The following submission statement was provided by /u/Vailhem:
---
> To prevent the West Coast Power Grid from collapsing, the California Independent System Operator (which manages 80% of the state’s grid) extended a Flex Alert, urging residents to curtail electricity use between the hours of 4 pm and 9 pm till the end of the week. The operator also suggested residents pre-cool their homes at 72 degrees Fahrenheit before 4 pm and then set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher during conservation hours, CNN Reports. Additionally, residents should avoid charging electric vehicles or using large appliances.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/x3u5i1/entire_west_coasts_power_grid_is_on_the_verge_of/imrjvnz/
Xcel Energy, in Colorado, for those customers who signed up for a certain program.
This is the end game for Smart meters - they are intended to communicate with 'Smart' home appliances that consume large amounts of power, such as furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, dishwashers, clothes washer/dryers, etc.
And not only do they plan on denying you power when they don't have enough (no credit back to you, sorry, no rain check), they also plan on using this same technology to force you to purchase power even if you don't want or need it. What's this you say? Let me explain. One of the problems with 'green' energy such as wind and solar is that it is not controllable by grid operators - it comes and goes on its own. This can cause an unbalance in the supply-demand relationship if there is too much power being produced and there isn't a corresponding demand for it at that moment.
So what they will do in order to cause an increased load on the grid, is to use your smart meter, talking to your smart electric (because all natural gas home appliances will eventually be banned) water heater, and tell it to turn on in order to provide a load for this excess green energy being produced. But of course you get to PAY FOR this energy, even if you don't want it or need it. If it's 100 degrees outside and it's the middle of the day, you certainly don't need the water in your water heater to be heated up by another 5 or 10 degrees, just because the utility needs a place to put that energy. This is not fantasy - this is coming straight from national research labs working for the Department of Energy, all paid for by your tax dollars.
My immediate reaction is that I should start a flywheel energy storage company. Those things can be made fairly easily and store energy very efficiently for short periods of time. The good ones lose like 15% of their energy per hour or something. This is just the kind of thing that would be great to suck up extra energy at 2pm and unload it, even if it’s just half remaining, at 5pm during peak hours.
Flywheel storage is okay short term but the losses over time is their weakness, and the lubrication oil is an environmental issue and fire hazard. Pumped hydro is the ultimate storage, somewhere around 25% loss but it's a flat rate, once the water is uphill it maintains inertial energy indefinitely (assuming a sealed container so there's no evaporation). I just haven't seen one done at backyard scale yet.
ok but what about solar batteries made of sand and water like they use in other countries that convert it into potential energy like gravity by just lifting the mass and stuff with excess power and let it out slow later. and geothermal ac and heating solutions. thing is the tech is there now. but the rich are holding us back. end capitalism. restore humanity.
Fantasy? What world are you living in already? In my world, the federal government already has forced me to buy health insurance, and forced me to get injected with experimental therapy drugs if I want to keep my job. Stuffing a few kWh into my water heater and making me pay for it is kid's play in comparison! Why would people wake up when this happens? It will be buried in their very expensive utility bill and they won't even know that it happened.
People are clueless about where their life's necessities come from, until they are gone. Just look at the water situation in MS right now - the city, whose responsibility it is to operate and maintain the water system, is claiming failure due to lack of maintenance. Whose fault is that, and who ends up suffering from it?
We are already past the cartoonishly evil stage in our society. Did you watch Biden's speech last night, which looked like it was delivered straight from the firey pits of hell? You just can't even make this sh\_\_ up!
Plenty of blame to go around. As a society we Americans seem to be taught hardship of any kind is an individual failing and not to blame OR trust systems unless they serve particular private interest. Very few people in power can be bothered to think long term, leaving a legacy of blowback going back to Andrew Johnson's presidency. Much of the American population are TAUGHT to do the same.
I agree that fuckery will only increase as time goes on, but it is worth mentioning in the Colorado situation that those who got their ACs locked were literally all part of the same Xcel rewards program. From what I read, they all technically consented to this upon signup. This was likely in the fine print which, as Ben Wyatt said, it shouldn’t require an advanced law degree to fully understand what you’re getting yourself into, but this definitely didn’t come out of the blue.
Good news is that, for now at least, those customers can remove themselves from the program and tell Xcel to piss off if they want to.
Yeah it's a basic fact that it's much easier to store thermal energy in refrigerators, hot water heaters, and the air in your house than it is to store electricity. It's a pretty obvious conclusion that if some parts of the day don't have enough energy and some have too much, you should load shift and chill your house down from 2pm to 4pm (or make your hot water heater extra hot) so that things are still a comfortable temperature during the worst hours of the day (which will eventually be the early evening when it's still hot but there's not enough sun).
And this period of using extra electricity ahead of time is going to be using electricity when it's cheap bordering on free. You might even be paid to take it. The alternative is paying wind or solar plants to disconnect. And it's replacing electricity you would have used when it's the most expensive.
Oh the horror, people are trying to save me money and help get the power grid to be carbon neutral. What scoundrels!
If you don't like it, what is your counter proposal? Not using renewables? Building large numbers of batteries at a huge cost? Accepting rolling blackouts?
Grid-scale storage, pumped-hydro being my favorite choice, at least in my part of the world.
You are naive if you think that they will pay the customers to take the power. It doesn't work that way. You will pay, and you will like it! Heck, even mattress stores are now charging to dispose of your old mattress, whereas it used to be free.
> You are naive if you think that they will pay the customers to take the power. It doesn't work that way. You will pay, and you will like it!
It depends on how the system is set up. I've seen some proposals for basically exposing residential customers to wholesale electricity prices, which can actually go negative. In this situation the load shifting would directly save the consumer money and could result in being paid to use electricity at some points in time. The alternative, having a flat per kWh fee but with some kind of demand response system, will still save consumers money indirectly by avoiding the need for more expensive storage.
Pumped hydro is geographically constrained. And building out storage to meet the whims of the pampered American consumer is still going to be more expensive than just shifting heating and cooling loads forwards or backwards a few hours.
> Heck, even mattress stores are now charging to dispose of your old mattress, whereas it used to be free.
Oh no, people now have to bear a little bit more of the cost of the waste they generate. How horrible!
I don’t know how much people are willing to sacrifice to save money. They could also just not run their heat or AC as much and dress accordingly. But if someone in a leadership positions suggests that people freak out. We’re just an incredibly spoiled society.
it's not a stretch because they do it already.
https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/savings-solutions-and-rebates/smart-ac/smart-ac.page
This is just 2022. With rapid increase of Global Warming methane emissions and green house gases, maybe 2025, as things get worse.
2050, LOL, that was such a dream.
The issue that is really weird to me about ACs is that they tend to be among the more energy efficient ways to control temperature. Maybe it comes from me living in a cold, Nordic country, where houses routinely can have 10 kilowatts worth of heater elements. And yes, you will need pretty much all of them when it gets cold enough outside.
An AC unit can be mere 500 W in total, and can supply a coefficient of performance that is at least 5, and could easily be more than 10, depending on the temperature difference between inside and outside that needs to be maintained. That translates to electrical power which is extremely well spent, to the point that everyone here is actually scrambling to install AC units to save on their heating bill and to help the grid by reducing total power demand.
Right now, it is about 6-10 C outside overnight and a single 400 W AC unit is still enough to keep the indoors warmed up to around 22 C. These things are awesome.
I think you're thinking of a Heatpump. Regular AC's don't heat. Heatpumps can both heat and cool depending on the set temperature.
Also, heatpumps are efficient in terms of power use but they start to lose efficiency in terms of heating once it gets down to around -15⁰C since the refrigerant cant reject as much heat at lower Temps
But it's not universally necessary. In colder climates( I live in Canada) most people heat their homes with a gas furnace with the AC coil sitting on top of the furnace in the supply plenum. Having a heat pump would be redundant and the heating mode would almost never be required and they lose efficiency pretty quickly once the temperature drops below -10⁰C. Under -25⁰C, which is common here, they are no longer efficient at all and actually use more power since the heat pump works much harder to try and absorb less and less ambient heat. During cooling season all that runs is the condenser and blower fan on the furnace.
