Lights Out In 2009?

[Brian Ellis]

It looks like electricity is going to be a scarce commodity in the USA. This link shows the potential problems.

This reinforces my opposition to EVs and PHEVs as a mainstream form of transport.

The study, "Lights Out In 2009?" warns that the U.S. "faces potentially crippling electricity brownouts and blackouts beginning in the summer of 2009, which may cost tens of billions of dollars and threaten lives."

"If particularly vulnerable regions, like the Western U.S., experience unusually hot temperatures for prolonged periods of time in 2009, the potential for local brownouts or blackouts is high, with significant risk that local disruptions could cascade into regional outages that could cost the economy tens of billions of dollars," the report warned.
...
The study estimated that the U.S. will require about 120 gigawatts (GW) of new generation just to maintain a 15 percent reserve margin. That will require at least $300 billion in generation and transmission facility investments by 2016.

PS Europe could also suffer a similar fate, although perhaps less immediately.

[DukeP]

Dont Use Air Conditioning.

Problem solved.

For people that cant tolerate the heat - cope. Heat is NOT lethal, if you take it slow at the start of a heat wave, and drink plenty of water.

~~DukeP~~

[Brian Ellis]

That is ridiculous. Heat DOES kill. Ask the ghosts of the 14,802 persons who died because of the heat wave in France in 2003.

You have obviously not had to "cope" in a sudden onset of 50° weather in Denmark. The most I've experienced is 47.2°C and that was bad enough. Drinking the excessive quantities of water (3-4 l/day) to match the sweat outflow causes severe gastric upsets. Furthermore, modern housing is designed to cope with high temps using aircon uniquely; gone are the days with expensive high ceilings and channelled convection flow. Switch it off and you can die in a few hours - literally. Spend a summer out here in a modern house and see if you can "cope" without aircon.

[DukeP]

If you cant cope with the heat, dont live there.

Its like demanding to live on the moon on account of poor heart benifits from low gravity.

Theres simply not enough energy.

Obviously old persons, sick persons etc. die easier from heatstroke and connected illnesses.

Thats just the way the cookie crumbles.

~~DukeP~~

[SteveC]

Heh can imagine lack of air would be higher on the complaints list over low gravity

It is just supply and demand - electricity will become more expensive and people will have to stop using things like air con all the time.

[Gurm]

Ain't I glad to be working for a company designed to provide energy curtailment?

We provide real benefit by REDUCING load on the grid during peak events.

[Brian Ellis]

If you cant cope with the heat, dont live there.

Its like demanding to live on the moon on account of poor heart benifits from low gravity.

Theres simply not enough energy.

Obviously old persons, sick persons etc. die easier from heatstroke and connected illnesses.

Thats just the way the cookie crumbles.

~~DukeP~~

You're still being ridiculous. If you crowded everyone who lives in places where the temp exceeds, say, 35°C on occasion into Denmark, you're not going to feel very comfortable, are you?

My wife and I are old persons. Yes, we chose to live in a place where the climate is favourable, all bar a few days per year. We did not have aircon in our old habitat, but we used much more energy there than we do now because we had heating on 7-8 months/year instead of aircon on a few days/year. I would not mind betting you use much more energy for comfort than we do. OK, so you want us to die from heatstroke, in order to save energy that you can use for heating, being the logical conclusion.

AND there is plenty of energy in this world. Human activities may not harness enough of it and wastes too much of the little it does harness, not to mention exhausting non-renewable short-term resources and, in doing so, creating climatic changes which may encourage the profligate use of even more energy.

[DukeP]

Theres x amount of space to live in.

X is a fixed amount (well, for Earth, at least).

There is Y amount of energy available. Y isnt fixed, most bets place it at a stable but liniear increase.

There is Z amount of people. At times, Z has increased exponential.

Sooner or later the increase of Z will challenge X. This point can be delayed by Y - but not indefinitely.

Dont consider me ridiculous, just because I can do math and consider human lives like any other variable.

In the end, only fools act humane, with out an eye towards cost over time.

And right now, the cost of AC might be harsher than what we should be willing to pay.

I am not thinking about global warming here. I am thinking about young people killed because traficklights wink out, hospitals starve for energy, and food and transport is being drained.

