Power Shortages in Your Future?
Taking a break from the slow-motion crash our economy is currently engaged in, and turning to one of the byproducts of those problems, this morning’s Rude Awakening from Agora Financial has some sobering words about coming shortages in power. Think blackouts and brownouts.
Earlier this week, I attended a privately sponsored presentation on U.S. energy policy. The main speaker was a senior faculty member from Carnegie Mellon University. This guy has been “doing electricity” for about 40 years or so. He has written reports for the National Academy of Sciences. When the people at the U.S. Department of Energy have a question about electricity, they call this CMU professor.
The news is not good. In 2007, there were about 144 new coal-fired power plants on the drawing boards of the U.S. energy utilities. But, said the professor, “We will probably build none of them.” Indeed, “The electric industry in the U.S. is in terrible shape,” said the CMU man. So we should expect local and regional brownouts and blackouts to become common occurrences “within five years.” But the first isolated instances of brownout and blackout will hit us much sooner than that.
As is the thesis of this site, we are in for challenging times.
