MASSIVE FUCKING BLACKOUT

[Patrick Degan]

The market for power in the U.S. is hardly free; if it was, we'd have enough nuclear power plants to make this sort of thing a non-issue. California, the state that has had the most trouble with being forced to use out-of-state capacity for power generation (remember the 2001 blackouts?), is also the state most hostile to nuclear power.

California's problems had nothing to do with the state's lack of nuclear generating stations, and everything to do with Enron's market manipulation schemes —as company documents entered as prosecution evidence in Federal court reveal.

[Master of Ossus]

Guys, any economist will tell you that it takes time after one company goes bankrupt for another company to spring up. And this is particularly bad in an industry like the utility one, or the telephone industry, because those markets have huge fucking entry costs. No one in their right mind is willing to pay those costs to enter into a dangerous, low-profit business.

I have never yet seen an economic theory suggesting that deregulation of industries like power, telephones, automobile manufacturing, and agriculture is going to make things more reliable. Does it make things more efficient? Sometimes, but only if the costs of temporary shortages is very small compared with the costs of temporary surpluses.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This blackout was not caused by deregularization directly, but the failure to understand and cope with the consequences of deregularization. Before deregularization blackouts were more commonplace on a small-scale, but were limited to smaller areas by the less interconnected nature of the grid. Progressive deregularization has seen the grid able to cope with blackouts on a small scale by transference of power; in addition to the increased efficiency of the power system as a whole. The downside is that it clearly makes the system more vulnerable to a general collapse like this (but considering only three such collapses have happened, now, in the history of U.S. electrification, they are obviously nothing major to speak of--a severe annoyance, and it could have been much worse, but it was eminently survivable and we went twenty-five years between incidents).

The problem, then, is the failure to recognize that as the grid becomes progressively more interconnected, there is a need for a larger power reserve over wide areas to respond to peak demands; furthermore, this power reserve must be progressively increased, so that it is always maintained, even as more and more demand is built up. Essentially, we always need much more capacity than we have demand for with the system as it exists in the interconnected, deregulated form.

This is going to require us to strangle the enviromentalists and step over their bodies. We need to start building additional nuke plants--breeders, the kind banned by Carter--now, lots of them. We need to rebuild the dams we cracked to "protect" rivers. We need both those sources, especially the dams, which don't need an outside source of electricity to restart for the most part; but the nuke plants of course can be built in a much greater quantity and they should be laid on as fast as possible. The excessive regulation of the nuclear industry must be reviewed and pared down where it is sensible to do so, improving operating revenue for private companies. Construction of additional trunk lines must be begun, even at the cost of chopping down the precious forests of the enviromentalists, or at the annoyance of property owners; infrastructure does indeed come first, and we have ignored it for too long.

Now, I do concede, Mike, that this approach forces a partially regulated system by necessity: The transmission system itself and the construction of trunk lines will never really be undertaken by private companies because it's simply not profitable, and infrastructure has always been a traditional government realm besides. On top of that, private companies would have little incentive to build plants beyond what is necessary to meet peak demand--to create the size of a cushion needed to comfortably avoid this sort of occurance, with the kind of system that now exists. However, a combination of federal subsidies for those companies and the direct public operation of some plants should allow for the creation of a sufficient reserve regardless.

Therefore, though not as efficient as once desired, the partial-deregulation of the system can still be had; while at the same time being more reliable than a regulated system, or the under-funded and red-tapped monstrosity currently existing, crippled by the insanity of the enviromentalists, who no-doubt cheered when the power went down, celebrating their bohemian fantasies.

[Stuart Mackey]

Note to self, obtain 3kW Diesel Generator and about 1,000 gallons of Diesel fuel.

Solar is better...

There's a little phenomenon known as "night time" (not to mention "cloud cover" and "incident angle of sunlight at northern latitudes") which drastically reduces the effectiveness of this solution.

There is also things such as rechargable batteries. I dont claim to know all the details of solar power, but I know of people who's houses here are entirly solar powered. NZ, of course, has good amounts year round sunlight.
Mind you, there is also the sheer cost which makes a good solar setup prohibitive to most people.

so is having the ability and basic skills to live without electricity.

Since my goal is to run an Internet server, this would not help.

Bummer...but hey, at least you can cook your dinner on the barbie. Your smart enough to be able to do that, and have the equipment to do it, so not to worry.

Mind you, a generator wouldn't have helped either. With a huge blackout like that, even the telephone and Internet switches were dropping out. My phone was dead for most of the day today.

Well, you do learn to appreciate what we have in the modern world.

[The Dark]

From what I heard, the only reason it was so widespread was because Ohio didn't cut themselves from the grid before crashing (manual override on the failsafes). Thus, this would have been a pair of small-scale blackouts (parts of Michigan and Ohio) if not for operator error. The grid still needs upgrading to prevent such things from happening again, but what's needed more urgently is better training of the wetware.

