Extreme Heat Raises Concerns about U.S. Power Grids

Extreme heat is taking a toll on U.S. power grids as Texas’s electricity use has reached an all-time high during a June heatwave. NBC News’ Harry Smith is joined by senior fellow at Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law Romany Webb, to discuss how the country’s energy infrastructure can withstand the severe heat. 

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#ExtremeHeat #Extremeweather #heatwave

[thomasmcqueeney]

How can we add charging cars and other equipment to our present soaring demand for electricity 🤔

[hsailer]

You can blame "Deregulation" for the electric supply shortages. Some stupid politicians thought deregulation would be a good idea. Yeah, in the short term. We need these electric power company monopolies, in order to do long term planning for the electric grid. You want lower electric rates, great, now deal with the power shortages.

[ritaperdue]

These power companies need to catch up to even China, Europe, Japan, New Zealand... ALL of them are way ahead of us!

[caseyford]

I keep telling people. combine self running generators and power walls in homes and businesses for seemingly endless clean energy everywhere all the time. specifically the alternator and magnet combo version of self running generators.

[dnola]

All that energy in the form of heat and instead of harnessing it, its "the" problem

[lurkingarachnid]

plug in those EVs California and see what happens

[mikegoettina]

just put in $5500 worth of new Lithium Iron Phosphate batters in my house

[MrLivewire]

My solar panels are keeping my home nice and cool here in the midwest. The cost of solar has really come down since I installed mine. I'd really consider looking for some kind of backup.

[krl]

everyone wants to give cruz a hard time about the 100 year storm that dropped power in texas but then everyone turns a blind eye on california and it's summer long black and brownouts.

[ruso]

They’ve always known this would be an issue yet never attempted to upgrade it . That tells you all you need to know

[JO-tgxm]

US power grid is broken
Extreme Heat 🥵
Extreme cold 🥶
Extreme wet ⛈
Extreme dry💥
All seems to be a surprise to USA but occurs all over the world and most cope with it.
😩😩🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[infinitequest]

Is there a Emergency plan for mass power outages?

[glenjo]

Power UTILITIES spend the money to be RELIABLE. Power for profit CORPORATIONS don't spend money to be RELIABLE, it is additional PROFIT. America use to have power utilities, now it is FOR PROFIT CORPORATIONS.

[ERAforALL]

America needs to learn to reduce its energy usage through better construction, more energy efficient appliances, and other green methods (by which I mean tactical landscaping around homes, for one). We need to look at vampire electricity usage (unplug unused devices from outlets when feasible).

[rubberrooster]

At least i can see the carnage unfold at my local shopping centers when the PowerGrid fails

[toniesedrick]

That's it, I'm fed up, I'm going to sell this place before the landlord does, I'm going to make sure I am not the roast. Drink water and share right now everyone, it could be you that needs that love too. P.S. good night Harry, good to see you Sir.

[paulsmith]

What in the world does a New York lawyer understand about the U.S. electric energy system? Has she worked in it? Does she have the technical expertise to understand how electric energy is generated, transmitted, distributed, and costed?

I live in Texas. It is just a tad after 1 pm. ERCOT reports that system load is 88 percent of capacity. Moreover, it is projected to remain below 90 percent of capacity throughout the day.

[thomasvankuiken]

No effort made to identify an industrial liberal progress as victory of the day.

[beyondfossil]

Worrisome. But consider that residential rooftop solar works *really* *really* well with heat waves. Reason? Heat waves always come with hot bright sunshine which the solar panels love to eat up.

Of course, that electrical power comes straight off the roof and doesn't even pull anything from the grid. Most solar roofs would easily power the home's big 3500-watt A/C and *still* be exporting excess electricity into the neighboring houses further alleviating their regional grid in its most stressful time.

This would be for many hours of the daytime exactly during the hottest hours. When the hot sun finally starts going down in the evening, so too does the heat and the A/C power can be lowered. But then the next day comes to restart the cycle again. Its going to get a hotter and more frequently too with climate change.

As they said, natural gas and coal power plants already run very very hot by their very nature of being fossil fuel powered. In heat waves, their protection systems automatically throttle back power output to prevent turbine thermal damage so they can only work at reduced capacity.

[helloitsme]

Now let’s add as many electric car charging stations to the over taxed grid as possible!!