The Bad News Report

[elrodvt]

2 hours ago, JeanClt said:

I may have heard that they knew this might have happened by unexpected immense surge in power drawn from the grid. This huge draw is also by the systems in place in homes in North Carolina. The gird a complex megastructure that is aging significantly. Of course steps are being taken to restore it when damaged to be more resilient and useful for future prospects, but that will take time and a huge sum of money. I think Infrastructure capacity and age along with the general demand rise over time and the spike did the system in.

The grid is a network interconnected by wires and huge/rapid fluctuations can cause the (in some ways fragile) system to malfunction or this case to avoid a malfunction the system was “throttled” in this way. Not sure how they solved the issue or when. Some on here were comparing this to Texas, but frankly I believe it was not nearly as bad or as dramatic. Yes more outages is bad, but do not directly say length of time. In Texas people had no power for days on end….nothing compared with just the now more than few hours which is how long most should have lasted. Yet, I would agree Duke Energy has some explaining and reports to hand over to the governor I have seen. I wonder what if any will be available to the public to review. I would like to see the specific issues that lead to these rolling blackouts being so long and why they were necessary.

Giving them a pass because of not being as bad as the worse will only delay facing up to reality. It's so hard to convince politicians to make infrastructure investments and we need to think of these situations of opportunities to convince them to do so. Never again!

Also, Duke is really poor when it comes to conservation efforts and incentives compared to everywhere else I've lived. Probably a result of the politics of the regions they serve?Insulating homes , especially here where the standards are so low, must be able to avoid several of these gas plants they plan to build and would reduce CO2 emissions  people's bills and these peaks that break the grid. I feel like we're *always* trailing the pack in innovation in this state. 

[KJHburg]

Actually Duke is one of the largest investor owned utilities in the country and is pretty well regarded by its peers.  That being said what happened this weekend is unacceptable.  It is life threatening.  I believe we need MORE generation units like natural gas for peak usage during the summer and during extreme colds like this.  I believe too many power plants have been shut down too quickly and with this huge push for electric vehicles where is that electricity going to come from?  For years electric consumption has gone slowly down but now with the push for EV it may have to rise.  Solar and wind are just a miniscule amount on the grid locally and not always reliable.  This is region is growing all of us in the southeast and new power plants have to be built to serve the growing population.  

I looked up sources of power from Duke and this is what I found on their website.  They are using all kinds nuclear, coal, gas, solar and hydro.

https://www.duke-energy.com/our-company/about-us/power-plants#:~:text=Across the U.S.%2C Duke Energy,gas%2C solar and battery storage.

total energy use per capita in NC #35 in the nation 

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NC#tabs-5

Edited December 29, 2022 by KJHburg

[JRCLT]

Giving them a pass because of not being as bad as the worse will only delay facing up to reality. It's so hard to convince politicians to make infrastructure investments and we need to think of these situations of opportunities to convince them to do so. Never again!
Also, Duke is really poor when it comes to conservation efforts and incentives compared to everywhere else I've lived. Probably a result of the politics of the regions they serve?Insulating homes , especially here where the standards are so low, must be able to avoid several of these gas plants they plan to build and would reduce CO2 emissions  people's bills and these peaks that break the grid. I feel like we're *always* trailing the pack in innovation in this state. 

It was not a pass. It was some reason I thought of/ heard of that could have disrupted energy flow. Definitely an issue the company manly those on the top should address. Most of which I mentioned are directly attributed to Duke. I did not mean to imply it was out of their control. I also meant to minimize the Texas vs NC sentiment as a day or two does not amount to weeks without power. Not because having a lot of outages was okay, just a difference in severity situation. I say the same in that last sentences. Sometimes I feel as though the state as whole is barely trying, barely functioning.

[TheMightyBK]

Sometimes I feel as though the state as whole is barely trying, barely functioning.

