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Blackout Week Continues
RedCard writes "Back in April of 1999, Wired magazine published an issue featuring a black-on-black cover with the title Lights Out. In it, they detailed what could've happened had the Y2K bug not fizzled. There's the cover story detailing the Y2K worries, a guide to the biggest blackouts of all time (before last week, that is), survival stories from New Zealand, and finally a look at the myth of order - how our power system is as chaotic as any complex software system. By the way, whatever happened to those backups put in place for Y2K that were supposed to prevent one grid from taking out a zillion others? Where'd my tax money go? Enjoy!" Dennis Kucinich has also written an informative piece about the energy utility that seems to have been responsible for the recent blackout.
I recall reading that Wired article and thinking "man, these guys are really reaching." I guess its time to start looking into non-electric cooking systems. Gas? Wood? Coal?
Maybe the real key to energy conservation is not relying on it in the first place.
......they 'll be the worlds worst blackouts when they have lasted as long as the Iraqi peoples 'powerless' miseries.
cL0h
What was said about Auckland, New Zealand in the article was a pretty fair assesment.
Being as I live in Auckland, I was there for the power crisis. Yes, businesses folded, yes, most CBD businesses lost money, but those that folded were most likely going to fold anyhow, and money can be made back.
It hurt the people the most though. Some were fortunate (like the BNZ bank staff), and their companies moved the staff arround to keep them working, but a lot of people couldn't work during those 5 weeks. And 1 month without a pay cheque hurts.
The same obviously applies to the States at the moment. Bussinesses aren't the one to be worring about, its the people.
The power company stiffed Auckland though. Mecury energy is still a force here, they do still run a lot of the power. But then again, lightning never strikes the same place twice... does it?
For the most part, the power grid in most countries performs amazingly well. You try designing a system that can handle an average 20 or 30 lightning strikes a day and still keep on pumping.
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
on more weapons than the rest of the world combined and deciding you wanted to be the worlds policeman, oh and Ken Lay and his chums pockets, i bet he didnt go without power egh ?
like the old saying goes:
"you made your bed, now lie in it"
Now Bush will give his buds at Enron or whoever carte blanche to screw everybody on their electric bills to "modernize the grid". I'm certain that the screwing will take place, but I bet the money from the increases never manages to show up as moderization. After all, who can say if they really do the work or not. Wink wink.
The only people who would want to know technical details like that would be the terrorists.
One of the major factors of the energy problem is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). In many states, it is extremely difficult to build a new power plant or new distribution lines. Besides the costs of land and construction, there are many people who will do anything to prevent the construction of a facility in their neighborhood. They can delay construction for years or decades by going to court and lobbying the state and local governments. Environmental protection laws are often used to delay and block projects. It doesn't help that there are pseudo-scientific loons who blame overhead power lines for everything from hair loss to leukemia. They want the power but they don't want the infrastructure needed to generate and distribute the power.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Regarding why this seems to happen on a large scale almost exclusively in the US and Canada, take a look at how the power system is designed. 3-phase with earthed ground. This is simple and safe, and less prone to over/under-voltage, but not at all fault resistant.
:-/
Other countries use 3- or 5-phase 3-wire delta-delta based electricity with floating ground, meaning that even if lightning strikes a cable, or it falls down, there's still electricity.
Add to this the aging power grid facilities and cables in the US -- you don't stop using anything until it stops working, so modernising isn't the top priority. All in all, a recipe for failure.
The main problem, though, as others have pointed out, is the lack of regulation and profit maximising. If money can be saved on not having automated failovers, and only peering with the most profitable and less expensive peers instead of all available peers, you will get systems that's less resilient.
It's funny how the internet, which was DESIGNED to withstand problems like this (with bits instead of current) has become as fragile, for the exact same reasons. Instead of the web of interconnected hosts, there's now just a few major hubs that all traffic has to go through, with no real alternative routes. Again, in the name of profit. An ISP will rather buy two lines to the same (cheapest and best connected) company instead of two lines to different companies. Less administration and less costs. And even if they buy two lines, they sure as heck won't peer for free and bring packets from one to another even if the capacity is there, unused. That takes both administration and giving someone something for free -- even if it's simply wasted if unused, it's not the American way to give ANYTHING for free.
Let's hope we won't see an outage like this on the IP front. Wait, we did, somewhat -- it became painfully clear that many ISPs and backbone providers didn't have adequate power protection -- again to save a few bucks to pay out in dividends.
I hate to say this, but heavy-handed regulation is needed, both for the power grid and for IP carriers.
Regards,
--
*Art
Excellent question. My answer is that it's exactly this challenge which makes the party such fun. I've seen several options. Portable generators are great, as are battery-powered decks (remember, those things we had before the walkman). Car steroes are good too, giving those youths who spend all their money putting in explosive car HiFis a good return on their investment. Open the doors, pump up the volume, instant street party. Be ready to ask your neighbours to contribute their car batteries temporarily (here options A and B overlap somewhat).
