Power Failures Amplify Calls for Utility to Rethink Gas

[progree]

1. "the federal utility is still planning to spend billions to build new gas plants and pipelines"

Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2022, 03:58 PM - Edit history (2)

Not to mention the impact of fossil fuel burning (greenhouse gasses) on climate change.

Edit Replaced the original title line,
“Despite this obvious failure, the federal utility is still planning to spend billions to build new gas plants and pipelines."

by removing the "despite the obvious failure". Thanks to the comment downstream. I am fully aware -- having worked as an engineer in the power supply planning and in the system operations planning for a utility in Minnesota for 17 years, that natural gas plants and instrumentation can be designed to work perfectly well in sub-freezing conditions.

I'm simply pointing out that we are still planning to build fossil fuel burning plants, and, yes, I'm fully aware that if it really is a one-to-one replacement of coal plants, that natural gas plants have about half the carbon emissions as coal plants, though there's some additional methane gas leaking into the atmosphere with natural gas infrastructure, and estimates of the amount keep increasing.

It is arguable how much of the replacement of coal-fired plants needs to be done with new natural gas plants, and how much can be done with solar and wind and batteries and nuclear and customer efficiency improvements like heat pumps-- and the timing of all that -- we're having that debate in Minnesota. About a year or so ago, Xcel Energy backed off on building a new 600 MW natural gas-fired power plant.