For the last week or so I have been following the type of story out here in the Great Pacific Northwest that can help explain why the rest of the world must hate us.
You see, the Bonneville Power Administration, which is responsible for the generation and distribution of power from all the dams on the Columbia, and the Columbia Generating Station Nuclear Power Plant, recently attempted to tell a bunch of the Johnny Come Lately Wind Power Farms that they might have to limit power production later on this year. It seems that with all the precipitation this winter, the snow pack is deeper than usual this year, and a deeper snow pack means more run off. More run off means more water volume in the rivers, which means more power generated by the Dams along the Columbia River.
So much power in fact, that there is not expected to be enough grid capacity to properly handle all the power that could be generated by the dams, wind farms, and other power plants operating at full capacity. BPA, which has very lucrative deals with Puget Sound Energy to provide power to Seattle and it's suburbs feels that is the priority. The wind farms, with lucrative deals to get power to California, Montana and elsewhere, feel that is the priority. Since BPA owns something like 75% of the grid in the Northwest, it kind of gives them them upper hand.
No one is immune to pressure though, and BPA has already withdrawn it's plan to limit the Wind Farms. Of course...they don't have another plan in place yet, and water levels can only get so high behind a dam before houses start going underwater.
Glad our current apartment is 250 feet above the Columbia...
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