When the lights go out

[BlueStateSaint]

It was an article on USA Today's website yesterday . . . and is something that I'm sure has been practiced all over the US, if not the world.

When the lights go out

USAToday   12:07 p.m. EDT   March 24, 2015

The nation's power grid experienced more than 300 physical and cyber attacks from 2011 to 2014, raising concerns about the security of critical infrastructure. If an attack were to cause a long-term power blackout, the societal results could be devastating. Many devices — ranging from elevators to gas pumps to ATMs — would power down within hours. If the outage lasted several days, telecommunications and mass transportation systems would no longer be able to function. Here is how a long-term power outage could affect life in a typical community:

Because I don't know how to get the cool graphics that follow over here, you'll have to go to this link.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/24/powergridblackout/24963123/

[obumazombie]

It's hard to believe how vulnerable our grid is.

[thundley4]

It's hard to believe how vulnerable our grid is.

It wouldn't be so vulnerable if electricity was sold closer to where it is generated. We have a nearby nuke plant but it's electricity is sold in Indiana, the last I knew.  A wind farm being built near here will be selling its electricity to northern Illinois. God only knows where our power is coming from.

[J P Sousa]

Keeping your vehicle's gas tank at least half-full at all times will ensure you have fuel for emergency transportation in the event of a blackout, when gas pumps will likely not be functional.   

I know a guy who put in a "whole house generator" that runs on gasoline (or so he says - I never saw it) when the power went down he ran all over looking for a gas station that had electricity. 

.

[FiddyBeowulf]

I know a guy who put in a "whole house generator" that runs on gasoline (or so he says - I never saw it) when the power went down he ran all over looking for a gas station that had electricity. 

.

He should have gotten one that uses natural gas or even LP.

[freedumb2003b]

He should have gotten one that uses natural gas or even LP.

If I can find a generator that runs on farts, I am set for life!

[obumazombie]

If anyone is listening to the constant cacophony of lie from owebuma saying the oil, gas, fossil fuels and coal industries are dead, and green energy is the energy of the future,
You are listening to the wrong guy...

The green energy movement in America is dead.
May it rest in peace.

No, a majority of American energy over the next 20 years is not going to come from windmills and solar panels.
One important lesson to be learned from the green energy fad’s rapid and expensive demise is that central planning doesn’t work.

What crushed green energy was the boom in shale oil and gas along with the steep decline in the price of fossil fuel that few saw coming just a few years ago.

A new International Energy Agency report concedes that green energy is in fast retreat and is getting crushed by “the recent drop in fossil fuel prices.”
It finds that the huge price advantage for oil and natural gas means “fossil plants still dominate recent (electric power) capacity additions.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Most of the government experts—and many private investors too—bought into the “peak oil” nonsense and the forecasts of fuel prices continuing to rise as we depleted the oil from the Earth’s crust.
Oil was expected to stay way over $100 a barrel and potentially soon hit $200 a barrel.
National Geographic infamously advertised on its cover in 2004 “The End of Cheap Oil.”

Barack Obama told voters that green energy was necessary because oil is a “finite resource” and we would eventually run out.
Apparently, Obama never read “The Ultimate Resource” by Julian Simon which teaches us that human ingenuity in finding new resources outpaces resource depletion.

When fracking and horizontal drilling technologies burst onto the scene, U.S. oil and gas reserves nearly doubled almost overnight.
Oil production from 2007-2014 grew by more than 70 percent and natural gas production by nearly 30 percent.





The shale revolution is a classic disruptive technology advance that has priced the green movement out of the competitive market.
Natural gas isn’t $13, but is now close to $3, an 80 percent decline. Oil prices have fallen by nearly half.

Green energy can’t possibly compete with that.  Marketing windpower in an environment of $3 natural gas is like trying to sell sand in the Sahara. Instead of letting the green energy fad die a merciful death, the Obama administration only lavished more subsidies on the Solyndras of the world.

Washington suffered from what F.A. Hayek called the “fatal conceit.”
Like the 1950s central planners in the Politburo, Congress and the White House thought they knew where the future was headed.
According to a 2015 report by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, over the past 5 years, the U.S. government spent $150 billion on “solar power and other renewable energy projects.”
Even with fracking changing the energy world, these blindfolded sages stuck with their wild green-eyed fantasy that wind turbines were the future.

Meanwhile, the return of $2.50 a gallon gasoline at the pump is flattening the battery car market.
A recent report from the trade publication Fusion notes: “electric vehicle purchases in the U.S. have stagnated.”
According to auto analysts at Edmunds.com, “only 45 percent of this year’s hybrid and EV trade-ins have gone toward the purchase of another alternative fuel vehicle.
That’s down from just over 60 percent in 2012.”

Edmunds.com says that “never before have loyalty rates for alt-fuel vehicles fallen below 50 percent” and it speculated that “many hybrid and EV owners are driven more by financial motives rather than a responsibility to the environment.”
That’s what happens when the world is awash in cheap fossil fuels.

This isn’t the first time American taxpayers have been fleeced by false green energy dreams.
In the late 1970s the Carter administration spent billions of dollars on the Synthetic Fuels Corporation which was going to produce fuel economically and competitively.
Solar and wind power were also brief flashes in the pan.

It all crash landed by 1983 when oil prices crashed to as low as $20 a barrel after Reagan deregulated energy.
The Synthetic Fuels Corporation was one of the great corporate welfare boondoggles in American history.

A lesson should have been learned there—but Washington went all in again under Presidents Bush and Obama.

At least private sector investors have lost their own money in these foolish bets on bringing back energy sources from the Middle Ages—like wind turbines. The tragedy of government as venture capitalist is that the politicians lose our money.
These government-backed technologies divert private capital away from potentially more promising innovations.

Harold Hamm, president of Continental Resources, and one of the discoverers of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota tells the story of meeting with Barack Obama at the White House in 2010 to tell him of the fracking revolution.
Obama arrogantly responded that electric cars would soon replace fossil fuels. Was he ever wrong.

We don’t know if renewables will ever play a significant role in America’s energy mix.
But if it does ever happen, it will be a result of market forces, not central planning.

Stephen Moore, who formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal, is a distinguished visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation.

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published by The Heritage Foundation.

Wind and solar are great, but they are economically not as viable as fossil fuels.


full article...


http://cnsnews.com/commentary/stephen-moore/death-green-energy-movement

[BlueStateSaint]

When I have to replace my roof (5-7 years away), I want to stick solar panels on it.  It gets some pretty good sun coverage, but the house is oriented east-west.  Seeing that the west side is the backyard side, that's probably where I want the panels to go.  By that time, there should also be some new technology on the market which will increase the power output of these things, so I can sell some back to the grid.

[thundley4]

When I have to replace my roof (5-7 years away), I want to stick solar panels on it.  It gets some pretty good sun coverage, but the house is oriented east-west.  Seeing that the west side is the backyard side, that's probably where I want the panels to go.  By that time, there should also be some new technology on the market which will increase the power output of these things, so I can sell some back to the grid.

Why sell it back to the power company, use it yourself later at night.
http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

[BlueStateSaint]

Why sell it back to the power company, use it yourself later at night.
http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

Any that I don't charge the battery bank with, that is . . .

[J P Sousa]

If anyone is listening to the constant cacophony of lie from owebuma saying the oil, gas, fossil fuels and coal industries are dead, and green energy is the energy of the future,
You are listening to the wrong guy...

Wind and solar are great, but they are economically not as viable as fossil fuels.


full article...


http://cnsnews.com/commentary/stephen-moore/death-green-energy-movement

Holding on to a green energy unicorn is bliss for the left.