The Oil-filled Grid: Communications

Early January Nor'Easter
Wikimedia, NOAA

Oil on the Grid

About two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post The Northeast Grid and the Oil. This described our early-January polar weather, and how Northeastern power plants could not get enough natural gas in the below-zero weather. Homes had priority for natural gas delivery, and plants that could use oil switched from natural gas to oil.

As a matter of fact, the oil stocks were also getting depleted.

I want to update the cold-snap story with some other posts. The general public doesn't read my blog, so I did some outreach. I wrote an op-ed about the grid for my local paper, the Valley News.  The op-ed was printed on the front page of the Sunday Perspective section on January 28, and has been shared around 200 times on Facebook. Oil Kept the Power Grid Running in Recent Cold Snap.

Why were people so interested in the article?  Because a secure electric supply is an important part of personal safety during extremely cold weather.  Most home furnaces require electricity to spread the warmth into the household. People who have chosen heat pumps are also dependent on reliable electricity.

Nuclear plants and pipelines and controversy, oh my!

There were more articles on the situation, of course, not just mine.  Actually, I think there were too few articles.  Nearly running out of oil when you can't get gas---this can be a major deal during severe winter weather! I will point out some interesting articles, and I hope that people who read this will send links to a few more.

Rod Adams post described the "sobering statements" made by the grid operator about oil supply, and the weird statements made by nuclear opponents.  (Pilgrim should have shut down before the storm? Really?) He shares some graphics from ISO-NE on the weak performance of solar panels during the days of the crisis.  He also discusses Pilgrim going off-line, and whether that could have been prevented. As usual, his post has an active and informed stream of comments. Performance of the New England power grid during extreme cold Dec 25-Jan 8, at Atomic Insights blog.

Meanwhile, over at Forbes, several columnists were commenting on the situation.
Jude Clemente wrote What Happens When You Don't Build Natural Gas Pipeline
David Blackman wrote Amid Deep Freeze, New Englanders Can 'Thank' N.Y. Gov Cuomo For Their High Energy Bills
Christopher Helman wrote Natural Gas Demand Hits Record As Cold Bomb Targets Northeast

Over WBUR radio, Bruce Gellerman has a fascinating seven minute segment on how the power plants actually operated during the cold snap, including an interview with a manager of a peaker plant that runs about 800 hours a year. Do We Need More Natural Gas Pipelines?

There's a lot of controversy built into all these articles. The role of nuclear.  The need (or not-need) for more natural gas pipelines. Will new emissions regulations make handling the next cold snap much harder? Did renewables make a great contribution during the cold snap?  Or not?

The Electric Supply

A steady electric supply is hugely important to winter safety. In my opinion, it should not be such a subject of controversy.  My hope is that  reason will prevail, and we will have the nuclear plants, pipelines and energy security that we need.

Hurricanes and Nuclear Plants in the Main Stream Media

Hurricane Sandy

The Main Stream Press

In my post on Friday, Fear and Facts about Nuclear Plants and Hurricanes, I quoted nuclear opponents and nuclear supporters about the hurricane's probable effects on nuclear plants. I concluded that opponents and supporters were publishing only in friendly venues. Both sides were Preaching to the Choir.

The question then became: what did the main stream press think of this all? Basically, the main stream press wants a story: a new and dramatic narrative that will grab the readers' attention.  To put it bluntly, the nuclear power plants weren't a story.

You see, I would like to write a blog post that nuclear plants were treated better in the press because nuclear communicators were doing such a bang-up job.  But I have come to the conclusion it had very little to do with us.  There were thousands of stories as New York City was ravaged, people drowned in their houses in New Jersey, hospitals were evacuated. It quickly became clear that the nuclear plants weren't a story.

However, in one case, the industry fought back to opponent scaremongering. That's my kind of story.  So I'll start with that.

The Business Press: Fighting Back Against Scare-Mongering

A Bloomberg Business Week article was titled: Nuclear Power Industry Survives Sandy's Readiness Test.

 Kasia Klimasinska and Brian Wingfield quoted Gundersen as follows (note Gundersen's sequence of "ifs". I find Gundersen to be rather "iffy".) Gundersen said that if Oyster Creek was generating power, and the flood waters been just 6 inches deeper, it could have knocked out the pumps and triggered a disaster.

Now, what do you expect the plant owners would say about that?  I know what I expected: "Oyster Creek makes safe operation its highest priority (etc etc blah blah)."  To my surprise and happiness, Exelon actually said: “That is unequivocally false, Oyster Creek has numerous, redundant sources of reactor and spent-fuel pool cooling that would be fully operational regardless of the water levels mentioned,” Exelon’s Tillman said.

The Exelon comment was wonderful.  Every now and again, I get to root for my team, because they are actually playing!

More Business Press

A Forbes article was titled: Don't Politicize Sandy. Hurricane Normal Problem for Nukes.

Jim Conca wrote: Although those with real ideological issues against nuclear energy may have gotten bit excited, there is nothing so far to worry about with respect to the nuclear plants. There is no special issue or peculiar risk here for the nuclear plants in the path of Hurricane Sandy. 

He commented further: I truly respect Amy Goodman, but I wish she had asked a real nuclear expert to talk with her on Democracy Now! yesterday, not an anti-nuke activist like Arnie Gundersen who doesn’t really know the nuclear technical stuff, but only cares about politics. 

There's a website about small cap stocks. Small Cap Network. It's not  exactly the huge business press, but it has its audience. Their article was Nuclear Plants in the Path of Hurricane Sandy (And Anti-Nuclear Activists).

The article starts: Anti-nuclear activists and the media have apparently wasted no time to try and get people panicked about the 26 nuclear plants in the path of Hurricane Sandy.

The article ends: The Bottom Line. Don’t pay any attention to scary stories about nuclear plants being threatened by hurricanes like Hurricane Sandy. Instead, pay attention to what happens in the aftermath of the storm as Dominion Resources, Entergy Corporation, Exelon Corporation, Public Service Enterprise Group and PPL Corporation and their nuclear plants face more scrutiny from regulators.... 

Main Stream Press: Following the Real Story

First, the New York Times story by Matt Wald:  Nuclear Plants Get Through the Storm with Little Trouble, which says pretty much what the title implies.

John Horgan at Scientific American asks Does Sandy Mean We Should Have Fewer Nuclear Plants or More?   He concludes that, due to global warming, we should definitely have more nuclear plants.

Meanwhile the mainstream press is following the real stories, not the scare stories.  For example, ProPublica asked Why Do Hospital Generators Keep Failing?  Three New York City area hospitals had to be evacuated when their generators (badly placed or badly maintained) failed.  Hundreds of critically ill patients had to be moved.

The real stories. Gas has been difficult-to-impossible to obtain, the port of New York was shut for an extended time, lines of ambulances were pulled into service to evacuate hospitals, people drowned in their homes in New Jersey and  Lower Manhattan.  These are the stories the newspapers are covering.

Nuclear opponents are probably gnashing their teeth that their carefully-contrived "what if" scenarios are being neglected. But the press is busy with the true, painful, sad stories of Hurricane Sandy.

The nuclear plants were okay, as pretty much everyone expected.

.