Republican-run government = as little $$$ spent on infrastructure as possible…unless said infrastructure benefits Republicans. Democrat-run government = as much $$$ spent on trying, but still barely functioning


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Durhamite]

On 12/29/2022 at 10:32 AM, JeanClt said:

It was not a pass. It was some reason I thought of/ heard of that could have disrupted energy flow. Definitely an issue the company manly those on the top should address. Most of which I mentioned are directly attributed to Duke. I did not mean to imply it was out of their control. I also meant to minimize the Texas vs NC sentiment as a day or two does not amount to weeks without power. Not because having a lot of outages was okay, just a difference in severity situation. I say the same in that last sentences. Sometimes I feel as though the state as whole is barely trying, barely functioning.

No, it was bad as I previously stated, most times they can simply purchase power to supplement load deficiency, however PJM didn’t either have any available or the prices were through the roof…so, PJM basically either said  go into load reduction mode or stand the risk of the eastern interconnection collapse…

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/us-electric-grid-narrowly-dodged-223801796.html

[Durhamite]

5 minutes ago, Durhamite said:

No, it was bad as I previously stated, most times they can simply purchase power to supplement load deficiency, however PJM didn’t either have any available or the prices were through the roof…so, PJM basically either said  go into load reduction mode or stand the risk of the eastern interconnection collapse…

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/us-electric-grid-narrowly-dodged-223801796.html

By the way, the problem with ERCOT or Texas is the Texas mentality. They are basically their own interconnection/grid to avoid dealing with the feds. You have the western interconnection, eastern interconnection and Texas (ERCOT).  The concept is to share resources as needed…but not Texas, no sirree.

[Durhamite]

On 12/29/2022 at 7:34 AM, KJHburg said:

Actually Duke is one of the largest investor owned utilities in the country and is pretty well regarded by its peers.  That being said what happened this weekend is unacceptable.  It is life threatening.  I believe we need MORE generation units like natural gas for peak usage during the summer and during extreme colds like this.  I believe too many power plants have been shut down too quickly and with this huge push for electric vehicles where is that electricity going to come from?  For years electric consumption has gone slowly down but now with the push for EV it may have to rise.  Solar and wind are just a miniscule amount on the grid locally and not always reliable.  This is region is growing all of us in the southeast and new power plants have to be built to serve the growing population.  

I looked up sources of power from Duke and this is what I found on their website.  They are using all kinds nuclear, coal, gas, solar and hydro.

https://www.duke-energy.com/our-company/about-us/power-plants#:~:text=Across the U.S.%2C Duke Energy,gas%2C solar and battery storage.

total energy use per capita in NC #35 in the nation 

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NC#tabs-5

There are base-load requirements, energy mixes, reserves, etc with models that address worst case scenario’s.  Plus, the ability to purchase power outside of resources in the event of a worst case scenario, like Christmas Eve.  
 

They have forecast models, etc used to address future capacity  demand. However, everyone wants that utility “green”, meaning money.  Think about it, the climate change group who demand cleaner energy sources, investment groups pushing regulatory policy to get in the game (basically build power plants….guess who has to manage the interconnections).  Meanwhile, the utility has to appease the utility commission, consumer and maintain a fragile infrastructure.  
 

It’s just not that simple.
 

 

[KJHburg]

Well the best article I read about what happened is from the Biz Journal.  There were power plant problems that reduced output at the same time no outside power sources were available to help.    This was Duke's first rolling blackouts and it needs to be their last!  They created a dangerous situation with people in the record cold and while some was plant malfunctions some were errors on their part in terms of forecasting power.  They forecasting less power than in extreme cold situation in 2018.  

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/01/03/duke-energy-christmas-eve-blackouts-nc-regulators.html

this is most of the story from the Business Journal about the state utility meeting.

"""Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK) says frozen instruments at three plants forced it to reduce 1,035 megawatts of production capacity at those sites between midnight and 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve leading up to the rolling blackouts that morning.

That, combined with greater-than-expected demand and the cancellation of 1,150 megawatts worth of power purchase contracts from third parties that morning, made the forced outages affecting 500,000 Carolinas customers at Duke necessary, the company says.

“We made the only decision that we could,” Duke’s N.C. president, Kendal Bowman, told the state's utilities commission in a special presentation this morning. “For the first time in our company’s history, we began rolling services disruptions.”

