U.S. Power Grid at Government-Induced Tipping Point
July 1, 2021
By H. Sterling Burnett
Climate Change Weekly #402
Modern society is heavily dependent on electric power. Our power systems were designed by competent engineers and operated by skilled staff, so until fairly recently people have generally been able to count on having electricity in their homes and businesses on demand, even during periods of extreme weather. Historically, the U.S. power grid has proven remarkably resilient.
Sadly, as political considerations have increasingly trumped basic physics and engineering, electric power failures have become more common in the past couple of decades in the United States. The decline in the reliability of the electric power system is directly attributable to politicians requiring and incentivizing the replacement of weather-independent sources of electric power (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) with intermittent, variable wind and solar power.
Contrary to the claims of politicians and profiteering utilities, the increase in wind and solar power was not driven by market forces. Through mandates, subsidies, tax credits, and regulations, politicians brought America’s power system to the brink of failure in a single generation. The U.S. electricity grid is quickly reaching a tipping point as ever-more green energy is forcibly incorporated and increasing numbers of reliable power plants are taken offline.
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/us-power-grid-at-government-induced-tipping-point