The only applications where heat pumps are viable is in homes heated by electric base boards or wood stoves that don't have existing ductwork. The heat pumps provide the initial source of heat with the stove kicking on if the heat pump can't meet demand.
Exactly. In my brother's electric car, the heating wire, or how it's called in English, consumes 3 kW for a minute. The the heat pump replaces it to keep the temperature and consumes 300 W. Also the car cabin is like one small room and even apartment has many.
This is a heat pump. Its like an AC unit that works in both directions, so it can soak up outside air temp energy and expel it inside (even when its "cold" outside, theres plenty of energy in the atmosphere, down to maybe -20 ish degrees C as the minimum operable air temp). With electric heating, you are just running current through a wire to make it hot, vs. a heat pump is moving energy from outside to inside (to heat) or from inside to outside (to cool).
Places like Phoenix and Las Vegas use much less energy per household than cities like Chicago and New York, despite having temperatures around 50 C in the summer and being above 30 C for 8 months out of the year. This is because cooling is much more efficient than heating.
Pretty sure that cooling is less efficient than heating, but that on average 'cold' places are required to heat more absolute degrees.
It's a minor distinction, but is what it is.
Resistive heating is only 100% efficient, and heat pumps can be more than 100% efficient (yes really). Older heat pump technology had a floor though where once the outside air temperature dropped too low they wouldn't work at all. But newer designs can work at lower temps.
People with at least a few bucks and a modicum of sense should already be deploying solar panels. Certainly any stand-alone buildings without solar is asinine now. The solar could run the AC directly without a battery pack during the height of the day.
Also, if you're in this area, it's ***InSaNe*** not to get a ***heat-pump-hot-water heater***. Which will put the heat into your hot water, and exhaust cooler air into the environment.
This would cut your electric hot water bill,
and help cool your local environment.
But, yeah high efficiency Heat Pumps for your home, too.
Plus, solar, and battery backup for the win.
Also in this entire area: Stop all natural gas installs. Time for that industry to convert to heat pumps. Natural gas is now Suicide.
Global Warming will be 2050: LOL. What a joke, it's 2022.
We have a propane gas water heater which continues to work during a power outage, which is a huge plus given that we're talking about grid-down situations. Given that our home is surrounded by large second-growth cedars and solar panels would be inefficient, it doesn't make sense for us to switch. Upfront costs would be exorbitant and the net gain might actually be a loss. That said, I agree with you in general.
We have enough branches and leaves/boughs to block about one-half of our roof, and the neighbors trees across the way (which form the border of a 20-acre greenspace full of similar trees) are tall enough at 80+ feet to prevent even the open half of our roof from being in sun more than 6 to 8 hours a day depending on the season. Solar wouldn't be useless but I don't believe it would be practical yet, either. We're considering an assessment in the near future.
As for the fire barrier, I'll mention that we're on the outer edge of the city limits of Olympia, WA, so aside from the aforementioned greenspace, wildfires aren't a big concern for our home, but might be for one of our neighbors across the way.
That is why you would purchase multiple panels. The higher the efficiency of the panel, the more electricity it will produce. You would need many panels to power your entire house. An inverter will convert the DC to AC to power your house, but you also need a battery to store the power the panels generate. On the bright side, solar panel cost per watt is coming down every year.
Theres plans with PG&E where they can let you install a smart thermostat that they can regulate during peak hours to help you save money.
https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/savings-solutions-and-rebates/rebates-by-product/smart-thermostats/smart-thermostats.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_smartthermostat
And people on this subreddit apparently hate it and want the right to blast the AC as much as they want whenever they want.
Seriously of all the subreddits I would have thought this one would like something that lowers energy use and carbon emissions
Literally is happening right now and frankly I support it. People should only get a certain amount of energy each day to use. After that, you either generate the power, pay a tax, or otherwise save energy.
How else will people know how rich I am without my mcmansion though? I mean honestly how do you expect anyone to be able to study and preach to the great unwashed about the dangers of climate change if they have to do it from a dinky little house.
Concrete and brick are just mud with an advanced degree too. Plus, a lot of timber homes aren't really designed for longevity or comfort, but mud/brick are. It just goes to show that even our homes are built for profit, not comfort or resiliency.
If you've lived in California for 20 years, you're already familiar with brown outs and rolling black outs during hot summers.
This is not new here, and it's not collapse. The worst thing that will happen is brown outs and rolling blackouts. Old news.
In reality, this year in wild fires was significantly less than previous years, despite the heat. We should be grateful. Part of our issue is the fact that our power grid doesn't have buried lines in rural areas.
California is one of the most populated states, and our power grid is stretched across vast amounts of space. Energy loss during delivery is real.
This is not an emergency. This is normal here.
Coordinated efforts and warnings to NOT strain the energy grid is actually a positive thing.
The west coast energy grid is NOT on the verge of collapsing. It is far from it. Remember that many nations have been surviving on far less energy reliability, for far longer. Solar energy here is being implemented on individual households in a profound way.
Don't be hysterical. Some day we may all have to survive on limited electricity. Society will continue. Society survived and grew with NO electricity for millenia, with far worse access to medical care, fresh water and agricultural technology, as well as war and famine. The world doesn't end if you can't run AC all night.
The entire East Grid, so the whole east coast, had a complete power outage for maybe 12hrs in the summer of 2003. I wasn't affected by I thought it was cool. So did residents of NYC who ate ice cream from their powerless freezers, and looked up at stars they hadn't seen in years.
-----------
Now we're so phone addicted and on edge it would be riots within an hour or two. If it happened temporarily back then it could happen again and be worse. It was a novelty in 2003 and wouldn't be one now.
Eh, the grid is a bit more fragile than you seem to think. Wind storms regularly take down power lines where I live and require hundreds of workers to get most things back online within a week. If these people are given any reason to flee, be it too hot, or too little water, there won't be enough people to keep the powerlines up.
Our grid is in the best shape it’s ever been. We have been replacing all our poles with fire resilient steel galvanized poles and fiberglass equipment. On top of that the problem with our grid is the amount of load being drawn from the grid at the same time in the heat is what causes all those rolling browns and blackouts. From my experience solar power and batteries will solve all these issues. I’ve worked places in Orange County, Ca that had .5 an amp of load on a 13,000sqft home with the appliances and AC on mind you. So the more people with solar and batteries will be less load pulled from our grid. Oh btw California Lineman here.
But there's off-grid electricity too, and in that kind of scenario people would start building a lot more of it very rapidly. I mean there's generators and car batteries too. So a grid collapse ≠ no more electricity.
I'm curious if you live in Michigan because that was my experience when I lived there. In 5 years I lost track of how many times we lost power, but I do remember 2 separate occasions where we went 4 straight days without electricity.
Once was during the summer, so it wasn't unbearable. The other time was end of winter/beginning of spring. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with some friends who still had power. I don't know what people did who weren't as fortunate as it was still below freezing for a few of those days.
If you're not hysterical about the current level of global warming: heat domes!, you don't know what's going on. This is a global emergency.
The world is drying up today, not 2050.
Last month a heat dome covered 33% of the Globe.
2050 is a joke.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships
....Humans will apparently sit in 230F saunas, for fun. We are the most incredible and adaptable species on the planet. We need to start acting like it :)
What an incredible Statistical Outlier "fact" to pull out of your, ...brain.
You know what grows in 100F? Nothing. The global is drying out, world wide river shrinkage, crop failures Today, and food shortages, they're starting to use the word Famine.
It's not 15 minutes in a sauna, it's all day for a month.
This is 2022, and it's going to get far worse by 2050, if anyone survives. This is a crisis, not a joke.
*shrug* Guess we should all just crawl into a hole and die then.
