weather works, it is likely to be a lot colder than average, like 20 degrees colder, or brutally cold, as they say. So, NERC is quietly and systematically ignoring the threat of killing cold. Over 200 people were killed in the Texas blackouts.
Getting back to the Executive Summary quote, it is amusing that a period of low wind is called an “energy-constrained condition”. I guess every night is an energy-constrained condition for solar.
This is a techno-nonsensical way of saying renewables are unreliable. And the so-called “energy transition policy” is calling for extremely rapid growth in renewables, which is certain to make the grid unreliable, or should I say energy-constrained?
It is, therefore, shocking to see almost no renewables growth in NERC’s ten year projections. This effectively hides what is actually extreme risk.
Here is a painfully simple example. For PJM, NERC projects that nameplate wind generating capacity will increase from 1,963 MW in 2024 to a mere 2,601 MW in 2033. This is a trivial ten-year increase of 638 MW.
Virginia’s 2,600 MW offshore wind project due to come online in 2025 alone dwarfs that estimate. But Virginia’s official ten-year offshore wind target is a whopping 10,000 MW. New Jersey’s is even bigger at 11,000 MW, while Maryland and Delaware have smaller but still big targets. There is similar little growth nonsense for solar where Virginia is swamped by 780 square miles of proposed projects and growing.
In short, NERC’s ten-year projection of almost no growth in renewables is ridiculous. So is their deliberately ignoring the extremely cold weather that is certain to occur.
In reality, NERC’s long-term reliability assessment hides the risks it claims to elucidate. These risks are deadly and they must be faced.
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Start with building Natural Gas powered compressors to supply power to Gas Compressors
In many areas you can’t. It would violate air permitting rules.
They used do this but Obama had it discontinued to prevent a couple of tons of emissions!
Arent all aviation derived pipeline compressors run on NG anyway. Its an all in one unit where the shaft that in a say turboprop engine drives the propeller – does the compressing in pipeline while the rest of the unit is a normal compressor-burner- turbine section.
I suppose the engineers who haven’t retired yet are to some degree cowed by the bullying of politicians who hold the purse strings. But, hidden and silent, secreted among all the problems faced by our infrastructure there tend to be a core of sensible engineers who know the bombast of politicians lacks sense and in some cases is socially suicidal. I can only hope and pray these sane engineers are quietly working on contingency plans which can be swiftly brought into effect when the foolishness of politicians bears bitter fruit.
I keep a supply of wood to burn, because of the danger of the lights going out, which would prevent my propane heat from working. I’ve seen it hit 27 below zero Fahrenheit, here in southern New Hampshire.
In the American Southwest the danger of a infrastructure failure involves water. The failure of the media to even discuss the challenges engineers face amazes me. It seems tantamount to a form of derangement. How to bring people to their senses? I discuss this issue in my long winded way here:
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2023/12/29/dried-up-all-wet/
Engineers at Morton Thiokol tried and failed to get the Challenger launch scrubbed. Politicians had their way against reality. Same thing here, I suppose.
Irrelevant if gas production can not meet gas demand
Happened in Texas in February 2011 with mainly bas powered gas pipeline compressors and in 2021 with electricity powered gas pipeline compressors.
It was apparently not gas production that was a problem in 2011, but rather the loss of key compressor stations that were subjected to blackout when newish coal plant (equipped with extra anti pollution control probably as the expense of cold weather hardiness) failed, leading to inadequate supply for gas fired power stations.
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/03/the-rolling-chain-of-events-behind-texas-blackouts/
The Valentines Day storm in Texas was the coldest for that date since 1917, so failure to account for rare events can be critical.
Then there is sheer bloody minded meatheadedness, like requiring electric compressors on gas lines “to reduce greenhouse gasses”.
Texas had the same cold weather problem in February 2011 with gas powered natural gas pipeline compressors.
