Lights Out: The Top 7 Threats To America’s Power Grid
Revelations earlier last week that hackers linked to Russia attacked and took down the Ukrainian power grid are bringing to light once again major threats to the American power grid.
“There’s this combination of federal and state-level programs that are aimed at shutting down reliable baseload generation, such as coal, while propping up expensive and unreliable wind and solar power,” Chris Warren of the Institute for Energy Research told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “This includes policies such as the wind PTC, solar ITC, state renewable portfolio standards, and EPA regulations like the carbon rule.”
American homes, industries, and businesses are deeply dependent on reliable electricity, so threats to the consistent delivery of electricity put modern life itself at risk.
“This perfect storm of policies will unavoidably raise electricity prices on Americans and seriously threaten grid reliability,” Warren continued.
1: Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repeatedly attempted to implement regulations that shut down coal and natural gas power plants. At the same time, the agency openly encourages solar and wind power, which also puts stress on the power grid.
Independent groups have suggested EPA regulations could be responsible for shutting down up to 81,000 megawatts of power generation capacity. That is the equivalent of shutting off the lights of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado and Idaho. Such action makes the power grid more vulnerable to other disruptions.
And the agency proposes so many new regulations that it creates uncertainty among investors, which effectively prevents the construction of additional conventional power plants that could stabilize the grid.
See the article here.
- On January 11, 2016