Slashdot Mirror
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.
Maybe this was a Y2K bug. (If it blew up when it was supposed to it wouldn't be a bug, now would it.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Okay, okay, I'm convinced!
Time to order a UPS...
Will this do?
The unofficial
Wow. Were they all psychics? Did they, back in '99, see the end of the dotcoms too?
Money for nothing, pix for free
a) Relax, everyone's in the same boat as you, open a beer while it's cool and put on some music.
b) Head over to the neighbour's house and rob them at gunpoint before they jump to conclusion (b) as well.
Happily most people tend to stay firmly in camp (a), even when blackouts are extensive and pervasive. I know this from much time spent in places like Luanda and Kinshasa, where blackouts are the norm and power & water is exceptional.
The default state of humanity in such circumstances, I'm glad to report, is generally "party on!!!"
Civilisation is not quite as fragile as we sometimes assume. Perhaps the US could use some more blackouts.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
by Greg Palast
I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.
To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO to pay $4.3 billion and, ultimately, put them out of business.
And that's why, if you're in the Northeast, you're reading this by candlelight tonight. Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it "deregulation."
It was like a committee of bank robbers figuring out how to make safecracking legal.
But they dare not launch the scheme in the USA. Rather, in 1990, one devious little bunch of operators out of Texas, Houston Natural Gas, operating under the alias "Enron," talked an over-the-edge free-market fanatic, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, into licensing the first completely deregulated power plant in the hemisphere.
And so began an economic disease called "regulatory reform" that spread faster than SARS. Notably, Enron rewarded Thatcher's Energy Minister, one Lord Wakeham, with a bushel of dollar bills for 'consulting' services and a seat on Enron's board of directors. The English experiment proved the viability of Enron's new industrial formula: that the enthusiasm of politicians for deregulation was in direct proportion to the payola provided by power companies.
The power elite first moved on England because they knew Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily. The USA had gotten used to cheap power available at the flick of switch. This was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer Insull created the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FDR gave us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned power "trading" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates.
Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did.
Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.
But then came George the First. In 1992, just prior to his departure from the White House, President Bush Senior gave the power industry one long deep-through-the-teeth kiss good-bye: federal deregulation of el
Hey wait a minute. I remember companies spending millions on backup generators and such. Even news bits about some companies finding it cheaper to generate their own power. Where exactly did they all that energy production capacity go?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
Few publications ran stories about the troubles surrounding the Ohio plant around 2002. Here's the story from Miami Herald dated March 26, 2002 predicting such failures.
Then there are people who are opposed to nuclear power plants, (although their views are a bit more extreme), the source at the bottom article is quoted from NY Times and DOE.
......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.
What confuses me is how people are just taking this, from Bloomberg and the President down its "just one of those things" as if the rest of the first world has the same problems...
The other countries in the top 5 are Canada, Mexico and Malaysia. And in the US its always the North Eastern corner of the country. Doesn't this sort of indicate that this is NOT normal and that it is NOT reasonable ?
In the UK when there is a massive storm and some people are without power for a few days its a major issue, the idea of a major city being without power is unthinkable. Same across Europe and the rest of the first world. It isn't about area because down in the Southern US these things don't happen like they do in the NE. It is just plain incompetance and woeful bad practice.
If the French can run a decent power grid for 60 million people, why can't the US ? Why is America's most populus city part of a 3rd world power grid ? It can't be due to lack of consumpion, hence it can't be because the power companies aren't making money... so that leads us to power companies and goverment wilfully and knowingly allowing a sub-standard power grid to be in operation.
And just how much are people questioning the goverment about their over-sight right now ?
Summary: It is not normal in a 1st world country to have a grid failure, it is not normal for major cities to be without power. Some people some where are asleep on the job.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Check out, with Onkel Babelfish if your Deutsch is as bad as mine....
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/ju-15.08.03
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?
I think enron was supposed to install them.
I worry the least about getting the old bait-and-switch routine from him than I do from the ones that try to be all things to all people. Additionally, he seems to be reasonably clued AND inclined to fix things, which would be nice for a change.