Then, a failure of an automated system designed to rotate blackouts among 269 circuits at 15-minute intervals failed at 7 a.m. That extended the blackouts for customers as Duke had to revert to manual restoration of power on the system. Charlotte-based Duke says all the blackouts ended by 8 p.m., but for many that amounted to hours of interrupted service.

Enlarge

The N.C. Utilities Commission questioned Duke Energy executives about the causes of, and potential solutions for, the power blackouts that struck the Carolinas on Christmas Eve.

 

'We own what happened'

Without the blackouts, Duke executives told the commission there would have been uncontrolled outages as demand exceeded generation capacity. That would have led to more widespread outages of longer durations and could have even threatened the power grid for the Southeast, causing events similar to the Northeast blackout in 2003 that impacted 50 million people.

“We are deeply sorry that any of our customers’ holidays were disrupted,” said Julie Janson, Bowman’s superior and the CEO for Duke operations in North and South Carolina.

“We own what happened,” she said. "We have set on a path to ensure that if we are faced with similar challenges, we will see a different outcome.”

Janson said that includes a thorough internal investigation of Duke’s systems and procedures and a review of how other utilities in the region handled the emergency as many experienced the same difficulties.

Duke says that none of its generation equipment failed due to weather, which was a major issue in the February 2021 outages during a Texas winter storm that caused more than 250 deaths. But instruments unexpectedly froze at the 726-megawatt Dan River Combined Cycle Plant, the 2,422-megawatt Roxboro and 727-megawatt coal plants, making it impossible to run those units at full capacity.

 

Dan River was reduced, or “derated,” to 360 megawatts capacity at midnight. Roxboro lost 325 megawatts of its available capacity (which was about 725 megawatts) at 2:30 a.m. and Mayo lost 350 megawatts capacity at 6 a.m.

From confidence to failure, how quickly power reserves disappeared on Duke

Sam Holman, vice president of transmission, walked the commission through a timeline of how Duke went from believing that it had sufficient generation and reserves to handle demand on Dec. 24, despite the weather extremes, to realizing by 4 a.m. that it would not, even using standard demand-side reduction programs, and opted for discretionary temporary blackouts.

Duke Energy Carolinas estimated at 6 p.m. on Dec. 23 it had sufficient power online and lined up in purchase contracts to meet the expected high demand on Dec. 24, with 1,500 megawatts of reserve energy. But by 7 p.m., it recognized that demand was already trending higher than anticipated. Despite that, the company expected to have enough power and 900 megawatts of reserve capacity as of 10 p.m.

Then at midnight, the instrument problems at Dan River led to halving the capacity at that facility. By 2 a.m., as demand continued to rise higher above projections (and the weather turned colder than expected) the company knew it was in for a challenge with just 200 megawatts of reserve capacity. That had evaporated by 6 a.m., after firm power purchase contracts for 400 megawatts of capacity from the PJM Interconnection System, were canceled along with 250 megawatts of non-firm capacity. At 4 a.m., it lost 350 megawatts of firm capacity when Broad River Power tripped off.

The rolling blackouts began at Duke Carolinas at 6:14 a.m.

Extreme weather exercise in mid-December failed to predict problems

Duke Energy Progress had expected to have capacity to meet Christmas Eve demand and 1,100 megawatts of reserve at 6 p.m. on Dec. 23. And it seemed to be in good shape for a good bit longer than Duke Carolinas, Holman said. As late as 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve, Duke Progress was still projecting sufficient capacity and 1,000 megawatts in reserve.

Then it changed quickly. At 2:30 a.m., the instrument failures at Roxboro cut 325 megawatts of available capacity. By 5 a.m., Duke Progress was seeing the kinds of increases in customer demand that had concerned Duke Carolinas hours earlier. At 6 a.m., the Mayo instrument failure led to a reduction of 350 megawatts of capacity as nearly 500 megawatts worth of power purchase contracts were canceled. The rolling blackouts started at Duke Progress at 6:25 a.m.

Preston Gillespie, chief generation officer for Duke, said that the company had run a simulation of extreme winter weather Dec. 12, and the results showed that the utilities’ systems could handle them without a loss of power. But the simulation failed to forecast the instrument freezes at the three plants. The company is determining why that model failed.

