The Path from Petroleum Shortages to Electricity Shortages
Posted by Gail the Actuary on August 13, 2008 - 9:06am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: coal, electricity, natural gas, original, peak oil, uranium, wind [list all tags]
It seems to me that there is likely to be a very short path from petroleum shortages to electricity shortages. There are a lot of issues involved, from the fact that the fuels used in electricity production are themselves dependent on petroleum for their extraction and transportation, to the current state of the US electricity infrastructure, to the impact of peak oil on debt financing. I have written about most of these issues before, but since the petroleum/electricity link is such an important one, I thought I would devote an article to putting the pieces together.
Fuels used for electricity generation
In the United States, the primary fuel used for electricity generation is coal, at 49% of electricity production. Natural gas follows at 22%; nuclear at 19%; hydroelectric at 6%, and petroleum at 1.6%. The newer renewables are all quite small: wood at 0.93%; wind at .77%; waste at .41%; and solar (for electricity generation) at 0.01%.
I see a number of reasons why there is likely to be a very short path from petroleum shortages to electricity shortages:
1. All of the fuels used today for electricity generation are dependent to some extent on petroleum for their production and transport.
Unless there is an amazingly good allocation system, once there is a shortage of oil, of say, 20%, it is going to start affecting electricity production, because the oil deficit will start affecting fuels used for electricity production.
Electrical fuel dependence on petroleum Coal. Surface mining uses large diesel powered machinery. Below ground mining almost certainly uses some diesel powered equipment, since diesel is so portable. Workers in mines use gasoline or diesel fuel to get to work. Transportation of coal is primarily by rail and barge, and these are petroleum powered in the US.
Natural gas. Drilling rigs are often powered by diesel fuel. Workers who visit wells to make adjustments drive trucks that use diesel or gasoline. Roads to the wells are maintained using diesel operated equipment. In arid places like Wyoming, the food that workers eat needs to be shipped long distances.
Uranium. Uranium mining is very volume-intensive, because it is only available in low concentrations. Earth-movers used to mine uranium use diesel fuel; the process for separating out the ore from the waste most likely uses petroleum as well. Once the ore is mined and suitably processed, it must be transported to the ultimate location, again using some form of petroleum as fuel.
Petroleum. If petroleum itself is used as a fuel, there is clearly a direct link between petroleum shortages and electricity shortages. In the US, petroleum is primarily used in Hawaii (since it is a group of islands) and for backup generation. Outside the US, there are many countries that use oil for power generation because oil is easy to transport and plants powered by petroleum are easy to build.
Wood or switchgrass. If biomass is used as a fuel, it must be harvested and transported to the place where it will be used. Diesel operated trucks and other equipment are currently used for this purpose.
Wind turbines. Wind turbines are very large. Roads must be maintained to transport the equipment to the site where it is used. Trucks are needed when maintenance is performed. If the turbines are located offshore, boats are needed for maintenance. Wind turbines must be serviced regularly because of wear and tear on the gearbox.
Hydroelectric. Needs less petroleum inputs than most. Petroleum is used for maintaining the transmission lines to the electrical power plant; for replacing parts of the hydroelectric dam when they wear out, and for dredging out the area behind the dam when it gets filled with silt.
Solar power generation. Today, solar generates only 0.01% of grid electric power. If solar power stations are situated in the desert to produce electrical power for the grid, oil is needed to transport the equipment to the desert location, and to bring food for the workers. Oil is needed in the initial manufacture of the equipments, and for building and maintaining transmission lines.
Geothermal. Less oil dependent than most. Oil is needed in building the initial station, for making and transporting replacement parts, and for maintaining electrical transmission lines from the plant.
2. If there is a shortage of oil, people will tend to substitute other fuels for petroleum. This substitution is likely to lead to other shortages.
We have already seen how a plan to use biofuels as a substitute for gasoline can result in higher food prices. There has been considerable discussion of using cellulosic ethanol as a liquid fuel. If wood and other biomass are used to produce cellulosic ethanol, there are likely to be shortages of these fuels for powering electric generation.
Petroleum, coal, natural gas and nuclear are used for electricity generation around the world. Once petroleum is high priced or unavailable, power companies are likely to switch to other forms of electricity generation, at least for their new power plants. Because of this, it is likely to become increasingly difficult to buy uranium, coal, and natural gas for use in power plants.