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.
1) satisfy RIAA ...
2) satisfy MPAA
3)
4) electricity
I live in rural Idaho, electric service is available here, but quite pricey. I decided two years ago to take matters into my own hands and get off the grid.
Idaho is a water rich state, and I was able to use some of the waterfalls on my property to supply some hydroelectric power. I also have a couple of fuel cells to power some smaller items in my home. Luckily, I don't need too much power (since I maintain a minimialist lifestyle for environmental reasons), although living nowadays does require some electricity. At least this way, I am not contributing to the pollution caused by conventional coal-fired or nuclear power plants!
Stop corporate
...Probably. But at what cost in time and money? Its not working in NY, its not work in California. How long before its cheaper and easier to make your own from fuel cells or some other crazy new wave power supply (probably too long). Cities will still need power though, and big companies, but I wouldn't be suppriesed if there wasn't much of a power grid in 30-40 years. But then again, thats along way off.
Nice try. Most power transfer mechanisms rely on the venerable E-TAGing system. Most are highly customized, and written in C. AFAIK, none of them use Windows RPC code.
Conspiracy theories are only good when they are believable. Do some more research next time.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
IIRC, power transmission has never been deregulated, only power generation. So, if you're about to jump on the "deregulation = evil" bandwagon, like Lessig, note that a lot of the problems (the majority, probably) in this current blackout happened on the transmission end of things, so deregulation's role was probably minor.
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
I just found out that the 12 blackouts a week that I was having was because the little powerbox, that joins the wire from the power pole to my house, had shit itself. Diagnosis confirmed because my house was the only one powerless, and my mains switch and all fuses were still on (up). They (ETSA) were quite sure that the power box had died of old age, and that the plank that it was screwed to and that the wires ran through was all wet and rotten at the back had nothing to do with its untimely demise. The workers all seemed very cheerful though it was late on Sunday afternoon and raining. Maybe the double overtime rate had something to do with it?
Since deregulation of our power supply (Adelaide South Australia), blackouts have become a regular occurance, especially during really hot weather or windy weather. Can't we make airconditioners that run using heat, the same way as a kero fridge does? And obviously there isn't enough money to fund maintenance of the wires or pruning of trees. So everything is falling apart.
Not to mention, that this house has about one power point per bedroom, and just two in the office. In 30 years since this house was built, I've gone from one powerpoint in the bedroom for a reading light, to one each for the light, the stereo, the fan heater, the phone charger the AA battery charger, alarm clock, mozzie zapper, hair dryer etc. And don't get me started on the room full of computers. Etsa/AGL are charging double (instead of less as they promised) and I'm using triple.
What the APC guy wrote:
>I would suggest a new product we have available which is the BR1000I. This UPS is sufficient to support two PC's, two monitors and the 8 port hub. Because laser printers draw so much power, the laser printer will need to be plugged into the Surge Only outlet at the rear of the UPS, as it will not be able to be held up on battery power. >
>Recommended Retail Pricing for the BR1000I is $919.00. Below is a link to the spec page of the BR500I.[wadiwood: how did we get from BR1000I to BR500I?] >
> BR1000I
Maybe I should just get a diesel generator. Or imagine the sleek athletic bod I'd have if I hooked the computer to pedal power?
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Really ?
You better read this (in German) or the (automatic) translation.
Why couldn't the SCADA systems been affected by some RPC blocking firewall ?
Of course no one will ever admit that such a thing has happened. Otherwise she/he will end up in Guatanamo. It's your turn now to do some research.
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.
To know that their power and water is supposed be restored by USA contractors/military.
Consider yourselves lucky. Iraq and Afghanistan have crap power, and major cities in places you wouldn't expect have power failures too. Like NZ, Australia, UK and that strange country to your South West (California). And even a local blackout can cause much wider problems. Eg the bush fire problem in the Australian Capital Territory was rendered unmanageable when they lost power to the water supply and the emergency services building which meant that the water stopped in the suburbs affected by fire, and the fire control HQ went incommunicado!
