[Pops]

Bloomberg.com

Super storm Sandy’s record blackouts and prolonged recovery laid bare the U.S. electrical grid’s vulnerability to wind and flood, renewing calls for utilities to invest billions to toughen their defenses against extreme weather that may become more common.
European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. routinely bury cables that connect homes to power networks, protecting them from wind and ice. U.S. utilities have balked at moving more infrastructure below ground, saying consumers would object to spending as much as $2.1 million a mile, according to one industry estimate, to bury wires for a system that’s not fail-safe.
“There is no system that is bulletproof, whether you bury it, whether you put it up on poles, some force of nature can get you,” John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at New York-based Consolidated Edison (ED), owner of New York’s utility. “As powerful as we like to think we are, human designs do have their limitations.”

So the question is, can we afford to not only transition to renewables (requiring greater transmission capacity) but prepare for climate change as well?

[dinopello]

Some places are doing some of the things necessary. We have plans for district energy systems and have been in close coordination with the power company (Virginia Power) to bury cables, upgrade substations, and network all the substations for resiliency. Bigger projects like building levy's where required and larger scale grid upgrades will require feds, but there is a lot local communities can do in partnership with utilities to harden infrastructure. It makes sense also because every local community will have specific risks associated with extreme weather. Waiting around for feds is a mistake, IMO.

[diemos]

I think you're just going to have to accept that PO.com is going to be dull as dishwater until the current natural gas glut runs its course. People won't start coming again until that's done and we move from complacency to panic.

[rockdoc123]

First off before the "oh the world is falling apart because of a few ppm of CO2" folks take the thread in the wrong direction (NB because I think this is a good discussion topic) lets realize that climate is always changing, has always changed and will continue to do so irrespective of what man does or does not do. Historically there have been several occurrences of Sandy-like storms. They are extreme events and by definition sit on the tails of the probability distribution. There is no evidence that they are becoming more common, in fact the evidence suggests that they have occurred at all times throughout the past hundred years or so during periods of cooling or warming. That does not negate the fact, however, that one needs to realize they will happen and they need to be planned for.

That being said it is about the idea of preparedness. Individuals choose to live where they do for all sorts of reasons. People live smack dab on top of feeder faults into the San Andreas system. A stick-slip event which might jolt these faults say 4 cm could in fact completely destroy many heavily populated areas in Southern California. To the same extent individuals choose to live in Florida which is frequently hit with hurricanes. People moved back into New Orleans after Katrina. Seems the nice places are also the most dangerous.There is now a large number of nodding nabobs suggesting that something has to change because of Sandy but statistically the chance of another Sandy happening is probably less than another Katrina or for that matter say a significant earthquake in southern California, or for that matter, a series of back to back tornados ripping through downtown Fort Worth, simply because a whole bunch of things had to line up for Sandy to happen in the manner it did. Roger Pielke Jr has written about this issue extensively. It is all about understanding the risks from extreme events and planning for them. Cost benefit analysis can be done where it may be determined for example that it makes more sense for some of the low lying areas in New York be abandoned and left as environmental reserves or recreation areas than it does to try and re build living structures. Certainly the technology is there to make most of New York storm proof it just comes down to cost versus probability of occurrence, that is to say do you plan for the 50% probability level, the 10% probability level or the 1% probability level. There is obviously a direct relationship with cost and effort. I don't think this is a decision that can be left to individuals and it should be something studied by gov't or independent organizations with resulting legislation governing construction zonation etc.

As to can we afford to transition as well as prepare for the "rare event" I don't see why that can't be done. It is all about priorities. The transisiton, I believe, can be helped by government putting in place incentives for business to invest in technologies that can diversify energy consumption. It is clear it cannot be achieved by government spending as the several solar companies that received hundreds of millions of stimulus funding going belly up in less than a year should instruct. The problem here is the gov't sees the solution to problems through throwing money at them but it does nothing to reward success or for that matter encourage it. Incentive programs could. One of the stumbling blocks to electric powered vehicles is the battery which is expensive and has a life cycle far too short. Incentives for research to create new batteries and incentives for individuals to test vehicles with such batteries could be a partial solution. On a smaller scale incentive programs could help the middle class transition to solar as an example. Think what would have been the difference if rather than giving the hundreds of millions of dollars to Obama's friends to set up fake solar firms that money was directed instead to tax breaks for people who were able to install solar power and offset power consumption by some percentage? You mention the need for a more robust transmission network. From what I've read the problem in New York was it was too centralized so there was very little redundancy in the system. Obviously that would require additional expenditure to put that redundancy in place. Perhaps the funding for such construction needs to fall on the States and would have to be raised by additional home owner taxes that would have to be paid by people who wanted to live in the dangerous places. To my mind if you want to take the risk of living in dangerous places you should also take the responsibility of either preparing for the inevitable disaster or having the ability to survive and repair without the help of monies from people who live in more benign conditions.
Lastly a full transition would require an immense network of transmission systems. I think this could be done partly with government funding but also partly with incentivized business spending. A side benefit is the number of jobs that could be created at the same time.

