"A February 2022 report from Idaho National Laboratory explored the challenges contributing to transformer shortages, and honed (sic) in on one key ingredient: grain-oriented electrical steel. It’s the grade required for compact and efficient transformers, only one U.S. firm makes it, and the national lab study found its quality and quantity lacking. As a result, domestic producers serve only one-fifth of U.S. transformer demand—mostly small devices powering several homes or blocks."
The study identified funding and coordination under the Defense Production Act as a key opportunity to expand domestic production of grain-oriented steel and transformers, along with other grid components including circuit breakers and switchgear.
So too did some Democrats in Congress, proposing $2.1-billion to boost production of transformers and associated grid equipment, which they argue is crucial to realizing the recent Inflation Reduction Act’s potential to accelerate renewable power generation.
In the end, lobbyists say the proposed DPA funds were simply edged out by other priorities. For now that leaves utilities to create their own solutions. -Source
Plenty of money to subsidize all-electric vehicles. Plenty of money for dispersed electrical generation like solar and wind. But no money for the key element needed to step voltages up-and-down to transport the energy from the source to the producers to the consumers.
A simple oversight, I am sure.
I have no doubt that the utilities will find work-arounds but they are likely to be more complex and to have more potential failure modes. For example, it is theoretically possible to change 60HZ power to a higher frequency and use a much smaller transformer but then the power needs to be flipped back to 60HZ for transmission down the line to avoid excessive "power factor" losses.
Hat-tip Coyote Ken
My buddy's mother makes fifty bucks per hour working on the computer (Personal Computer). She hasn’t had a job for a long, yet this month she earned $11,500 by working just on her computer for 9 hours every day.
ReplyDeleteApply the instructions on this site.. www.Payathome7.com
Its all a part of the grand plan. You can't see it from the ground, have to look at it from 30,000 ft view.
ReplyDeleteERJ, I remember reading about the shortage of electric transformers two years ago How delightful to see that absolutely nothing has been done about it. To your point, without a transmission grid, all the hopes of "renewable power" come to naught.
ReplyDeleteIs it planned? Possibly, although I also suspect it is reflective of the myopia and "shiny objects" trend of much of our culture. Everyone wants the sausage; no one wants see how it is made or even cares how it is done - until there is no more sausage, of course.
I actually LIVE the transformer supply problem. New transformers of any appreciable size are a minimum of two years out. Repairs to failed transformers are a year, at least. All this is in the current market load.
ReplyDeleteHeaven forbid that some series of actions should jump up requirements for medium and large transformers. It just won't be pretty.
I recall an article - maybe a year ago - about the potential for hurricane season in the Atlantic and how few transformers were available back then. I imagine the situation has not improved.
DeleteThis is going to get ugly sooner rather than later. As Anon says, there aren't any backup parts available...
ReplyDeleteNone of this is accident. The US government is at war with America.
ReplyDeletethe linkee from karl denninger's "no quarter..." article paints Americans as the enemy.
Deletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247756
DeleteHaving worked at the General Electric Apparatus & Service Division in my city for five years back in the late 70s to early 80s, I have seen many, electrical transformers repaired and rebuilt.
ReplyDeleteFirst problem: PCB-laced cooling oil. The things are loaded with cancer-causing oil!
Second problem: There is no one left that knows how to rebuild the things. With the PCB problems, TPTB decided to have them rebuilt overseas to avoid the cancer causing problems.
Third problem: Time, always time! If they would have stockpiled massive amounts of necessary transformers, the problem would be minor. Now, suppliers are watching, and a good guess would be that the prices have shot up exponentially. Why? Well, where else are you going to get them? Make them yourselves?
Fourth problem: Selective repairs. Who would get their power restored? Working-class? The wealthy? Hospitals and law enforcement? Good luck! That alone will cause rioting no matter which way the decision is made.
Upper management has always responded to difficulties with the same solution; have it built overseas! Well, good luck with that now.
irontomflint
Lack of the ability to produce replacement transformers is a point failure risk that has been known for decades; this is complicated by the proliferation of SCADA systems unprotected against the E1 pulse over the last 30 years, compounded by the downsizing of trained operations personnel capably of manually operating power systems.
ReplyDeleteRemind me again how much money has been shovelled into Ukraine. Oops! Silly me. That is a money laundering operation, not a "benefit the country" expense.
ReplyDeletePhil B
I don't know if the problem is a planning to fail or a failure to plan, but both are the result of short-sightedness and both have the same end result.
ReplyDeleteI also have not seen anyone talking about any of the simple methods of protecting transformers from gunfire - more short-sightedness or intentional?
Electricity on demand is not something the criminals in charge want for us peons. So they are working hard to destroy the grid, the generating capacity and the rest of our infrastructure. They want ALL of us 'white people' DEAD so they can replace us with docile easily led brown people.
ReplyDelete"...docile easily led brown people..." I know what each word means individually but cannot quite visualize them when they are arranged that way.
DeleteHmmmm.....
ReplyDeleteSeems there is a "limited supply" of replacement transformers.
So....let's, slowly, without drawing *too much of* the attention of the Sheeply Masses and their "Information Providers," drain the supply of available replacements down to zero.
Then, taking out a few dozen all at once brings everything to a halt for months....and months.
And, in the meantime we're experimenting with the best ways to rapidly and effectively cripple a transformer in a manner that requires replacement, or major, very time consuming rebuild, and learning quite a bit from our "lab work."
Bueller
The first problem is that these are all really one-off jobs, when you are talking about the big transformers. This is just as much a pain in the posterior for the manufacturer. Not just in the USA, all over the world it is basically the same. If there was a little standardisation then prices and lead times would both be lower. Of course nobody is producing electrical steel, nobody in the US is using it. It is not exactly rocket science to make it, but if there is no market, then why make it?
ReplyDelete