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I have had wine so I'm going to say this.
A huge push among the climate movement is electrification. Basically electricity is energy source neutral: you can make it from coal or natural gas. Nuclear or solar.
If everything goes electric you can clean up the power supply...
A huge push among the climate movement is electrification. Basically electricity is energy source neutral: you can make it from coal or natural gas. Nuclear or solar.
If everything goes electric you can clean up the power supply...
.. but the consumer doesn't have to change anything.
Which in theory sounds great.
But I grew up in a part of NYC that was basically considered a ConEd sacrifice zone. We lost power all of the time.
Which in theory sounds great.
But I grew up in a part of NYC that was basically considered a ConEd sacrifice zone. We lost power all of the time.
When the 2003 blackout hit, I didn't know it was region wide for hours.
Just assumed a ConEd had pulled the plug.
When I lived in Canada in 2009 people still talked about the late 90s blackout
Just assumed a ConEd had pulled the plug.
When I lived in Canada in 2009 people still talked about the late 90s blackout
Context: Montreal is *highly* electrified. In the late 90s an ice storm cut off power to half the city. No power meant no heat. In the dead of winter
I also lived in rural Vermont where we'd lose power with every snowstorm
And while I'm in favor of policies that lower ghg emissions. I haven't seen anything yet (again this is me saying I haven't seen vs it doesn't exist) the instability of the grid
Addendum: a lot of people are confusing my critique with a critique on renewables. that isn't what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is right now most people use MULTIPLE types of energy - electricity, oil for car, natural gas for cooking/to heat homes.
What I'm saying is right now most people use MULTIPLE types of energy - electricity, oil for car, natural gas for cooking/to heat homes.
There are huge problems with this (so many ghg emissions, so many, air pollution etc - I'm not arguing that's ideal). When we switch to electrification all of those go down to one: electricity to power devices, electricity to charge your car, electricity to cook/heat your home.
But what happens when you lose power?
In VT when we lost power we could still cook, have heat (wood stove). But we had to be careful doing anything with water because the water was pumped up (electricity) from a well. Whatever was in the tank was in the tank till power came back
In VT when we lost power we could still cook, have heat (wood stove). But we had to be careful doing anything with water because the water was pumped up (electricity) from a well. Whatever was in the tank was in the tank till power came back
Some utilities (ok I can only think of one - Green Mountain Power) is investing in making it so that households can store power (they are partnering with Tesla/Tesla Power wall) but I've raised this to a few people and they tend to look surprised when I mention the blackout
problem. But I grew up in NYC in the 90s and this was basically my entire childhood. We always had emergency candles and flashlights because we expected to lose power.
