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Friday, March 08, 2024

Return to the Stone Age

 I saw too similar stories this week. The Washington Post has Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power; AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.

The Week has Is America running out of electrical power?  The nation's power grid appears to be reaching critical levels due to emerging technologies

From The Week:

"The advancement of new technologies appears to have given rise to a new problem across the United States: a crippling power shortage on the horizon. The advent of these technologies, such as eco-friendly factories and data centers, has renewed concerns that America could run out of electrical power. 

"These worries also come at a time when the United States' aging power grid is in desperate need of repair. Heavily publicized incidents such as the 2021 Texas power outage, which was partially blamed on crypto-farming, exposed how vulnerable the nation's power supply is, especially during emergencies. There have also been warnings from tech moguls such as Elon Musk, who has stated that the United States is primed to run out of electricity and transformers for artificial intelligence in 2025. 

"But the push to extend the life of the nation's power grid, while also maintaining eco-friendly sustainability, begs the question: Is the United States really at risk of going dark?

"Climate change is also hurting sustainability efforts. A recent report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation estimated that more than 300 million people in the U.S. and Canada could face power shortages in 2024. It also found that electricity demand is rising faster now than at any time in the past five years. This is partially because the "push for the electrification of heating and transportation systems — including electric cars — is also creating new winter peaks in electricity demand," Jeremy Hsu said for New Scientist

"One of the main issues with these sustainability efforts is the push to move away from fossil fuels toward renewable power."

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I think the "green", climate-change cult wants us to stop exhaling, inhaling, and using any power at all.  Forget about "eco-friendly" already. Forget about electric vehicles. Bring back fossil fuels and get us back to normal. Prioritize strengthening the power grid so we can keep our lights on the way we've done for over a century.

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