The Oil Drum | Power Outages and Demand

116 comments on Power Outages and Demand

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DelusionaL on July 23, 2006 - 5:51pm

NW oregon- all clear except that it's damn hot!. We hit 108 2 days ago. record setting for us.
Most natable news is alot of drownings :(. Alot of people in the water.
Wife says traffic is horible. ? what do you do drive around with the A/C on.????? JC go to the store and pretend you are trying to decide what kind of ice cream you want.
Powerdown will kill alot of people, no doubt.

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fleam on July 23, 2006 - 6:00pm

Traffic is awful here too, I've been hearing on the radio. Yes, ppl seem to be driving around with the AC on. Or something. Tons trying to get out to the beach areas so they're jamming up the roads to those areas, I've been in it once, and it involves an hour or two of sitting in sweltering traffic, inching along.

I don't have a bike right now, I need to look for a good one. If I had one I'd ride it to the library and "cool out" there, since I don't, I guess I'll putt over in the Prius.

More on the radio intel - people going out to buy fans and "none to be had", lots of large co's it seems trying their best to cut down energy usage by cutting back on lights, opening/closing doors, etc.

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step back on July 23, 2006 - 8:20pm

Fleam,
It's Sunday.
Here is the California ISO chart
Tomorrow businesses will be adding to demand
Every Office building needs A/C
Today was Easy Day for PG&E
Tomorrow, demand may exceed supply

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MicroHydro on July 23, 2006 - 10:42pm

Outdoor temp 58 degrees F this pleasant midwinter afternoon. But we did set an electric consumption record (for heating) during a cold spell in June. Home AC is rare in NZ so winter electric consumption is still greater than summer. The June cold spell was not exceptional but the recent housing boom has put people into bigger houses with greater heating demand. All things otherwise being equal, heating 2000 sqft uses more energy than heating 1000 sqft.

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klee on July 23, 2006 - 9:02pm

I just spent a few days in Portland, Oregon visiting my elderly mother who is recovering from a fall. She lives in a three story, air conditioned retirement complex. Coming from small town Northern California, I am always struck by the traffic, strip malls, McMansion developments etc. But this time, given the high temps, it was even more jarring. I mentioned peak oil to her and to other family members but of course no one knew what I was talking about and didn't seem very interested in learning more.

I kept thinking, the super heated temperatures, due to climate change caused by exorbitant fossil fuel use, were being addresses by the exorbitant use of fossil fuels to cool things down. Heading back home the temperature was 108 F in Grants Pass at 1 pm. Its always wonderful to hit the coast where today the temperature dropped 40 degrees in less than 40 miles.

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costa rica Johns on July 23, 2006 - 11:23pm

We used to live in Huntsville AL so I enjoy reading the TN valley updates. Thanks y'all.

I don't know how climate change will impact us here in Costa Rica. The seasons, such as they are, seem to have shifted some in the past couple of years. My landlord is worried about it. The dependable rainy season seems to be starting later and ending earlier, with rainy periods during the historically dry times and dry periods during the historically rainy times, but they say we still get about nine feet of rain a year, although I haven't measured it. There are so many micro-climates in Costa Rica that you can travel 10 kms and be in a totally different environment. The Tapanti National Park, for example, is only about 10 kms down the road from us. It is the third wettest place in the world and gets nearly three times the rainfall we get.

But thank god we don't get the heat the US is having. We are in a valley but still at 1051m above sea level. Our temps rarely get to the mid 80s and only occasionally do they fall into the low 50s/high 40s. It's the perfect temp year-round, and surprisingly, it does not feel very humid either, no where near as humid as FL or NO or even Norhtern AL felt to me. Perfect sleeping weather. If we decide, however, that we miss being sticky and miserable, we are only four hours from either coast by bus.

No electrical problems in CR yet. There are three small diesel powered electric generator stations in country but most of our electric is generated by mini- and micr-hydro plants with only a couple of big dams in the country, plus there are also a few wind farms. My electric bill is about 8 cents/kwh for the regular service and 13 cents/kwh for my 220.

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DIYer on July 24, 2006 - 7:22am

I don't know how climate change will impact us here in Costa Rica. The seasons, such as they are, seem to have shifted some in the past couple of years.

You might want to make sure you live > 20m above sea level.

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Vintermann on July 24, 2006 - 8:55am

I'm not sure this is meant as a joke or not... but remember, the models predict that the ice caps of antarctica and greenland are threatened do so on a hundreds of years time scale. If enough energy to do it was released in a so much shorter time, I suspect we would have bigger adjustment problems!

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GreyZone on July 24, 2006 - 11:31am

Hansen and some of the other leading climatologists disagree with the current models. Hansen points out that the models consistently have been too low on ice melt rates even just a few years after the model date. Hansen believes that there is a positive feedback loop(s) that is not accounted for in current models and which may result in catastrophic melt rates within 50 years. His argument is that the models have consistently been too conservative and that melt rates are reaching, in just a few years, levels not predicted for decades. Since this higher-than-predicted melt rate is observable fact, the models must be wrong and the only question becomes exactly how fast can these ice sheets melt?

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karlof1 on July 24, 2006 - 1:09pm

It's been quite pleasent here on the central Oregon coast, getting into the lower 70s when the fog stays away long enough. I expected more folks though. Perhaps the additional 12-30 dollars in gas to drive farther south kept most Portlanders in the Seaside/Cannonbeach region.

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Woilf on July 25, 2006 - 12:44am

Aye, I stayed right at home here in Beaverton, watched my thermometer climb to the century mark and above on three separate days. Enjoyed the heat. Sweated. Cursed. Saw heat waves rippling from the streets. Visited a very crowded Lloyd Center Mall, but couldn't stand that mass of humanity for long, even with the AC. However, I wasn't about to miss one of the sharpest heat waves in Willamette Valley history, and run to the coast. Not me. :oD

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116 comments on Power Outages and Demand

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“Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views… Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages… He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream.”

—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)