Bishop: Blizzard Whining
Friday, January 05, 2018
It’s been two months since National Grid restored power to 155,000 customers in a remarkable 4 days following ‘hurricane Gina’ in southeastern New England on October 29th (nobody bothered naming that virtual typhoon, and this author took the liberty of recognizing the Governor as the one most exercised by that storm). That is hardly a poor record, but the politicians and the media have made hay out of the fiction that this reflects some kind of ‘lazy faire’ at the utility. Thus, the governor took pains to explain yesterday that she told National Grid they better be ready for this storm, as if this political grandstanding has anything to do with operating utilities.
This storm already has a name, Grayson, thanks to the Weather Channel which has found popular culture almost as important to its followers as the Weather and has undertaken to name winter storms for our entertainment. Of course one gets to wondering about the relevance of naming these storms as we are up to “G” already and I can’t recall where storms Aiden, Benji, Chloe, Dylan, Ethan and Frankie have gone
The outcome of utility work[ings] will have more significant impacts in this storm given the cold. That suggests preparations are appropriate not just for utility crews but also for utility customers as it is simply unreasonable to expect that there won’t be serious disruptions in service and that it won’t take several days if not several weeks to set everything right under current weather circumstances. Governor Gina, to her credit, did call on individuals to plan for exigencies -- albeit the options she offered were rather bipolar, shelter in place but if anything goes wrong get the hell out.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIf there is any question about institutional preparedness though, it tends to reveal the misplaced priorities of state energy policies that focus on renewable energy instead of supply stability. Our expensive power rates aren’t buying us more stability, they are buying us less.
Julian Simon first wrote about energy as the master resource. His essay, largely aimed at dismissing the notion we were running out of oil, didn’t discount the possibility that solar energy might eventually be a relevant provider. As we all know, we aren’t running out of oil; and America has elbowed others out of the way to become the predominate producer of fossil fuel energy in the world. In this balance, solar isn’t remotely competitive; but our utility policy forces you to subsidize the solar cells on your neighbors roof while politicians have not done enough to ensure access to more practical fuels which are just as important as grid repair at a time like this.
Indeed, Blomberg, reporting on the strain that this cold snap is placing on the electric grid specifically cites power generation in the northeast during extreme cold as suddenly predominated by fuel oil which may be difficult to resupply on the schedule needed in prolonged cold.
Remember that ‘high-dollar dirty diesel’? We spent 700 million dollars of ratepayers money to place a few spinning toys in Block Island sound and supplant relatively tiny ‘high-dollar dirty diesel’ generators on Block Island. It hardly explains the entire phenomenon, but how ironic that such largess is squandered on grossly inefficient generation in economic terms to solve the ‘problem’ of a small remote island relying on fuel oil for electricity (as do most islands) while replacing that ‘problem’ with literally 30% of the mainland getting its power from fuel oil. Even if the turbines off Block Island aren’t feathered as protection against the gusts of this storm they might be sending in 1% of Rhode Islands power. If you look at the costs of that project and the idea of scaling that up to get any significant amount of power, sending everyone to Florida and turning out the lights becomes a much more practical solution.
In the meantime gas pipelines, storage of liquid natural gas and added gas generation provide a relevant hedge on price and stability for both the energy grid and home heating supply for the next decade or two. But our brilliant progressive leaders resist, even while complaining should National Grid have the temerity to shut off someone who can’t pay the exorbitant prices they themselves have engineered. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. If you believe poor folks should live in yurts and burn ox dung for heat, then at least there is some consistency in the resistance to fossil fuels. But complaining that others live like kings doesn’t explain how the poorest in our society will fare in a contemporary world without cheap abundant fossil fuels.
If one is hostile to coal because of its CO2 footprint, it is hardly consistent to espouse policies that have us burning fuel oil as an alternative to natural gas where coal has approximately double, i.e. 100% more, emission per btu than natural gas, but fuel oil still has 50% more emissions. To be fair, some opponents of natural gas infrastructure probably understand that their advocacy leads to more CO2 emissions now, but believe placing pressure on the industry could lead to more adoption of renewables. The thing still to reconciled is, this just means they are artificially increasing the price of fossil fuels so that renewables look more attractive. This doesn’t make energy more affordable. If you think its expensive now, wait til its free. Why they think we will have a more progressive world when energy is more expensive is beyond me.
Neighborhoods, not political factions are the units that can help each other through bad weather and power outages. The effort here isn’t to insulate National Grid from criticism. It has been amongst the architects of some of the stupidest energy policy in the country by going along with stupid progressive priorities so long as company coffers get filled in the process. But the thing to do is fix that policy rather than beat them up every time we have bad weather.
One cannot imagine that the government will ride to the rescue. At the exteme, where there is an immediate threat to life they are called on. But when it comes to protecting property and coping with the more mundane problems of freezing pipes relatively modest solutions exist with or without the power on.
The key is to balance convenience and safety – another thing which many are far too reliant on government for. Watching for blocked intakes and outlets on modern gas heating appliances is important. At best such blockages will shut down heating systems, at worst safety controls will fail and carbon monoxide will be produced. When running kerosene and propane indoor heaters or substituting gas stove burners or ovens for conventional heat air quality is an issue if seldom deadly carbon monoxide. In any event, working battery powered carbon monoxide detectors are cheap and keep you ahead of that curve.
You can’t go get them right now, but having these in mind before the storm is the kind of preparedness that individuals can engage in even as National Grid calls in crews to stand at the ready.
Thinking about how to keep pipes from freezing by dripping faucets can be critical if heat fails, or just in the event of extreme cold. Moving water is much less likely to freeze although any unconventional approach needs to be monitored, as drains could freeze and the dripping water could back up out of the sink! If loss of power also results in loss of water pressure then shutting off water service at least prevents over flow if frozen pipes thaw. In that event, any portable heating should focus on keeping pipes warm as much as people so locate yourself and your heaters accordingly.
If you have baseboard heat its critical to keep the water circulating at regular intervals if not constantly. In extreme cold you want to avoid programmed thermostat setbacks as they can result in longer cycles between heating and if the baseboard pipes freeze then no heat will move. Your heating professional can help prep for this.
The best backup for all of this isn’t the government, but a neighbor or family member with a little ingenuity and keeping those ties with your repairman strong. Best to keep those lines up in case the electric lines go down.
Brian Bishop is on the board of OSTPA and has spent 20 years of activism protecting property rights, fighting over regulation and perverse incentives in tax policy.
Related Slideshow: GoLocal: Benchmark Poll, October 2017
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