T. Boone Pickens and others have talked about using natural gas as a transportation fuel. This is also likely to put pressure on available natural gas supply for electricity.
Even apart from the substitution issue, many forecasts say that other fossil fuels will peak not many years after petroleum supply peaks.
3. Our electrical infrastructure is very dependent on petroleum inputs.
Our electrical infrastructure includes transmission lines and transformers, among other things. Many components of the transmission systems are reaching the ends of their normal life spans, and will need replacement in the next few years. Outages are also expected because of storms.
In order to service these transmission lines and generators, replacement transmission lines and generators much be built and transported to the location where they are needed. Workers need trucks and roads to do the servicing. All of this requires considerable petroleum use. If transmission lines are to be expanded because of addition of new wind or solar or nuclear plants, this also requires petroleum.
4. There is a substantial chance that petroleum products available will suddenly decline by a large percentage (more than 20%), rather than just the small annual increment one might expect that results from the world decline in oil production.
There are really two issues with oil availability--the worldwide decline, expected to begin in the next few years, and a decline in the US ability to import petroleum products. Of the two, the decline in the US ability to import petroleum products is probably the bigger issue.
We have lived in a world where the United States uses 24% of the world's petroleum products for such a long that it seems like this is the natural order of things. The problem is that we are no longer exporting very many goods to pay for this oil, and our balance of payments situation is getting worse and worse. Our financial situation is worsening. There is a substantial chance that the value of the dollar will drop sufficiently that we will not be able to afford to continue our big share of world oil supply.
There are other ways that the amount of oil we are able to buy might decline, also. Geopolitical forces may eliminate some production, or may change the amount we are able to purchase in the open market.
5. Shortages of petroleum products are likely to occur in unexpectedly, in places where it hurts the economy.
In an ideal situation, shortages of petroleum products will only affect consumption in places that it will have no negative impacts elsewhere in the economy--for example, will not reduce natural gas production, or will not affect our ability to produce food and water, and transport it to those who need it.
In practice, it would be very difficult to design such a system. Diesel is likely to be in especially short supply, because it is used for so many commercial and industrial purposes. If its use is allocated based on who is able to pay the most, there is no reason to believe that those who will make the best use of the oil will receive it. For example, many small truckers who are involved with food delivery are likely to be priced out of the system.
If oil use is allocated by a governmental organization, they may do a bit better, but it still will be very difficult to get the oil to the those who will make the best use of it. Supply chains are so long and complicated that it is difficult to foresee what impact a shortage for one particular user will have, as it works its way through the system. Even with the best intentions, allocation schemes designed by government agencies are likely to undersupply users who are critical to the system.
As a practical matter, I think that what we will see is a lot of local outages, based on logistical issues. People at the end of the pipeline will find that there is not enough oil left by the time it gets to them. A particular refinery will not be able to get enough oil, and the people in the area of the refinery will discover themselves without enough gasoline and diesel, because the refinery was not able to purchase adequate fuel, or was not able to make repairs after an accident, because of missing parts. A pipeline operator (or refinery) will go bankrupt, and there will be no substitute available. We have already seen unplanned outages in North Dakota and Winnipeg.
There were also problems with oil shortages after Hurricane Katrina hit. The problem in this situation was electrical outages along the Colonial Pipeline. In order to get the pipeline moving again, it was necessary to bring generators to the pipeline and use oil from the pipeline to generate electricity to operate the pumps.
6. With increased petroleum shortages, we should expect more and more gaps in petroleum supply. If these gaps become widespread, they are likely to trigger further loss in electrical fuels.
Suppose that petroleum products become unavailable in Appalachia, because of a pipeline problem. This could affect the production of coal. If there is an outage in Wyoming, it could affect the production of both coal and natural gas. A gap in petroleum supply in the New York City area could bring all kinds of businesses to a sudden stop, and this could lead to all kinds of indirect impacts, which ripple from one sector of the economy through to other sectors of the economy.
7. If we start having electric supply disruptions, these disruptions are likely to start chain reactions of disruptions of other types.
I mentioned earlier the problem with the Colonial Pipeline after Katrina, because of electrical outages. Most oil pipelines and many natural gas pipelines use electricity to pump the product. Gas stations also use electricity to pump gasoline. Because of these connections, an area without electric power is likely to find itself without petroleum products as well, in a fairly short a time period.
If oil is not available in an area, industrial agriculture in the area is likely to cease. Truckers may not be willing to make deliveries, if their trucks cannot get refueled.