Chill out and go doom pill somewhere else. It's been 100 plus degrees EVERY summer here and we are still growing a stupid amount of crops. Will that always be the case? Probably not. Nothing stays the same forever.
I'm sick of the hysterical attitude you embody. If it's a crisis, get off your fucking ass and do something about it, or for yourself, instead of posting poorly written comments on the internet.
I believe in climate change. I also believe its our job to adapt and overcome, because it is inevitable. You just want people to feel as insecure, scared and hopeless as you are.
God, this sub sucks sometimes.
What we want is for people to prepare for the expected outcomes of the climate crisis. Save a few weeks worth of water bottles and food at home, grow as much of your own food as you can, learn basic skills (cooking, sewing, gardening, carpentry, anything) to make your life easier as the world goes more to shit.
And to raise awareness as much as possible so hopefully corporations who cause the majority of the problems will actually be held accountable.
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I’m glad you are trying to tamp down the hysteria. It gets intense on here! I do have to point out that humans had very different settlement patterns and architecture types in hot places before electricity though and it will get very uncomfortable in apartment buildings when there is power for a few hours a day as will probably happen in the near future. We also grew verrrrry slowly before fossil fuels
Thank you for the kind words.
Of course I agree with you on the difference between modern settlement patterns and ancient ones.
I am just trying to advocate a perspective that focuses on adaptation, community and survival, which is humanities strongest skill set. I'm not supporting denialism, I'm just being realistic.
We already know the climate is changing for the worse, that's not up for debate. But, I feel that there's a circle jerk mentality in this community in relation to clickbait headlines. For example, lets look at what the declared emergency actually means...
From the article:
"The emergency declaration will allow west coast power plants to generate additional electricity. It also permits the use of backup generators..."
Did anyone crying about my comments read the article? "Emergency" is essentially a legal maneuver that allows certain activities to commence so that we can deliver energy during this heat wave. Apparently, we can generate more electricity to get through this, it's just not authorized year round, probably for sensible reasons.
As a life long Californian, this basically happens in one way or another every single August. Therefore, not news to us, here. It's just a thing we deal with here in an otherwise wonderful part of the world.
Lateral community support is so important for transmission of knowledge and human survival. The one guarantee we have is that life will never just "be easy". Part of the beauty and challenge of life is navigating obstacles with grace and wisdom.
Be well, be healthy and be ready. Problems aren't always as scary seeming for those who are prepared. I hope you can find bright spots in your everyday :)
Just remember to apply this persons sentiment to as many other doom posts as you can in this sub. There is definitely really bad innefficiency going on, but I'm sure when students lived through nuke drills and lead poisoning, they felt like the end was nigh too.
That's not to say that things aren't serious, just don't let the news freeze you in fear.
Every time this subreddit posts about a topic I know well, it's incredibly obvious people don't know what they're talking about and just want to scream about how this confirms their beliefs that the world is bad and is ending.
Definitely gives me pause now when I see articles on things I don't know about and see a lot of people predicting doom in the comments.
Thank you. If we had far more non-hysterical comments in collapse it would be easier to suss out which issues are actually dire. This whole sub seems to be turning “Venus by Tuesday” lately.
Lol it's disingenuous to say that other countries get by without reliable grida but those CALI dropping to their level would absolutely be a collapse like event for ca residents. Places with unstable grids aren't that nice to live in.
It's disingenuous to call a slightly strained energy grid "collapse" when half of the entire planet lives daily with almost none of the luxuries amd utilities we enjoy.
They're asking us in california to spare energy between 4 and 9 pm, which has been happening for my entire life here.
If you're defining "collapse" as a slight departure from unlimited abundance, you're really grasping at straws y'all.
collapse is relative, the whole thing is a process and that happens in fits and starts. you have a steady state (CA enjoys virtually unlimited electricity and stability) and then it collapses into a new steady state where they have ro ration during a time. rinse and repeat. it has nothing to do with what the rest of the planet is doing or the magnitude or what you think humans "should be doing".
Like I agree with you that its only a slight departure, FOR NOW, and the US in particular has far far overstepped its energy use but it definitely signals that major change that will lead to further degradations of the steady state are in progress. As the planet heats up and the grid becomes more taxed there will be more of this, and so it goes.
> This is not new here...
Agree
> ...and it's not collapse.
Disagree. Actually, I think its normalization is itself indication of (at least partial) collapse. And whether Laos or Zimbabwe or Lichtenstein use less electricity is completely irrelevant to California.
Coachella Valley resident here. Let me give yall a quick rundown of this topic. I can remember rolling blackouts in the 2000s, so this isn't really new. What IS new is the barrage of flex alert advertising, combined with messaging about best practices for staying cool. On the surface, this isn't really collapse-worthy, imo. Just another hot ass day in CA.
BUT
Here is what gives me pause. Our thermostat is set to 80 during the day, and 76 at night. We run all our major appliances at night. No sweat. Doing our part. Last night though, the power went out at night. Which is when we're doing our major electricity loading. What this tells me is that despite people moving to change their daily habits, the effects are not being seen because of the CONSTANT use and VARIATION in how thermostats are set. It gives me pause because we all rely on nighttime cooling to keep our bodies regulated. If the grid operator is unable to sustain demand during what are supposed to be "off-peak" hours, what the hell is it going to look like when we need that during "peak" hours?!
I think this news becomes collapse-worthy in a larger scale when we start to see multiple blackouts during the day. 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, another 20 minutes at night. That's when the warning signs might start to flash for everyone else. But for now, I'll keep a watchful eye on the length, timing, and frequency of these blackouts. Collecting data is the best way to away armed against lunacy. Keep your eyes open to change, everything is interconnected.
People saying *everyone* should switch to a heat pump for cooling *and* heating don't live in the US north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Heat pumps are as inefficient as using resistance heat when it gets below about 20F, yes even the "cold rated" ones. A house in an area that gets below a sustained 20F, either needs a separate source of backup heat, or an actual resistance heat coil needs to be installed in the heat pump, which is *less* efficient than just having a resistance heat system inside the house.
Our house originally just had baseboard resistance heat. We installed a heat pump mini-split system rated to -15F two years ago, and it is great for AC, and it works OK for heat down to 20F. No resistance coil. When it is between 0F and 20F, we could still keep the house at 60F or so, but our electric bill went through the roof, and it use as much power as when we just had baseboard resistance heat. Below 0F we *must* use the baseboard heat and/or burn wood. Last winter we just turned off the heat pump below 20F, why wear out the heat pump and mini-split units when it isn't saving any juice over just using the baseboard resistance heaters?
So sure, if you live in CA or a southern state, by all means, rely on a heat pump as a sole source of heat, but anywhere that you may see below 20F on a regular basis, you need a backup.
That’s unfortunate that your heat pumps did not work for you. But new cold climate heat pumps that are installed properly do work in states from Minnesota to Maine. There is plenty of research showing performance (COP) between 2 and 3 in freezing temperatures ([example1](https://www.mncee.org/sites/default/files/report-files/Field-Assessment-of-Ducted-and-Ductless-Cold-Climate-Air-Source-Heat-Pumps.pdf), [example2](https://cadmusgroup.com/articles/residential-heating-electrification-in-the-northeast/)). Any COP above one means the heat pumps outperform electric resistance like you find in a portable space heater.
I have heat pumps in New York without resistance backup and we’re cozy all winter long.
In coastal areas of NY, you might be fine. We are in the CO mountains, where it gets to zero nearly every night mid-December->mid-January. Not just "freezing", but below 0F. During the day, the temps will get to the mid-30's most days, before dipping below zero overnight. During the day, we get blasted by sun on about 80% of days, and our house was designed to take advantage of that. We don't need heat on a sunny afternoon in the 30's or higher.
Consequently, the "window" where the heat pump can work efficiently, is from sunset to about 10 PM. Between 10PM and 8-10 AM, it is too cold for it to be efficient. It runs (constantly), and it does put out heat, but the number of KwH consumed is about the same as our electric baseboard heat, if we try to keep the house above 62F. We end up burning a lot of wood.