I am thinking about OLD and RICH people who can afford to WASTE energy. For comfort - and perhaps, in some small and exeedingly rare occasion - to prolong their allready long lives.

I dont hate old people.

I dont despise old people.

I just cant stand the way selfish individuals cling to values and rights that demeans the society and makes them a net loss for humanity.

The better good for the most.

Its NOT Air conditioning.

~~DukeP~~

[Gurm]

Wow, so in other words I'm RICH and GREEDY? Wow.

Let me explain something to you. I've lived without AC. But I choose not to. Why?

Let's see...

- My already almost impossible to handle 2-year-old becomes a MONSTER when the heat ramps up.
- My wife, currently involved in a high-risk pregnancy, nearly passes out in the heat.
- Both my wife and my kids, by nature of their fair skin, red hair, and constitutions... get headaches and feel generally unwell in serious heat.

Now let's add to that the fact that I'm the primary provider. I work 50 hours a week, commuting 1.5 hours each way every day. If I do that in ridiculous heat, I'll be COMPLETELY unproductive. It saps me of energy, brainpower, and makes me feel sluggish and unwell.

That is how we "adjust" to the heat.

And that's here, in New England, already fairly far north. I have NO idea how people in South Carolina live - ask Jammrock, but I'm sure he'll tell you that there's no such thing as a car or home without air conditioning.

In Florida, even the smallest trailer has central air conditioning.

But hey - we're all fat lazy greedy wasteful Americans anyway, right? (NO, I'm not trying to get this relegated to the political wastebin...)

I could judge people too, who live someplace different, or make different choices. Lately I've been trying not to. How about you try, too?

Let's agree that there's a common enemy here - the people who buy a gigantic useless SUV that is neither rugged NOR capable, and gets 10mpg.

[DukeP]

Try to judge my answers NOT based on where I live.

If it makes you feel better, my parents live in the southern part of Spain, where the Sirocco often blows from the African Sahel area.

And no, they dont use AC either.

They arent exactely old, but being 64+ yoa they fit at least the bottom of the old demography.

As for energy consumption: Just checked my meters. The last 365 days have required a combined use of 5850 KWH of energy for heat and light for our little family. Add to this roughly 1200 liters of gasoline (drove around 20.000km).

Thats the total direct energy expendency for my girlfriend and I.

Our house is old (build around 1690-1710) but we have installed energy conserving upgrades ourselves, including floor heating, special energy glass-fronts for our plentyfull windows etc.

Had our house been completely new, I guess we could have cut at least another 30% of our energy use.

I am no engineer (well, Ive worked as a chief energy consultant) - but I cant really see building to conserve heat much different from building to conserve cold. Its all a matter of isolation, airflow considerations and behaviour changes.

~~DukeP~~

[Jammrock]

I've lived in Denmark for a couple of years, and while Denmark can get hot spurts, I think there was a two or three weeks of 30-35 C (~88-95 F) temperatures during each summer I was there, on a whole the average Dane thought it hot when the the temp exceeded 25 C (77 F). Bear in mind Denmark has the same rough latitude as southern Alaska and Canada and is either peninsula or island surrounded by ocean and sea so it never really gets extremely cold or extremely hot. I found it comfortable for about 80% of the years (which means between 5-25 C for me).

The US is rather different on a whole. I have lived in Kansas, Florida, Utah, Illinois, Idaho and South Carolina (where I currently reside). While I would love to do without AC all the time, this is not Denmark. Put the average Dane in the SC heat for a summer and they would be begging you for AC by mid-June. Which brings me to part 2.

You cannot simply move because the weather disagrees with your heat tolerance. Most of us have jobs that require us to stay within a certain geographical location and there are not a lot of industies that have a great deal of high paying jobs in the north. Those places that do are usually very crowded and expensive to live. The more people that move there the more expensive it gets, the fewer high paying jobs there are to be had, etc. So simply moving is rarely the answer. And let's not forget this is a capitalist economy so there is no Kommune to pay for your moving costs and furniture.

