Major utility managers are hoping global warming will moderate the winter so it is only average cold.
Well, if the average temperature of the entire country next January is -22 degrees, then there will be a problem. Fortunately, that's fairly unlikely. In normal times, peak electricity demand is in the summer, not the winter. If they get through the summer, the winter should be okay. This article is a couple years old, but New England hasn't changed that much.
http://isonewswire.com/updates/2011/12/5...
"New England consumers’ use of electricity peaks when the weather is hot, making this a “summer-peaking” power system. The region’s all-time peak demand record was set at 28,130 MW during a heat wave on August 2, 2006."
Check out the graph. Electricity demand during the summer is considerably higher than the winter.
BTW, spectator is rather a conservative complaint page, with little credibility other than fuel superficial conservative complainers with stuff to repost.
Nice try though.
Edit: "Update 2: Lin Lyons, summer peak is higher, yep but winter gas demands are very much higher and gas is the backbone of New England generating capacity."
That may be true, but I know for a fact that there are plants that burn coal and/or oil that, while rarely used, are still available with fuel. My brother was an engineer at one of them. Even when they're not in use, they are still compensated somewhat, based on generating capacity, for being available in case needed.
So even if gas is in short supply, there will be electricity.
PLUS, you just said that they used older coal plants.
Whilst another cold winter is always a possibility it’s unlikely there will be any major power outages.
Last winter large parts of the US and Canada were a) exceptionally cold, b) cold in large parts of the country and c) cold for a long time. Whilst a repeat of such conditions can’t be ruled out, it’s meteorologically and statistically unlikely.
Further, in all North American countries generating capacities have increased this year. If they coped last winter then they’re in no worse placed now to cope with a repeat of such conditions.
Biased and hysterical media sources around the world love to run headlines saying the lights will be going out this coming winter, overwhelmingly they’re wrong. We haven’t yet had such headlines in the UK but we will, we get them every year, and every year they get it wrong.
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EDIT: RE YOUR UPDATE
In providing my original answer I referenced the US Energy Information Administration, the most recent data are published in April 2014. Generating capacity was 1.329 Gigawatt-hours, up from 1.261GWh in 2013. Total consumption in all sectors was 1.221GWh compared with 1.176GWh the year before. Over the year capacity increased 3.8% and consumption increased 3.7%.
Your link doesn’t work so I don’t know where you got your figures from.
You kind of deflated your own argument when you said “last year they got through only by bringing old coal fired stations back on line”, thus confirming that spare capacity is available when needed.
Where there could be problems is if too much emphasis is placed on intermittent renewables such as wind and solar without there being back-up capacity for when these sources fail. This however is not the case (yet). Hopefully advances in battery storage capacity, such as the new vanadium batteries, means that electricity can be generated and stored for later use. These batteries are thousands of times more efficient than anything else we have and some factories, hospitals, communities etc already have them installed as back-up for when the mains supply fails.
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EDIT: YOUR UPDATE 3
I googled it, it’s a report from 2006. It’s outdated and wrong.
If the powers that be get their way, it will be a certainty. The more calamities that occur the greater the grip they have on the masses. As Rahm Emanual clearly stated, "Never let a crises go to waste." tht is what our governments are made of, crises mongers.
Quote by Club of Rome: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention....and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself....believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or….one invented for the purpose."
Quote by emeritus professor Daniel Botkin: "The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."
Quote by Stephen Schneider, Stanford Univ., environmentalist: "That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."
These are only a few particles of what are in the minds of our policy makers.
It's funny that a Filipino would be so obsessed with US temperatures. Wouldn't the 2014 Typhoon season effect him more?
Tropical Storm Lingling (Agaton)
Tropical Storm Kajiki (Basyang)
Tropical Depression 04W (Caloy)
Tropical Storm Peipah (Domeng)
Typhoon Rammasun (Glenda)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Pacifi...
Nevertheless, contrary to what conspiracy theorists say in my own province, when left to its devices, the private sector tends to underbuild, rather than overbuild electrical infrastructure. Fortunately, Alberta's grid is operated by an independent operator, that does not work for generating companies like Capital Power or Enmax, who want to cut corners, to improve their bottom line.
http://www.aeso.ca/
At the recomendation of AESO, the government has mandated the construction of several major transmission lines.
http://www.heartlandtransmission.ca/upda...
http://www.atcoelectric.com/Projects/HVD...
http://www.altalink.ca/projects/centrala...
very good.
Will North America suffer from electricity shortages. http://spectator.org/articles/60007/get-ready-new-england-power-shortage