It was not the same problem; the grid did not have to be shut down and cause people to freeze to death in 2011. Feb 2021 was 3 nights in a row or more, with no power at near single digit temps, nothing but a gas stove / logs for heat for those fortunate enough to have gas. All electric mobile homes with metal sheathing in subzero windchills without power cooled down to near freezing in one night which caused a number of deaths from hypothermia.
Houston Winter 2020 Historical Weather Data (Texas, United States) – Weather Spark
Feb 2011, below was cold but not dangerously cold like Feb 2021.
Houston Winter 2010 Historical Weather Data (Texas, United States) – Weather Spark
The 2011 event was caused by the Taal Volcano.
The 2021 event was more than likely caused by black carbon particulates in the stratosphere from the Australian Brush fires from 2019 – 2020.
We were waiting to see how the winters were going to react after the brush fire particulates rained out which should have happened in 2022 and then HT goes off and shakes everything up.
And now we are nearly 2 years after the HT eruption and the water vapor has migrated to the top of the stratosphere and away from the equator, and the question is will it cause an intense polar vortex breach in January or February. It seems the world has warmed in response to the extra cap of sea water at the top of our atmosphere we have over us right now, that as far as I know has not happened in our lifetime. China just had an all-time record-breaking cold snap for many regions, time to see what happens on this side of the globe now.
Stratospheric Water Vapo3 Anomaly 32 Kilometers – Aqua
mls_h2o_qbo_lat_45S-45N_10hPa.png (1926×1394) (nasa.gov)
Above link source page:
The Quasi-biennial Oscillation (QBO) (nasa.gov)
What a huge pile of Vo;cano Nut junk science
The cold weather for a few days in Texas was not in 2011 was not caused by a volcano
2021 was colder and more people lost power for a longer time than in 2011.
But the same natural gas supply problem caused both blackouts and the problem has not been fixed
The Tonga volcano had no observed effect on the global average temperature. The biggest effect would have been in the month or two after the volcano erupted. Nothing happened to the global average temperature.
The stratosphere holds only 1% of atmospheric water vapor so a 10% increase of 1% is 1.1% which is no big deal
The greenhouse warming effect is in the troposphere
Greenhouse gases cool the stratosphere.
Riight, speaking of, have you ever been about anything?
Everything I said is correct, one sentence of yours is, and the rest are incorrect.
These temps do not happen without a reason. Not at this latitude son.
Good day.
Unusually cold weather was due to the polar jet stream dipping particularly far south into the U.S., stretching from Washington to Texas, and running back north along the East Coast, allowing a polar vortex to bring very cold air across the country, and spawning multiple storms along the jet stream track as a result.
This had nothing to do with a volcano, Mr. Volcano Nut
How often do we get a polar vortex?
Most of the time when this happens—and it happens on average about every other year in the Arctic—some part of the mid-latitudes will ultimately experience a cold air outbreak.
We only get temperature gradients during a polar vortex event of this magnitude, when the pressure differences of the Stratospheric Quasi-biennial Oscillation are perturbed by volcanic aerosols and possibly by a major change in Stratospheric chemistry which all energy propagates in and out of to and from the tropopause. The radiative properties of 10X more ice crystals at the top of the stratosphere, is probably not your expertise.
The Stratospheric Quasi-biennial Oscillation occurs roughly every other year and consequently causes a polar vortex breach after perihelion.
The strength of Polar Vortex breaches are not uniform at all, they all have a reason, and anomalously strong ones have a reason as well.
But a simpleton like you can only see it as is just happens:
“Unusually cold weather was due to the polar jet stream dipping particularly far south into the U.S., stretching from Washington to Texas, and running back north along the East Coast, allowing a polar vortex to bring very cold air across the country, and spawning multiple storms along the jet stream track as a result.”
Brilliant.
Perhaps science is not your forte, you should stick with tic tac toe or something.
Mr. Only greenhouse gases work in the Troposphere, and, Record breaking cold air, just happens.