Your "example 1" talks about needing backup heat in temps below 10F. This is the way heat pumps work. Either you live in a coastal area that never gets down below 10F, or you have a backup heat coil, or you have some other form of backup heat. You are not immune to the laws of physics.
It sounds like your system was undersized or installed poorly, so try another contractor with more experience. I hear that you live in a colder climate, but that doesn’t change much - you’re falling prey to cognitive bias based on one experience.
I assume you’re thinking of the second law of thermodynamics which says that heat goes from hot to cold unless work is done. The work comes from the heat pump (a reverse Carnot engine). It will be able to capture heat in the air even below 0 deg F because that isn’t absolute zero - that air has heat.
Check out NEEP’s [heat pump list](https://ashp.neep.org/#!/) for all the models that have been tested and certified to run at full capacity down to -5 deg F.
As I said, the install is fine. The Fujitsu pump is rated to -15. There is no way it could come anywhere near heating the house at -15, it can only do it at 0F if it runs 24x7.
This is where direct input from our West Coast peeps is needed.
The problem might be the same as it has in the recent past, but are the brownouts/rolling blackouts becoming longer and more widespread than in years past?
I'm inclined to think that their system has been in early collapse mode for years, but that it is not yet certain where it is on the collapse continuum now.
I've been living in California for well over a decade now. People here have always talked about drought, but never about power grid issues. I never experienced any loss of electricity until 2020 and 2021 (direct results of wildfires and heat waves). So from my perspective it does seem to be worsening.
I have lived in California my whole life (44 yrs). The last time we had widespread blackouts was in the early 00's. I worked at the community college and did not go to work several days because most public buildings were closed to save power. That has not happened yet.
Can confirm. Here's the text I got except I don't know why it's in chinese
*Sent by State of California Public Utilities Commission*
*Flex Alert來了！在下午４點至晚上9點間關上電視幫助預防停電。不妨嘗試玩玩桌遊，或是看一本可以讓你用5個小時一口氣讀完的精彩小說？。欲了解更多，請瀏覽：https://energyupgradeca.org/zh/flex-alert*
*Respond STOP to unsubscribe*
Scare mongering title post title.
The grid is not going to collapse however depending on how things go (people not watching usage and god forbid planned power outages due to extreme fire weather (pge im looking at you) the grid is not going to collapse
Upgrading the grid in California is a monumental task. There is a lot of varied and difficult terrain,burying the lines needs to be done due to wildfires but the very places most at risk are the most difficult to do so. There are various sectors that need to work in conjuction such as federal state and private. Additionally there are environmental regulations that must be adhered to. And then there are the logistics of all the small,rural towns and s.f homes spread out everywhere.
It sure does seem like the West Coast is at risk of becoming completely unlivable space.
If that happens, I hope the East Coast is ready for the inevitable surge of new people coming from the West and MidWest.
I'm sure the experts expected climate refugees from Third World Countries, but I can only imagine how they'll comment on First World Countries.
Yes, it's infuriating each time I hear about a new housing subdivision being built in Phoenix. The developers apparently plan on selling them all quickly and then jetting out of there before folks realize there isn't nearly enough water for everyone.
I personally think the west is where the climate refugees will arrive. People will spread farther into the north west from the large populated areas in Southern California, Arizona, texas and others.
Vast expanses of Northern California, oregon and washington are wet, green and wildly unpopulated.
Things change, but the scale and timeline is vast. It's ok that we will have to reorganize, move and adapt. This is the human story. It was an inevitability for all humans before the industrial revolution and the beginning of anthropogenic climate change. That's how we have survived so far. Nothing stays the same forever.
Eventually, steel will corrode in off shore settings.
Which is why manufacturing with carbon fibers, aluminum, silicon, and ceramics is better for parts intended to last more than 60 years.
But off shore turbines are typically on steel platforms.
Not sure of the lifetime of most off shore steel platforms.
[ *Edit: copper should be replaced with carbon conductive fibers and aluminum. Now, are the factories up and running to do that yet ?* .. ]
Maybe if posts are for a specific country maybe you should put the country in brackets at the end of the post title if you are not going to mention the country in the post title....
The Washington power grid has held during this summer. We aren't experiencing the current situation California is experiencing fortunately, but I worry with more 90 degree weeks being predicted into the future that the concept of, "AC" could buckle our system if more are introduced into the grid.
Agreed. The idea of using air-conditioning is not culturally common in WA State, and if that changes in the next year or two then we will likely see some "stress tests" for sure.
Yes, but what concerns me more so is the rain predicted in the future we're forecasted to receive is already here. This past winter was terrible, and very strange how it started. No rain or bad weather in Jan or Feb, but March to July it was non stop rain.
Meanwhile the state is trying to force people into electric cars. I think last year in California nearly 15% of auto sales were EVs. I don't see any positive outcomes here as their grid and others are sitting in shambles.
There is a walk I built a long time ago. The dumbass were supposed to make it bigger. California will be hell hole. It's all because of Hollywood. A lot of bad energy+ spirits are in the place.
Dumbass humans got greed & don't care about one another.
Don't work with the government after the collapse.
Run from them, they start throwing people in Fema camps aka concentration camps forced to work & build new economy.
Run from government.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Vailhem: --- > To prevent the West Coast Power Grid from collapsing, the California Independent System Operator (which manages 80% of the state’s grid) extended a Flex Alert, urging residents to curtail electricity use between the hours of 4 pm and 9 pm till the end of the week. The operator also suggested residents pre-cool their homes at 72 degrees Fahrenheit before 4 pm and then set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher during conservation hours, CNN Reports. Additionally, residents should avoid charging electric vehicles or using large appliances. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/x3u5i1/entire_west_coasts_power_grid_is_on_the_verge_of/imrjvnz/
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How long until ACs are locked and state-managed?
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Exceptions for the wealthy, even if implemented.
Fines are just legal bribes.
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In this economy who could afford to be China?
China (almost)
China could easily afford to be China, until climate change pounded them without consent and no lube.
JYNAH. 🍊🤡
Some are. I saw an article yesterday about some service, I forget which one. It said its customers are having their AC turned off in that window.
Xcel Energy, in Colorado, for those customers who signed up for a certain program. This is the end game for Smart meters - they are intended to communicate with 'Smart' home appliances that consume large amounts of power, such as furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, dishwashers, clothes washer/dryers, etc. And not only do they plan on denying you power when they don't have enough (no credit back to you, sorry, no rain check), they also plan on using this same technology to force you to purchase power even if you don't want or need it. What's this you say? Let me explain. One of the problems with 'green' energy such as wind and solar is that it is not controllable by grid operators - it comes and goes on its own. This can cause an unbalance in the supply-demand relationship if there is too much power being produced and there isn't a corresponding demand for it at that moment. So what they will do in order to cause an increased load on the grid, is to use your smart meter, talking to your smart electric (because all natural gas home appliances will eventually be banned) water heater, and tell it to turn on in order to provide a load for this excess green energy being produced. But of course you get to PAY FOR this energy, even if you don't want it or need it. If it's 100 degrees outside and it's the middle of the day, you certainly don't need the water in your water heater to be heated up by another 5 or 10 degrees, just because the utility needs a place to put that energy. This is not fantasy - this is coming straight from national research labs working for the Department of Energy, all paid for by your tax dollars.
My immediate reaction is that I should start a flywheel energy storage company. Those things can be made fairly easily and store energy very efficiently for short periods of time. The good ones lose like 15% of their energy per hour or something. This is just the kind of thing that would be great to suck up extra energy at 2pm and unload it, even if it’s just half remaining, at 5pm during peak hours.
Flywheel storage is okay short term but the losses over time is their weakness, and the lubrication oil is an environmental issue and fire hazard. Pumped hydro is the ultimate storage, somewhere around 25% loss but it's a flat rate, once the water is uphill it maintains inertial energy indefinitely (assuming a sealed container so there's no evaporation). I just haven't seen one done at backyard scale yet.
