Brittle Power

1,26
MB

377
stron

3553
ID Rocky Mountain Institute

2001
rok

Contents

Foreword

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer and R. James Woolsey ix

Acknowledgments xi

PART ONE: BRITTLE POWER

One National Energy Insecurity

How did we become so vulnerable? 2

Purpose and scope 4

Organization 8

Two What Can Go Wrong? 10

Natural events 10

Deliberate actions 14

Mistakes 15

Command, control, and communications disruptions 16

Three How Systems Fail 19

Complexity 19

Many failures from one source 20

Unpredictable interactions 22

Tracing higher-order consequences: an illustration 25

Surprises 27

Four What Makes the Energy System Vulnerable? 30

Dangerous materials 31

Limited public acceptance 33

Centralization of supplies 34

Long haul distances 35

Limited substitutability 36

Continuity and synchronism in grids 38

Inflexibilities of energy delivery systems 40

Interactions between energy systems 42

High capital intensity 43

Long lead items 45

Specialized labor and control requirements 46

Potential for misuse of energy distribution systems 48

Chapter Five Case Study: The 1977 New York Blackout 51

A complex, cascading failure 51

Human error and oversight 54

Unexpected complications 55

Mitigation 57

Chapter Six Picking Up the Pieces 59

Spare parts 59

Repair times, facilities, and skills 60

Propagating failures 62

The cost of failure 63

Chapter Seven War and Terrorism 68

Centralized facilities as military targets 68

Protection by dispersion 69

Energy in jeopardy 70

Electronic vulnerability 72

The terrorist threat 74

Insiders and security lapses 77

Terrorist resources 78

A growing danger 83

PART TWO: DISASTERS WAITING TO HAPPEN

Chapter Eight Liquefied Natural Gas 87

LNG tankers 91

LNG terminals and storage tanks 92

LNG shipments by truck 94

Analogous hazards of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) 95

The risk from liquefied energy gases (LEG) 98

Chapter Nine Oil and Gas 100

Oil and gas fields and shipping facilities 101

Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf 102

Offshore platforms 105

Primary oil storage 107

Oil refineries 109

Natural gas processing plants 111

Oil pipelines 112

Pipeline sabotage and repair 114

Concentrations of pipeline capacity 116

Arctic pipelines 117

Gas pipelines 119

Total vulnerability 121

Chapter Ten Power Stations and Grids 123

Power stations 124

Electrical transmission 127

Substations and distribution networks 130

Control and communications 132

System stability 134

Instabilities caused by the grid 136

Brittleness is increasing 138

Chapter Eleven Nuclear Power 141

Nuclear terrorism: intentions and incidents 142

The potential for reactor sabotage 150

Other types of attacks on nuclear facilities 154

Other vulnerabilities in the nuclear fuel cycle 156

Military attacks on nuclear facilities 158

Attacking reactors with terrorist bombs 159

Radiological consequences of major releases 162

Logistical and financial impacts 165

Psychological and social impacts 166

Chapter Twelve Forward, Lemmings! 169

PART THREE: NATIONAL ENERGY SECURITY

Chapter Thirteen Designing for Resilience 177

Resilience versus reliability 177

Passive versus active resilience 179

Resilience in biological systems 182

Toward a design science for resilience 190

Analogous universes 207

The brittleness of mainframe computers 208

The response: “distributed processing” 210

Chapter Fourteen Rethinking the Energy System 214

The semantics of “decentralization” 215

Centralization: the root of the problem 218

Social “decentralization”? 219

The economics of decentralized energy 220

Can decentralized investments be fast enough? 223

Renewable sources: the dark horse pulls ahead 225

A regional case study 227

Is this a real turning point? 229

Why should small technologies be faster? 231

Chapter Fifteen End-Use Efficiency: Most Resilience Per Dollar 235

The state of the art 238

Micro benefits 248

Macro benefits 253

Economic priorities 257

National least-cost scenarios 259

Efficiency is the key to resilience 262

Chapter Sixteen Inherently Resilient Energy Supplies 264

Sustainable sources 266

How reliable are renewable energy flows? 268

Not all renewable sources make sense 270

Simplified versions 273

Quality control 274

System integration 275

Linking to the grid: resilience lost? 277

Technical status of resilient renewable sources 282

Economic status of resilient renewable sources 283

External costs and benefits 284

Built-in resilience 288

Chapter Achieving Resilience (with Alec Jenkins) 293

Seventeen The Federal role 293

Making policy coherent 298

State programs 300

Why act now? 301

What energy dependence costs the community 305

Creating a sustainable local economy 307

Getting started 311

Concerted action 316

Crisis response 320

What local governments can do 322

Financing 323

Energy services delivery 331

Resilience begins at home 332

APPENDICES

Appendix One Scale Issues 335

Direct construction costs 338