https://principia-scientific.com/blizzard-exposes-the-perils-of-attempting-to-electrify-everything/

The massive blast of Siberia-like cold that is wreaking havoc across North America is proving that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come.

That cold reality contradicts the “electrify everything” scenario that’s being promoted by climate change activists, politicians, and academics. They claim that to avert the possibility of catastrophic climate change, we must stop burning hydrocarbons and convert all of our transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial systems so that they are powered solely on electricity, with most of that juice coming, of course, from forests of wind turbines and oceans of solar panels.

But attempting to electrify everything would concentrate our energy risks on an electricity grid that is already breaking under the surge in demand caused by the crazy cold weather. Across America, countless people don’t have electricity. I’m one of them. Our power here in central Austin went out at about 3 am. I am writing this under a blanket, have multiple layers of clothes on, and am nervously watching my laptop’s battery indicator.

This blizzard proves that attempting to electrify everything would be the opposite of anti-fragile. Rather than make our networks and critical systems more resilient and less vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, bad actors, falling trees, or simple negligence, electrifying everything would concentrate our dependence on a single network, the electric grid, and in doing so make nearly every aspect of our society prone to catastrophic failure if — or rather, when — a widespread or extended blackout occurs.

This blizzard proves that we have not been taking our energy security seriously enough. The concept of energy security has many aspects. But the most fundamental one is that we all have enough reliable and affordable energy (of whatever type) so that we don’t freeze to death during cold spells like the one now wreaking havoc across the continent.

This blizzard proves that during extreme weather winter, solar panels and wind turbines are of little or no value to the electric grid.

This blizzard proves that our natural gas grid is part of our critical infrastructure and that we shut it down at our peril. The natural gas network is essential because it can deliver big surges in energy supplies during periods of peak demand. In January 2019, U.S. natural gas demand set a record of 145 billion cubic feet per day. That record will be smashed during this blizzard, and daily volumes will exceed 150 Bcf. That is an enormous amount of energy. In fact, on the coldest days of winter, the amount of energy delivered by the gas grid is roughly three times as great as the energy consumed during the hottest days of the summer.

During peak cold events like this one, the gas grid delivers about 80 Bcf/d to homes and businesses. In energy equivalent terms, that’s roughly 83 trillion Btu, or the energy output of about 1 terawatt of electric generation capacity for 24 hours. Put another way, to equal the 80 Bcf/d of gas delivered during cold snaps, the U.S. would need an electric grid as large as all existing generation in the country, which is currently about 1.2 terawatts.

Thanks to excellent geology, a century of gas production, and a fully developed transmission and distribution grid, the domestic natural gas sector can deliver surges of the fuel that are, in fact, lifesaving. That is due, in large part, to the fact that we can store vast amounts of gas and only tiny quantities of electricity. In short, our electric grid simply cannot deliver the massive amounts of energy needed during the winter to keep us from freezing to death. That means we need to keep burning natural gas. If you prefer to rely on batteries, be my guest.

It’s essential to note that the blizzard and blackouts that are paralyzing the country are occurring at roughly the same time that some of America’s most famous activists and politicians are saying we should quit using all hydrocarbons and dozens of cities across the country are imposing bans on the use of natural gas.

On January 22, Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org and arguably America’s most famous environmentalist, published an article in the New Yorker in which he said if there is a “basic rule of thumb for dealing with the climate crisis, it would be: stop burning things” including natural gas. McKibben says we should shift our energy needs to solar and wind energy.

Six days later, on January 28, in his state of the city address, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that New York City will “renounce fossil fuels fully” and “ban fossil fuel connections in the city by the end of this decade, literally ensuring that our only choice is renewable energy.”

As I showed in a report last year for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, dozens of communities in California have banned or restricted the use of natural gas. According to the Sierra Club, 42 California communities have now imposed bans. So has the city of Seattle. In Massachusetts, about a dozen towns have partnered with the Rocky Mountain Institute, which recently got a $10 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund, to advocate for the right to ban the use of natural gas in homes and commercial buildings.

In addition to being bad for energy security, these bans are a form of regressive tax on the poor and the middle class because they compel consumers to use electricity, which costs four times more than natural gas on an energy equivalent basis. Despite these very cold facts, it is certain that the efforts to ban natural gas and electrify everything will continue.

I am pro-electricity and electrification. Over the past year, I’ve published a book (A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations) and co-produced a documentary (Juice: How Electricity Explains the World) that spotlights electricity and why we need many terawatts of new generation capacity to bring the 3 billion people in the world who are now living in energy poverty out of the dark and into the bright lights of modernity. But more than being pro-electricity, I am pro-human. The ongoing blizzard is proving our vulnerability to extreme weather events and it is showing that we can’t rely on electricity alone.