8. While it is theoretically possible to get around a lot of oil shortage problems by building new infrastructure, as a practical matter this is not likely to work, because of timing, the enormity of the project, and our current financial problems.
Theoretically, there are a lot of things one could do to circumvent oil shortages. One could build electric cars for transportation. One could build electric powered machines to mine uranium. One could replace our current truck transportation with much expanded railroad transportation.
Even in the best of times, it would be a monumental undertaking to make a transformation from one type of infrastructure to another. It would likely take a very long time--certainly more than 20 years, based on the Hirsch Report. With our current financial situation, it seems like such a transformation is pretty much out of the question. We have been reading recently about the fact that lenders are becoming less and less willing to make loans. This will make financing new infrastructure more difficult.
In the future, the US governments and state governments are likely to be in poorer and poorer financial condition, based on my analysis of the US current financial situation. Local governments will find their revenues dropping as house prices drop. The federal government will find itself increasingly asked to cover debt shortfalls of a lot of different organizations (Fannie and Freddie, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, airlines, auto manufacturers). This will leave little left over for building new infrastructure.
Because of all of the foregoing issues, I expect that we will encounter electrical difficulties within twenty years. The timeperiod may even be much shorter than this..
Any kind of change we want to make to the country's infrastructure to better prepare us for the future will take a very long time--most likely 30 to 50 years. Perhaps, with great effort, we could make a transformation in 20 years.
The issue I see is that if we know we are very likely to have electrical difficulties within twenty years, it does not make sense to start a transformation to a more electrical society. For example, if we start building a lot of electric trains, we are likely to discover that that we don't have the electricity to operate them when they get built. It seems like we would better off figuring out what resource base is likely to be available thirty to fifty years from now, and gearing our efforts accordingly.
It seems to me that the model we should be envisioning for future electric supply is local electric supply.
People talk about making food production more local. I think that in the long run, whatever electricity production we have will be primarily local. It seems to me that much hydroelectric power can continue for many years, if we make plans to maintain it. We may also be able to maintain geothermal power and power from photovoltaic cells, if the PV cells have a sufficiently long lifespan. There are likely to be many parts of the country without electricity.
I doubt that coal-fired power stations will still be available, except possibly in areas where coal is produced. (If there is a shortage, those closest to where it is produced are likely to get the output.) Electricity from natural gas may be available near natural gas supplies. Nuclear will probably not be available, because of all of the issues of mining and importing. Back-up batteries are not likely to be available for PV or other use. All of these have very long supply chains, and these are likely to be broken as electric outages become more common.
We need to be looking closely at what is really feasible, and aiming for that level.
With the limited amount of electricity available from local production, our ability to manufacture things will be much reduced. We will need to prioritize what we do manufacture carefully, so as to have the basics covered--food, clothing, heating, and basic transportation. I doubt we will be able to count on imports for very much of our basic needs.
It seems to me that we should be analyzing the situation closely, and developing plans that will work, based on what has worked in the past. We should be thinking about raising more draft animals and building small windmills to pump water. We should be thinking about building bicycles, if we can get all of the necessary components locally sourced. We should be thinking about what infrastructure is really essential (fresh water, hydroelectric dams, geothermal electricity, basic roads), and taking steps to maintain it.
I think the danger is aiming too high, and ending up with virtually nothing that works.
"People talk about making food production more local. I think that in the long run, whatever electricity production we have will be primarily local."
But once people are producing energy locally, why do they
need the Federal government?
«Other factors remaining constant, culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased. … We may now sketch the history of cultural development from this standpoint.» — Leslie White, “White’s Law,” 1949
2) The loss of liquid fossil fuels will contemporaneously cause the loss of coal also. Think ‘trains’:
Coal-hauling trains (in the U.S.) run on diesel fuel (not coal — or anything else).
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/arnett05.htm
I think that there will be a real possibility that our government will change to be more local in the next 20 years. This is another reason I have questions about long-haul transport of electricity fuels and maintenance of long distance transmission lines.
I cannot help but note the single-dimensional nature of the analysis above.
Gail, you're correct to note the inter-relationships of the USA's energy systems. However, you seem to think that these will be unchanged by the various proposals she cites. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I've long seen people arguging that we cannot dig ourselves out of this situation, but their arguments are always full of self-contradictions and special pleading. I think the question of will we dig ourselves out is far more significant; if the Cape Wind project can be stalled by one pompous windbag and the US financial system can be undone by a single retiring senator promoting his next career, our ability to organize our technical abilities to meet this threat is the biggest unknown.
