I don’t get everything right (like primaries), but I’m right about the danger from our increasing “green” reliance on the electric grid.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve been prepping:

My prepping really hasn’t been for the “worst case scenario” – it’s been for the most likely bad scenario, mostly focused on energy grids on which we depend, and food.

The surest sign that the problem is really, really bad is that even WaPo is writing about it:

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid….

The soaring demand is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants.

“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.” ….

The power crunch imperils their ability to supply the energy that will be needed to charge the millions of electric cars and household appliances required to meet state and federal climate goals….

It is all happening at the same time the energy transition is steering large numbers of Americans to rely on the power grid to fuel vehicles, heat pumps, induction stoves and all manner of other household appliances that previously ran on fossil fuels. A huge amount of clean energy is also needed to create the green hydrogen championed by the White House, as developers rush to build plants that can produce the powerful zero-emissions fuel, lured by generous federal subsidies.

Planners are increasingly concerned that the grid won’t be green enough or powerful enough to meet these demands….

“Utilities are not going to be able to move quickly enough to provide all this capacity,” said Christine Weydig, vice president of transportation at AlphaStruxure, which designs and operates clean-energy projects. “The infrastructure is not there. Different solutions will be needed.” Airports, she said, are looking into dramatically expanding the use of clean-power “microgrids” they can build on-site.

The Biden administration has made easing the grid bottleneck a priority, but it is a politically fraught process, and federal powers are limited. Building the transmission lines and transfer stations needed involves huge land acquisitions, exhaustive environmental reviews and negotiations to determine who should pay what costs.

We are one spark away from a breakdown, and our stupid policies of forcing people to use more electricity are a big part of the problem.

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