Events like the September 11 attacks, Superstorm Sandy, and the coronavirus proved that we need to must make our society more resilient to threats of all kinds. A robust natural gas grid helps our resilience. Electrifying everything will do the opposite.

Untrue and misleading: "This blizzard proves that during extreme weather winter, solar panels and wind turbines are of little or no value to the electric grid."

This sentence omits to describe fully the solar power system in question. A complete solar system includes solar panels, storage batteries, a whole-house power generator as backup, a convertor for making DC voltage into AC voltage, and computerized control of the solar power system. The generator can run off propane. Home heating can run off propane, too. In fact, I have a system just like this description.

Heaters for the solar panels can melt both the snow and ice. A heater for the generator can keep it ready. The batteries can supply the power for these heaters, although the generator, once started, can power the heaters for the solar panels. In fact, if needed a heater could heat the interior of the shed containing the batteries.

The public utilities can retrofit wind turbines with heaters.

Propane can run automobiles.

The article you provided is more than five years old and includes the observation, "But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse."

In this 2020 article, note the linked 16-page pdf of the scientific research from 2019 ("new research published in Nature."):

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/antarctic-ice-sheet-is-primed-to-pass-irreversible-climate-thresholds-researchers/

Imagine if we had started a serious climate plan 20 years ago...how far less painful it feel be today. In fact, it would be normal today - similar to how we have come to expect a certain level of clean air and clean water, and no toxic waste dumps in our own backyards

"A robust natural gas grid" contributes to CO2 pollution, which contributes to global warming. The current behavior of the Polar Vortex is being affected, in part, by melting of Arctic sea ice.

For any of you still alive in 20 years, good luck. We are fast reaching the point of not being able to stop the damage.

The article you provided is more than five years old and includes the observation, "But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse."

In this 2020 article, note the linked 16-page pdf of the scientific research from 2019 ("new research published in Nature."):

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/antarctic-ice-sheet-is-primed-to-pass-irreversible-climate-thresholds-researchers/

Imagine if we had started a serious climate plan 20 years ago...how far less painful it feel be today. In fact, it would be normal today - similar to how we have come to expect a certain level of clean air and clean water, and no toxic waste dumps in our own backyards

The article you provided was based on a "what if the ice starts melting" scenario. Any look at satellite measurements shows that Antarctic ice has been growing, and is still growing. Just look at the current Wikipedia page on the Antarctic Ice Sheet. One of the first sentences on the page says this:

"Satellite measurements by NASA indicate a still increasing sheet thickness above the continent, outweighing the losses at the edge. The reasons for this are not fully understood, but suggestions include the climatic effects on ocean and atmospheric circulation of the ozone hole, and/or cooler ocean surface temperatures as the warming deep waters melt the ice shelves."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet

Environmentalists like to pretend that Antarctica is melting, because the real story throws a big monkey wrench into their theories. They like to cherry-pick a few examples around the coastline or in the Antarctic Peninsula, but don't believe them. Look at the actual measurements that come from NASA. They are even promoting the Global Warming theories but admit to measurements that contradict it.

Thanks for the info.

What perplexes me is the general resistance to working towards a greener energy policy. The negativity seems to be about

1. loss of jobs
2. cost of conversions

How many hundreds of social, economic and environmental advances/improvements/progress have cost jobs? People learn new skills, or they don't. Remember all the computer repair and software coding training programs circa 1995? Remember typewriters, watch repair shops, farriers, wagon builders?

Considering the cost in both dollars and human suffering with extreme weather events, and the possibility that they will become more frequent and more extreme, why is it so difficult for many folks to accept the change? We were fortunate to have the foresight, leadership and ability to clean up our air and water in the 1960's and '70's. I'm sure there was grumbling about the price, but who today would be willing to go back to that much pollution?

So if you're driving an ICE car, you'll run the engine to get heat, but remember that you have to open a window lest you die from carbon monoxide poisoning. And what happens when you run out of gas? Oh, you keep spare gas cans in the car, just in case. That's a safe practice. Anyone with common sense doing road trips in the winter should carry survival gear with them--very warm clothing, water, energy bars, a shovel, etc.

I came across these figures in a discussion:
"I found an estimate that an idling gasoline engine uses 0.6 liters of fuel per hour per liter of engine size. An Audi A4 has a 2.0 liter engine and 58.0 liter gas tank. That means it can idle for 58.0 / (0.6 * 2.0) = 48 hours. According to BigHorn a Tesla Model 3 can heat the cabin with 2 kW. With a 75 kWh battery that equates to 37.5 hours. So an ICE may have a small advantage here. Of course it depends on a lot of variables..."