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Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places?
An anonymous reader writes: I live in a relatively large college town that's within easy driving distance of several major metropolitan centers. In many ways, the infrastructure around here is top-notch. The major exception is the electrical grid. Lightning storm? Power outage. Heavy winds? Power outage. Lots of rain? Power outage. Some areas around town are immune to this — like around the hospital, for obvious reasons. But others seem to lose power at the drop of hat. Why is this? If it were a tiny village or in the middle of nowhere, it would make sense to me. What problems do the utility companies face that they can't keep service steady? Do you deal with a lot of outages where you live? I'm not sure if it's just an investment issue or a technological one. It hasn't gotten better in the decade I've lived here, and I can imagine it will only get worse as the infrastructure ages.
1) Espionage is anything but cost-effective. But cost isn't the primary (or even secondary) concern there for those who want to do the spying. (It's (technical) feasibility)
2) Running cable above ground is _always_ more cost-effective then running cable underground. So if you:
- don't give a shit about your customers
- don't have a lot of competition because you can gain a monopoly by buying senators
- and if you do a bare minimum of maintenance because you want more money (more so if you _do_ run cables underground)
then even in a city, local power stability is going to be shit.
For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground. So that makes them more vulnerable.
This argument is only valid for long-distance transmission lines, and failure of those lines contributes to very few outages (the 2003 NE US blackout comes to mind). Customer-perceived blackouts are almost all due to failure of metropolitan and suburban distribution networks. Areas where population density is as high as any other developed nation.
You could compete with the power company yourself. Install solar or maybe a wind turbine if there is room, large battery pack for backup. Will pay for itself in 10 years anyway and no more outages.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Even China has a far more reliable power supply than the USA. Virtually no outages due to normal storms or lightning or so; occasional outage after a particularly destructive typhoon (hurricane on your side of the Pacific) or a massive earthquake.
Can't really call China a small country.
It's just the sad truth that the richest country in the world has one of the most unreliable power supplies.