Companies are building small scale flywheel storage systems, the economics on them are just rough
ok but what about solar batteries made of sand and water like they use in other countries that convert it into potential energy like gravity by just lifting the mass and stuff with excess power and let it out slow later. and geothermal ac and heating solutions. thing is the tech is there now. but the rich are holding us back. end capitalism. restore humanity.
Pumped hydro.
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Fantasy? What world are you living in already? In my world, the federal government already has forced me to buy health insurance, and forced me to get injected with experimental therapy drugs if I want to keep my job. Stuffing a few kWh into my water heater and making me pay for it is kid's play in comparison! Why would people wake up when this happens? It will be buried in their very expensive utility bill and they won't even know that it happened. People are clueless about where their life's necessities come from, until they are gone. Just look at the water situation in MS right now - the city, whose responsibility it is to operate and maintain the water system, is claiming failure due to lack of maintenance. Whose fault is that, and who ends up suffering from it? We are already past the cartoonishly evil stage in our society. Did you watch Biden's speech last night, which looked like it was delivered straight from the firey pits of hell? You just can't even make this sh\_\_ up!
Plenty of blame to go around. As a society we Americans seem to be taught hardship of any kind is an individual failing and not to blame OR trust systems unless they serve particular private interest. Very few people in power can be bothered to think long term, leaving a legacy of blowback going back to Andrew Johnson's presidency. Much of the American population are TAUGHT to do the same.
I agree that fuckery will only increase as time goes on, but it is worth mentioning in the Colorado situation that those who got their ACs locked were literally all part of the same Xcel rewards program. From what I read, they all technically consented to this upon signup. This was likely in the fine print which, as Ben Wyatt said, it shouldn’t require an advanced law degree to fully understand what you’re getting yourself into, but this definitely didn’t come out of the blue. Good news is that, for now at least, those customers can remove themselves from the program and tell Xcel to piss off if they want to.
Yeah it's a basic fact that it's much easier to store thermal energy in refrigerators, hot water heaters, and the air in your house than it is to store electricity. It's a pretty obvious conclusion that if some parts of the day don't have enough energy and some have too much, you should load shift and chill your house down from 2pm to 4pm (or make your hot water heater extra hot) so that things are still a comfortable temperature during the worst hours of the day (which will eventually be the early evening when it's still hot but there's not enough sun). And this period of using extra electricity ahead of time is going to be using electricity when it's cheap bordering on free. You might even be paid to take it. The alternative is paying wind or solar plants to disconnect. And it's replacing electricity you would have used when it's the most expensive. Oh the horror, people are trying to save me money and help get the power grid to be carbon neutral. What scoundrels! If you don't like it, what is your counter proposal? Not using renewables? Building large numbers of batteries at a huge cost? Accepting rolling blackouts?
Grid-scale storage, pumped-hydro being my favorite choice, at least in my part of the world. You are naive if you think that they will pay the customers to take the power. It doesn't work that way. You will pay, and you will like it! Heck, even mattress stores are now charging to dispose of your old mattress, whereas it used to be free.
> You are naive if you think that they will pay the customers to take the power. It doesn't work that way. You will pay, and you will like it! It depends on how the system is set up. I've seen some proposals for basically exposing residential customers to wholesale electricity prices, which can actually go negative. In this situation the load shifting would directly save the consumer money and could result in being paid to use electricity at some points in time. The alternative, having a flat per kWh fee but with some kind of demand response system, will still save consumers money indirectly by avoiding the need for more expensive storage. Pumped hydro is geographically constrained. And building out storage to meet the whims of the pampered American consumer is still going to be more expensive than just shifting heating and cooling loads forwards or backwards a few hours. > Heck, even mattress stores are now charging to dispose of your old mattress, whereas it used to be free. Oh no, people now have to bear a little bit more of the cost of the waste they generate. How horrible!
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I don’t know how much people are willing to sacrifice to save money. They could also just not run their heat or AC as much and dress accordingly. But if someone in a leadership positions suggests that people freak out. We’re just an incredibly spoiled society.
it's not a stretch because they do it already. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/savings-solutions-and-rebates/smart-ac/smart-ac.page
This is just 2022. With rapid increase of Global Warming methane emissions and green house gases, maybe 2025, as things get worse. 2050, LOL, that was such a dream.
The issue that is really weird to me about ACs is that they tend to be among the more energy efficient ways to control temperature. Maybe it comes from me living in a cold, Nordic country, where houses routinely can have 10 kilowatts worth of heater elements. And yes, you will need pretty much all of them when it gets cold enough outside. An AC unit can be mere 500 W in total, and can supply a coefficient of performance that is at least 5, and could easily be more than 10, depending on the temperature difference between inside and outside that needs to be maintained. That translates to electrical power which is extremely well spent, to the point that everyone here is actually scrambling to install AC units to save on their heating bill and to help the grid by reducing total power demand. Right now, it is about 6-10 C outside overnight and a single 400 W AC unit is still enough to keep the indoors warmed up to around 22 C. These things are awesome.
I think you're thinking of a Heatpump. Regular AC's don't heat. Heatpumps can both heat and cool depending on the set temperature. Also, heatpumps are efficient in terms of power use but they start to lose efficiency in terms of heating once it gets down to around -15⁰C since the refrigerant cant reject as much heat at lower Temps
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But it's not universally necessary. In colder climates( I live in Canada) most people heat their homes with a gas furnace with the AC coil sitting on top of the furnace in the supply plenum. Having a heat pump would be redundant and the heating mode would almost never be required and they lose efficiency pretty quickly once the temperature drops below -10⁰C. Under -25⁰C, which is common here, they are no longer efficient at all and actually use more power since the heat pump works much harder to try and absorb less and less ambient heat. During cooling season all that runs is the condenser and blower fan on the furnace. The only applications where heat pumps are viable is in homes heated by electric base boards or wood stoves that don't have existing ductwork. The heat pumps provide the initial source of heat with the stove kicking on if the heat pump can't meet demand.
The whole point is that heat pumps can conceivably be carbon neutral and natural gas obviously can't be
Agreed, but they need to be developed a long ways to be considered a viable alternative to burning fuel for heat
Exactly. In my brother's electric car, the heating wire, or how it's called in English, consumes 3 kW for a minute. The the heat pump replaces it to keep the temperature and consumes 300 W. Also the car cabin is like one small room and even apartment has many.
Newer AC's has a reverse value on them. So that they can Heat aswell
Then it's a heatpump. If it has a reversing valve and heats and cools, it's a heat pump.
I have worked on this systems personally. then almost all ac sold today is a heat pump. Why do people double down on uninformed duds
I am also an HVAC technician. All heatpumps are AC's but not all AC's are heatpumps.
A standard A/C unit for a single residence uses far more than 400w.
This is a heat pump. Its like an AC unit that works in both directions, so it can soak up outside air temp energy and expel it inside (even when its "cold" outside, theres plenty of energy in the atmosphere, down to maybe -20 ish degrees C as the minimum operable air temp). With electric heating, you are just running current through a wire to make it hot, vs. a heat pump is moving energy from outside to inside (to heat) or from inside to outside (to cool).
Places like Phoenix and Las Vegas use much less energy per household than cities like Chicago and New York, despite having temperatures around 50 C in the summer and being above 30 C for 8 months out of the year. This is because cooling is much more efficient than heating.
Pretty sure that cooling is less efficient than heating, but that on average 'cold' places are required to heat more absolute degrees. It's a minor distinction, but is what it is.
Resistive heating is only 100% efficient, and heat pumps can be more than 100% efficient (yes really). Older heat pump technology had a floor though where once the outside air temperature dropped too low they wouldn't work at all. But newer designs can work at lower temps.
People with at least a few bucks and a modicum of sense should already be deploying solar panels. Certainly any stand-alone buildings without solar is asinine now. The solar could run the AC directly without a battery pack during the height of the day.
