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Our nation’s power grid is aging and much of the country’s transformers are more than 40 years old, at or beyond their life expectancy. MarketWatch points out that extreme weather like so many of you have been experiencing points to an urgent need to update the system we all depend on:
The U.S. Department of Energy found that 70% of U.S. transmission lines are more than 25 years old in the agency’s most recent network-infrastructure review, held back in 2015. Lines typically have a 50-year lifespan. The average age of large power transformers, which handle 90% of U.S. electricity flow, is more than 40 years, the agency found.
Some estimates put the price tag on an electricity grid overhaul at upwards of $2 trillion, according to SwissRe. And agreeing on repairs is complicated by the web of state, regional and federal regulatory hurdles to consider.
You will recall that Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that included $65 billion for upgrading the U.S. electric grid. That will take years to complete.
In the meantime, a utility industry website, Utility Dive, reports that there are shortages of new transformers:
A shortage of distribution system transformers is depleting replacement equipment stockpiles and delaying or canceling some electrification projects, the electric utility sector warned federal lawmakers in a November letter. The industry’s ability to quickly restore power following storms is also at risk, they said.
The delays are “ubiquitous, across the country,” Joy Ditto, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association, said in an interview. Procurement times for a new distribution level transformer have risen to more than a year, up from about three months in 2020, and average costs have doubled or tripled, she said.
The cost of large transformers is up 20% to 50% since 2020, said Grid Assurance CEO Dave Rupert. The company stockpiles bulk power system equipment for subscribers, or for sale to nonsubscribers. Time to procure equipment has grown to 20 to 39 months from 16 to 20 months a year ago, Rupert said.
The Utility Dive website says, “a small utility in Tennessee paying $2,400 for a transformer now faces a $24,000 bill.”
Vehicle thefts increase as people leave cars idling in cold weather
AAA says auto thefts increase in the coldest weather when people start their cars to let them warm up, then walk inside for a while and leave the vehicle running. “It’s an alarming trend,” said Daniel Armbruster with AAA Texas who says “80,000 vehicles that are stolen each year are where the keys or a fob were left in the vehicle, and no one was around.”
During the winter, thieves look for white smoke coming from the exhaust of vehicles outside a house, apartment building, or convenience store.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau warns:
During the winter, thieves are on the lookout for vehicles that are “puffing.” “Puffing” refers to the practice of leaving a vehicle running while unattended. As the vehicle’s exhaust runs, it will actually emit puffs of steam when warming up, making it an easy target. With no one around to stop them, and the key already in the ignition, criminals only need to hop in and drive off. Unfortunately, insurance may not cover the cost of the theft because it was the owner that left the vehicle running.
Puffing is illegal in 30 other states, including Texas. It is also banned in many other countries, like Germany and Switzerland, to name a few, where similar fines are applied for offenders. The fine in Washington DC can be up to $5,000.
US States where puffing is illegal:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New York
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
In some places, it is illegal to “idle” your car for a long period of time. Car and Driver reports:
Most laws about idling refer to commercial, diesel-powered vehicles, and many rules were implemented to prevent semis from running their engines while parked in busy areas. The American Transportation Research Institute provides truck drivers with an up-to-date list of local rules, which can change when crossing city or county lines. In general, the places where it’s illegal to idle a vehicle only come into effect after around five minutes. One exception is New York City, where the limit is three minutes.
Don’t “warm up” your car, it is hard on the engine
This little bit of insight from Tegna’s Verify project taught me something. Older carbureted engines needed to be warmed up before you drove them in frigid weather. But these days, you could be doing more harm than you know by just having your car idle.
But times have changed since the 1980s. Nowadays, practically every car sold in the United States has an electric fuel injection system that helps maintain the perfect air-fuel mixture needed for a combustion event, no matter the ambient temperature, according to Firestone and Smart Motors Toyota.
Instead of waiting for your car to warm up in the winter, most manufacturers recommend driving off gently after about 30 seconds because the engine warms up faster when the car is being driven, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
“This means that your cold-day-driving routine should look something like this: bundle up, start the car, scrape the ice off the windows and mirrors, get in the car and get going!” Firestone says.
Just make sure you don’t accelerate too fast or rev your engine too much in the first few moments you start driving in the cold.“This can add unwanted strain to your bearings and flood the combustion chamber with gas, which, in turn, will take miles off your engine’s life,” Smart Motors Toyota says.