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I live a few miles away from Davis Besse, one of FirstEnergy's nuclear plants. In Feb 2002, they shut it down for maintenance (and I believe refueling). They found that boric acid had almost completely eaten through the steel cap on top of the reactor. A few more months and bad things would have happened. It's a very controversial issue around the area (Ottawa County, Ohio) as most area residents don't want to see the plant restarted.
FirstEnergy was also recently found guilty of breaking pollution laws when they rebuilt a power plant and did not install modernized scrubbers. No ruling on what they will be fined has come out yet.
Here is an AP article with a bit more info, and an article detailing the hole in the reactor vessel. TONS more info available via 'davis besse' on google.
Nobody cared about the power engineers and techs who work 24-hours a day. Until last week of course.
Now politicians are visiting power stations and saying what terrific hardworking guys they are. Of course, they are.
Makes me a bit sad the Y2k bugs didn't fully
bring everything down. Instead most everything worked and everyone got made at the programmers.
Ideas for the blackout problem:
- Tax subsidies / no interest loans for businesses
to get off the grid and build their own small scale power plants.
- Require gas stations of have a manual way of
pumping gas.
- Some electronic ignition gas ranges didn't work!
There should be an override for this.
- In fact no energy source should require another
and make it law
- I understand nuclear plants need the grid to
start up! This is too circular for words.
Require them to have a clear generator to
bootstrap.
- Everyone home should have a reverse plug
Where you can safely plugin a solar panel
etc. It should be easy to buy and install
them.
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
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"
Sure, such a thing would cost money, but so does the time of firemen and the legal costs of suits bought be people who have been trapped in your elevator. Perhaps any building needing a licence from the fire department should also need power-cut proof elevators!
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.
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
My employer is still shut down to comply with a request from the provincial government to cut power usage by 50% while generation continues slowly coming online. I guess it's better than having us doing round after round of fscks if rolling blackouts hit. I'm not looking forward to cleaning up the mess of all the scripts I was running at the time of the original blackout but it's frustrating to be of no use to anyone right now. My relatives in the country are amused at all the fuss - they were without power for weeks in the dead of winter during the ice storm of '89, so a day or two in the summer is pretty laughable to them :)
SARS, Mad Cow, power failures ... what's CNN got lined up for us next week, an earthquake?
Has no one else considered the possibility that the national infrastructure story on Slashdot a month ago:
/ 12 54254&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=153&tid= 99
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/09
may have been used to examine the system and test out a weak spot?
You might call me out for wearing my tin foil hat on this one, but consider the scenario - Student compiles national infrastructure map from public information showing that the national fibreoptic grid (and perhaps electricity?) is routed through several choke points. Student gets told his thesis may be classified due to sensitive information.
Meanwhile, "insert terrorist-du-jour here" decides to compile the same information, getting the same analysis of the US infrastructure. He decides to test the theory out - bang, the lights go out over half the US. Proof of concept is a stunning success, better than he had hoped for (like the Sept 11 attacks). Now he has the knowledge that his attack worked, plus the knowledge that next time he wants to attack in a major way, all he has to do is follow standard military doctrine of cutting the enemy's power before launching his attack.
Result - major chaos and no response infrastructure because the power's out as well.
Now, imagine for a moment that the blackout WAS caused by nefarious people. Do you think the government is going to admit they got hit and were vulnerable? HELL NO!! They will feed a nice cover story which will result in plausible deniability, so that the public does not get alarmed. Media stations bite, hook, line and sinker. Investigative committees are launched. The REAL cause is already known, but kept classified to prevent loss of faith in the government (after all, elections are coming up and people have a nasty habit of REMEMBERING such lapses in security).
Paranoid scenario? Possibly. But equally possible is the likelihood of the above being factual.
Food for thought.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Not to mention the already linked Kucinich piece./ 16KUTT.h tml?pagewanted=print&position=
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/opinion
August 16, 2003
An Industry Trapped by a Theory
By ROBERT KUTTNER
n the search for the source of Thursday's blackout, the underlying cause has been all but ignored: deregulation. In principle, deregulation of the power industry was supposed to use the discipline of free markets to generate just the right amount of electricity at the right price. But electric power, it turns out, is not like ordinary commodities.
