Slashdot Mirror
Power Shortages And Tech Industry
TheGeneration writes: "Power shortages in San Francisco, and Silicon Valley have caused power providers to demand that Intel and other tech industry biggies to use less power. Things may get bad enough that rolling blackouts have been warned. The story is reported by the AP. "
The problems in California are solvable and solvable in a renewable way. The technology exists, but people have to downsize their power requirements or move to localised power generation.
To release more power for industry, houses could reduce their power requirements to less than 5% present values as illustrated by Huf Haus and Dr Susan Roaf
Taking this theme further, why not get rid of the bureacracy required to put power into the grid. Solar Guerillas are acting illegally in contributing green power back into the grid.
In England, forward thinking Dot Com companies are using Solar power to powerer their buildings and how many hours of sunlight do we get compared to California?
And when there is not enough sun (in California??) there are certainly waves
There is an online magazine that charts all renewable power sources, from hydro to solar to biomass. Check it out at http://www.FutureEnergies.com/.Gordon Foat
My girlfriend's father tried to do this. The New York Times wrote a big article on it - he wanted to run a mill and produce electricity that way. Power his own home. That was it. Great big fight with the regulatory agencies involved in New York state. He didn't even wanna put it on the grid, just run it into his own home.
Joshua
Terradot
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
To make things worse, I'm under the impression that if we wanted to help out by generating our own power and putting our surplus on "the grid" for others to use, we either have to pay excessive amounts of money to jump through various procedural hoops, or are completely forbidden to do it.
"Home Power" magazine (they also put their current issues online in .pdf format) has a series of "guerilla solar" articles about people "sneaking" power they've produced onto the grid, which I find pretty amusing. Maybe enough people "sneaking" "illegal" power back onto the grid might help (and reduce reliance on ponderous corporations and governmental regulations to keep us powered.)
My god, did I just mix "Green"-style "Renewable Energy" and "Down with Giant Corporations" rhetoric with "Libertarian"-style "I should be able to get [power] wherever and want and sell it to whoever wants it" and "If I want to be self-sufficient it's my business"? Shouldn't "Green" and "Libertarian" rhetoric cancel each other out in a giant explosion or something?...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
By the way, futures contracts for power delivered in California are going as high as 25 cents per kilowatthour. Last May we were getting it for around 4. If you think power is expensive now, just wait till next summer. And you in the rest of the nation, your turn is coming. California-style 'deregulation' is being pushed in many states. If they succeed, get ready to see your rates quadruple.
- A large number of generators have been running flat out since this summer, and need maintenance. Most of the generators in CA have pretty much been running non-stop since early this summer, and need necessary maintenance work. The result is that ~11,000 MW of capacity was offline yesterday. Given that the (potential) shortfall was ~500 MW, that's a big hit.
- Prices in CA aren't competitive, driving a lot of power out of state. Most CA power distributors (remember, generators and distributors are generally separated now) buy their power under short-term agreements (nobody had the foresight to sign long-term deals, locking in prices). The CA rate top-end is around $250/MW, which is significantly below the rates available out of state. The result? A lot of power gets exported at the same time there's a shortage in CA.
- Older generators and rampant NIMBYism. Most generators in CA are older plants (20+ years). There's been a widespread attack of NIMBYism since then, preventing construction of new plants. San Jose, for example, just gave the finger to a new ~650MW plant next to the new Cisco campus. Similarly, there's a town on the central coast whose name completely escapes me who is vigorously fighting a plan by the local PP owner to remove the existing (BIG) plant, and replace it with a smaller,lower-profile plant. The locals have decided they want it replaced with a bare lot. Another 500MW of capacity lost.
- Server farms are bigger power consumers. A given office space converted to server farm space will consume ~4x as much power.
Now, if you think this is bad, wait until next week. There's a cold front due in.OBTW-- For those who think the Christmas lights are the big villain - think again. The alert was called at 5:15PM, before the lights went on.
The thing that annoys me more is that people want lower prices and fewer generation facilities. You can't have that, it's not possible. In a deregulated scenario, prices will rise, encouraging construction of new facilities. In a regulated scenario, there is often less motivation to build. Regardless, there is no way to build generation facilities when any proposal to do so is defeated by the tree-huggers.
The solution, of course, is to 100% deregulate, allow rates to float on the open market, and build incentives into the process that encourage the construction of ecologically responsible facilities. If the tree-huggers fight even that, then they should have their power turned off. The plant they didn't want built will supply their power when they allow its construction. If power plants are so evil, then they should be honored to be decreasing the need for them.
If you were a soviet citizen, you'd be enthusiastically crying for the deporation to labor camps of the stupid people who bought *icing* on their *cakes* when they could be using their resources to build more powerful hydroelectric plants, or better tractors. Just think of all the stupid people in california who waste energy using electricity to play silly 3D games, or watch stupid sitcoms on TV (non-productive use of electricity), or huge movie theaters showing silly moving images that don't produce anything.
:)
Yeah, have sympathy for a company that can afford to shell out a few million dollars to the local congressmen (of course, they are not expecting anything in return), and can afford to hire PR reps who whine about turning off the lights so their employees can make chips in the dark.
Guys like you need your heads rattled to see if they make a hollow sound. Sheesh. Check your temperature and see if you're alive.
I bet you probably snitch on your co-workers if they are playing games or reading email jokes, just to boost that 0.0000013 % improvement in the economy.
Andy Grove himself would send you a personal generic christmas greeting card.
I bet you're a bundle of fun at Christmas.
w/m