[Plantagenet]

If the people of New York and New Jersey want to pay to bury their power lines, then they should raise their local taxes to do so.

I wouldn't support the federal government stepping in to bury the power lines only in the NY area unless the funds were also available to other areas. Any kind of hazard mitigation program should be a nationwide program.

[ritter]

So the question is, can we afford to not only transition to renewables (requiring greater transmission capacity) but prepare for climate change as well?

No. We can't keep up with repairs of existing infrastructure, let alone create a new and improved one. Regardless of climate change. We have expended the effort to earn the lofty grade of "D" on our infrastructure assessment, requiring a $2.2 trillion investment to remediate. Not. Going. To. Happen.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/civil-engineers-likely-to-grade-u-s-infrastructure-d-.html

[dinopello]

An article appeared today on a blog I read related to this topic.

In Tidewater, another Sandy would be devastating to the Virginia economy and not just in terms of beach houses and tourism lost. Flooded might be Tidewater’s enormous drydocks at shipyards employing 20,000 or more people. The 4,000 people who work at NASA’s Langley Research Center wouldn’t be able to go to work if their homes are flooded even if the runways are protecting from rising waters.

This adds a dark new dimension to the argument about climate change and living in coastal areas. Some posts on Bacons Rebellion have dealt with the issue before and have (believe or not) acknowledged that sea levels are rising. This Bacons Rebellion post does just that but deals mostly with the issue of flood insurance and bad planning.

All true, but the new issue deals with long-term impacts on jobs that are inextricably linked to living near water, such as working at a shipyard, a port facility or a military or scientific installation. It’s a much bigger deal than summer fun in the sun and sand.

"Bacon's Rebellion" is a pro-business blog focussed on the Virginia economy. Most posters are small government conservatives but most also believe in science.

[dissident]

Can we afford climate change = can we afford a bullet to the head.

Sure we can afford a few Sandys here and there. We can afford to rebuild the infrastructure since it will create real jobs. The economy is all about activity and the kind which is driven by rebuilding is more valuable than the cheap credit junk consumerism all the rage in the last 30 years. It will create local jobs and not feed outsourcing.

What is lacking is political vision and will. Too much pandering to the status quo, which is a literal dead end.

[Tanada]

It isn't a matter of if we can afford it to me, more so it is an issue of will TPTB even try and do those things that need to be done quickly enough to even make a difference? Many of the issues exposed by Sandy and the Nor'easter pounding the north east coast could have been avoided if resiliency had been built into the system. Even now they are putting things back the way they were instead of moving forward a step because plans to move forward don't really exist.

[Lore]

You've still got some state governments looking to ignore the whole issue of climate change and not even mention the rising oceans. So it's not a wonder sea walls and barriers are being built back to safety standards of 100 years ago.

Eventually multiple events will really start to take their toll and impact GDP at which time there will still be years of talking, finger pointing and denial about remedial expenditures until we reach a complete financial breakdown and we'll be unable to afford to do anything, even if we had the will.

[Plantagenet]

Scientists say human-caused global warming is preventing the start of the next ice age.

Burn more coal---stop the next ice age

Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

[sparky]

.
Beside the warming argument ,
it's common sense and good governance to prepare for exected extreme event
low lying seashore can expect tidal surges of 20 feet
....when it happen is uninportant , it will always happen at the worst possible time

the calculation then is the cost of being prepared as against the cost of letting the place get flooded
basically , population exposed ,wildlife can swim for it

The dutch dealt with it by having for centuries reinforced their coastal defences
with a network of dykes with 100% protection tripled
the first line of dykes is called the waker , the second the sleeper , the third is the dreamer
even then it was not enough and the sea broke through in 1953 causing 1800 deaths and flooding 10% of the country .
They just rebuild them a bit higger

It all boil down to cost and brains

[Plantagenet]

Sparky is right. They should've been more prepared in NY and NJ.

It seems a bit like they are trying to blame the disaster caused by Sandy on climate change, whereas the real reason Sandy caused so much damage is that the politicians in NY and NJ done very little to build infrastructure to protect people from this kind of event, even though we've known for decades exactly what would happen when a hurricane finally hit the NYC area.

In New Orleans during Katrina the sea gates and levees and dike they had built weren't strong enough----in NYC and NJ the politicians weren't even smart enough to build sea gates and other protective infrastructure.

