Without reliable and affordable electricity, civilisation as we know it wouldn’t last a week.
Absolutely everything we do depends on having power as and when we need it. Or, as Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce call it “Juice”.
Over several years now, Tyson and Robert have been attempting to educate Americans about where their power comes from and why it is so critical to the peace and prosperity we take for granted. They run a very helpful and informative website to that end: https://juicetheseries.com/
In this post, we collect 5 Episodes from their video series which detail what a group of destructive ideologues have done to America’s power supplies and how to combat them.
JUICE (Episode 1) – Texas Blackout
YouTube
Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce
31 January 2024
In February 2021, millions of Texans lost power, and the state’s grid came within four or five minutes of a total failure that would have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. It’s hard to overstate the importance –– and complexity –– of our electric grid. But how did our most important energy network get weakened? And what can we do to fix it?
JUICE (Episode 2) – Undermined By Enron
YouTube
Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce
31 January 2024
Enron Corporation may have declared bankruptcy in 2001, but the company’s effect on America’s electric grid can still be seen today in states like California and Texas, where power prices are soaring and reliability is declining. The push to treat electricity as a commodity instead of a service is particularly punishing in California, where electricity prices are increasing three times faster than in the rest of the U.S.
JUICE (Episode 3) – Green Dreams
YouTube
Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce
31 January 2024
The Osage Nation is in the midst of the longest-running legal battle against wind energy in American history. The tribe’s fight against Rome-based Enel is reminiscent of the themes in Martin Scorsese’s epic film, Killers Of The Flower Moon. But the tribe’s resistance against Enel’s rent-seeking is only one example of the fights against alternative energy projects that are happening all across rural America.
JUICE (Episode 4) – Nuclear Renaissance
YouTube
Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce
31 January 2024
The global nuclear comeback is real, even in Japan, where the accident at Fukushima Daiichi still looms large in the public’s consciousness. For proof of that comeback, we went to Canada, where a tall, Toronto-based emergency room doctor named Chris Keefer ignited a groundswell of support to expand and refurbish Ontario’s fleet of nuclear reactors.
JUICE (Episode 5) – Industrial Cathedrals
YouTube
Tyson Culver and Robert Bryce
31 January 2024
America is plagued by short-term thinking, particularly regarding our electric grid. If we are going to be serious about energy security, energy access, and climate change, we need to make our electric grid weather-resilient, not weather-dependent. That will require thinking long-term. It will require embracing fission. It will require us to consider our nuclear power plants as the crowning achievements of our society. It will require us to see them, as Emmet Penney does, as “industrial cathedrals.”
STOP THESE THINGS 
Re the tipping point, I am looking for colleagues around the world especially in the US and Canada where net zero policies are driving out coal and gas to check the situation with your local grid to see how you are tracking towards the point where there is not enough conventional power to meet the demand, first at the dinner peak and later for overnight base load.
If you are interested, please contact rafe.champion@gmail.com
You should study the UK – developed nations lowest emissions (0.4%) yet renewables are destabilising the grid dramatically and rendering electricity costs the worlds second highest – on Sat evening, due to Dunkleflaute, solar was 0GW and wind was 0.24GW (out of a total installed of 45GW) – thankfully demand was low and gas, coal, nuclear & interconnectors were keeping the nations lights on
The Juice series is brilliant, if a little time-consuming.
In the early days of wind power it just looked like an addition to the mix and it didnt matter whether the wind blew, but when nations bet the farm on wind power to replace coal and gas by subsidising wind and solar they drove coal and gas out of the market.
And eventually we get to the point where overnight wind droughts crash the grid.
Britain and Germany have got to that point and they survive by load shedding, importing and deindustrialization.
This is the situation in Australia, at the tipping point.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/