Power grids1/30/2024 Various racist novels and pamphlets written decades ago are circulated online in reading groups and act as models for future operations. He believes a complete transition from fossil fuels to clean energy by 2035 is realistic and attainable - a goal the Biden administration holds - and could lead to more than just environmental benefit.For years, radical neo-Nazis have espoused the concept of “accelerationism” or the performance of terror attacks on society in order to hasten the collapse of central governments, leading to a so-called race war. "It's better than nothing, but, you know, with such momentous challenges that we face, this isn't really up to the magnitude of that challenge," Cohan says.Ĭohan argues that thinking big, and not incrementally, can pay off. "If you drill down into how much is there for the power grid, it's only about $27 billion or so, and mainly for research and demonstration projects and some ways to get started," he says.Ĭohan, who is also author of the forthcoming book Confronting Climate Gridlock, says federal taxpayer dollars can be significant but that most of the needed investment will eventually come from the private sector - from utility companies and other businesses spending "many hundreds of billions of dollars per decade." He also says the infrastructure package "misses some opportunities" to initiate that private-sector action through mandates. Though the White House says $65 billion of the infrastructure legislation is dedicated to power infrastructure, a World Resources Institute analysis noted that only $27 billion would go to the electric grid - a figure that Cohan also used. "The infrastructure bill, unfortunately, only scratches the surface," says Daniel Cohan, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. That raises the question: Can the amount of money dedicated to the power grid in the new infrastructure legislation actually make meaningful changes to the energy system across the country? What the infrastructure legislation actually does The Fitzell substation was built to withstand sea level rise and with contingency plans, in case of extreme flooding or a tornado. The facility is only a year or so old, and Laura Wright, the director of transmission and substation engineering, says it's been built with the future in mind. In the town of Edgemere, Md., the Fitzell substation of Baltimore Gas and Electric delivers electricity to homes and businesses. Climate change will only make extreme weather more likely and more intense.Īnd that has forced utility companies and other entities to grapple with the question: How can we prepare for something we've never experienced before? A modern power station in Maryland is built for the future saw electricity outages for millions of people as a result of historic winter storms in Texas, a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest and Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast. And then, probably, that will be exceeded." "What happens is that some people tend to think, well, that last storm that we just had, that'll be the worst, right?" Hill says. But upgrading the way humans assess risk, she says, is harder. Hill noted that Con Edison, the utility company providing New York City with energy, responded with upgrades to its grid: It buried power lines, introduced artificial intelligence, upgraded software to detect failures. The city that never sleeps plunged into darkness." It overcame the barriers at the tip of Manhattan, and then the electric grid - a substation blew out. "That storm surge came in close to 14 feet. "They thought the maximum would be 12 feet," she says. "It's a little like we're building the plane as we're flying because the climate is changing right now, and it's picking up speed as it changes," Hill says. She says past weather extremes can no longer safely guide future electricity planning. She served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration, where she led the effort to develop climate resilience. Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It looked to the extremes of the past - how high the seas got, how high the winds got, the heat." "Everything that we've built, including the electric grid, assumed a stable climate," she says. It faces a future with more people - people who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces.Īlice Hill says that's not even the biggest problem the country's electricity infrastructure faces. is aging and already struggling to meet current demand. The Baltimore Gas and Electric Fitzell substation in Edgemere, Md., is about a year old and was built so that it can eventually be modified to provide more capacity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |