Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid
by Meredith. Angwin · 18 Oct 2020 · 376pp · 101,759 words
the grid operating. In RTO areas, the grid is becoming more fragile and more expensive. Fragility is the most dangerous problem. In the near future, “rolling blackouts” may become common in many RTO areas. This book is about why this will happen and what we can do to prevent those blackouts. What
…
easy place to cut expenses. With RTO areas, merchant generators can game the system and cause power outages. When this happened in California, it caused rolling blackouts. But that is getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, we will look at ordinary operations in the RTO world. In RTO areas, distribution utilities buy
…
matter of fact, the grid itself can become less reliable. In my area, studies of the future of the grid show the strong possibility of rolling blackouts in winter weather, due to insufficient generation to meet the high demand. In other words, the RTOs can enable a new type of reliability problem
…
, but, for now, let’s just look at the reality of one of the first wholesale markets. At the turn of the century, California had rolling blackouts. Power was turned off in one area and then turned on while the outage “rolled” on to the next area. Yes, elevators got stuck, traffic
…
for dispatching the plants that were available for dispatch. If too many of them were offline for “maintenance” and there had to be “load shedding” (rolling blackouts), well, CAISO is not responsible for plant maintenance, just for dispatch. Every individual plant makes money when it runs. If a plant needs maintenance or
…
” in order to create scarcity and drive up the wholesale electricity price. Their other plants received the new high prices. Lack of generation led to rolling blackouts in California. These “maintenance” closings were a major reason for the blackouts in California in 2000–2002. In fairness to Enron and the other merchant
…
gas-fired plants.” In my opinion, something needs to be done about fuel security for the grid. The RTO grids are moving toward fragility and rolling blackouts. Personally, I don’t think that the RTOs are capable of solving this problem. But let’s look forward. Our next step is the Fuel
…
is not fair to call this mere “drama,” though it was dramatic. There was a real problem. The grid was teetering on the edge of rolling blackouts. Was all this excitement an aberration during a cold snap or a warning for the future? As you can guess, it was a warning. As
…
January 17, 2018.69 ISO-NE initially ran 23 scenarios for the future of the grid. In 19 of the scenarios, the grid would have rolling blackouts by the winter of 2026. There was only one scenario where the grid had a solid, no-emergency operation. That no-problem scenario had very
…
IN THE FUEL-SECURITY STUDY, ISO-NE modeled the temporary closure of a major gas-fired plant, Mystic Station. This temporary closure would lead to rolling blackouts. The time-frame that ISO-NE modeled was the winter of 2025–2026. In March 2018, Exelon, Mystic’s owner, announced it planned to close
…
the plant permanently in 2022.70 I wrote about this, of course. On May 19, 2018, the Valley News printed my opinion piece “Rolling blackouts are probably coming to New England sooner than expected.”71 The section below is an edited version of my article. **** When there’s not enough
…
the grid, including the possibilities of rolling blackouts. In New England, blackouts are expected to occur during the coldest weather, because that is when the grid is most stressed
…
. Rolling blackouts add painful uncertainty — and danger — to everyday life. You aren’t likely to know when a blackout will happen, because most grid operators have a
…
in one of its scenarios. The ISO-NE report concluded that Mystic’s possible closure would cause 20 to 50 hours of “load shedding” (meaning rolling blackouts) and hundreds of hours of grid operation under emergency protocols. When Exelon made its closure announcement, ISO-NE realized that the danger of
…
rolling blackouts was suddenly more immediate than 2024. It now hopes to provide “out-of-market-cost recovery” — subsidies — to persuade Exelon to keep the Mystic plants
…
Commission, some of the threat of blackouts will retreat a few years into the future. Ominously, 19 of the 23 ISO-NE scenarios led to rolling blackouts. The one “no-problem” scenario (no load shedding, no emergency procedures) is one where everything goes right. It assumed no major pipeline or power-plant
…
takes subsidies. Coal is a problem fuel, but running a coal plant for a comparatively short time in bad weather is a better choice than rolling blackouts. This can’t happen overnight. It has to be planned for. If we don’t diversify our electricity supply, we will have to get used
…
to enduring rolling blackouts. Alarmist propaganda and pollyanna scenarios My op-ed appeared on May 19, and Don Kreis wrote a reply. His letter to the editor appeared on
…
we go further, here’s a timeline for this controversy: January 18, 2018: ISO-NE issued its fuel-security study with 23 scenarios. It predicted rolling blackouts in 19 of the scenarios. January 26: ISO-NE held a meeting with the NEPOOL Participants Committee to present its report and ask for comments
…
looked at the consequences of certain types of events, such as a compressor failure on a major gas pipeline. Such events would often lead to rolling blackouts. Synapse said that ISO-NE should have looked at the low probability that such events would take place. Perhaps the idea behind this Synapse objection
…
. The report predicted that if Mystic Station were offline for an extended period during the winter, this would lead to around 20–50 hours of rolling blackouts. Shortly after the ISO report was issued, owners of the Mystic Station announced their plans to take the plant offline permanently. Quick fixes are available
…
the Northeast IN EARLIER CHAPTERS, we looked at winter on the Northeastern grid. Oil saved the grid—but it almost failed at saving the grid. Rolling blackouts are likely during winters to come. The Northeastern grid is heavily dependent on natural gas, which gets delivered by pipeline. When homes and businesses are
…
skipped doing my own analysis. I could have simply noted that, when ISO-NE studied the reliability of the grid and modeled many scenarios showing rolling blackouts in the future, ISO-NE looked at winter stresses on the grid. (See chapters 19 and 20 of this book.) ISO-NE was not concerned
…
and other parameters, the grid becomes more fragile. The grid will fail in the RTO areas. New types of auction carve-outs will not prevent rolling blackouts. When that happens, in an RTO area, the buck will stop … nowhere. CHAPTER 36 OVERINVESTING IN RENEWABLES IN EARLIER CHAPTERS ON renewables, I described research
…
is a scenario for grid fragility. If gas just-in-time doesn’t make it just in time, then the ratepayers will suffer the rolling blackouts. This progression to rolling blackouts can happen (and is beginning to happen) in other RTO grids. The RTO areas encourage their grids’ progression to fragility, because, at the
…
can be purchased from distant states. Restructured states or areas: States (or areas within states) that have joined an RTO market. RMR: Reliability Must Run. Rolling blackouts: A form of load shedding, in which a utility schedules power outages for one area and then returns the power to that area and schedules
…
.com/newsroom/exelon-generation-files-to-retire-mystic-generating-station-in-2022. 71 Meredith Angwin, “Column: Rolling Blackouts Coming to a Power Grid Near You,” Valley News (E-Edition), May 19, 2018, https://www.vnews.com/Column-Rolling-Blackouts-Possible-for-New-England-17599767. 72 D. Maurice (“Don”) Kreis, “ISO New England’s Study
…
, 52–53 intermittent or steady power, 194 “prosumers” and, 299 as source of renewable energy, 191 blackouts, area wide, 25 blackouts, area wide. see also rolling blackouts, avoiding, 128 Bonneville Power Administration, 235–236, 281 Borenstein, Severin, 71, 83 Bride, James, 233, 243, 257–258, 289, 334–335 Bryce, Robert, 303, 310
…
, 90 cap-and-trade system of, 239 dysfunction of grid, 349–351 electricity choice in, 40 net metering in, 295 PG&E liability findings, 179 rolling blackouts in, 43, 77–79 Southern California Edison Summer Discount and, 323 utility usage data and, 321 Canada electricity imported from, 128, 131, 135–141, 158
…
natural gas (LNG), 55–56, 61, 111, 125–126, 128, 131, 137–139, 330. see also natural gas lithium, 20, 218–219 load shedding. see rolling blackouts load-following plants, 186, 194 load-serving entities (LSEs), 41–42, 349 local citizens groups, 362–363 local control of grid, 361 “lost savings,” 84
…
power grid basic workings of, 17–24 demand for electricity, 19–20 “Power Grid,” vs. “Policy Grid,” 13–14 power outages, 42–43. see also rolling blackouts Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), 88 premature retirement of reliable plants, reliability and, 208 price maker. see clearing price price taker. see clearing price privacy, smart
…
–252 reserve margins, 89–90 resistance, line loss and, 23 restructured states, 71–72, 274 risk penalties, 263 risk premiums, 262 Roberts, Dave, 350–351 rolling blackouts, 5, 43, 77–79, 125, 127, 129, 134, 156, 174 Rosling, Hans, 340 RTOs, auctions and, 283–284, 324, 330, 348–349, 351 run-of
The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
by Gretchen Bakke · 25 Jul 2016 · 433pp · 127,171 words
were taken offline for “repairs” or the lines necessary to carry essential current between the northern and southern halves of the state were “overbooked.” As rolling blackouts became the rule, many new economy businesses, like Apple and Cisco Systems, as well as other electricity-dependent undertakings such as military bases and prisons
…
distribution systems, here duration of, here impact of, here, here increase in, here and movement of electricity, here non-storm-related, here and resiliency, here rolling blackouts, here storm-related, here, here in transmission systems, here tree-related, here and underfunded distribution networks, here power plants, here. See also specific plants and
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
by Daniel Yergin · 14 May 2011 · 1,373pp · 300,577 words
Soviet Ukraine a quarter century earlier. The Fukushima accident, compounded by damage to other electric generating plants in the area, led to power shortages, forcing rolling blackouts that demonstrated the vulnerability of modern society to a sudden shortage of energy supply. The effects were not limited to one country. The loss of
…
. Spot prices for electricity were, on average, ten times what they had been a year earlier. State regulators began to ration power physically, which meant rolling blackouts. Meanwhile, as wholesale power prices went up, the financial positions of the states’ utilities became even more dire. Because of that iron curtain between the
Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet
by Varun Sivaram · 2 Mar 2018 · 469pp · 132,438 words
, capacity markets raise customer prices. Just as many others counter that this approach is a sort of insurance that is well worth the investment, lest rolling blackouts and surging prices cost customers even more dearly. Setting this stale debate aside, other, innovative options could modernize power markets, accommodate a rising share of
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--And What It Means for America's Power Grid
by Katherine Blunt · 29 Aug 2022 · 470pp · 107,074 words
cut power in phases to tens of thousands of customers throughout the Bay Area to help relieve the stress. PG&E rotated the outages, called rolling blackouts, throughout the region on an hourly basis in an effort to make sure no customer was in the dark for too long. Bob Glynn, who
…
. But Davis kept his distance as his advisers debated what he ought to do. In December, as the grid operator narrowly managed to avoid more rolling blackouts, Davis finally agreed to a meeting with the heads of the three utilities. Glynn and Richard arrived in Sacramento to sit down with Davis, the
…
supply and demand on the grid. The result was the sort of cascading failure that the California grid operator had narrowly avoided by resorting to rolling blackouts a few years earlier. “This is an operation that will take several days to get the system back to where it’s totally normal,” Earley
…
part of its system. That afternoon, as pundits made derisive jokes, Governor Gavin Newsom hastily assembled a press conference. Gray Davis’s downfall had been rolling blackouts to ease the supply crunch during the electricity crisis. Newsom feared that his downfall might be this new brand of blackout, a last-ditch safety
…
&E and, 238–39 meeting with Davis to unfreeze retail rates, 74–75 PG&E bankruptcy (2001) and, 78–79, 80 Rogers, Henry James, 26 rolling blackouts. See blackouts rooftop solar panels, 95–96 Rosenbaum, Jeff, 255–56 Rural Electrification Act of 1936, 237 S Sacramento Bee, 37–38 Sacramento Electric, Gas
Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex
by Rupert Darwall · 2 Oct 2017 · 451pp · 115,720 words
ideology in a fight against reality, with disastrous consequences. Rising demand and falling generating capacity, exacerbated by retail price caps, led to grid instability and rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001, contributing to the 2003 recall of Governor Gray Davis. Although the blackouts ended, non–weather dependent generating capacity continued to fall
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
by Jeff Goodell · 10 Jul 2023 · 347pp · 108,323 words
are ‘oh, shit’ moments.” Here in Texas, every heat wave is a nail-biter, with warnings coming from utilities to reduce power consumption or face rolling blackouts. On days when power demand is spiking, a small problem on the grid can easily cascade, threatening the stability of the entire system. And if
Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era
by James Barrat · 30 Sep 2013 · 294pp · 81,292 words
a bottleneck in energy delivery. Prices skyrocketed, and electricity became critically scarce. California officials supplied energy to some regions while darkening others, a practice called “rolling blackouts.” The blackouts caused no known deaths but plenty of fear, as families became trapped in elevators, and streets were lit only by headlights. Apple, Cisco
Engineering Security
by Peter Gutmann
: Rolling password blackout Apple usability guru Bruce Tognazzini has come up with a nice way to handle this using a rolling password blackout. With a rolling blackout the entered password characters are slowly faded out so that the last two or three characters are still visible to some degree, but after that
The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley
by Leslie Berlin · 9 Jun 2005
the corresponding month a year earlier. If the voluntary 10-percent plan did not work, then the utilities companies might resort to rolling blackouts to conserve power. The prospect of rolling blackouts alarmed Noyce, who readily admitted that the semiconductor industry had designed its processes and equipment “assum[ing] that petrochemicals were free and
…
– 35, 139–40, 269. See also patents Lifetime Achievement Medal, 302 Lindgren, Patricia, 387 Livermore, California, 207, 237 lobbying, 3; on capital gains, 262; against rolling blackouts, 209; SEMATECH, 283–84; on SIA, 262, 266, 268–70, 273 Los Altos Hills, 117 Los Angeles Times, 271 Lowood, Henry, x Lundgren, Dan, 265
…
; investment philosophy of, 240–41; jobs, early, 16, 20, 23, 28; as leader vs. manager, 153, 225–27; Lifetime Achievement Medal, 302; lobbying by (against rolling blackouts), 209; lobbying by (capital gains), 262; lobbying by (SEMATECH), 283– 84; lobbying by (SIA), 262, 266, 268–70, 273; love of California, 59, 82, 118
The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street
by Robert Scheer · 14 Apr 2010 · 257pp · 64,763 words
The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet
by Brett Christophers · 12 Mar 2024 · 557pp · 154,324 words
Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
by Kim Zetter · 11 Nov 2014 · 492pp · 153,565 words
Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence
by Yaroslav Trofimov · 9 Jan 2024 · 399pp · 112,620 words
The Smartest Guys in the Room
by Bethany McLean · 25 Nov 2013 · 778pp · 233,096 words
The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War
by Steven Pressfield · 5 May 2014 · 531pp · 139,948 words
The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
by Simon Clark and Will Louch · 14 Jul 2021 · 403pp · 105,550 words
The End of Growth
by Jeff Rubin · 2 Sep 2013 · 262pp · 83,548 words
Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future
by Alan Weisman · 21 Apr 2025 · 599pp · 149,014 words
New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World--And How to Make It Work for You
by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms · 2 Apr 2018 · 416pp · 100,130 words
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets
by Brett Scott · 4 Jul 2022 · 308pp · 85,850 words
How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present
by Thomas J. Dilorenzo · 9 Aug 2004 · 283pp · 81,163 words
The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
by Richard Heinberg · 1 Jun 2011 · 372pp · 107,587 words
Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles
by Ruchir Sharma · 8 Apr 2012 · 411pp · 114,717 words
Infinite Detail
by Tim Maughan · 1 Apr 2019 · 303pp · 81,071 words
The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century
by Alex Prud'Homme · 6 Jun 2011 · 692pp · 167,950 words
Coastal California
by Lonely Planet
Frommer's California 2009
by Matthew Poole, Harry Basch, Mark Hiss and Erika Lenkert · 2 Jan 2009
Caribbean Islands
by Lonely Planet
Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution
by Beth Gardiner · 18 Apr 2019 · 353pp · 106,704 words
The Oil Age Is Over: What to Expect as the World Runs Out of Cheap Oil, 2005-2050
by Matt Savinar · 2 Jan 2004 · 127pp · 51,083 words
What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class . . . And What Other Countries Got Right
by George R. Tyler · 15 Jul 2013 · 772pp · 203,182 words
Hatching Twitter
by Nick Bilton · 5 Nov 2013 · 304pp · 93,494 words
The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
by Daniel Yergin · 14 Sep 2020
Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
by Parag Khanna · 18 Apr 2016 · 497pp · 144,283 words
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
by Niall Ferguson · 13 Nov 2007 · 471pp · 124,585 words
The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
by Russell Gold · 7 Apr 2014 · 423pp · 118,002 words
American Made: Why Making Things Will Return Us to Greatness
by Dan Dimicco · 3 Mar 2015 · 219pp · 61,720 words
Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion
by Elizabeth L. Cline · 13 Jun 2012 · 256pp · 76,433 words
Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
by Alan Weisman · 23 Sep 2013 · 579pp · 164,339 words
After the New Economy: The Binge . . . And the Hangover That Won't Go Away
by Doug Henwood · 9 May 2005 · 306pp · 78,893 words
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar
by Paul Theroux · 9 Sep 2008 · 651pp · 190,224 words
The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine
by Christopher Miller · 17 Jul 2023 · 469pp · 149,526 words
Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future – Lessons From the World’s Limits
by Richard Davies · 4 Sep 2019 · 412pp · 128,042 words
Backup & Recovery
by W. Curtis Preston · 9 Feb 2009 · 1,266pp · 278,632 words
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq
by Peter R. Mansoor, Donald Kagan and Frederick Kagan · 31 Aug 2009 · 423pp · 126,375 words
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
by Michael Lewis · 3 May 2021 · 285pp · 98,832 words
Understanding Asset Allocation: An Intuitive Approach to Maximizing Your Portfolio
by Victor A. Canto · 2 Jan 2005 · 337pp · 89,075 words
What Should I Do With My Life?
by Po Bronson · 2 Jan 2001 · 446pp · 138,827 words
Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House
by Peter Baker · 21 Oct 2013
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017
by Rashid Khalidi · 28 Jan 2020 · 413pp · 120,506 words
The Passenger
by AA.VV. · 23 May 2022 · 192pp · 59,615 words
Why Liberalism Failed
by Patrick J. Deneen · 9 Jan 2018 · 215pp · 61,435 words
The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa
by Calestous Juma · 27 May 2017