They're calling it the Blizzard of 2026 in the United States. They have already had a brutally cold winter, with at least two major snow events already. Now they are digging out once again in New York and across most of the Northeast.
Central Park saw 19 inches of snow on Sunday and Monday, the ninth highest total in recorded history. Rhode Island was even worse hit, with Providence getting twice as much as New York. It was all the result of a ferocious Nor’easter.
Because of the cold, demand for electricity in New York State ran at 10% above normal. As is always the case in winter, solar power was virtually non-existent and, despite high winds, so was wind power. Wind turbines switch off when winds get too strong and downed power lines may have hampered getting power from remote wind farms.
Thankfully, New York had gas to turn to instead, ramping generation up and down to meet fluctuating demand.
The New York Independent System Operator, which covers the whole state, regularly imports small amounts of hydro power from Ontario, but these are relatively tiny and limited by transmission capacity.
It also imports power from the Mid-Atlantic Interconnector, based further south. But that region was in the same boat, relying on coal and gas to meet surging demand.
Which all raises the question – what would have happened in New York if there were no fossil fuels available?
A couple of hundred years ago, Americans burned wood to
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New York state has got themselves in a mess by setting a CO2 reduction target in law and then setting out that regulations will be drafted on how they will get there. To no surprise on here, as the date got closer it was found that to achieve the target would come at a huge cost to consumers etc – information the state has refused to make public. So the Greenie lot took the state to court and won a ruling that the regulations must be published this month. The judge said that the state could always change the target or timescale when it whines about the costs. In a political move the governor – the odious DemoTwat Hochul – appealed the ruling so it conveniently will not be heard until after she stands for reelection in the November midterms.
An inconvenient blizzard
Wrong kind of global warming.
If there were heavy snowfall in New York years ago it would have been reported extensively on the BBC, every news slot would have had it as a main story. I don’t have BBC but I just checked their website and the only thing I could find was an article 18 hours old on the weather section. It did show some dramatic snow scenes but they appear to have buried the story. I wonder why?
I wonder how many New Yorkers would freeze to death this winter if they were relying on renewables.
Surely none? Isn’t it 1.5 Celsius warmer than something?
What is 1.5 C warmer than something? ——Remember the earth doesn’t have a temperature. All temperature is LOCAL. —–The climate chancers like to talk about 2 C warmer, 3 C warmer, referring to the earth but in actual fact global warming only says that it might get a little warmer at night and in winter….that’s all.
In that circumstance I suggest Florida asks for the I75 to be closed.
Al Gore’s gone quiet all of a sudden.
Still, if he was concerned that people soon wouldn’t remember what snow looked like, he can now rest easy.
Wind and sun are NEVER replacements for coal oil and gas. They are at best things that will save a bit of those resources, but that comes at enormous cost with high energy prices, and vast areas of land taken over when some gas or Nuclear plants tucked away in a corner would provide all we need, with claims that these part time energy solutions are “clean” being FALSE, as anyone who has seen cobalt and Lithium mines with tell you.
This ofcourse all comes from the “official science” that emanates from the UN/WEF that demonises CO2 under false pretences of a climate crisis and which most of our political class fully align with. But these politicians cannot live in a fantasy world forever, and already we see Trump in the USA and now Conservatives finally realiing their absurdity of giving us Net Zero and REFORM all deciding that fantasy world must STOP
The Inconvenient Truth that misanthropic purveyors of Convenient Untruth have been dodging for decades.
Burning coal is all very well, or not, but either way, you’ll need a fireplace, something modern homes simply don’t have.
Or coal fired power stations.
I burn smokeless coal on cold nights in my Edwardian house in SW London. It helps to have two separate downstairs rooms rather than one draughty open plan sitting room. But the point about new houses seldom having a fireplace incorporated into the structure is well made.
I occasionally use some coal briquettes in my stove but mainly burn free wood. It makes more sense to burn coal to generate electricity where it is more efficient and emissions can be dealt with than it being used to heat homes.
Oh dear, never mind, Trump is coming to save them.
Not in New York he isn’t – city or state. They made their Far Left choices and have to live – or indeed freeze to death – by them. Apparantly to be able to get paid to shovel the snow off the streets of New York you need two forms of ID. But to vote in elections you have no need to prove who you are. I have to say that investigations into the stolen 2020 election left me stunned at how corrupt the US election system is and how it would embarass a banana republic to be so bad.