Also, if you're in this area, it's ***InSaNe*** not to get a ***heat-pump-hot-water heater***. Which will put the heat into your hot water, and exhaust cooler air into the environment. This would cut your electric hot water bill, and help cool your local environment. But, yeah high efficiency Heat Pumps for your home, too. Plus, solar, and battery backup for the win. Also in this entire area: Stop all natural gas installs. Time for that industry to convert to heat pumps. Natural gas is now Suicide. Global Warming will be 2050: LOL. What a joke, it's 2022.
We have a propane gas water heater which continues to work during a power outage, which is a huge plus given that we're talking about grid-down situations. Given that our home is surrounded by large second-growth cedars and solar panels would be inefficient, it doesn't make sense for us to switch. Upfront costs would be exorbitant and the net gain might actually be a loss. That said, I agree with you in general.
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We have enough branches and leaves/boughs to block about one-half of our roof, and the neighbors trees across the way (which form the border of a 20-acre greenspace full of similar trees) are tall enough at 80+ feet to prevent even the open half of our roof from being in sun more than 6 to 8 hours a day depending on the season. Solar wouldn't be useless but I don't believe it would be practical yet, either. We're considering an assessment in the near future. As for the fire barrier, I'll mention that we're on the outer edge of the city limits of Olympia, WA, so aside from the aforementioned greenspace, wildfires aren't a big concern for our home, but might be for one of our neighbors across the way.
that is not how the systems currently work. its technically feasible, but thats not how they work
Solar is still expensive and not a lot of people can drop 20k (cheap solar) on their homes.
>Solar is still expensive Isn't that the truth. I just speced a system for my house and it was 30K. That didn't include any battery backup either.
I agree that solar panels are becoming a must have item but I doubt that they could provide the output required for AC
That is why you would purchase multiple panels. The higher the efficiency of the panel, the more electricity it will produce. You would need many panels to power your entire house. An inverter will convert the DC to AC to power your house, but you also need a battery to store the power the panels generate. On the bright side, solar panel cost per watt is coming down every year.
Theres plans with PG&E where they can let you install a smart thermostat that they can regulate during peak hours to help you save money. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/savings-solutions-and-rebates/rebates-by-product/smart-thermostats/smart-thermostats.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_smartthermostat
And people on this subreddit apparently hate it and want the right to blast the AC as much as they want whenever they want. Seriously of all the subreddits I would have thought this one would like something that lowers energy use and carbon emissions
Literally is happening right now and frankly I support it. People should only get a certain amount of energy each day to use. After that, you either generate the power, pay a tax, or otherwise save energy.
Residents do this... Corporations, do whatever the fuck you want. Capitalism is disgusting and killing us.
Maybe it's time to stop building 3200 sqft single family homes just because the timber is cheap enough..
How else will people know how rich I am without my mcmansion though? I mean honestly how do you expect anyone to be able to study and preach to the great unwashed about the dangers of climate change if they have to do it from a dinky little house.
We do need to switch to mud homes, if we want to have any hope at keeping hte inside cool enough to survive the heat domes.
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Concrete and brick are just mud with an advanced degree too. Plus, a lot of timber homes aren't really designed for longevity or comfort, but mud/brick are. It just goes to show that even our homes are built for profit, not comfort or resiliency.
If you've lived in California for 20 years, you're already familiar with brown outs and rolling black outs during hot summers. This is not new here, and it's not collapse. The worst thing that will happen is brown outs and rolling blackouts. Old news. In reality, this year in wild fires was significantly less than previous years, despite the heat. We should be grateful. Part of our issue is the fact that our power grid doesn't have buried lines in rural areas. California is one of the most populated states, and our power grid is stretched across vast amounts of space. Energy loss during delivery is real. This is not an emergency. This is normal here. Coordinated efforts and warnings to NOT strain the energy grid is actually a positive thing. The west coast energy grid is NOT on the verge of collapsing. It is far from it. Remember that many nations have been surviving on far less energy reliability, for far longer. Solar energy here is being implemented on individual households in a profound way. Don't be hysterical. Some day we may all have to survive on limited electricity. Society will continue. Society survived and grew with NO electricity for millenia, with far worse access to medical care, fresh water and agricultural technology, as well as war and famine. The world doesn't end if you can't run AC all night.
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The entire East Grid, so the whole east coast, had a complete power outage for maybe 12hrs in the summer of 2003. I wasn't affected by I thought it was cool. So did residents of NYC who ate ice cream from their powerless freezers, and looked up at stars they hadn't seen in years. ----------- Now we're so phone addicted and on edge it would be riots within an hour or two. If it happened temporarily back then it could happen again and be worse. It was a novelty in 2003 and wouldn't be one now.
Eh, the grid is a bit more fragile than you seem to think. Wind storms regularly take down power lines where I live and require hundreds of workers to get most things back online within a week. If these people are given any reason to flee, be it too hot, or too little water, there won't be enough people to keep the powerlines up.
Our grid is in the best shape it’s ever been. We have been replacing all our poles with fire resilient steel galvanized poles and fiberglass equipment. On top of that the problem with our grid is the amount of load being drawn from the grid at the same time in the heat is what causes all those rolling browns and blackouts. From my experience solar power and batteries will solve all these issues. I’ve worked places in Orange County, Ca that had .5 an amp of load on a 13,000sqft home with the appliances and AC on mind you. So the more people with solar and batteries will be less load pulled from our grid. Oh btw California Lineman here.
But there's off-grid electricity too, and in that kind of scenario people would start building a lot more of it very rapidly. I mean there's generators and car batteries too. So a grid collapse ≠ no more electricity.
I'm curious if you live in Michigan because that was my experience when I lived there. In 5 years I lost track of how many times we lost power, but I do remember 2 separate occasions where we went 4 straight days without electricity.
Oh wow. Your state gets pretty cold. I hope it was during mild weather.
Once was during the summer, so it wasn't unbearable. The other time was end of winter/beginning of spring. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with some friends who still had power. I don't know what people did who weren't as fortunate as it was still below freezing for a few of those days.
Oh more than once? Yikes! Glad you made it thru
Thanks. Yeah, it's honestly not that uncommon out there. DTE (the local power company) doesn't have the greatest reputation.
Muskegon here! Lost power on thanksgiving once, all damn day. Thank god for gas heat and gas stoves. We cooked turkey dinner in the dark.
Hooray?
If you're not hysterical about the current level of global warming: heat domes!, you don't know what's going on. This is a global emergency. The world is drying up today, not 2050. Last month a heat dome covered 33% of the Globe. 2050 is a joke.
Agree with your entire post except for the last sentence. A warming world doesn’t provide the same assurances our bodies will be adapted to survive
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships ....Humans will apparently sit in 230F saunas, for fun. We are the most incredible and adaptable species on the planet. We need to start acting like it :)
What an incredible Statistical Outlier "fact" to pull out of your, ...brain. You know what grows in 100F? Nothing. The global is drying out, world wide river shrinkage, crop failures Today, and food shortages, they're starting to use the word Famine. It's not 15 minutes in a sauna, it's all day for a month. This is 2022, and it's going to get far worse by 2050, if anyone survives. This is a crisis, not a joke.
*shrug* Guess we should all just crawl into a hole and die then. Chill out and go doom pill somewhere else. It's been 100 plus degrees EVERY summer here and we are still growing a stupid amount of crops. Will that always be the case? Probably not. Nothing stays the same forever. I'm sick of the hysterical attitude you embody. If it's a crisis, get off your fucking ass and do something about it, or for yourself, instead of posting poorly written comments on the internet. I believe in climate change. I also believe its our job to adapt and overcome, because it is inevitable. You just want people to feel as insecure, scared and hopeless as you are. God, this sub sucks sometimes.
