Electricity Apocalypse Soon?

mindriot writes "Heise's awarded online magazine Telepolis has published a nice article (English / German) discussing the ongoing series of power blackouts (after the U.S. blackout, London, Scandinavia, and other incidents, the most recent victim being Italy). 'The blackouts bare the Achilles Heel of our "information society" ,' the article states, and sees the recent events as a precursor to a possible massive on-line blackout. As society becomes more and more dependent on information and power networks, the failure of a single wire or the interruption of a satellite uplink can become a major issue and form a great vulnerability. As the article explains, market liberalization, globalization and plain ignorance could endanger our infrastructure to a very discomforting extent." Free markets cause power blackouts?

Comments

Free markets cause power blackouts?

[Ricin]

No, but greed, incompetence, short term thinking, and the outsourcing of everything does. Having no real authorities to answer to surely helps as well.

As a bonus it will get more expensive also, aren't we lucky :)

IMHO the privatizing of utilities such as electricity is *not* a matter of consumers' interests and not even a matter of producers' interests really. It's ideology. Religion if you like.

Re:Is it just me?

[NerveGas]

Why is it that many of these countries have not had significant blackouts for years, decades even, and then they all have signigicant blackouts within the same six month period?

Because when the tree fell in the woods, nobody was around to hear it. Power outtages are one of the currently "trendy" things to report on, so you hear about much more of them.

Over the past several decades, the ability of the media to provide timely stories from farther away has greatly increased. Because of that, every glitzy, trendy subject can get far more coverage. When blackouts are the media's attention, you'll hear about plenty of them. When gun violence is their target, you'll hear about plenty of that.

The bit is that most of these things really aren't happening any more frquently than usual (sometimes actually LESS frequently!), but because you hear so much about it, it gives you the impression that it happens much more often.

Pick out a make, model, and color of car, and fixate your mind on it for a day or two. Suddenly, you will see far more of them on the road than you ever have before. There aren't really more of them, you just notice more of them.

steve