Put this man in charge of Brandons climate task force, he gots it all down.
Take your last shot son…
The floor is yours..
Take your time now, and thanks for dressing up.
You go Brandon Boy.
That event also triggered an episode of oversized whole house generator installations to be connected to the consumer gas circuits which could cause problems with heating homes when an event like this occurs again.
The WSJ and others reported that immediately before the freeze wind & solar were providing over 40% of Texas electricity and on the day of the freeze that percentage went to single digits – so blaming the power shortage on natural gas, which was the backup is nothing but a leftist lie
Windmills do not provide much power in still air and freezing rain.
I do not come here to lie or make up tales I read both the post 2011 and post 2021 Texas blackout reports
Of course windmills did not help in 2021 but the 2011 blackout happened with few windmills
If you check the link below you will see that Texas windmills have a period or two almost every week of the year with little or no wind. The back up natural gas power plants cover that deficit. There are no blackouts
Real-time Operating Grid – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
EXCEPT when it is extremely cold and gas production is significantly reduced.
Which happened in February 2011 and February 2021
Windmills are designed to produce electricity when there is enough wind. It is by design that sometimes they produce no electricity at all. The 2021 blackout was not caused by windmills doing what windmills always do. It was caused by a natural gas supply shortage. More natural gas power plants would not have helped.
Leftists are rarely right on any subject but they were right when saying the windmills were not the cause of the Texas 2021 blackout. However buying them for a grid is a total waste of money
An electric grid needs reliable power sources that will always be available during peak electricity consumption hours — weekday breakfast and dinner hours.
Solar fails for those hours — not enough sunlight, and none in the winter
Windmills might work well in those hours or could be standing still. Completely unreliable
Unreliable sources of power for a grid, where reliability is the top goal, is something only leftists could love, or village idiots (I repeat myself)
“I do not come here to lie or make up tales”
I, for one, believe you. However, you do come here to promulgate your ignorance in an exceedingly arrogant fashion, much like Willis does. For instance, your ignorance of physics as exemplified by statements such as this one: “Radiation that heats the surface, called back radiation, is the greenhouse effect. It is measured 365 days a year”
None of that is true, and of course you can’t defend it. But that doesn’t stop you from repeating the claim over and over. No one is going to take you seriously about anything, including Texas power blackouts, until you start showing a little humility and asking more questions, instead of repeating false statements, while ignoring the better-educated folks who keep correcting you.
stevenkj is frustrated
His ego had been inflated
Now he’s aggravated
And agitated
His brain addlepated
Never high school graduated
Self uneducated
Low IQ demonstrated
So I’ve Ive been baited
With insults fabricated
I should have been celebrated
But I’m not intimidated
I’m armor plated
stevenkj – Medications indicated
He must be sedated
Anger dissipated
His comments moderated
His computer confiscated
Straitjacket decorated
Or maybe he’s just demonstrated
That he’s constipated
But I do want to thank stevenkj for including inhis huge burst of verbal flatulence, a comparison with Willis E. I consider Willis E. to be the best writer at this website. My only connection is being smart enough to recommend every Willis E. article on my daily recommended reading list at my climate science and energy blog, which has had over 685,000 lifetime page views.
The greenhouse effect, by the way, was discovered in the 1800s, and today at least 99.9% of scientists living on Earth believe there is a greenhouse effect and manmade CO2 is part of it. That leaves perhaps 0.1% of science frauds, and they are “your team”, including Merry Ed Berry the Contrary and Harde.
“My team” includes William Happer, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer and John Christy, all science Ph.D.’s
Why would anyone take junk science lessons from you?
The Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog
You should take physics lessons from me because I know my physics better than you do, or Willis does, for that matter. The only reason you think Willis is “the best writer at this website” is because you don’t know any more about physics than he does. Or indeed than Roy Spencer does. What was your MS in, again? Economics, you said?