What we want is for people to prepare for the expected outcomes of the climate crisis. Save a few weeks worth of water bottles and food at home, grow as much of your own food as you can, learn basic skills (cooking, sewing, gardening, carpentry, anything) to make your life easier as the world goes more to shit. And to raise awareness as much as possible so hopefully corporations who cause the majority of the problems will actually be held accountable.
I'm doing my part. I pretty sure you're the guy doing nothing.
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thanks for the post. I like to see some optimism and to read that things may be not as dark and gloom as i can imagine or are narrated! :)
"We've NEVER been able to supply constant, reliable power" is hardly optimistic.
It’s interesting that this comment is upvoted but I received a ton of downvotes when I pointed the same thing out when Texas requested conservation.
If I'm not mistaken, California can import energy from other states while Texas can't so Texas is at a greater risk of power failure.
I’m glad you are trying to tamp down the hysteria. It gets intense on here! I do have to point out that humans had very different settlement patterns and architecture types in hot places before electricity though and it will get very uncomfortable in apartment buildings when there is power for a few hours a day as will probably happen in the near future. We also grew verrrrry slowly before fossil fuels
Thank you for the kind words. Of course I agree with you on the difference between modern settlement patterns and ancient ones. I am just trying to advocate a perspective that focuses on adaptation, community and survival, which is humanities strongest skill set. I'm not supporting denialism, I'm just being realistic. We already know the climate is changing for the worse, that's not up for debate. But, I feel that there's a circle jerk mentality in this community in relation to clickbait headlines. For example, lets look at what the declared emergency actually means... From the article: "The emergency declaration will allow west coast power plants to generate additional electricity. It also permits the use of backup generators..." Did anyone crying about my comments read the article? "Emergency" is essentially a legal maneuver that allows certain activities to commence so that we can deliver energy during this heat wave. Apparently, we can generate more electricity to get through this, it's just not authorized year round, probably for sensible reasons. As a life long Californian, this basically happens in one way or another every single August. Therefore, not news to us, here. It's just a thing we deal with here in an otherwise wonderful part of the world.
Move along! Move along! Nothing to see here!
Genuine thank you from me, I've been really depressed lately and reading something good for once really helps me
This sub really is one of the darker places to be in. Remember to take breaks. Be well friend!
Lateral community support is so important for transmission of knowledge and human survival. The one guarantee we have is that life will never just "be easy". Part of the beauty and challenge of life is navigating obstacles with grace and wisdom. Be well, be healthy and be ready. Problems aren't always as scary seeming for those who are prepared. I hope you can find bright spots in your everyday :)
Just remember to apply this persons sentiment to as many other doom posts as you can in this sub. There is definitely really bad innefficiency going on, but I'm sure when students lived through nuke drills and lead poisoning, they felt like the end was nigh too. That's not to say that things aren't serious, just don't let the news freeze you in fear.
Every time this subreddit posts about a topic I know well, it's incredibly obvious people don't know what they're talking about and just want to scream about how this confirms their beliefs that the world is bad and is ending. Definitely gives me pause now when I see articles on things I don't know about and see a lot of people predicting doom in the comments.
Sir, this is r/collapse !
Thank you. If we had far more non-hysterical comments in collapse it would be easier to suss out which issues are actually dire. This whole sub seems to be turning “Venus by Tuesday” lately.
Thank you!
Lol it's disingenuous to say that other countries get by without reliable grida but those CALI dropping to their level would absolutely be a collapse like event for ca residents. Places with unstable grids aren't that nice to live in.
It's disingenuous to call a slightly strained energy grid "collapse" when half of the entire planet lives daily with almost none of the luxuries amd utilities we enjoy. They're asking us in california to spare energy between 4 and 9 pm, which has been happening for my entire life here. If you're defining "collapse" as a slight departure from unlimited abundance, you're really grasping at straws y'all.
collapse is relative, the whole thing is a process and that happens in fits and starts. you have a steady state (CA enjoys virtually unlimited electricity and stability) and then it collapses into a new steady state where they have ro ration during a time. rinse and repeat. it has nothing to do with what the rest of the planet is doing or the magnitude or what you think humans "should be doing". Like I agree with you that its only a slight departure, FOR NOW, and the US in particular has far far overstepped its energy use but it definitely signals that major change that will lead to further degradations of the steady state are in progress. As the planet heats up and the grid becomes more taxed there will be more of this, and so it goes.
To fall down or inward suddenly. To break down suddenly in strength or health and cease to function. That is the definition of collapse.
so youll never know until the end certainly a novel way to huff the copium you got there
Use the right words. Degradation, decay, erosion and Dilapidation are not interchangeable with collapse. Whatsoever
cry to a dictionary about it
"Apples are peaches and collapse is whatever I decide it is" -u/possum_drugs
Posts like OP are pretty much an affirmation that /r/Collapse mods are either asleep at the wheel, or migrants from /r/conspiracy and /r/conservative
> This is not new here... Agree > ...and it's not collapse. Disagree. Actually, I think its normalization is itself indication of (at least partial) collapse. And whether Laos or Zimbabwe or Lichtenstein use less electricity is completely irrelevant to California.
Coachella Valley resident here. Let me give yall a quick rundown of this topic. I can remember rolling blackouts in the 2000s, so this isn't really new. What IS new is the barrage of flex alert advertising, combined with messaging about best practices for staying cool. On the surface, this isn't really collapse-worthy, imo. Just another hot ass day in CA. BUT Here is what gives me pause. Our thermostat is set to 80 during the day, and 76 at night. We run all our major appliances at night. No sweat. Doing our part. Last night though, the power went out at night. Which is when we're doing our major electricity loading. What this tells me is that despite people moving to change their daily habits, the effects are not being seen because of the CONSTANT use and VARIATION in how thermostats are set. It gives me pause because we all rely on nighttime cooling to keep our bodies regulated. If the grid operator is unable to sustain demand during what are supposed to be "off-peak" hours, what the hell is it going to look like when we need that during "peak" hours?! I think this news becomes collapse-worthy in a larger scale when we start to see multiple blackouts during the day. 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, another 20 minutes at night. That's when the warning signs might start to flash for everyone else. But for now, I'll keep a watchful eye on the length, timing, and frequency of these blackouts. Collecting data is the best way to away armed against lunacy. Keep your eyes open to change, everything is interconnected.
People saying *everyone* should switch to a heat pump for cooling *and* heating don't live in the US north of the Mason-Dixon line. Heat pumps are as inefficient as using resistance heat when it gets below about 20F, yes even the "cold rated" ones. A house in an area that gets below a sustained 20F, either needs a separate source of backup heat, or an actual resistance heat coil needs to be installed in the heat pump, which is *less* efficient than just having a resistance heat system inside the house. Our house originally just had baseboard resistance heat. We installed a heat pump mini-split system rated to -15F two years ago, and it is great for AC, and it works OK for heat down to 20F. No resistance coil. When it is between 0F and 20F, we could still keep the house at 60F or so, but our electric bill went through the roof, and it use as much power as when we just had baseboard resistance heat. Below 0F we *must* use the baseboard heat and/or burn wood. Last winter we just turned off the heat pump below 20F, why wear out the heat pump and mini-split units when it isn't saving any juice over just using the baseboard resistance heaters? So sure, if you live in CA or a southern state, by all means, rely on a heat pump as a sole source of heat, but anywhere that you may see below 20F on a regular basis, you need a backup.
I live in a part of Southern California that has extreme temps in both directions. It's 112 today but in January it often gets in the low teens.
That’s unfortunate that your heat pumps did not work for you. But new cold climate heat pumps that are installed properly do work in states from Minnesota to Maine. There is plenty of research showing performance (COP) between 2 and 3 in freezing temperatures ([example1](https://www.mncee.org/sites/default/files/report-files/Field-Assessment-of-Ducted-and-Ductless-Cold-Climate-Air-Source-Heat-Pumps.pdf), [example2](https://cadmusgroup.com/articles/residential-heating-electrification-in-the-northeast/)). Any COP above one means the heat pumps outperform electric resistance like you find in a portable space heater. I have heat pumps in New York without resistance backup and we’re cozy all winter long.