But barring that, drums are very good in converting energy into noise, so are fiddles and bagpipes. I'd personally recommend conga, djembe, and doun-doun (all three, naturally) as giving the most bang for the buck. Make sure your goatskins (not to be confused with goatse.ks) are nice and tight, but watch out for rain. Personally I'd avoid acoustic guitars since they don't give enough punch, and pianos since they are not portable enough, and tend to spliter nastily when falling down stairs. Two hard sticks on an empty oil drum (and after enough power cuts, you will find that oil drums tend to be empty) can also work very well. Experienced street artists can do wonders with drumsticks and empty containers of various types. If your area is plagued by frequent black-outs, I'd recommend you get some percussion training now, it's a much better survival skill than - say - sniper 101. Either skill will keep you amused for an entire night, but remember, there is always tomorrow!
Do not attempt to sing unless you are seriously drunk (see last point), or a trained choirist. Spontaneous and unlubricated vocal work can give you a nasty cough the next day. Leave the singing and dancing for the ladies: men tend to be better at making music by hitting things.
If all else fails, strong alcohol will usually generate spontaneous acappela music from any crowd, and my final recommendation for those living in third-world conditions along the US eastern seaboard would be to always carry an emergency case of 12 bottles of scotch or vodka. Avoid rum, it needs too much mixing.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Can we also cease with the melodramatic "biggest blackout ever" crap. Sure, it may have affected the most people, but the power was only out ~24 hours or so. Ice storms have taken the power down for a longer length of time.
Not to 50 million people, they haven't. An ice storm taking out power to even 500,000 people for 3 or 4 days is nothing compared to what happened last week. Yes, this was "The biggest blackout ever" in North America and I don't think it's at all melodramatic to say that. It will easily cost the most money of any blackout ever, it affected by far the most people and it was longer than 24 hours - in NYC it was 29 hours (and about 48 hours before the subways came back), in Detroit and Cleveland even longer, and Cleveland didn't have clean water until yesterday.
This was huge. No, millions of people did not die, so yes, let's keep it in perspective. It was no 9/11, it was no WWII. But it was a major economic event, and it will affect our economy as well as our governmental policy (hopefully) for years to come.
Because companies like to live on the other side of the fence these days. The investor side.
Regulation is not simply price, it also oversite to make sure they are maintaining their equipment properly, etc. Once the regulation is gone, profit becomes king. When profit is king, CEOs will use a company as a stepping stone. Kill long term viability in favor of short term profits. Get the profits. CEO uses the new profits to get a higher paying job elsewhere, leaving the new CEO with a mess on his hands...
When Americans quit believing rich people are smart and put in some caring people in office, America will be a better place. As it stands we like suits and ties over heart and substance.
Well in the US we have more than 240 million people to provide power for. Who is more likely to have problems, a country that has to provide power for 60 million or a country that has to provide power for over 240 million?
But the North East is where all the problems occur and the population there is similar to France, and the EU has a similar population to the US and manages NOT to have these issues.
Hell Italy, Spain and Greece have a better power network.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
What is going on with Slashdot this week? How many links to Wired articles are you going to post that you disagree with?
:)
Most of the more technical people in the Slashdot crowd are aware that Wired is like the Sun, but about tech. It's not a real news source, and it's articles are written 90% for entertainment, 10% information. It's done that way to attract the largest crowd it can while still being a 'technical' source. Wired also has very fishy reviews. The bottom line appears to be, if you have ad space with them, your product will get mentioned anytime they can stick it in an article and it will always get a good review.
Back when I first started reading Wired, I would send corrections in for articles almost daily. These included links and details of why information they had posted was inaccurate and was worded very nicely, as not to offend anyone. Guess what? They never corrected anything. That's when it occured to me that they are more concerned with 'eyeballs' (old marketing term) than being an accurate information source.
Anyway, I beg of the Slashdot lords to please stop with the Wired links. If you don't agree with them or have a problem with an article, then don't post it on the site. It's pretty easy.
Now I'm going to sit here and watch my otherwise good karma go negative. Had to get it off my chest.
"The power elite first moved on England because they knew Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily."
This article is a thinly disguised political rant. If deregulation is so bad, then why - more than a decade after it occurred in the UK - do my parents pay a fraction what they used to, and they can't remember when they last had a power outage? Their quarterly electricity bill is less than half my two monthly bill here in Toronto.
"California fell first."
Anybody who thinks power was deregulated in CA has been listening to too many politicians, and certainly doesn't understand what deregulation is about.
"San Diego, the 20% savings became a 300% jump in surcharges."
And now they're paying for it out of their taxes! I guess if you don't get a piece of paper saying how much it really cost, then it's okay. I find it offensive that my taxes are subsidising excessive users (and rich people are generally the most excessive users), especially considering how much effort I go to to conserve electricity both for my pocket book and the environment.