Regulators want detailed answers

Nelson Peeler, chief transmission officer, said that Duke’s general forecasting model also failed to predict how much demand there would be on Dec. 24. Partly, that was because temperatures were colder than had been forecast, winds were significantly higher and the dew points were lower — all weather factors that impact demand.

But also it just failed to accurately predict how customer demand would respond to the plunging temperatures. Gillespie said Duke’s information technology staff and the software provider for the modeling have been working since Dec. 24 — including on Christmas and New Year’s Day — to determine if there is a fault in the modeling system.""    END OF BIZ JOURNAL QUOTE

and from the  Charlotte Ledger this morning:

In the midnight hour that Saturday morning, customers in Duke Energy Carolinas, which includes Charlotte and most of central and western North Carolina, were needing just below 20,000 megawatts of electricity — a rarely surpassed number. The previous record, according to data submitted to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, was 21,608 megawatts, in January 2018. Typically, Duke customers require much less: On New Year’s Day, for instance, the figure barely rose above 10,000 megawatts in the busiest hour.

>>>>My comments about the above information is why was Duke not projecting at least 21,600 megawatts of electricity used.  Was it because it was the Saturday before Christmas 12/24? Many people had relatives and family in town using more power than ever. Every store I know of was opened that day except for my local Harris Teeter closed all day 12/24 due to this outage?  

This is not about their mix of generation of power I am ALL of the ABOVE gas, nuclear, solar  wind and hydro.  But their job is provide power to this community and they failed us and it NEEDS TO never happen again.  

[JRCLT]

These systems are complex beyond the minds of the general public. Complex to manage under normal Circumstances, imagine under unusual, infrequent, and hazardous conditions…personally they did what they had to do to protect the grid and the long term access to power to all their customers. It’s impossible to guarantee that a situation like will NEVER happen again, but at least these problems should be mitigated significantly. Solutions should definitely be in place to prevent these plants from operating under optimal capacity and better predictive modeling of the grid. I would also reemphasize that North Carolina faired far better than Texas (as it was compared to) and Duke did a far better job at managing this issue with no excess power available to compensate for their under prediction of power use. Hours (NC) versus Days (TX).

I totally agree that this should be mitigated and situations like these kept to minimal disruptions. My main issue is the dramatization of the situation. Not to also minimize the dangerous situation it could have been if the power went out for much longer. It’s been shown that an average homes will stay warm for 8-12 hours before it starts to cool to equalize to the outside conditions. It could have been a dangerous condition if the outage lasted the entire day or several days, but it didn’t. Thankfully Duke Energy employees restored the power to most people in a matter of hours after their automated system failed. Again, definitely lessons to be learned here and solutions to be implemented for the extremes.

[CLT2014]

The blackouts were not a good thing... but were way shorter in duration than the multiple power outages I have each year due to Duke not burying main power lines and the lines falling or getting hit by trees constantly in the severe thunderstorms we get in this region.

The blackouts happened once.... The power lines outside my neighborhood falling over... CONSTANT. We have terrible thunderstorms in this region with a dense tree canopy, microbursts, ice in winter, occasional hurricanes / tropical storms, et... BURY THE LINES.

Edited January 5, 2023 by CLT2014

[JHart]

I really think you're all looking at this the wrong way, there's no way Duke could have prepared for a situation like this when they make so little money off of NC citizens and businesses. Pointless investments like winterization and adding peak generation plants so that they actually produce enough power for NC instead of just buying it from other utilities are far too costly for a business that barely pays $3.75/share dividends annually and EPS of over $5 the last few years on about 769,000,000 shares owned by small time, local NC investors like Vanguard, Blackrock, etc. 

I think we can all agree that small sacrifices like unannounced rolling blackouts are a small price to pay when you can see how much value they create. Instead of making Duke pay for critical infrastructure with profit, we've already approved very tiny rate increases of 16% (18.9% for residential customers) by 2025 so that they can make needed improvements to privately owned infrastructure and continue producing such incredible annual results. 