[Master of Ossus]

The market for power in the U.S. is hardly free; if it was, we'd have enough nuclear power plants to make this sort of thing a non-issue. California, the state that has had the most trouble with being forced to use out-of-state capacity for power generation (remember the 2001 blackouts?), is also the state most hostile to nuclear power.

California's problems had nothing to do with the state's lack of nuclear generating stations, and everything to do with Enron's market manipulation schemes —as company documents entered as prosecution evidence in Federal court reveal.

Actually, it was supported by deregulation, as the original regulation would have made Enron's scheme impossible.

However, California's looming problems in the telecommunications industry will be related to the power outage, because they are caused by almost identical market conditions and re-regulation rules.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Though I suppose we could all just blame this on a plot by Chretien to provide cover for large-scale robberies from stores in Ottowa by his guardsmen so he could hand out furniture and jewelry to his cronies.

[RedImperator]

The real problem is that there's no way to store electricity. If there was a way to build, say, giant municipal batteries or capacitors (that weren't environmental catastrophes waiting to happen and were cheaper than building whole new power plants), electricity could be treated just like any other commodity. It's not like private industry can't provide essential services and commodities--food, the most vital commodity of all after water, is grown, harvested, shipped, processed, and sold entirely by private industries, and the West is practically swimming in it.

But, since you CAN'T store electricity, the matter is much more complicated. There's also the matter that it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build a power plant, and that won't change even if you could store power (though it would make it economical to create extra generating capacity, much like there are companies that do nothing maintain fleets of diesel locomotives to lease to railroads for use during peak times of year).

[Stuart Mackey]

Solar is better...so is having the ability and basic skills to live without electricity.

For heating water, maybe. If you live at a low enough latitude, I suppose solar panels on your roof combined with electricity conservation measures would serve to reduce or eliminate your house's need for power off the grid (whether you ever recover the installation and maintenence cost of these panels is another story), but you'll never be able to run a factory or a business off of solar panels, and there are very few areas of the country where solar power plants can be constructed (and at any rate, generation capacity wasn't the issue like it was in California--it was a breakdown in the transmission system).

All I know is that here, if you have the dosh for it, you can have a home that is totally solarpowered and still run your average mod cons. Of course a lot depends on location and things like heating demands in winter. I do not claim that Solar is at all viable for factories ot even your average office block.

[Darth Wong]

There's a little phenomenon known as "night time" (not to mention "cloud cover" and "incident angle of sunlight at northern latitudes") which drastically reduces the effectiveness of this solution.

There is also things such as rechargable batteries. I dont claim to know all the details of solar power, but I know of people who's houses here are entirly solar powered. NZ, of course, has good amounts year round sunlight.
Mind you, there is also the sheer cost which makes a good solar setup prohibitive to most people.

The kind of battery capacity you need in order to deal with, say, a week of cloudy, overcast, or hazy days while running a large-sized air conditioning system is beyond consideration on any feasible or economic scale. The situation gets even messier when you contemplate the environmental and safety hazards associated with banks of lead-acid batteries, which are the only ones which are going to remotely affordable in such large numbers. Your weather must be quite a bit different from ours if this scheme makes sense there (either that, or your acquaintances hook into the grid and take power whenever they need it, thus forcing the power utility to maintain enough power generation capacity to pick up their slack when necessary).

Bummer...but hey, at least you can cook your dinner on the barbie. Your smart enough to be able to do that, and have the equipment to do it, so not to worry.

Propane is good.

Well, you do learn to appreciate what we have in the modern world.

Yeah, there were some people running around saying things like "well, this is how people lived a hundred years ago". As if that was any consolation; my retort was something along the lines of "and they worked their asses off so that their children wouldn't have to fucking live that way!".

[LordShaithis]

I'm in Detroit. We got it as bad as anyone, but things held up fine. My power was back up by 10am local time, 18 hours after going down, and almost everyone seemed to have theirs back by late afternoon. People basically just fired up the barbecues and tried to drink all the beer before it got warm. No chaos or anything.

[Darth Wong]

Though I suppose we could all just blame this on a plot by Chretien to provide cover for large-scale robberies from stores in Ottowa by his guardsmen so he could hand out furniture and jewelry to his cronies.

Speaking of Jean Cretin, his leadership during this situation was such that he didn't even bother leaving his house. He "communicated" with his office that he was monitoring the situation from his home in Shawinigan, Quebec (a small town that has been rolling in hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money since he came to power). He couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation to come visit the affected area, or even hold a press conference. Ahh, national leadership

[Stuart Mackey]

There's a little phenomenon known as "night time" (not to mention "cloud cover" and "incident angle of sunlight at northern latitudes") which drastically reduces the effectiveness of this solution.

There is also things such as rechargable batteries. I dont claim to know all the details of solar power, but I know of people who's houses here are entirly solar powered. NZ, of course, has good amounts year round sunlight.
Mind you, there is also the sheer cost which makes a good solar setup prohibitive to most people.

