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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.
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
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.
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
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.
Head over to the neighbour's house and force them at gunpoint to sing for you before they jump to conclusion
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
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
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.
I'll tell you why -
01) the UK deregulation was in favour of the consumer rather than the supplier
02) the generating companies have switched as much of the generation to natural gas 'stations as quickly as possible. This is much cheaper than our old coal fired stations, but will leave us increasingly dependent on Russian gas in the future.
03) UK electricity used to be really expensive.
As an aside, my electricity bills are now AMAZINGLY low - I pay less than 25 ($40) for 3 months of domestic power from British Gas, but getting my meter moved took me over a month of chasing people around on the 'phone. What does my power use consist of? 2 x Powermacs on 24/7 (a dual G4 and a 500 G3), a 28" widescreen Panasonic TV, around 20 x 60W lamps, an electric oven, a really nice Samsung washing machine with 1600rpm spin, 2 x power amps with 500W power supplies, an 850W microwave oven and a multitude of other low Wattage electronics like DVD players and whatnot.
In fact, power costs in the UK are SO low that they act as a positive disincentive to look into more environmentally sustainable alternatives.
That was classic intercourse!