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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?).
In March, 1998, Auckland - New Zealand's major city (though not the capital, that's Wellington, in case you need to know) - had a FIVE week blackout.
This was after the system was privatised. They cut back on maintanance and instead of three main feeds, they had one. It blew up.
Five weeks with no power. In a major(-ish - hey, I live in Sydney) city. Incredible.
If any city NOT privatised has suffered such an indignity I have not heard about it.
So I blame privatisation - the accountants tend to outrank and overrule the engineers (heard that one before? Remember Challenger?)
"Cats like plain crisps"
They used to point at the airline industry - remember? "Oh, look how great the airline industry did after it was deregulated!" Yeah, well, so now the taxpayers get to bail them out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Might as well have subsidized them from the beginning...
Private-entreprise zealots quickly lose steam whenever you point Hydro-Quebec at them as a shining example of profitable State ownership.
No way. The cost of dealing with a wide-spread blackout like this one is gigantic. Think about how many man-hours were billed in today's fiasco? They had to shutdown all generators and then turn them back on. That combined with the damage done to their system and the repairs they will have to make means big losses. Not to mention parent's point about loss of money tonight. When you have rolling long term blackouts due to localized stresses then you can point the deregulation finger, but with major grid-wide blackouts its a huge financial burdon.
As at this time it has not been determined exactly why the Northeast Blackout of 2003 has occurred, there has been much speculation that it is due to Niagara Mohawk's grid failure.
Being an "insider", I would just like to say that the thought that is running through my mind about this is that several years ago, when the original Niagara Mohawk wanted to sell the company, suddenly all the engineering employees were told that they were no longer to perform preventative maintenance work on tranmission and distribution lines. For quite a period of time, they literally sat around with nothing to do. Then the company was sold to a British company, and this "hands off" attitude has continued.
So, I am very curious to know whether NiMo's lack of maintenance has something to do with today's problem. Another aspect of this problem is the fact that many long-time technical workers at Niagara Mohawk have either retired or been forced out, with their jobs not being filled. The crew sizes are down considerably. The amount of work never decreases - it mostly likely increases - but there are less KNOWLEDGEABLE people on board to handle such technical matters.
I truly hope that a full investigation into this matter is done, and if NiMo has dropped the ball, they be held accountable.
On the other side of the coin, we just learned that two or three well placed attacks could plunge the entire nation into darkness and we can start planning now to make sure that doesn't happen. Do you think we will?
I'd start by mandating that towns either take their traffic signal systems off the main power grid or insure adequate backup power for them. The last thing we need in the middle of a blackout is traffic jams preventing emergency vehicles from getting where they need to go.
I'd also make sure hospitals and air ports have adequate backup capacity. Apparently a lot of them don't.
Then I'd have the Al-Capone Teamwork dinner with the CEOs of the various power companies, during which the NiMo CEO would get asked why one power station going down can take out a quarter of the nation's power. You know how that scene goes. Teamwork!
That'd be a good start I guess. Gives us something to do for the next 5 years or so.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"Today's failure is a dramatic reminder of the importance of the uninterrupted flow of power to the health, safety, and well being of our citizens and the defense of our country. "This failure should be immediately and carefully investigated in order to prevent a recurrence. "You are therefore directed to launch a thorough study of the cause of this failure. I am putting at your disposal full resources of the federal government and directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense and other agencies to support you in any way possible. You are to call upon the top experts in our nation in conducting the investigation. "A report is expected at the earliest possible moment as to the causes of the failure and the steps you recommend to be taken to prevent a recurrence." Signed, Lyndon B. Johnson