[Matthew.Brendan]

1 hour ago, JHart said:

I really think you're all looking at this the wrong way, there's no way Duke could have prepared for a situation like this when they make so little money off of NC citizens and businesses. Pointless investments like winterization and adding peak generation plants so that they actually produce enough power for NC instead of just buying it from other utilities are far too costly for a business that barely pays $3.75/share dividends annually and EPS of over $5 the last few years on about 769,000,000 shares owned by small time, local NC investors like Vanguard, Blackrock, etc. 

I think we can all agree that small sacrifices like unannounced rolling blackouts are a small price to pay when you can see how much value they create. Instead of making Duke pay for critical infrastructure with profit, we've already approved very tiny rate increases of 16% (18.9% for residential customers) by 2025 so that they can make needed improvements to privately owned infrastructure and continue producing such incredible annual results. 

God Bless Capitalism! Long live the Free Market!

[rancenc]

More bad news from the tech world....I wonder how many of these positions are remote hold outs working at home.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-cut-10000-jobs-tech-layoffs-intensify-2023-01-18/

[KJHburg]

as @rancenc talked about in another thread this is bad news for Charlotte. Loss of over 200 jobs with Campbell Food Snacks aka Lance to Camden NJ.

""The company announced this morning it will shutter the local office as well as one in Norwalk, Connecticut. Campbell will consolidate those operations at its headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, where it plans to invest $50 million.

The office at 13515 Ballantyne Corporate Place employs about 212 people, a Campbell Soup spokesperson tells CBJ. While a small number of facility-related roles will be eliminated, the majority of the jobs at the Charlotte and Norwalk offices will be relocated. The company says it will provide relocation support for eligible employees.

Charlotte has been the home of the company's Campbell Snacks division since the $6.1 billion Snyder's-Lance merger closed in March 2018. In addition to the corporate office at Ballantyne Corporate Park, the company has one of its largest manufacturing plants off South Boulevard as well as a distribution facility in Pineville.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/01/18/cbj-daily-buzz-campbell-soups-office-closing.html

having lived in that area of New Jersey I wonder how few will relocate up there?  

[rancenc]

More trials and tribulations in the tech world!!

https://www.reuters.com/business/google-parent-lay-off-12000-workers-memo-2023-01-20/

[SoDoSoPa]

On 1/18/2023 at 4:13 PM, rancenc said:

More bad news from the tech world....I wonder how many of these positions are remote hold outs working at home.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-cut-10000-jobs-tech-layoffs-intensify-2023-01-18/

Curious what you mean by "remote hold outs working at home"?  I can assure you MSFT isn't forcing anyone back into offices regardless of location......

[rancenc]

2 hours ago, SoDoSoPa said:

Curious what you mean by "remote hold outs working at home"?  I can assure you MSFT isn't forcing anyone back into offices regardless of location......

It is scenarios that are discussed in this June article in terms of my description of  "remote hold outs".  My company actually has 2 remote, 3 in office work schedule and it is adhered to and actually embraced with no issues and definitely has not been an impediment in recruiting.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/as-microsoft-is-showing-workers-may-never-come-back-to-the-office/

[jednc]

On 1/20/2023 at 7:17 AM, rancenc said:

More trials and tribulations in the tech world!!

https://www.reuters.com/business/google-parent-lay-off-12000-workers-memo-2023-01-20/

Google hired something like 35,000 people this past year, so even with laying off 12,000, there is still a net positive of 23,000 new jobs there. Sometimes those details get left out of these doom and gloom stories.

[15895]

I think this was surprising news to me from such a positive Charlotte Observer article “Growth in uptown and South End sees ‘mic drop’ numbers as skyline keeps changing” 

https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiUWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYXJsb3R0ZW9ic2VydmVyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2J1c2luZXNzL2RldmVsb3BtZW50L2FydGljbGUyNzIwNjU4MTcuaHRtbNIBUWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmNoYXJsb3R0ZW9ic2VydmVyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2J1c2luZXNzL2RldmVsb3BtZW50L2FydGljbGUyNzIwNjU4MTcuaHRtbA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Uptown only has >100 units U/C whereas SouthEnd has 25x more units U/C (>2,500).

On the other hand at least it looks like uptown has a solid pipeline. So it’s not bad news but it’s curious.  It’s such a swing in the dynamics of the Urban Core.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[rancenc]

More bad news for the region's retail sector!!!!!!