Electricity can't be stored in large quantities, and the system needs a lot of spare generating and transmission capacity for periods of peak demand like hot days in August. The power system also requires a great deal of planning and coordination, and it needs incentives for somebody to maintain and upgrade transmission lines.
Deregulation has failed on all these grounds. Yet it has few critics. Evidently, even calamities like the Enron scandal and now the most serious blackout in American history are not enough to shake faith in the theory.
Ten years ago, most public utilities were regulated monopolies. They were guaranteed a fair rate of return, based on their capital investment and costs. So the government compensated them for building spare generating capacity and maintaining transmission lines. Regulators, of course, sometimes made mistakes and the industry oversold technologies like nuclear power. Even so, in the half-century before deregulation, productivity in the electric power industry increased at about triple the rate of the economy as a whole.
However, the wave of deregulation that culminated in the late 1990's broke up the integrated utilities like Con Ed that once generated power in its own plants, transmitted it and sold it retail. It ushered in a new breed of entrepreneurial generating and trading companies. However, the prices the local utility companies could charge consumers remained partly regulated. The theory was that local utilities, no longer producing their own power, could negotiate among competing suppliers for the best price and pass the savings along to the consumer.
But deregulation hasn't worked, for three basic reasons. First, there is a fairly fixed demand for electricity and generating capacity is tight, so companies that produce it enjoy a good deal of power to manipulate prices. The Enron scandal, which soaked Californians for tens of billions of dollars, was only the most extreme example. California authorities calculated that a generating company needed to control just 3 percent of the state's supply to set a monopoly price.
Second, the idea of creating large national markets to buy and sell electricity makes more sense as economic theory than as physics, because it consumes power to transmit power. "It's only efficient to transmit electricity for a few hundred miles at most," says Dr. Richard Rosen, a physicist at the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit research group.
Third, under deregulation the local utilities no longer have an economic incentive to invest in keeping up transmission lines. Antiquated power lines are operating too close to their capacity. The more power that is shipped long distances in the new deregulated markets, the more power those lines must carry.
In addition, in the old days of regulation, a utility like Con Ed would be required to regularly submit a resource plan to a state's public service commission. The two organizations would forecast demand and decide how much money should be invested in power plants and transmission lines. Rates would be adjusted to cover costs. Under deregulation, however, nobody plays that crucial planning role.
Much of the Southeast, by contrast, has retained traditional regulation -- and cheap, reliable electricity.
When the blackout hit on Thursday, many of us first thought of terrorists. What hit us may be equally dangerous. We are hostage to a delusional view of economics that allowed much of the Northeast to go dark without an enemy lifting a finger.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and author of "Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets."
I'm living in Toronto, and about 30 minutes into the blackout, when I started to hear from my friends just how much of Ontario was without power, I started to wonder if in the morning the power would come back on and President George W. would come on the television with an announcement...
Hello Cah-Nah-Dah, I am now your supreme ruler. My closest advisors tell me that you are located somewhere North of me. After spending two hours learning how to pronounce your nation's name, I now own you!!
Turns out I was wrong. Maybe I should cut down on the caffeine a little.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
From Rich Galen's Mullings today:
The North American Energy Reliability Council which tracks such things has determined that, including last week, there have been seven grid failures since the big one on November 9, 1965. None lasted for more than a day.
Let's go to the blackboard...
The number of days between November 8, 1965 and August 14, 2003 is 13,793.
The number of days in which some portion of the national power grid failed during that period is 7.
Dividing 13,793 by 7 we get 0.000507504
Moving the decimal two places to the right (and rounding up) we get a failure rate of 51 THOUSANTHS of one percent.
Stating it the other way, the power grid (which was described by former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson as being like one in a "third world country") has been up 99.949 percent of the time over the past 37 years.
668: Neighbour of the Beast