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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.
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
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.
"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
" 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.
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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