The major problem with this is where you get all of the capital from to accomplish this. If we lived in Saudi Arabia, maybe. In the United States, it won't happen.
The USA still has a significant manufacturing base. Its products can be converted from consumption to investment. If a large fraction of e.g. the domestic auto industry was converted to making wind plants and heavy rail, that would do it.
Gail, your essential argument appears to be financial.
When many other of your arguments such as in a previous article of yours the contention that the grid was likely to progressively degrade were answered by several electrical engineers that although there were problems it should be possible to continue to supply power, the position you then took was that the financial system would collapse and so this would not be possible.
Presumably you have a similar outlook to other possibilities, such as moving more freight to rail.
It should be noted in this context that doubling the freight traffic does not entail a doubling of the rail network or anything like it, so the sums are fairly reasonable.
Indeed, the basis of your contention seems rather circular, as the finance system appears likely to collapse in your model largely due to increased energy costs, and nothing can be done about that due to the collapse of the financial system.
In the case of the US at least, the sums needed to alter the energy situation would be comparatively small against the total size of the economy - even coal with more transmission lines and more rail freight would essentially do most of the job.
So even if your basic thesis is correct, and the financial system collapses, why should that paralyse all the needed investment?
To take two examples of bankruptcy, the total collapse in the Weimer Republic did not prevent a vast program of rebuilding and re-armament just a few years later in Germany, nor did the collapse of the Ancien Regime in France prevent the huge outpouring of energy in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
So why should the US suffer the never-get-overs in the event of financial collapse?
1. The increase in oil availability has fueled growth in the past. As we move toward the downside of the curve, there will be much more of a downward pull, instead of an upward pull.
2. Previous bankruptcies took place in very different environments. One can also find a lot of examples of societies that did not re-emerge after collapse.
3. Who would come to aid the US? How much aid could they really provide?
4. We have very long supply chains, and most all of them depend on electricity. Once they are broken, restarting with major electricity outages will be a problem.
5. This is an Associated Press article I ran across this morning, talking about the US's electricity problems, even apart from peak oil. Fixing these problems will take massive co-ordination among the various entities involved. There doesn't seem to be any way to make this work.
6. Geopolitical issues are likely to play a role also. I expect the US government will decline in influence or be replaced by more local governments.
7. I think that things are happening too fast for the various kinds of investment that you are proposing to be done in sufficient quantity to make a difference. Once the financial collapse comes, debt financing will not be available to either governments or others. Lack of imports will be a major impediment to investment as well.
The US does have resources, such as good farmland and above-average fossil fuel supplies. Long term, the US may be able to redevelop to some extent, but I expect that the redevelopment will look nothing like the current system. It may be that the US will break into smaller political units.
Point 1. above should surely read that fossil fuels have given rise to growth, rather than just focussing on oil, since a lot of growth took place before it's use.
At least in the US there is no imminent shortage of coal, and also at least immediately no shortage of natural gas.
On point 2 it should be noted that collapse has never happened in a society where so many are so far above subsistence, and so perhaps there are more possibilities to adapt.
On point 3, who would come to the US's aid - the rest of the world, given your basic thesis of energy shortages and perhaps food shortages will want American produce more than ever, so trade will still take place.
On 4 & 5, the same article that you quote says that many of the problems that the grid had in 2003 have been fixed.
A real shortage would focus minds, and I doubt that much NIMBYism would be tolerated, which is the largest factor in excess costs.
On 6 & 7 I don't think anyone is arguing that no disruptions will occur, or that transition to nuclear and renewables will be easy.
In my view however you are overstating the case by assessing it as more-or-less impossible, and particularly when much of the argument appears to be from the general to the particular, so that individual solutions to elements are dismissed because the whole system will allegedly collapse, and the whole system collapses because it's constituents do.
For perspective if we take the sky high estimates for nuclear power of $12bn GW installed, and guesstimate around the same for wind due to intermittency, then you might need around 20GW/year, say £240bn/yr plus money for extra infrastructure etc, so you might come out to around $350bn/yr - say up to 7% of the current GDP.
Of course, GDP would sink, but so would wage costs, and in the event of such a massive recession as you hypothesise so would raw materials costs, as, for instance, the US would hardly be producing 17 million vehicles a year.