I see you failed to defend your physics claim, again… all you have is a lot of logical fallacies, such as Argument from Authority. That’s all Willis has too.
For a person who falsely claims to know physics, you do a great job of hiding your knowledge
The GH effect has nothing to do with my article. But since it is my article I will jump in just a bit.
My view is that back radiation does cause the basic GH effect. It lengthens the time the energy is in the Earth system. But I like Roy Spencer’s point that it does not warm the surface rather it keeps it from being colder, because the back radiation energy came from the surface and is merely returning for a bit.
However the idea that our emissions are causing part of the recent warming is another conjecture entirely, a double conjecture in fact. First it is far from clear that our emissions are causing the CO2 increase. Second it is even farther from clear that the increase is causing the warming.
My view is that there is no CO2 increase warming in the entire UAH record. All the warming occurs in discrete steps coincident with super El Ninos. It is residual El Niño warming.
But again this is seriously off topic, which is the NERC risk Assessment.
The standard explanation is the greenhouse effect causes a rising surface temperature if it increases.
An increasing greenhouse effect is measured and is one cause of global warming.
The thermodynamics explanation includes radiation from the surface heading toward space and some being reflected back down to Earth. There is a flow in both directions as expected from any two objects warmer than absolute zero. The net cooling is the upwelling radiation less the downwelling radiation, called back radiation, which is the greenhouse effect. caused by water vapor, clouds, CO2 and a tiny amount from other greenhouse gases.
Manmade CO2 emissions are responsible for 100% of the atmospheric CO2 increase since 1850. Please don’t believe any conspiracy theories that the CO2 increase is natural
Manmade CO2 emissions since 1850
about +250ppm
,
Atmospheric CO2 level increase
about +140ppm
Manmade CO2 emissions absorbed by nature
about 100ppm
99.9% of scientists believe this beacuse it is supported by data
The El Nino Nuts isolate El Ninos and ignore La Ninas.
An ENSO cycle chart will clearly show the ENSO cycle is temperature neutral over a long period of time.
When asked what heats the oceans and causes El Ninos, we get the Volcano Nuts. With no data they claim global warming is caused by underseas volcanoes and El Ninos. Weather forecaster Joe Bastardo leads that junk science cult
Wind power in Texas was low perhaps every week for 10 years with no blackouts between February 11 and February 2021. When power demand is high from very cold weather but natural gas power falls 25%, there is a natural gas supply problem.
TE WINDMILLS WERE DOING EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DESIGNED TO DO You can not blame them for any failure when there is not enough wind. That happens frequently by design .That’s why they need 100% natural gas backup. And that natural gas backup has to work in all weather conditions. It does not work properly in Texas when unusually cold weather causes gas wellhead freezing problems. And there is no on site gas storage at any natural gas power plant. So even having more gas power plant will not solve the problem, that would make the problem worse.
Greene’s Iron Law of Windmills
One windmill + no wind = no electricity
One bazillion windmills + no wind = no electricity
PS: My personal opinion is that electric grids should not include any windmills or solar panels based on their inability to consistently produce maximum output during weekday breakfast and dinner hours when electricity demand peaks
Government gibberish is useless and should be outlawed. If renewables aren’t cutting the mustard then that is what needs to be said.
Here in Australia, the government is trying to bring in a law which does indeed outlaw gibberish, aka Misinformation and Disinformation. Unfortunately, this proposed law only applies to Australia’s private organisations and citizens, not to government or government organisations. The aim is clearly to ensure that government has an absolute monopoly on Misinformation and Disinformation. Amazingly, the opposition party has shown up on this issue and is campaigning against it. Actually, I am maligning them a bit there, because they showed up against our government’s recent disgraceful referendum amendment attempt, helping it to go down 60-40. Hopefully they can stop this one too. On renewables and Net Zero, though, we have uniparty.
