By David Wojick
Cold kills and America is at great risk of deadly subzero blackouts. Renewables are part of the problem but gas is the biggest part. We now know that the supply system that feeds our gas fired power plants can be unreliable in extreme cold weather.
Switching from coal to gas has made us vulnerable to cold weather blackouts. We need a program to address and cure this vulnerability. Action at both the State and Federal levels will be needed. New coal fired power may be part of the answer.
Vulnerability to extreme cold first hit hard in the catastrophic Texas 2021 blackout. Blackouts caused by Winter Storm Uri were responsible for hundreds of deaths, with estimates ranging from nearly 250 to over 700, as four million people were without power for days in sub-freezing temperatures. Insurance claims due to damages from the prolonged outages reached $10 billion, according to a lawsuit filed by Texas insurance companies.
The crisis began around 1:00 a.m. on February 15th with no solar power available and low wind. Gas-fired generation became progressively dysfunctional due to the cold. Texas had systematically reduced its reliable baseload power from coal. With 69 percent of generation fueled by natural gas or wind, system failures caused a crisis.
Our national vulnerability became clear in PJM’s near blackout during late 2021 Winter Storm Elliot. With little renewables capacity it was the gas supply system that nearly failed. We now know that switching from coal to gas makes America seriously vulnerable to deadly subzero blackouts.
Unfortunately, Elliot was mild compared to prior storms, and it is these extreme cases of cold that should be the focus of those managing our electricity system. For example Elliot caused a Pittsburgh low temperature of minus 5 but the low in a January 1994 storm was minus 23. Philadelphia saw a low of plus 7 while the 1994 storm hit minus 4. As recently as 2015 the worst storm lows were lower than Elliot but we still had lots of coal power.
According to NERC’s December 2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment PJM had a comfortable looking 30% reliability reserve margin during “normal” weather. Elliot’s cold simply wiped that out. If it had been a lot colder it surely would have been a lot worse. NERC needs to assess this vulnerability not just that for average weather.
But it is the States that are responsible for generator reliability. Every State should now initiate a cold weather Blackout Prevention Program. This means seriously assessing the vulnerability to at least the extreme cold they have seen before. Then taking the necessary steps to prevent deadly blackouts caused by that cold. In most states these will be below zero temperatures, in many states well below.
In particular it is time to put coal back on the table. Coal power’s on-site supply feature makes it immune to cold weather supply disruptions.
We have not built a coal fired power plant for many years so for a start we will need to find the latest technology. China is likely a leader but India is also a good bet. The Indians are great engineers.
Also coal power had been massively over-regulated so a few repeals are called for. I would begin with the mercury emission limits which EPA gleefully admitted they had no scientific basis for. Likewise for the phantom PM2.5 which is not even a specific substance.
We should also gear back up our coal combustion research. DOE’s Fossil Fuel Program has been misdirected onto carbon capture for many years now. Let’s get back to making power.
Small modular nuclear reactors also fit in here. They too do not have fuel supplies that are vulnerable to extreme cold. And of course the gas supply system should be made less vulnerable.
In short there is a lot of work to be done to protect America from deadly blackouts caused by extreme cold. The threat is clear.
Note: Small portions of this article were adapted from my original call for action in Pennsylvania. See “Avoiding Deadly Blackouts: How to Protect Pennsylvanians During Winter Storms” at https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/research/avoiding-deadly-blackouts/
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