I'd be curious to know whether you would have arrived at a more favourable prognosis for Weimar Germany - but after 40 years in spite of massive inflation and defeat in a major war they were still much more prosperous than they had been at that earlier date.
With it's huge mineral resources, massive agriculture and comparatively young population I can't get to the same point as you arrive at, where it is game over for the US.
Many areas in the rest of the world are far more doubtful.
I didn't say, "game over for the US". I said
There are a lot of other places that aren't going to be doing well--Britain and Japan most likely are two of them. I didn't make a comparison as to who would be doing better/worse.
Sorry if I have mis-stated your position.
The reason I used the term 'game over for the US' was that you appear to think that a Tainter-type progressive decline is unstoppable within the US at least, as that is where most of your argument is drawn from.
At least in the resource rich US this seems to me relatively unlikely, and to rely on the assumption that bad choices are fairly universally applied.
Of course this may be the case, but it seems to me far from certain.
To look at another area on which it may serve to demonstrate that rolling collapse may not be inevitable, by 2020 China plans to have production lines capable of producing 20 conventional nuclear power stations a year, aside from pebble bed reactors and coal, wind and solar.
If continued then these 20 a year are around the number China would need to provide all it's power, other contributions aside.
Although shortage of oil might be a great obstacle in doing this, it is difficult to see why it would not be possible - already much personal transport is by very energy efficient rail and EV bikes, and residual needs for oil where vital could surely be produced from coal.
With perhaps more political delay there seems no reason why something similar, perhaps with more wind power, would not be possible in the US.
Since most of the difficulty and cost in building power and transmission lines in the States lies in regulatory approval, raising times for instance from around 4 years for a nuclear build to around 10 and putting up costs hugely, it is perhaps improbable that nothing at all will be done when times get tough to reduce this.
If resources are available, even financial disaster may be engineered around - the re-financing in the early days of the Reich being the most prominent example.
In short, the gravity of the crisis in itself would seem likely to preclude business as usual, and to blow away many of the roadblocks to progress.
Although the new cost level of renewables and nuclear will likely be higher than fossil fuels, they are likely to drop over time, as are batteries etc, and so it would perhaps be just as reasonable to hypothesise a progressive recovery from a much lower level than present US standards as an on-going, ever-worsening deterioration.
Some of what you say may be right.
One reason I think that outcomes will generally not be very good is that there will be a lot of things besides peak oil going on at the same time. It seems like peak minerals (or at least peak extractable minerals, with the resources we have on hand) will be taking place, making a drop in the cost of batteries or anything else made from metals unlikely. There will also be climate change, of some form or other. Water levels are already a problem, and are likely to get worse. These will be a problem in some parts of the world.
Time will tell what really happens.
If we have enough energy most minerals can be got in sufficient quantity - problems only really start if you are very short of energy.
So although I quite agree severe financial and liquid fuel constraints will hit, it seems to me that the spread of outcomes will be much wider than might be inferred from a position which seems to perhaps rather discount those possible solutions on the grounds that systemic collapse will not allow them.
Should some areas come through in relatively good shape, then their influence seems likely to spread.
To move from a general argument to a particular one, perhaps it is worth looking at the position of an individual country, France.
If one assumes that some sort of relatively effective response happens there to the financial challenges,and that ethnic conflict is contained relatively successfully, then it is rather difficult to see why a technological civilisation should not maintain itself there, with high standards of living.
They can probably do this using about the same number of reactors as at present, with gradual capacity increases as they come to be replaced with new reactors.
They burn a lot of gas, but then again it has been cheap, and dearer gas would simply mean that they would need to accelerate their program of installing air source heat pumps - they are putting in around 50,000 a year at the moment.
More freight would need shifting to rail, and the existing program of installing electric car charging points in cities would likely be expanded, but the model that Nissan/Renault have of building electric cars and selling them whilst leasing the batteries seems robust.
Biofuels sufficient to provide for agricultural machinery and other essential uses would be well within the capabilities of French agriculture.
Concerns about uranium shortage would seem to be misplaced, as solutions ranging from thorium burning reactors to building breeder reactors or obtaining uranium from seawater are numerous.
If France then is relatively well placed to overcome the difficulties ahead, that provides a core around which Europe can be re-powered.
This is not to dismiss well founded concerns, many of which I share with you.
In this context it is interesting to note the severe longer-term problems of Europe, due to it's unfavourable demography,
as is extensively detailed in articles on this site:
http://demographymatters.blogspot.com/
The same demographic issues perhaps put the present more aggressive stance of Russia into perspective, as over the next 20 years it seems from the ELM that the present leverage provided by oil will evaporate, and the bind that demography will have got them in by this time seem to point to a much weaker Russia.
The outcome you hypothesise seems likely in some places, but my own feeling is that outcomes will be patchy, with relatively successful outcomes in some areas.
It seems like more local almost equates to patchy.
We have gotten used to having inputs from around the world. Once these are cut way back, I am wondering whether this will put an upper limit on how developed even the better-developed areas can be. This week we read about platinum possibly being in short supply. With electricity shortages, I expect the supply of a lot of metals to be cut back greatly--copper and aluminum are two in particular.
A lot of things will change. It is hard to understand the interdependencies.
You've put your finger on what I find difficult or unproductive in some of the analysis here.
Of course, systemic failure may doom any response - I don't know.
However, if that is the working assumption then for a start the analysis tends to jump around from point to point of difficulty, by-passing often fairly simple remedies to particular issues.
I am also not a big fan of power down solutions - systemic collapse would certainly seem probable together with mass deaths under those scenarios in my view.
Considering that heating and air conditioning could be done with a fraction of today's energy inputs, and so could goods transportation and personal mobility, together with feeding the population with a much healthier diet with less, better quality meat, then the obstacles seem primarily institutional.
Focussing largely on the interdependencies rather than biting off bits that are chewable may make life too hard! :-)
Engineer-Poet,
you make many a good point and in order to argue against, you also had to simplify.
So, let's try to make it more complex, shall we.
Now, again, to restate - this doesn't mean that one is automatically doomer, believes in collapse or thinks the world will end tomorrow.
This is just a way to think about big risks, with perhaps even small probabilities, but potentially very big and hard to predict consequences.
With that away, let's consider a real world scenario of chained events.
Now, above is just a one example of chained and causally reinforcing effects.
What is the probability for that? I don't know, but I'd guess it to be fairly low. Of course, there are geographical, national and fuel mix based differences between various places where that kind of situation might happen.
What I can say, that people who plan these are aware of these, but often they don't really know what to do with them.
Everybody's relying on things like SPR and other backup fuel reserves, but the logistics and coordination hasn't really been tested, in the case of multiple downside risks materializing roughly at the same time.
So, do I personally lose sleep over the above type situation? No.
Do I think that they will never happen? No, they might - even if the likelihood is probably very low.
Do I think the the consequences might be bad? Short term and for some actors, possibly yes - very hard to predict for systemic and esp. mid-to-long term effects. Is the situation recoverable: highly likely.
What I do know that such systemic risks cannot be cured or removed overnight.
Even if I had all the capital, knowledge and manpower in the world, it would indeed take a fairly long time to remove the major systemic risks from above scenario. It would mean a lot of rebuilding, redesigning and adding new capacity - not to mention reducing demand. Some of the risk factors (like peaking of oil, crunch on gas, etc) might not be removable at all. From an economic planning point of view, removing all risks is most of the times not worth it.
So, I think it is good to think about these situations, as I currently believe that the likelihood of such risks currently grows as a function of time as we continue doing BAU.
This does not of course mean that you necessarily think differently about this or that I'm some how arguing against you. This is merely a clumsy way to find some middle ground here.
Very well said and I think this applies to a lot of other systemic risks as well. Our ability is currently perhaps the biggest unknown :)
I'd say approximately zero, because steps 9 and 11 would be forestalled by load-shedding if the grid managers are at all competent. That's what was done in 2003 (SE Michigan was brought back on line in phases), and I doubt the lessons could be forgotten anytime soon.
If we're looking for scenarios for collapse, we need to consider things either beyond our control or (like Cape Wind) where opposed interests block the necessary actions.
Might I remind you that's exactly what the operator's in Italy and Finland thought after the US east coast black outs "pfftt... incompetent, we know our stuff". Then they had their own blackouts, in Finland with a much much more up-to-date infrastructure, mind you.
BTW, the gist of those scenarios above are not my invention. They are by people in the operative side of the business.
I claim not to know the future, but I'm always weary of anybody who says the probability is 0% or 100% for any complex system with a human error built-in :)
I'm just telling you that a grid operator ready to use rolling blackouts to manage demand isn't likely to be caught flat-footed by a demand surge. A sudden plant or line outage, sure, but not excess demand. And the sort of staged return of power already used in 2003 is proof against re-collapse (which you'll note did not occur).
There are ways to manage this even further. If major loads all had control units which sensed voltage and phase and cut back if either suddenly dropped (easily done within a couple cycles), even a line outage such as the one which triggered the 2003 blackout would have failed to create a cascade. If we had substantial demand from (PH)EVs with V2G capability, it would take an even bigger upset to cause the system to fail.
Those protections are in place on the major lines and generators (phase, voltage, power angle, etc). The problem is they are not integrally coordinated across the vastness of the interconnected systems. After all, the grid is an analog system and failure propagations can be difficult to isolate with the amount of power flow involved.
There are regional coordinating committees to handle these interconnection issues, but that is no guarantee the optimal systems and methods are in place.
Here's a decent analogy: If the grid were thought of as a mesh of cables, (which it is electrically, but I'm using mechanical here because it is more visible), as load and generation is increased it is like putting more tension on the cables. More load and generation, more tension until the cables near their snapping point. One fails, or has to disconnect and the rest of cables can start to cascade fail.
The protective switching and control equipment attempts to prevent these cascading failures, but the higher the voltage (hence power transfer) the faster it has to respond. >230 kV requires 3 cycles or less from detection to trip and that can be challenging to accomplish in complex networks - but it gets done every day.
And as they get near their snapping point, controls can drop some of the weights. The weights themselves can detect sudden accelerations downward as neighboring cables go, and reduce their pull to what the mesh can sustain.
This makes no sense whatsoever.
The loads on the grid include a large fraction of electric motors, mostly induction and synchronous motors. One of the great features of motors is that their load drops as the grid frequency drops; if you get a sudden slip in phase, all the motors will pull less power for a fraction, and reduce the immediate grid load. This gives an energy buffer whose duration is independent of the size of the grid connection.
Don't forget that trains can run on coal, and have been for a very long time.
Trains can also run on wood and other local fuels.
Trains run on coal only if you make some modifications to make them do so, and set up new supply chains for this to happen. All of this requires capital, and is not going to happen over night.
My point is that it makes sense to look at what is doable, in the fairly long term. Making trains run on coal or wood is probably more do-able long term than making them run on electricity, because coal and wood have shorter supply chains.
I think we need to be thinking about this with a coherent view about what the future is likely to be like. Would we really be able to make coal or wood supply lines for trains work? For how long? Would the environmental damage be worth it?
But once people are producing energy locally, why do they need the Federal government?
Silly billy -- to protect them against terrorists -- BOOO!
roman empire thrived even tho all energy was produced locally
No it wasn't, not in the least. Grain was imported from all over into Rome.
The Romans were dependent on slave labor for anything resembling work. These slaves they gathered from distant lands, generally by military conquest (although many were purchased from pirates, who were known to sail around kidnapping entire islands of people).In addition much of their food was grown on Sicily, Sardinia or N. Africa, by slaves of course. So the very food supply was threatened by huge slave uprisings on Sicily, and later by the rampaging slave-gladiator army of Spartacus which seemed poised to invade the island, and by pirates who owned the water. Around 70 BC pirates were said to have completely shut down the movement of grain from Sicily, such that many Sicilian farms weren't even bothering to try to grow anything. This was the final impetus for the senate to grant Pompey a vast degree of power to clean the seas of pirates, the Romans' old slave dealers, which was the catalyst that led to the end of the Republic according to some.
They don't, but the federal government exercises power because it CAN. See the infamous case Wickard v. Filburn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
There's more: US coal mining is increasingly to middle America - away from the coasts where the consumers are. The transportation cost of this coal is already now much higher than the mining costs (I'd have to look up the numbers).
Also the extremely expensive west Canadian coking coal is quite far away from the coast. If these trains are powered by oil this adds up on the coal price - and the steel made from it.
And did I mention the rising costs for shipping the coal from Canada to Japan...?
Supposedly the economics of running HVDC from coal mines/power plants to the grid instead of transporting it to the power plant via rail were decisively advantageous when oil was half of what it is today. Granted, the externalized costs of coal, especially it's GWP/kWh compared to alternatives might discourage expansion in the future, especially if grid/demand management takes off, but different energy transmission setups seem viable for coal power.
Interesting presentation.
I don't disagree with the analysis. It is probably cheaper to build transmission lines and ship electricity long dista