Yes, this sounds like a rant but there are a lot of specific accusations in the parent. It would be interesting to seem them disproved. If they can't be, it raises a lot of legitimate questions.
See my journal, I write things there
You'll notive he completely ignored the Clintom years when big business had a directline to the President through donations and "coffees". If you paid the jingle, you could speak personally to the President at breakfast. And speak they did. That's how Enron got rich in the 90's. They knew who to pay.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
" As you profess to be a resident of Toronto, I seriously doubt that your "taxes are subsidising excessive users" in San Diego, CA, USA."
You're correct - I didn't give you enough information. I was being comparative.
The situation here is that the idiot Premier of Ontario - Ernie Eves - capped electricity prices at the artificially low rate of CAD$0.043/KWHr last summer. Apparently this is what it cost in the early to mid nineties, although I doubt he took inflation in to consideration (it was running at 4.5% earlier this year). The province makes up the difference on the costs, hence it comes out of taxes AND people have no incentive to conserve. IIRC, the Californians are getting cheap electricity at the expense of their government coffers too.
Ok, I work at a power company (no BS), and there are a few facts I'd like to get out there.
As to the former Cleveland Mayor's article: Nice write-up, but those issues have nothing to do with the cause of this blackout. It's a technical, not political thing. And if you think Gov't workers would do it better, go visit your local Bureau of Motor. Side note: You seem to be implying organized crime ties to power. Power used to be tied in with big labor unions. No shit there were mob ties. Those same ties with labor barely exist today. Unions are limited to lineworkers, on of the smallest departments of a power company.
Deregulation: As others have pointed out, this applies only to Generation. It was a transmission problem. Not related.
The cause: No one knows yet. Including the power companies. But thanks to the 24news cycle, people think they have an idea.
Something to consider: In the 'new structure of power companies', a lot of transmission is controlled by power pools, like PJM and MISO. They are like an electrical version of the stock market. This system is new and carries risks. The effect of these pools on the blackout has yet to be investigated.
Keep an open mind about these things...
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
What would be interesting (and a better comparison) would be to hear about the rates per kilo Watt hour. Most Britons don't have air conditioning, and for those with electrical heating, the winters are much milder. I work from home, but by setting my thermostat to 16C in winter and wearing a jumper, I seem to be able to keep my bill down to the level of my neighbours, or lower. I can't seem to find a bill from before our rates were capped at the artificially low rate of CAD$0.043/KWHr. Using the randomly selected 12 Feb-11 Apr bill (see all those charges!):
Kilowatt Hours used: 2519 (adjusted KWH used: 2613.714)
Customer charge: 27.12
Distribution charge 2519.000 KWH @ 0.01240: 33.75
Transmission charge 2612.714 KWH @ 0.01040: 27.18
Wholesale operations charge 2613.714 KWH @ 0.00630: 16.21
Debt retirement charge 2519.000 KWH @ 0.00700: 17.63
Standard supply service charge: 0.48
Energy charge 2613.714 KWH @ 0.04300: 112.39
Total electricity charge: 234.76
This really has nothing to do with regulation or deregulation. This argument is simply put forward by those who trust government but not the private sector.
Electric deregulation is relatively new in the US, its been in effect for less than a decade, yet, as you can see these mass power outages have been happening long before then. The current outage was similar in many ways to the 1965 blackout, which occured well before the era of Deregulation.
The real problem is the condition of the power grid is invisible to most people, company execs and politicians. As long as the power flows, they don't see a problem, not until things go terribly wrong, like this, do they wake up and say, "Gee, I guess we need to fix this". But unless these outages become more frequent, the fixes probably won't go far enough.
The theory that deregulation is the culprit goes something like this: Companies neglect infrastructure investments and instead pad their bottom line. Well the electrical transmission system in the US is not truly deregulated. Do you get to choose who DELIVERS (as opposed to generates) your electricity? No? Didn't think so.
Look at the cell phone situation (which is not regulated), Verizon has seemingly invested more in its coverage than the other companies, which seems echoed in customer surveys, (and personally have never experienced signal loss with Verizon, unlike other big carriers). Verizon uses this for competative advantage (all those commercials with the "Can you hear me now, good" guy). Under the "deregulation" theory, Verizon would sell off that excess capacity, and use the money saved to boost earnings.
Contrast that to the US highway infrastructure, which is controlled the various governments. Because the government is behind it, the highways should be well designed and maintained, and not neglected, right? No, it's all politics. Highway funds aren't distributed based on need, but based on what Senators and Congresspeople have the most clout. Where I currently live, we have two very powerful Senators, Kennedy and Kerry. Massachusetts got billions for the Big Dig, a short highway segment through Boston.
Where I used to live, in PA, much needed road projects didn't get funded, or took many years, 30 years in one case, to get a four-mile extension to a highway built. But we didn't have very powerful politicians fighting for us there, either.
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