The big problem is the dead of summer (the dog days of summer as they are called in the US). For about a 6-8 week period it is literally not safe to turn off the AC. Temperatures reach 35-40 C during the day with 90%+ humidity and no wind, and at the coolest points at night the temp drops to about 25-30 C, once again with little to no natural air flow. And while I would love to live in an area where those temperatures don't happen, it's just not feasible. And why would I want to move just because of 6-8 weeks of hot weather? For the other 44-46 weeks of the year northern South Carolina is very comfortable.

The answer is to teach and help people be more environmentally friendly. For example, when the weather permits we turn off either AC or heater and just open the windows. Some days we keep the windows open overnight, then close them at sunrise and draw the blinds to trap the cool air in. If we even have to turn on the AC during those days it's rarely for more than a few hours during the hottest parts of the day. During most of the Spring/Autumn we don't run the AC or heater at all. Teaching people to unplug devices not in use is another, and something that we have started to do and is catching on in the US.

But if you still think we should all move because of the temperature, then maybe we can all join you in Denmark. You have enough jobs, food and space up there for us, right?

[DukeP]

Obviously we would be pressed to move a couple of hundreds of millions into Denmark - but we could use more hands, thats for sure. Our unemployment rate is at an unhealthy 1.8%.

Oh. And why our temperatures might not approach the highs of southern california, we do have a long, dark and cold winter.

But. That is not the essence anyhow.

People have been living all over the world for at least 5.000 years - of which less than 1% have been with AC.

To claim that humans have changed physiologically since the invention of the AC simply doesnt make any sense.

So stop being silly.

AC IS an invention of convenience. And to find it outside trauma wards and hospitals is a luxury that -according to the OP - US and the rest of the world will have to go without again.


Instead, see it as an easy way to save some of those hard earned $$$. A bit of thought and some pretty basic refurbishing might ease the consequences greatly.

~~DukeP~~

[Jammrock]

As for Spain, South Carolina has the same rough subtropical climate as southern Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtropical_climate

Much of southern Spain has the benefit of coastal winds, hot or otherwise, unless they live inland. My area of South Carolina does not. We have hot, stagnat air that doesn't move and forests of trees and fields of grass to put humidity into the air. So while southern Spain may be just as hot, I doubt it has the same level of stagnant air and humidity. I may be wrong though, I've never lived there.

And just because most people in Spain don't use air conditioning doesn't mean I should.

[Jammrock]

AC IS an invention of convenience. And to find it outside trauma wards and hospitals is a luxury that -according to the OP - US and the rest of the world will have to go without again.


Instead, see it as an easy way to save some of those hard earned $$$. A bit of thought and some pretty basic refurbishing might ease the consequences greatly.

~~DukeP~~

Of course it is, and it's damn convenient. It allows people like me who hate hot weather to live comfortably in South Carolina. Otherwise I would be living in Canada or somewhere cold like that.

As for going without AC, that will not happen here. I'd buy $20k worth of solar panels and power my AC off the grid before I'll give it up. And let's not forget the alternate AC systems that people have been dreaming up lately so we fat lazy Americans can keep our ACs without killing the grid.

Speaking of energy, I plan on taking advantage of the SC sun and putting up solar panels on top of my next, highly efficient, home. At the rate solar panel technology is progressing I'll be able to put up a 10-20 kW system for under $2 per Watt by then (5-6 years from now). SC is offering huge tax incentives for putting up solar power because of the projected power crunch the state is going to have by 2016, which makes going eco-friendly even better.

[Evildead666]

It can get sodding hot here, but hasn't lately.
In the 2003 summer, I was in a jumper, since we had aircon in my warehouse sized office room, for a couple of large printing machines.
Said machines had been removed, and the aircon was way too cold.
We had no heating whatsoever, just aircon, throughout the winters. We had ice on the inside of the windows.

We had it good in 2003. It was hell in the drive to and from work, but it was liveable.
A few of our nuclear power stations were being hosed down 24/7 because they were getting too hot.
Its happened for the past few summers.

We are selling electricity to the UK with nuclear thats almost as old. Its got a couple of years more, and then thats it. nt sure were going to get to 2015, when the new ones are supposed to be online, if there is any money to buy and build them now...

edit : oh yeah, there is natural aircon. I live on the ground floor of the house. In summer its very cool, in winter very warm.
Upstairs, theyre hot in summer, and cold in winter. Go figure.