Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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AHE
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Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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More than 4 million homes and businesses saw their electricity shut off as a powerful cold snap sent temperatures into the single digits, driving up demand for heating while simultaneously freezing much of the energy infrastructure that would normally keep people warm. Rolling blackouts began in the wee hours of Monday morning and continued into Tuesday evening.

At least 20 people were reported dead in storm-related incidents in the eastern half of the country, including several in Texas — and experts said it was all but certain that the death toll would rise. Harris County, home to Houston, reported hundreds of cases of carbon monoxide poisoning as people tried to stay warm by using portable generators or running their cars indoors.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/sto ... ate-change
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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The National Weather Service forecasted another "major winter storm for the South-Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic through Friday," with snowfall of over 4 inches from Oklahoma to the Mid-Atlantic and a potential 8 inches or more in Pennsylvania, not to mention "significant freezing rain" also likely from Texas to Tennessee and North Carolina to Virginia.
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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The extreme weather was blamed for the deaths of over three dozen people, some while trying to keep warm. In the Houston area, one family died from carbon monoxide as their car idled in their garage. A woman and her three grandchildren were killed in a fire that authorities said might have been caused by a fireplace they were using.

In Texas on Thursday, just under 500,000 homes and businesses remained without power, down from about 3 million a day earlier.

Adding to the state's misery, the weather jeopardized drinking water systems. Authorities ordered 7 million people — a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — to boil tap water before drinking it, following record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and pipes.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pow ... 958972.php
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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The worst U.S. power outages were in Texas, affecting more than four million homes and businesses. More than 250,000 people also lost power across parts of Appalachia, and another quarter of a million were still without electricity following an ice storm in northwest Oregon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outage reports. Four million people lost power in Mexico.

Texas is the only state in the continental U.S. that has its own power grid, which is not subject to federal regulation, CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca reports.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-weat ... eep-south/
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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More than 4.3 million homes and businesses were without power across Texas on Monday, based on utility outage data compiled by Poweroutage.us. Another 400,000 were down in a swathe of states stretching from Louisiana to Ohio and Virginia. More than 300,000 outages hit Oregon, and even the New York City suburbs were affected, with nearly 24,000 outages in New Jersey’s Sussex County.

In Mexico, over 4.7 million homes and businesses went dark after Texas’s shortages triggered cascading failures. But about 65% of those affected in Mexico had seen their power restored by midday, according to grid operator Cenace.
https://time.com/5939633/texas-power-outage-blackouts/
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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Houston residents woke up Wednesday morning with little or no water pressure, on top of a third day of widespread power outages that have left millions without heat amid frigid temperatures, ice and snow.

Harris County Office of Emergency Management said the water issues were due to the ongoing power outages as well as burst pipes.

"Nearly (all) parts of the county are experiencing low water pressure - or have none at all," the agency tweeted. "Water utilities are struggling to operate in light of the state power issues. This will not improve until more power is restored."

In many areas, including the city of Houston, those with water are being advised to boil it before drinking. Those without power – 293,000 homes and business in Harrison County alone as of Wednesday evening – were being told to use bottled water.

Water outages also affected hundreds of thousands of residents Tuesday in several other areas, including Abilene and Fort Worth. Water outages were also affecting residents in parts of Tennessee and Oklahoma.

In some cases, it was so cold overnight in Texas that water from burst pipes or running faucets froze inside homes. One residents said he used melted snow to flush toilets. The Austin Fire Department received more than 685 calls for broken water pipes between midnight and 7 p.m. Tuesday.
https://weather.com/news/news/2021-02-1 ... ther-south
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Re: Texas blackouts show the power grid isn’t ready for climate change

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In Texas, 7 million people — a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — were under orders to boil tap water before drinking it because low water pressure could have allowed bacteria to seep into the system.
https://www.chron.com/business/article/ ... 962199.php
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