[dohboi]

What lore, dis, and ritter said.

Question--If the NYC area does decide to build some kind of sea wall, how high should they build it, and around how much of the area (keeping in mind that whatever areas are not protected will be even more heavily damaged by the next surge.)

Should they build it to withstand another Sandy? She was only a cat 1 storm. Should they build it to withstand a Cat 5 storm? Higher?

Should they build it assuming current sea levels? A meter higher than today's sea levels? Higher?

Or should they start relocating away from the shore, especially the low lying areas? Turn them into parks or other functions that do not involve residence or critical infrastructure, as they do in well planned flood plains? But then again, how much should be immediately abandoned, knowing as we do that inevitably sea levels will eventually rise by many tens of meters?

And beyond sea and storm issues, can we afford crop losses as we saw this year for many years forward, and getting worse every year and every decade?

Can we afford oceans that are so heated and acidified and over-fished that they support little life beyond jellyfish?

Keep in mind that NASA, the International Energy Agency, World Watch Institute, PriceWaterhouseCooper and other mainstream groups have warned that six degrees C of warming is likely before the end of the century. If you want some indication of what that implies, please run, don't walk, to read Mark Lynas's very well cited book, Six Degrees that lays out the best science (of seven or so years ago) on what each degree is likely to mean for human and other life on the planet. And keep in mind that in most areas we are running way ahead of schedule (he predicted that NYC subways would be flooded, but not till 2050 or so.)

(And remember to ignore shills and trolls denying the whole thing, or selected parts. These jokers have already done enough damage to our kids.)

[AgentR11]

If the people of New York and New Jersey want to pay to bury their power lines, then they should raise their local taxes to do so.

I dunno, a lot of people "use" New York/NJ even if they've never been there. Much as I love picking on them D.... yankees, I do infact use services based in NYC, in my day-to-day real life, and I'll be a bit put out when they go down and don't come back up. That could be quite inconvenient.

And no, I don't ever intend on going there.

Toughening up NYC is justifiable from a federal perspective, but I think we ought to get some annoying guarantees and conditions for the funding. After all, I had to put up with a ridiculous speed limit of 55mph for a long time in my back yard. Maybe someone can think of something that would REALLY rub the lefties the wrong way.

[sparky]

.
The U.S. electrical grid is a constant disaster waiting to happen ,
it is fractured between various generators and authorities
a national High Voltage grid program similar to the U.S. federal highway system would be
certainly a no brainer ,it could be made quite robust ,

[Revi]

Can we afford climate change = can we afford a bullet to the head.

Sure we can afford a few Sandys here and there. We can afford to rebuild the infrastructure since it will create real jobs. The economy is all about activity and the kind which is driven by rebuilding is more valuable than the cheap credit junk consumerism all the rage in the last 30 years. It will create local jobs and not feed outsourcing.

What is lacking is political vision and will. Too much pandering to the status quo, which is a literal dead end.

I agree completely. We need to figure out a way to adapt to climate change. We aren't going to stop it now, and we don't seem to have to will to stop making it worse. Therefore we need to figure out how to live with the consequences. And the consequences have begun. We may make the place uninhabitable for most of humanity, but it's already begun. There is no stopping it, so the thing to do now is mitigate the effects. Move to higher ground, figure out smaller more resilient systems and do a kind of triage. I think the city of New Orleans is a good example. We pretty much have written off the low lying areas, and the same will be done for the low lying parts of NYC. What insurance company is going to cover a house in the flood zone of Staten Island or NJ? The thing to do now is to find some kind of a place that is going to be less affected by what's coming.

Abrupt, catastrophic climate change is coming. The predictions are from 2-6 degrees C of warming. We are seeing what a degree will do. Wait until the methane clathrates are unlocked. The next steady state is like the PETM, and we weren't around back then.

[dinopello]

We need to figure out a way to adapt to climate change. We aren't going to stop it now, and we don't seem to have to will to stop making it worse. Therefore we need to figure out how to live with the consequences. And the consequences have begun. We may make the place uninhabitable for most of humanity, but it's already begun. There is no stopping it, so the thing to do now is mitigate the effects.

What if our national politicians/government all started saying this? Let's say they all also said there would be no taxpayer money spent on anything related and no policies that would tax carbon or anything - but they all just started talking like this. Would people and their local regions do anything I wonder?

[Revi]

They might run to safety, or figure out a way to make it through what's coming.

[Plantagenet]

What insurance company is going to cover a house in the flood zone of Staten Island or NJ?

People in flood prone areas are provided with federal flood insurance, subsidized by the taxpayers.

Why doesn't everybody already know this?