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Task Force Finds Blackout Was Preventable
Shakrai writes "In what will probably be the last we hear of this subject CNN is carrying a story that states what we already suspected: the August blackout was preventable. One of the more interesting observations from this article is that this task force will remain active for the next year to push for their changes and improvements to be adopted. Does anyone think any change will come of this? If you lived in the Northeast US or Canada what were your memories of the August Blackout?" The full report is available at reports.energy.gov.
It was dark and there were no computers.
FLR
"Everything is bigger in America"
:)
Even power outages
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Well, at least one good thing came out of the Blackout. CowboyNeal is no longer afraid of the dark!
I was working at compusa, then we heard a weird noise and all the lights went out. I remember tring to get everyone out of the store, and waiting up front near the registers waiting for the lights to come back up. In the mean while we plugged a radio into the UPS that we had powering the registers. So we were still able to ring people out and buy water and candy. :) At the time I took the bus to work and they canceled all the buses, so I had to get a ride home from this hot girl that worked with me, we ended up getting married, because we bonded on that day. I would say it was a good day for me.
keanmarine.com
I wasn't in the area during the blackouts, but I did see a history channel special on it a month or two ago. It claimed, for a fact, "nine months later, there was a surge in births recorded at area hospitals". I guess they were trying to aim for syndication from the get-go, but come on - please don't make up facts; either wait until May, or just report that doctors reported a surge in mothers-to-be.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I remember sitting in a corner, shaking violently, seeing visions of slashdot on blank monitors.
Yeah I realised that in hindsight.
A funny thing happens when the power goes out in a High Energy Physics lab:
;-)
That afternoon everyone came out of their labs, immediately saying "It wasn't *my* lab, we didn't even have anything plugged in! Who did it?! Who turned something on! 'Fess up now!"
Then everyone began to get worried when they noticed that the library across the street was also without power. "Ohhh no. What did we do? I thought the transformer was meant to shutdown if something happened!"
Of course someone had a dynamo radio on them, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that it was the entire Eastern US and Canada that was without power, not just the area around our lab...
And as long as the population keeps growing, the demand for more power will require more powerlines.
Ah, but you can't blame it all on population growth. Our 2000" plama TVs and weapons grade subwoofers are adding to the problem.
My memory of the blackout: There I was, computer went down. I didn't Seemed an awful long time till the power came back on and I could log back in.
Alot of people were worried about me when I check back on the forums. Some peeps on IRC were like "where were you?!?". Gave em a real scare that time!
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Why is it that we have this never ending need for more powerlines and more electricity rather than looking for alternatives with any real conviction?
Whoa, michael not only posted the story, but got first post too... impressive.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
The main alternatives:
cold
darkness
poverty
hardship
In different combinations at varying levels.
The underlying cause of the blackout was speculation by energy pirates.
What happened is that in order to "wheel" power for speculation, reliability standards were ignored. The wires got hot and sagged too much.
Beyond that, the cause is ideological, with the especially Republican worship of the Free-Trade God and in particularly the dismantling of the FDR-era regulatory environment.
This report is as a result a simple white-wash. We need regulation of essential services. We need more power plants. But when your "friend" tells you to pay for new transmission facilities, they are in the pocket of energy pirates. A better solution is get rid of Cheney, put his friends in jail, and dump free-trade ideologies.