If we want gibberish, we will ask Kamala Harris to speak
She is the Professor Irwin Corey of politics but he used gibberish to get a laugh as a professional comedian
Professor Irwin Corey — Laugh Tracks Legends of Comedy (youtube.com)
“Safe & Warm” could be accomplished with several coal facilities.
It appears that the main thing CO2 does is make mush of the
mental facilities of our “leaders.”
Yep, last I heard we have known reserves of coal to last us for the next 800 years! If so, that should give us ample time to develop a WORKABLE replacement, such as, perhaps, nuclear energy? Meanwhile, how many millions will freeze to death, trying to ‘prove’ renewables’ work?
The Sun has entered a Grand Solar Minimum which is forecast to last around 40 years so it may be getting colder not warmer. The last time it happened was during the Little Ice Age when millions died from famine, although how much it contributed is unknown.
Cycle 25 not playing ball. It’s bigger than predicted.
Cycle 25’s Sunspot Number, which reflects solar output, was predicted to be slightly larger then 24 but going down to zero in 2040 starting in 2025.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/predicted-sunspot-number-and-radio-flux
https://www.sidc.be/SILSO/dayssnplot
We have had NASA satellites measuring top of the atmosphere solar energy since the 1970s
Sunspots counts as a proxy have been irrelevant for about 50 years.
Link?
We should consider preparation of a briefer “minority report” that highlights the dangers to the grid with probabilities of weather conditions, temperature extremes, wind conditions.
This should mention replacing the electric equipment heating with natural gas heating for preventing problems with natural gas pipeline delivery, the way it used to be. At least a separate storage tank of natural gas for this purpose should be available, or a diesel generator. They love to blame the
failure of NG during the TX grid disaster inst6of the renewable culprits.
Putting the real threat in the preamble and failing to mention it again is an ass-covering way to say we mentioned this when (not if) it happens. What are they afraid of? It’s their job to report on this.
There is in fact quite a reasonable amount of gas cavern storage in Texas and Louisiana. It provides coverage against GoM production outages as hurricanes breeze by, as well as a seasonal boost to supply. It holds dry gas that has already been through treatment plants. Of course, you still need functioning compressors to deliver it to customers and power stations.
Storage provided 156bcf during the cold in Feb 21, and was comfortably covering the loss of onshore production – until power to several compressors went out in the cascading trip at 1:52a.m.
Incidentally, I have never found it credible that ERCOT was managing all the demand reduction as they claimed in the official report. There is a print of grid frequency as recorded by ERCOT in Austin that is within a hair’s breadth of the 59.3Hz at which automated load shedding is supposed to occur. The chance that readings elsewhere in the grid were lower is very high, as is the chance that some automated load shedding was triggered just above 59.3Hz, particularly in view of high RoCoF caused by the trips. The shape of the downward frequency spike, with the subsequent overshoot to the high side clearly suggests a grid no longer being managed by the control room.
Great article
This s an example of ignoring an expected problem in the future. We can hope they will come to their senses. But will they?
But we already have an example of the Texas grid manager ignoring a unique Texas grid cold weather problem that has been getting worse since the 1980s and is still not fixed. There were already two blackouts, in 2011 affecting 3 million people, and in 2021 affecting 5 million people. No effort has even been made to fix the problem
Relatively warm Texas was a demonstration project for grid (mis) management.
In 2011 with few windmills, they had rolling blackouts that affected about 3 million people. Cause: Low natural gas production could not meet demand. Wellhead freezing severely reduces gas production. Once the gas is refined and water is removed, pipeline transport is no problem at any temperature. On site gas storage at each utility could solve the cold weather gas production problem
But never mind that
ERCOT subsidized windmills and bought them without blade heaters to save money, for the next ten years.
10 years later in February 2021, with lots of windmills, in weather even colder and longer lasting that February 2011, there was not enough natural gas being produced AGAIN
Did the windmills help?
