Power Outages Expected in Core American Cities

One of our favorite past times around here is to look at power outages occurring in places with once stable, first-world electricity infrastructures, and then to look at certain policy changes that are normally to blame. USAToday reports that outages are expected in the core cities of the most powerful empire on Earth: the "Empire City", the "Second City", and the Imperial Capital itself.

An upcoming heat wave could lead to power outages in the central and eastern U.S., including the major metropolitan areas of New York City, Washington and Chicago, experts say. As temperatures rise and more people turn to their air conditioners for relief, the demand for power can become overwhelming.

This follows on the heels of a recent Manhattan power outage caused by an equipment failure.

“There is always high demand in the summer – air conditioning is very power-intensive, and you will always have some failures of equipment,” Apt said.

Con Edison said Tuesday that demand for power in Westchester County and New York City was 10,541 megawatts. On Friday, when temperatures are forecast to be in the mid-90s, Con Edison is predicting a power demand of 12,400 megawatts, Drury said.

That is well below the highest demand for power in history, Drury said, which happened during a heat wave in July 2013. It peaked at 13,322 megawatts.

The peak demand in 2013 caused outages. Why is it that, six years later, New York cannot handle expected loads of 93% the previous peak? Let's consult their own Newspaper of Record, which provided relevant analysis just last year in How New York City Gets Its Electricity.

Coal, the original fuel, is on the way out. The state has announced plans to close the remaining plants or convert them to natural gas, which is currently cheap and plentiful. [...] By 2030, Mr. Cuomo wants half of the electricity consumed in the state to come from renewable sources produced here or imported from places like Canada and New England.

Western cities facing blackouts invariably have some initiative underway to reduce coal and increase wind & solar. Paradoxically, the narrative will be that the heat waves are the work of man-made climate changes, and thus the failure of the renewable energy sources to keep up with demand is proof that we need additional reliance on renewable energy sources. In clown world, stable negative feedback loops are inverted into dangerous positive feedback loops.