# A Couple of Articles on the Grid to Ponder



## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

U.S. electricity prices may be going up for good

America's power grid at the limit: The road to electrical blackouts

For these reasons and a lot more having back up power, for at least essential items, is imperative.

We have backup generators using alternate fuels, but we're slowly accumulating components for a small solar backup.


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## cqp33 (Apr 2, 2012)

I will add that I work in the boiler industry and a lot on coal fired boilers, we are now making a lot of money converting coal to natural gas, those that can't be converted or its not cost feasible to convert are being closed!

This is an older report but outlines the decrease nation wide. There are also changes that will come in affect 2020 that will be round 2 of what we are seeing now, only the cost of conforming is astronomical compared to the 2015 standards that are closing plants now and will continue to close them through this year!
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/epa-powerplant-closures/

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinio...uld-be-devastating-b99136671z1-230915891.html

I can also say that some of the boilers in the midwest are in shambles because operators were pushing them so hard, this means that a lot of work is being done on them now that the load is light, moderate temps mean no heat & no air conditioning running = low load on the grid = shut down boilers for maintenance! The cost of the repairs is always transferred to the customers, as these repair costs increase so will your summer electric bill! Fixing large boilers for power plants is not cheap, not cheap at all and plants are finding the scope of repairs to be larger than anticipated! I am not surprised seeing that some of these boilers were being pushed well above 100% capacity to meet the demands and make more money too, I even heard recently of a boiler that was being run at 165% of its rated capacity! The repairs on that boiler ended up being several million dollars beyond the original scope of work proposed due to overfiring.

If you want to know what "overfiring" is, see the link below with a title of "how to destroy a boiler -- part 2" and scroll down to "severe overfiring"! It's not good, it gets expensive to repair and it's not safe! It can make the boiler explode if done for to long! When the article above stated "we didn't just dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannonball" that could be one of the things on his mind, one boiler explosion causing an entire plant to go down could have brought a good portion of the grid down under those large load times.

http://www.nationalboard.org/index.aspx?pageID=164&ID=242

sorry for the long windedness!:tmi:


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

Wow, I had not heard about the second round of regulations. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I am very familiar with overfiring, as I operated boilers in a refinery for twenty years. While probably not as big as a power generating plant, our three largest boilers would produce about 650K an hour of 1300# superheated steam.


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## Saffer (Aug 3, 2012)

Troop of baboons governing my country.. resulting in this:

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/LIVE-UPDATES-Eskom-load-shedding-20140306

ESKOM: Electricity supplier


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## cqp33 (Apr 2, 2012)

k0xxx said:


> Wow, I had not heard about the second round of regulations. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
> 
> I am very familiar with overfiring, as I operated boilers in a refinery for twenty years. While probably not as big as a power generating plant, our three largest boilers would produce about 650K an hour of 1300# superheated steam.


Sorry but I misspoke about 2020, there are regulations in place already that are to be in place between now and 2020, see attached! As the years go on the cost is compounding, meaning for each year between now and them the cost of these controls are 'choking' the industry!http://www.bipac.net/mwv/AFPA_Chart-Cumulative_Air_Regulations.pdf

Sent from my iPhone using Survival Forum


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

The Price of Electricity In The U.S. Is About to Skyrocket

Some more reading...


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

How much are you guys up there paying for power?

Seems there is a lot of 'not keeping up' with populations/demand happening all over the world. Here the latest is no water available to new homes in town... YEP NO WATER AT ALL. I don't have a problem with this on one level but when they start to pull the plug on basic needs it shows that things aren't going great. They put new sports facilities before spending money on essential services.... I just don't get it. The only services left in town are garbage collection and ...... ummmmm I'll think of another one soon.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Wellrounded said:


> How much are you guys up there paying for power?


right now... $.098 per kWh delivered

Lots of "door-to-door" salesmen running around selling power contracts for $.079 per kWh..... have to look at the fine print: 4 cents per kWh delivery charges!!

http://www.vaultelectricity.com/

http://www.electricchoice.com/compare_prices.php#


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## Zombie-Knocker (Oct 7, 2014)

I'm new to the forum, but thought I would pipe up on this topic as it scares the hell out me.
My backup for higher prices, power grid goes down, emp attack... http://www.genvertersystems.com/


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Zombie-Knocker said:


> I'm new to the forum, but thought I would pipe up on this topic as it scares the hell out me.
> My backup for higher prices, power grid goes down, emp attack... http://www.genvertersystems.com/


Looks like a very expensive solution to me. Especially since it's a temporary fix and not a long term solution. There's too much reliance upon a generator. The neighbor across the road from us (and one on the other fork) has a permanent system much like this. It's an expensive and noisy way to power your home.

It may also be vulnerable to an EMP attack or solar storm depending upon how it's designed.

Batteries are an expensive part of this package and they do need replaced periodically. That will need to be taken into account on any plan to use this type of system for long term living.

If you're just wanting something to get you by until the power switches back on it might be okay. But you might also be better off going with a good diesel or natural gas or propane fired, permanent mount, whole-house generating system. Then you can skip the battery bank, battery chargers and inverters. Without looking at the specs I would imagine that (unless your draw from the batteries is very low), you'll still have a fifty percent run time for the generator to recharge the battery bank.

