Slashdot Mirror
Electric Grid is a Vast Machine
Guinnessy writes "The latest issues of the Industrial Physicist suggests that 'the vast system of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution that covers the United States and Canada is essentially a single machine-- by many measures, the world's biggest machine.' The article says that because deregulation ignored the physics of the machine, we have blackouts, a fact the industry warned regulators about in 1998. It has some nice hard science data for those interested in why we're going to get some more blackouts in the future unless Congress gets its act together."
We are planning deregulation in our most populated state..NSW. And we are using the US as the model for deregulation/privatisation of our energy corporations.
Why isn't this sort of thing in the mainstream press? In Australia there are clear reasons why not..the two richest guys who would undoubtedly cash in on the deregulation own all the media..that's right, Murdoch and Packer own our papers,our magazines, our pay TV, the 'infoportals' for our largest ISP's,our regular tv stations and our sports.
Incompetance of management. It is abhorrent to see how the information is provided to the decision makers yet the people without the knowledge end up overriding those with the knowledge.
These are some high profile events where the risks where well known.
Both Columbia and Challenger shuttle losses
Here the engineering team informed management multiple of the risk and yet the management failed to act on the information provided.
The great blockouts of N.E. U.S.A. 1965 and 2003. The risks were well known yet the politics got in the way.
9/11 Terrorist attack - there were numerous signs and the FBI was too worried about politics rather than listening to their own people.
This is not unique to today but it is getting more and more difficult for people to understand.
In the technology industry I find myself "fighting" to unleash the truth and attacked because I simply state the facts as they are.
OK, too bad if a company messes up a product but sometimes it is significantly detrimental - take the Union Carbide toxic disater in Bhopal.
How do we effect a change for there to be more recognition for this ? The risk/reward trade-off for those with the knowledge are often dispropotionate : RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people. REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
That's it, I'm going to start collating references to stupid management decisions causing untold damage because of management ignorance. Please post your examples here.... I'm going to use it next time I get into a knowledge vs ignorance argument.
The socialists never know when it's time to upgrade capacity until after it's too late. In California, the utilities did not build any new generation for about twenty years before de-regulation (and even paid money to not build new generation). The private generators started building capacity only after de-regulation, and were not able to finish before the power was most needed. If CA had deregulated sooner there would have been no problem. Plus the braindead CPUC insisted on charging very low consumer rates when wholesale rates were highest and now are charging very high rates when wholesale rates are very low. California is a great example on how to completely bungle regulation surrounding deregulation.
Getting government involved is the best way to block the next round of expantion necessary. We just need to make sure that companies that are sucessful can expand and take-over those that are unsucessful without disruption.
Despite consolidation, there are now more radio stations then before. Plus it's our fault that we choose to listen to centrally controlled radio rather than locally programmed stations.