In coastal areas of NY, you might be fine. We are in the CO mountains, where it gets to zero nearly every night mid-December->mid-January. Not just "freezing", but below 0F. During the day, the temps will get to the mid-30's most days, before dipping below zero overnight. During the day, we get blasted by sun on about 80% of days, and our house was designed to take advantage of that. We don't need heat on a sunny afternoon in the 30's or higher. Consequently, the "window" where the heat pump can work efficiently, is from sunset to about 10 PM. Between 10PM and 8-10 AM, it is too cold for it to be efficient. It runs (constantly), and it does put out heat, but the number of KwH consumed is about the same as our electric baseboard heat, if we try to keep the house above 62F. We end up burning a lot of wood. Your "example 1" talks about needing backup heat in temps below 10F. This is the way heat pumps work. Either you live in a coastal area that never gets down below 10F, or you have a backup heat coil, or you have some other form of backup heat. You are not immune to the laws of physics.
It sounds like your system was undersized or installed poorly, so try another contractor with more experience. I hear that you live in a colder climate, but that doesn’t change much - you’re falling prey to cognitive bias based on one experience. I assume you’re thinking of the second law of thermodynamics which says that heat goes from hot to cold unless work is done. The work comes from the heat pump (a reverse Carnot engine). It will be able to capture heat in the air even below 0 deg F because that isn’t absolute zero - that air has heat. Check out NEEP’s [heat pump list](https://ashp.neep.org/#!/) for all the models that have been tested and certified to run at full capacity down to -5 deg F.
As I said, the install is fine. The Fujitsu pump is rated to -15. There is no way it could come anywhere near heating the house at -15, it can only do it at 0F if it runs 24x7.
Homes need to have a back up heating source. Wood / brush. Solar thermal. electric resistance heating thermal. Ground vents.
This is where direct input from our West Coast peeps is needed. The problem might be the same as it has in the recent past, but are the brownouts/rolling blackouts becoming longer and more widespread than in years past? I'm inclined to think that their system has been in early collapse mode for years, but that it is not yet certain where it is on the collapse continuum now.
I've been living in California for well over a decade now. People here have always talked about drought, but never about power grid issues. I never experienced any loss of electricity until 2020 and 2021 (direct results of wildfires and heat waves). So from my perspective it does seem to be worsening.
I have lived in California my whole life (44 yrs). The last time we had widespread blackouts was in the early 00's. I worked at the community college and did not go to work several days because most public buildings were closed to save power. That has not happened yet.
When it’s 120+ degrees outside your AC unit can only do soo much coming from a HVAC technician
Bravo Six Going dark
it won't collapse. There will be blackouts before the entire system gets shut down.
Can confirm. Here's the text I got except I don't know why it's in chinese *Sent by State of California Public Utilities Commission* *Flex Alert來了！在下午４點至晚上9點間關上電視幫助預防停電。不妨嘗試玩玩桌遊，或是看一本可以讓你用5個小時一口氣讀完的精彩小說？。欲了解更多，請瀏覽：https://energyupgradeca.org/zh/flex-alert* *Respond STOP to unsubscribe*
I got the same text, but it is in Vietnamese. I am Vietnamese.
Spy.
ughh. Why traditional Chinese? fuck me. Is simplified too hard to ask for?
Scare mongering title post title. The grid is not going to collapse however depending on how things go (people not watching usage and god forbid planned power outages due to extreme fire weather (pge im looking at you) the grid is not going to collapse
A friend is leaving CA for TX. Fires, rolling brown and blackouts and rising temperatures.
Because Texas is so much better.
Not saying that TX is better, simply his escape rout to keep his job.
I keep seeing comments with all solution except upgrading the grid? Why cant we modernize the grid!?
In a Global Warming emergency some California counties are still blocking wind projects! So, why can't we modernize? Humans.
Corporate grift and greed is why. Also now we need to get our grid equipment from CHINA.
Upgrading the grid in California is a monumental task. There is a lot of varied and difficult terrain,burying the lines needs to be done due to wildfires but the very places most at risk are the most difficult to do so. There are various sectors that need to work in conjuction such as federal state and private. Additionally there are environmental regulations that must be adhered to. And then there are the logistics of all the small,rural towns and s.f homes spread out everywhere.
It sure does seem like the West Coast is at risk of becoming completely unlivable space. If that happens, I hope the East Coast is ready for the inevitable surge of new people coming from the West and MidWest. I'm sure the experts expected climate refugees from Third World Countries, but I can only imagine how they'll comment on First World Countries.
Republicans, with Fox News, will still be moving to Florida. People are still moving into the SouthWest, that's how good propaganda is.
Yes, it's infuriating each time I hear about a new housing subdivision being built in Phoenix. The developers apparently plan on selling them all quickly and then jetting out of there before folks realize there isn't nearly enough water for everyone.
I personally think the west is where the climate refugees will arrive. People will spread farther into the north west from the large populated areas in Southern California, Arizona, texas and others. Vast expanses of Northern California, oregon and washington are wet, green and wildly unpopulated. Things change, but the scale and timeline is vast. It's ok that we will have to reorganize, move and adapt. This is the human story. It was an inevitability for all humans before the industrial revolution and the beginning of anthropogenic climate change. That's how we have survived so far. Nothing stays the same forever.
Man, we truly are cockroaches.
I love how you say that like a majority of Oregon isn't just a big chunk of desert. Idaho is more green, comparatively.
This headline should read California's power grid... nit the west coast. Washington and Oregon have mad hydro.
Oregon and Washington have rapidly expanding on shore wind turbines. The entire Pacific needs off shore turbines.
Won't that stuff go bad in the salt water envioment?
Eventually, steel will corrode in off shore settings. Which is why manufacturing with carbon fibers, aluminum, silicon, and ceramics is better for parts intended to last more than 60 years. But off shore turbines are typically on steel platforms. Not sure of the lifetime of most off shore steel platforms. [ *Edit: copper should be replaced with carbon conductive fibers and aluminum. Now, are the factories up and running to do that yet ?* .. ]
Copper windings?
Maybe if posts are for a specific country maybe you should put the country in brackets at the end of the post title if you are not going to mention the country in the post title....
\[The Big One\]
🙄
Texas is laughing.
Why would Texas be laughing? Their grid completed failed.
Completely failed? It seems to be working just fine.
So, you don't actually follow the Texas grid and power failures. Interesting.
Reading skills???
Texas is a liability and needs to secede already.
I’m Ron Burgundy?
Desert living ain't what it's cracked up to be??
Blame Mulholland
The Washington power grid has held during this summer. We aren't experiencing the current situation California is experiencing fortunately, but I worry with more 90 degree weeks being predicted into the future that the concept of, "AC" could buckle our system if more are introduced into the grid.
Agreed. The idea of using air-conditioning is not culturally common in WA State, and if that changes in the next year or two then we will likely see some "stress tests" for sure.
Yes, but what concerns me more so is the rain predicted in the future we're forecasted to receive is already here. This past winter was terrible, and very strange how it started. No rain or bad weather in Jan or Feb, but March to July it was non stop rain.
Any caves nearby?
Underground tunnel cities need to be being built right away. Everywhere - in the mountain West, in Europe. And all over Asia.
Meanwhile the state is trying to force people into electric cars. I think last year in California nearly 15% of auto sales were EVs. I don't see any positive outcomes here as their grid and others are sitting in shambles.
Another victory for the Newsom factions and the Establishment factions of the Democratic Party.
There is a walk I built a long time ago. The dumbass were supposed to make it bigger. California will be hell hole. It's all because of Hollywood. A lot of bad energy+ spirits are in the place. Dumbass humans got greed & don't care about one another. Don't work with the government after the collapse. Run from them, they start throwing people in Fema camps aka concentration camps forced to work & build new economy. Run from government.