For owners of electric vehicles, which don’t have traditional engines, the above information doesn’t apply, according to a blog post on NAPA Auto Parts’ website. Instead, NAPA advises EV owners to warm up their cars before they’re unplugged because it can help preserve the battery range.
“EVs have to draw on electricity to warm the interior. If you enter a car with a cold cabin and begin driving, the vehicle will need to take from its stored electricity to bring the inside air to a pleasant temperature. This will tax the EV’s battery and leave you with less driving range,” NAPA says.
The American blizzard records
Perhaps the only thing worse than enduring a winter storm is to live through it only to discover you did not endure a record storm that you can tell people about years from now when they are complaining about the weather.
As a result of the blizzard over the weekend more than two dozen people have died in Buffalo, N.Y., and the death toll, police say, will rise as they find more victims. Some of those deaths involved people who suffered cardiac arrests while shoveling snow or using a snow blower. Erie County officials called it a “generational storm.”
But the “Storm of the Century” title belongs to the March 12-13, 1993 storm. The Washington Post recounts:
More than 270 people were killed across fourteen states, including 44 from an ocean surge and severe thunderstorms in Florida; the blizzard caused $11.3 billion of inflation-adjusted damage to become America’s costliest winter storm until the February 2021 cold wave.
The January 25, 1978 Cleveland Superbomb is also a top contender. That one claimed 70 lives.
The Post archives said:
Aside from a small handful of hurricanes, no storm has ever proved as destructive in the Northeast, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions as the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950.
That 1950 storm may have killed 350 people and dropped more than 60 inches of snow on the Appalachians. The same system blew gusts in excess of 100 mph in Newark; Hartford, Conn.; and Concord, N.H.
Two massive storms hit in 1888, one in March and the other in January. Weather Underground says the March storm was one of history’s worst:
It was the deadliest, snowiest, and most unusual winter storm in American annals. No storm of similar magnitude has occurred anywhere in the contiguous United States since. Over 400 perished, including 200 in New York City alone, many literally buried in drifts in downtown Manhattan. On March 13, 1888, the temperature in New York fell to 6°F during the storm—still the coldest temperature ever measured there so late in the season
Walking in the streets became not only impossible but also deadly. Of the 200 people who perished in New York City, most were found buried in snowdrifts along the city’s sidewalks. One of these victims was Senator Roscoe Conkling, a New York Republican Party kingpin and aspirant for the U.S. presidency. He died as a result of “over exposure” from trying to walk from his Wall Street office to the New York Club on Madison Square.
Refugees filled all the hotels. The venerable Astor Hotel set up 100 cots in its lobby when it became apparent by sunset that day that venturing outside was still impossible. The temperature had fallen to 8° by sunset, the wind was still howling and snowdrifts up to 20 feet filled the streets of the city.
How do livestock survive extreme cold?
First, remember that cattle are not people. Their thick coats protect them more than you might imagine and sacredcow.info explains how a cow’s complex digestive system creates a lot of body heat. Livestock do need a lot more feed during cold weather. And I can tell you from experience, having grown up on a farm, that providing water for farm animals in the winter is a huge challenge.
Flu cases easing
Let’s hope these numbers hold this week, but flu cases are easing, and hospitals report they are less full than a week ago. But seven states still stand at the CDC’s highest infection level:
(CDC)
When the next CDC data comes in this week, it may be clearer whether we are in for an unusually severe flu season or maybe we will discover the usual number of cases just spiked earlier than normal.
(CDC)StatNews reported, “Caitlin Rivers, an infectious diseases epidemiologist, said it is conceivable that there could be a second peak of activity later in the winter, possibly triggered by influenza B viruses.”
Yes, you can sue if you feel a movie trailer is misleading
A judge just gave the go-ahead to a couple of people seeking $5 million in damages because they say a movie trailer promised them a star who did not make it into the film. The BBC reports:
Two fans of the actress Ana de Armas filed a lawsuit in January after renting the 2019 film Yesterday.
The actress was seen in the trailer, but the pair were disappointed to find she had been cut from the final film.
The plaintiffs, Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza, each paid $3.99 to rent Yesterday on Amazon Prime.
The movie studio claimed First Amendment protection. But the judge ruled that a movie trailer is commercial speech and is subject to the California False Advertising Law and the state’s Unfair Competition Law.
Correction, Dec. 28, 2022: This story was updated to correct the name of the website Utility Dive.