[kermit]

While its clear that NC lost the derby to attract any ICE auto manufacturing facilities we certainly are in the running for the development of electric car (assembly and parts) manufacturing cluster. Unfortunately our neighbor to the North decided to stop perusing a Ford battery plant for some reasons I can't quite untangle. While this is mostly Virginia's loss, their loss of the plant will make it more difficult for NC to build an electric vehicle cluster (together w VA and SC).

Quote

Last month the state of Virginia dropped out of the race for the same Ford plant after Gov. Glenn Youngkin characterized the project as a “front” for the Chinese Communist Party that would raise national security concerns. At the time Virginia had not offered an incentive package to Ford.

https://apnews.com/article/ford-motor-co-michigan-detroit-business-e75de5b389687e7a3bbc248e83e23ac0

[KJHburg]

12 minutes ago, kermit said:

While its clear that NC lost the derby to attract any ICE auto manufacturing facilities we certainly are in the running for the development of electric car (assembly and parts) manufacturing cluster. Unfortunately our neighbor to the North decided to stop perusing a Ford battery plant for some reasons I can't quite untangle. While this is mostly Virginia's loss, their loss of the plant will make it more difficult for NC to build an electric vehicle cluster (together w VA and SC).

https://apnews.com/article/ford-motor-co-michigan-detroit-business-e75de5b389687e7a3bbc248e83e23ac0

actually a lot of big Chinese investment projects do not pan out.  For example Triangle Tyre a Chinese tire company was going to take a NC megasite in Tarboro.  They tied up the land for years and finally in the last year offered to let the state market it again.  Golden Home in Concord on the old Phillip Morris site has not broken ground yet and it has been a couple of years after its announcement.  I thought I saw a For Sale sign on their parcel.   Chinese have abandoned high rise projects in LA too.  

[JHart]

16 hours ago, KJHburg said:

actually a lot of big Chinese investment projects do not pan out.  For example Triangle Tyre a Chinese tire company was going to take a NC megasite in Tarboro.  They tied up the land for years and finally in the last year offered to let the state market it again.  Golden Home in Concord on the old Phillip Morris site has not broken ground yet and it has been a couple of years after its announcement.  I thought I saw a For Sale sign on their parcel.   Chinese have abandoned high rise projects in LA too.  

Do not pan out is a funny way of describing the US placing additional 25% tariffs on Chinese auto parts and wooden cabinets and damaging trade relations in recent years... Triangle Tyre specifically mentioned trade disputes for why they had not yet started construction by 2020. If Golden Home also drops their development I would certainly think the loss of these large NC manufacturing sites is more self-imposed than anything else. 

[JRCLT]

Do not pan out is a funny way of describing the US placing additional 25% tariffs on Chinese auto parts and wooden cabinets and damaging trade relations in recent years... Triangle Tyre specifically mentioned trade disputes for why they had not yet started construction by 2020. If Golden Home also drops their development I would certainly think the loss of these large NC manufacturing sites is more self-imposed than anything else. 

Unfortunately many companies in China are heavily tied to the CCP, the governing party of China. National Security has taken precedence over the decades as the CCP turns outward more and seeks to undermine US dominance in the Eastern Asian Pacific. Economics are not isolated and is integrated into geopolitics. This relations collapse is a conversation between the two with responses such as these tariffs. While it may not benefit these investments it may save the US a lot in the long term. I don’t want to go to deep into it here, but it’s a complex geopolitical conflict…

[JHart]

8 minutes ago, JeanClt said:

Unfortunately many companies in China are heavily tied to the CCP, the governing party of China. National Security has taken precedence over the decades as the CCP turns outward more and seeks to undermine US dominance in the Eastern Asian Pacific. Economics are not isolated and is integrated into geopolitics. This relations collapse is a conversation between the two with responses such as these tariffs. While it may not benefit these investments it may save the US a lot in the long term. I don’t want to go to deep into it here, but it’s a complex geopolitical conflict…

And many companies and individuals oppose the CCP and seek to move money outside of the country into foreign investments.. All I said is the economic policies are to blame for the loss of these manufacturing facilities, you can decide for yourself if you think the geopolitical gains are worth the economic damage.