IMO, for long term living should the grid go down there are better ways of doing things.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Zombie-Knocker said:


> I'm new to the forum, but thought I would pipe up on this topic as it scares the hell out me.
> My backup for higher prices, power grid goes down, emp attack...


This just seems to much like an ad plug to me...

Have anything else to offer the discussion?


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I just looked at my bill, we get our electricity cheap, $.072 kwh, up from $.059 kwh, but then we get charged a transmission fee and a distribution fee, which spikes the price to $.18 kwh,


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## DM1791 (Oct 6, 2014)

*unintended consequences...*

Four years ago I was working a claim for a gentleman with a very impressive house. While managing the crew that was mitigating some water damage he had from a leaking roof, I noticed he was working on some pretty elaborate engineering schematics. Having a strong background in electrical engineering and optical engineering, I struck up a conversation with him about the diagrams.

After about 20 minutes, he offered me a job as an electrical engineer (despite the fact that I didn't have a degree in that field) to help construct power distribution systems for coal-fired power plants. It was a tempting offer (starting salary of 60k, MUCH better than I make now) but I turned him down. I told him that with the regulations coming through, coal was a bad place to be right now. He laughed it off at the time, but 18 months later Steag enterprises shut down a good portion of its US business due to EPA involvement in the coal industry. Had I taken that job, with last in first out policies, I'd have been royally screwed.

This is one of the un-intended (we hope) consequences of heavy handed regulation from an agency like the EPA. In their crusade to save the world from the marginally established global climate change boogey-man, jobs, economic advancement, and living standard for the "common" man suffers. An even larger impact will likely be felt when the already over-burdened production grid suffers a massive spike in demand from unforeseen conditions such as the abnormal "polar vortex" of last winter.

As of 2009, 38.1% of homes provide their main source of heat via electricity. The real story here is that in climates like those most directly impacted by the abnormal cold snap last year, if there are rolling blackouts and "brownouts" from grid overload, then there are a lot of people who are going to be stuck in extreme cold with no method of heating.

How is the EPA going to rationalize the potential deaths that result directly from their restrictive policies? My guess is they will blame the "evil" "profiteering" energy companies and demand a more active role of government in the energy sector.

Obviously a sound recommendation given the smashing success we've had so far in this endeavor.

Heavy-handed regulations kill production, kill job opportunities, and in this case, may actually result in killing people.... all in the name of saving humanity from itself.


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## DM1791 (Oct 6, 2014)

*One more thing....*

I forgot to mention that the EPA already has policies in place that have been demonstrated to cost lives. The MPG regulations put in place on automobiles have forced manufacturers to reduce weight in their vehicles. The most obvious way to do this is to reduce the thickness (and thereby the resilience) of the vehicle's metal skin. The result is lighter, more fuel efficient, and more dangerous vehicles.

The NHTSA has conducted numerous studies that show as miles per gallon go up, the general survivability of a major collision typically goes down. Some of this effect is mitigated with safety features such as air bags, seat belts, and impact crumple zones. However, even with these innovations, lighter and thinner cars are, by their nature, more dangerous.

How has the EPA responded to this criticism? By imposing more and more regulations demanding ever higher MPG benchmarks be met. By their actions, it is clear that this massive bureaucratic nightmare is much more concerned with "protecting the environment" than it is with protecting the people who live within it.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

The EPA (and our overregulation and taxing of American business) has driven many of the nations manufacturing businesses elsewhere. Mostly to China. Now China wants the UN (meaning primarily the US) to subsidize their modernization of power plants in the name of global climate change.


So we tax and regulate ourselves out of business then the countries with cheap energy and a business friendly attitude welcome those businesses to improve their economy then want us to subsidize their power production and manufacturing industries!


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

EPA end of prosperous America :factor10:


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

One option if you live where the sun shines and you own your home that you do not plan to leave in the foreseeable future is to lease a solar system. These often have no up-front costs and may cut your electric bill by some small amount. The only advantage I see to this is if the grid goes down (and you have had switches installed) so you would still have a good supply of electricity during sunny days. You would still have no power at night or on heavy cloud days but it is an almost no cost way to have some power on sunny days in a grid down situation. I suppose this may also offer some protection from increasing electric costs. I am not promoting this but just throwing it out as an option.


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## DM1791 (Oct 6, 2014)

*Not a bad idea...*

One thing our family has in relative abundance at the moment is land. Right out my granny's back door is about 40 acres of field land. I wouldn't want to put too large a solar power system on that, though, since it is very prime farm land and would be better serviced in hard times for growing food.

However, my mom has been adamant about getting some form of solar back up for a while now. I think she has a little sticker shock on the price for a large scale grid-tie in system that would be able to supplant the grid full time if need be. Which, to be honest, I can understand. There are other things that need to be done to the house first (new windows, new roof, maintenance type stuff like that...).

However, I am going to be installing a small-scale backup generator type solar panel system. It will probably have about 1000-12000 watts total panel array (4-6 275 Watt panels), a dual 24V 200AH battery bank, 2 power inverters at 4000W each, and an MPPT controller to handle the charging for both banks (if I need two, that's not a big deal).

My goal is to set that system up as an emergency generator type system. Then, with the experience I gain through that, hopefully install a full on grid-tie in system within the next 5 years or so.

Lofty goals, but hopefully not out of reach. And, just as hopefully, not too optimistic on the time horizon. I'm really hoping the proverbial turds stay clear of the turbines until after the grid-tie is done.


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