There was little wind and half of them had blade icing, so had ti be stopped. Even worse, the gas pipelines now had electric compressors instead of the 2011 natural gas powered compressors, so some power cutoffs made some of the pipelines worthless even if there had been enough gas available
The Texas cold weather with no wind problem still exists.
Really cold weather hit Texas twice in 10 years. They have minimal capacity interconnectors, so no other state could bail them out.
Think of a cold winter weekday. It’s dark at dinner time so there is no solar energy at a peak demand hour. What if there’s less than 10mph wind too? There had better be 100% natural gas backup on spinning reserve or you will be eating dinner by candlelight.
But if you had 100% gas backup, the solar panels and windmills would be redundant.
What sane nation allows leftist politicians to play armchair engineers and redesign their electric grids? This is an engineering project that is completely unnecessary and a total waste of money.
Leftist Politicians definition:
Politicians who know nothing about everything. For example, Jumpin’ Joe Bribe’em and Kamala “word salad” Harris.
“ They have minimal capacity interconnectors, so no other state could bail them out.”
If you look at how much natural gas was burned across the middle of the continent during that cold outbreak you might wonder if anyone could have bailed them out.
My understanding is Oklahoma and Kansas were near blackout too so not much help possible.
About 100,000 in southern Oklahoma temporarily lost power too, Probably planned rolling blackouts. No power available for Texas from Oklahoma.
The best interconnectors for Nut Zero in the US would be extension cords across the ocean to coal power plants in China
Texas is a conservative state.
Wow. How to say with thousands of words what can more clearly said with hundreds. Where are the people found that can write so obscurely? Harvard?
Dept of Energy Transition Smoke and Mirrors. ETSAM
When the sun rises they see global warming and climate crisis. When they study services and risks we as a society can control they “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil”. In short they are willfully pretending that some form of magic will save us from ourselves while asking us to expend every resource to fight a non-existent threat they discovered in their tea leaves. Because physics and economics don’t take holidays, this strategy is a recipe for a real social disaster and civil unrest of a scale we have not imagined.
Any report, IRP, pleading from a utility, plans for energy storage, etc., that will not employ correct units for storage (MWhr) is not taking the problem seriously, can’t assign reliability to their grid, and can’t provide credible cost estimates.
This is the first hurdle to clear, and it isn’t all that difficult to understand — of course, supplying a credible amount of MWhr is much more difficult.
They use MW because it sounds like a good sized generator when it is almost no storage. This is a near universal deceit. A 1,000 MW generator is big but a 1,000 MW battery with 4 hour storage is tiny.
I would suggest that the correct units for storage are TWh. Then you would know that the size of the problem has been espied.
The NERC report, which I was asked to comment on in a JusttheNews article, is a tiny step toward sanity. One of the issues they managed to illuminate is that an integrated grid can manage to spread trouble from the worst prepared regions of the grid into more firm parts of the network. The trouble with a report like this is, as I pointed out in the interview, is that the technical folks speak softly so as not to offend their brash, ignorant and blundering political masters. It is difficult to get peoples’ attention. When they do, they speak in code.
When Charles Mackay said that men go mad in herds and only return to their senses one at a time, this is the sort of circumstance he had in mind.
I noticed the same attitudes in Eirgrid’s reports on the future in Ireland gently pointing out that the political targets have no proven solutions and may not be feasible, and are likely to come with increased unreliability and cost. But they aren’t prepared to say no to a silly net zero target.
NERC’s obfuscation of the real issues with grid reliability exists within the PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest regional grid. PJM acknowledges that solar and wind are incapable of providing the necessary degree of reliability but continues to speak of an “energy transition” as though it were something destined to happen. The only “transition” underway is a drift into higher prices and energy scarcity that can only be avoided by employing fossil fuels and nuclear power. Solar and wind are useless for providing power to large populations, and the people at PJM who surely know that should say so.
Great point. PJM is the real problem because they do detailed modeling and analysis, so they clearly see the disaster coming and say nothing. I call the the silence of the power engineers.