Girding the grid

Girding the grid

I know it’s election season and that’s all anyone wants to talk about. But other things are going on as well and some of them will eventually impact a good many of us.

One of those things is our failing electrical power grid.

What in the world is a power grid, you ask?

It’s the electrical grid that interconnects all of the U.S. and Canada, and it’s vital to everyday life. We don’t see it, but we need it, as they say, to keep the lights on.

Utilities formed these joint operations many years ago to share peak-load coverage and backup power. Today the interconnections are overseen by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit formed to regulate the grid in the wake of the first largescale blackout in 1965.

We’ve had many more blackouts since then, and they continue today. Our overburdened power system is failing in California, Texas and parts of Virginia and Georgia. We haven’t encountered the problem in Florida. Yet.

TRECKER

What’s going on?

Power demands are increasing exponentially, driven by artificial intelligence, which requires huge amounts of juice. The exploding AI technology with its big new data hubs is sucking the grid dry.

According to Goldman Sachs, AI is projected to drive a 160 percent increase in data center demand by 2030. Chip designer Rene Haas says, “By the end of the decade, AI centers could consume as much as 25 percent of all U.S. electrical power, up from less than 4 percent today.”

The problem is exacerbated by green energy. Intermittent power sources like solar and wind must be backed up by traditional sources like coal and natural gas, and that’s anathema to environmentalists around the world.

Burgeoning demand isn’t due to AI alone. Another big contributor is air conditioning, cranked up to deal with the extreme heat blanketing the continent.

The bottom line is that we have to put more power into the grid. Where will it come from? Nuclear power plants are being considered. But everyone agrees natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, is a better bet.

Petrochemical guru Peter Huntsman, not hiding his self-interest, says, “Natural gas will power America’s AI future. Period.” ReNew’s Sumant Sinha adds, “The reality is we can keep adding renewables until we’re blue in the face and it won’t be enough.”

Added power will help, but what about upgrading the grid itself? That’s happening as well. Replacing old conductors with high-performance wires is an obvious fix, and TS Conductor is offering a cable that weighs less and carries more electricity than conventional wires.

More exotic are devices that move power away from overloaded wires onto underused lines. Yet another approach is use of sensors to forecast weather conditions that will speed or slow transmissions.

Where is the trouble centered? Ground zero is northern Virginia’s data-center alley through which 70 percent of global internet traffic passes. According to Dominion Energy, power demand there will quadruple over the next 15 years. Not far behind is the Atlanta area with its fast-growing AI center.

Here’s still another idea and it’s a grabber. A recent headline reads, “AI Can Solve its Own Power Problem.” And why not? Using its better-than-human brain, artificial intelligence can tell where the hot spots are – data centers, office complexes, commercial clusters. Then it can advise how to manage them, how to curb waste, how to save power. It’s an intriguing idea. Let the problem find its own solution.

There’s a lot to look forward to down the road.

And it might provide a welcome break from obsessing over politics. ¦

Dave Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Florida.

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