10/3/2023 0 Comments Death toll texas freezeNations such as Germany and the Netherlands prioritize burying power lines, a process that’s costly but that helps reduce the havoc resulting from extreme weather.īetween 20, the U.S. power lines that lie overhead, especially in older eastern cities. Another is the vast number of weather-vulnerable U.S. One clear factor is America’s outsized crop of extreme weather. “We are behind all other G7 nations in our infrastructure, including the power grid,” Amin said. Amin has found that utility customers lose power for an average of 4 minutes annually in Japan, compared to 92 minutes per year in the Upper Midwest. than in any other developed country, according to the University of Minnesota’s Massoud Amin, a founding expert in smart-grid technology. In fact, it happens more often in the U.S. To put it bluntly, this kind of situation doesn’t happen everywhere. All told, this sequence of mid-February storms could end up interrupting power for well over 10 million Americans. More trouble is looming in the forecast, with fresh winter-weather watches and warnings in place from Austin to Boston. They were joined by more than 200,000 customers in Kentucky and West Virginia, and 3.2 million customers still powerless in Texas. According to, some 175,000 customers were without power in Oregon on the evening of February 16. power woes extended well beyond Texas, the result of an unusually prolonged and widespread bout of frigid air and frozen precipitation. electric grid is uniquely vulnerable: This ‘doesn’t happen everywhere’ It’s also possible, though not universally accepted, that depleted sea ice and amplified Arctic warming are exacerbating at least some mid-latitude cold episodes, a topic of lively, ongoing research debate. Yet a warming climate doesn’t preclude the occasional extreme wintry blast. locations, the coldest winter temperatures have been steadily rising, according to data compiled by the nonprofit science and communications group Climate Central. ![]() ![]() Overall, of course, the temperature trend points to more warming. “The challenges faced this week will likely be studied for years to come, and they show how tough it is to achieve resilience in a changing climate during an energy transition.” “I think the Texas freeze will become the new poster child for compound weather and energy disasters,” said atmospheric scientist Daniel Cohan of Rice University, who’s working on a book about energy and climate change. “Many of the generators that experienced outages in 1989 failed again in 2011,” according to a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Commission. Investigations after similar but less-extensive Texas freeze disasters in 19 pinned much of the blame on equipment that was insufficiently protected against extreme cold, a threat that’s infrequent in Texas but notoriously brutal when it does arrive. The three main components of the North American power grid are the Western and Eastern Interconnections and the ERCOT Interconnection, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and encompassing most of the state. The state’s deregulated, just-in-time energy marketplace is also a factor, as it leans on production versus storage – a risk when natural gas lines freeze up – and it allows for massive price spikes during weather outages. grids, a decades-old bid to avoid interstate regulation but one that reduces the Texas grid’s flexibility. Most of the Lone Star State is on a power grid that’s separate from the western and eastern U.S. In addition, the South Texas Nuclear Plant was thrown out of service Monday as a result of frozen pipes, which cut even further into the Houston area’s electricity supply.Īlso feeding the crisis were several factors unique to Texas. The vast bulk of those thermal plants are powered by natural gas. The main cause of the massive disruption, by far, were the frozen components leading to the outage of thermal plants that heat water and convert the steam to electricity. ![]() While the deep freeze did knock some turbines offline, practically every mode of energy supply was hobbled by the intense cold, snow, and ice. Many – including some prominent climate change contrarians – were quick to pin the “electric emergency” on the massive turbines that make Texas the leading U.S. Frozen wind turbines played only small role in Texas outages
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