Deregulation and Niagara Mohawk - Is There a Story?

It's just a few hours after the Northeast U.S. power outage, and facts are trickling in; as of right now, it looks like an accidental overload knocked out a large part of the Niagara Mohawk power grid. A few years ago, California went through rolling blackouts that were largely due to a poorly-executed deregulation of that state's power industry. The question that's probably occurring to many of us is, did late-'90s deregulation play a role in today's power event? I don't know the answer, so I'm turning it over to you -- moderators, please check links and up-mod the most informative, pro or con. Here is some information to get you started: "We support deregulation 100 percent..." (N-M spokesman, 1997; notes N-M wanted to sell generators and "concentrate on the transmission and distribution of energy" -- did it?); N-M made some bad investments and is scheduled to request a rate hike (did it?); and N-M's own website says: "Deregulation [has] changed the laws and regulations governing the electricity industry to promote competition..." (how so?).

Comments

Un-fucking-believable.

[An Ominous Coward]

It's bad enough that the paid editors can't be bothered to actually edit their site. It's also bad enough that the paid editors almost never produce the content -- it's all reader-submitted links to someone else's story. But now they want their readers to dig up the facts, write the story, and then give the content to Slashdot, providing the editors with more ad-hit revenue?

Never have I been happier that I blocked all the Slashdot/OSDN ad servers years ago.

Watch this paragraph disappear from their website

[seizer]

...Niagara Mohawk expects to be able to deliver a sufficient supply of electricity to meet customers' needs throughout the summer months.

From http://www.niagaramohawk.com/house/homenews/homene ws.html#2

Blame Canada

[siskbc]

But at the same time Canada's capital and largest city both lost power and there has been virtually no coverage of that.

That's because no one gives a rat's ass what happens in Canada, eh?

Re:So much for private entreprise.

[Pig Hogger]

Quebec goverment does not permit anyone to build powerlines to transmit Newfoundland's labador hydor power to the US across Quebec, instead they buy the power at cost and sell it to the US.
Quebec's goverment ripping of Newfoundland and having lots of natural resources is not the shinning example you think it is.

(First of all, Labrador - that's where the Churchill Falls power comes from - was RIPPED from Quebec by the privy council in London, a process whose ultimate legality is iffy at best, and will definitely be questionned more intently when Quebec becomes a sovereign country. But that's besides the point).

The newfies were too dumb to develop that hydro-power by themselves - I mean, how dumber can you get by wanting to go into Canada, and it took two referendum to do it!!! Had they gone to New-York to beg for money, they'd have themselves laughed-out faster than a cheap comic in Vegas. There was only one people who had the expertise (both technical AND financial) to develop that power, and that was Hydro-Quebec.

It's funny that the english insist that they keep all the profits they make on our back for themselves, but when the french want a return on their investment, it's not the same story. But, hey, that's Canada: the french are treated just like the blacks in the US.

Re:CA rolling blackouts not due to deregulation

[IM6100]

Enron 'death star' huh?

Sounds like a code word for Internet cranksites.

It only got reported in a few local newspapers?

Hmmmm. That sounds like either a 'coverup' or, again, crank media reporting that couldn't get past professional journalists in big markets.

Really, the solution to becoming well informed is not, and never is, reading random websites. Remember, anybody can throw up a website that says anything. That's just a way of proving the holocaust didn't happen, that tinfoil is a necessary against death rays, etc.

I don't care

[SkunkPussy]

along with 97% of the world's population.

and probably more than half of the people who read this.

It's your own stupid fault. ha

The rest of the world cares about this because?

[h4mmer5tein]

Well guess what, we dont.
So the US had a major power outage, so what. Yeah we saw it on the News over here, but we really dont want to know any more about it.
Where's the technology angle in this story?
Where is the relavence to the Global audiance that Slashdot has, rather than the US audiance.
Why was there a need to start a whole new story and discussion on this when it had been posted and discussed not 3 hours earlier?

Out of interstest, I'd put money on US slashdot readers being in the minority compared to the global readership.

Re:The rest of the world cares about this because?

[h4mmer5tein]

Which is why it was discussed on Slashdot not three hours previously. My point is that the rest of the world doesnt actually care about US power supply deregulation. All the points you made were covered in the earlier discussion.
This story was an attempt to spin something out of a discussion that had already been had. My point remains that this particular version of it should never have been posted to Slashdot in the first place.

Memphis

[sharky611aol.com]

Folks, this is such a non-story. These people have been left without power for less that 24 hours.

I'm sure very few people realize this, but a very bitching storm came through Memphis two weeks ago and ripped it a new asshole. There were still people without power two weeks after the storm. TWO WEEKS. I personally was without power for over a week. Thank God I work at a hospital and was able to get my /. fix there.

So to all you damned spoiled Yanks, quit yer bitchin'.

Re:The real question

[evilviper]

You've just conceded the point.

No, you made it sound like it's going to be thousands of dollars per-person. I know most people would be perfectly happy paying $4 more per-month knowing that they will have plenty of electricity even when the grid shuts down.

Again, are you going to pay for it?

I already paid for it... I HAVE a generator, but for a single unit, I paid significantly more than I would have in a centralized system.

because if it has no power, it will work just fine!

It doesn't need power while the electricity is normal, only when the power goes out. Guess what, that means no maintenance is needed until the generator actually needs to be used.

Oh, you mean you forgot that keeping it powered costs money?

No, I didn't forget. The fact is that it doesn't need to be powered until it is needed. At which point, keeping it powered wouldn't cost significantly more than you would spend on your normal electric bill.

if you are going to spend millions on a backup system, you wouldn't want to regularly check it out

You don't really need to, although you could certainly need. If it's just sitting around, not operating, about the only thing that would go wrong is that some belts might break, and it only takes a few minutes to fix that when you need the generator.