The kind of battery capacity you need in order to deal with, say, a week of cloudy, overcast, or hazy days while running a large-sized air conditioning system is beyond consideration on any feasible or economic scale. The situation gets even messier when you contemplate the environmental and safety hazards associated with banks of lead-acid batteries, which are the only ones which are going to remotely affordable in such large numbers. Your weather must be quite a bit different from ours if this scheme makes sense there (either that, or your acquaintances hook into the grid and take power whenever they need it, thus forcing the power utility to maintain enough power generation capacity to pick up their slack when necessary).

Air conditioning? cripes most people here dont have that and have fires for heat..well your weather is different to ours so that would account for it.

Bummer...but hey, at least you can cook your dinner on the barbie. Your smart enough to be able to do that, and have the equipment to do it, so not to worry.

Propane is good.

So is wood when gas runs out

Well, you do learn to appreciate what we have in the modern world.

Yeah, there were some people running around saying things like "well, this is how people lived a hundred years ago". As if that was any consolation; my retort was something along the lines of "and they worked their asses off so that their children wouldn't have to fucking live that way!".

Damn right! I work in a heritage park, I see on a daily basis what life was like for over 140 years of change and improvement. While people can live as we did 100 years ago {well, some people can} why the hell would you want to?

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Of course, after gouging the consumers. You don't seem to understand that the profit motive is what makes it NOT WORK, unless it is so massively regulated that it might as well be a public utility.

Except that your missing out on the point that the profit motive would indeed work to recifity the situation if companies were held responsible for the costs occured due to their mismanagement.

You also seem to underestimate the havoc that would be wrought upon system reliability by the casual "one company drops dead, another moves in to fill the void" solution. This is the power grid, not some kind of fucking used-car lot. You can't afford the kind of downtime that you can afford in other industries because it is an ESSENTIAL SERVICE.

I'm not saying that all services would cease and that the next day another company would step in to fill the void, such a position would be naive in the extreme. What I'm instead suggesting is that the said company would be allowed to declare bankrupcy, and as a result its assets and "territory" would be sold off to companies already in business or newly formed companies. Keep in mind that going Bankrupt in this day and age does not mean that a company immediately ceases all operations, its services would still be rendered in this process. Just look at K-mart, its been bankrupt for what a year and a half, two years?

Ah yes, contradict repeated observations with neo-con theory. I haven't seen that tactic before

First off, Neo-cons are hardly exponents of the free market, one needs only to look at the protectionist legislation enacted by G.W. Bush and the favoritism shown towards his coporate cronies to know that.

Secondly, even if the Neo-cons were consistent backers of free market economics it does not change the fact that free market economics is a theory that can be adopted by anyone, not only Neo-cons. To say it is a neo-con theory is incorrect and also misleading in that it inappropiatly links the advoate of the theory to a group to which he may have no affiliation, or may even despise, as is the case with me.

Thirdly, Aerius's arguments were based on two unsupported assumptions, that one, wide spread blackout's will occur if a company goes bankrupt, and two, that the government should/will bail them out. He provided no evidence to support that either senario will/should occur, nor can I recall this situation occuring often, if at all. Knowing that, I fail to see how his position is supported by "repeated observations".

After more of the blackouts which your scheme will supposedly avoid? Have you thought this through? Or do you believe that the bankruptcy of one company and subsequent replacement by another company would invariably proceed in a perfectly ordered fashion with no disruption in public service...

Oh right, the transference of juristicion and assets in a given area must inevitibily and automatically result in widespread disruption of services.

thanks to the godlike power of your mythically benevolent "market forces"?

Oh thats just great, automatically assume that I'm basing my argument on blind-faith and dogma. Nevermind that you don't actually have any evidence to support this conclsion Mike.

The people who run the power companies don't have to commit outright fraud in order to fuck the public. We've already seen this demonstrated. They can obey the law and still fuck everything up. Unless these fines of yours are enormous (read: instant bankruptcy), they wouldn't equal the cost of building and maintaining excess capacity and power plants. The profit motive will still push them to run under-capacity, and they will simply agree to eat the fines. The problem won't be solved that way, no matter how much you would like your omnipotent, omniscient, invariably benevolent market forces to make them work out.

In other words, the power companies should be allowed to continue operate without ever having to face the finical consequences of their actions. Don't you realize that is a recipie for disaster in any Industry? Just imagine what would happen if this type of system were introduced in the drug industry, do you really think drug companies would perform extensive and EXPENSIVE long range tests if there was NO possible way that they would ever be held accountable for the damage they caused?

[MKSheppard]

Wow, so the power got cut off for about 24 hours, you're all talking
like it was some sort of national catastrophe...SHIT HAPPENS...

reminds me of the time a transformer blew near our house...

[Darth Wong]

I'm not saying that all services would cease and that the next day another company would step in to fill the void, such a position would be naive in the extreme. What I'm instead suggesting is that the said company would be allowed to declare bankrupcy, and as a result its assets and "territory" would be sold off to companies already in business or newly formed companies. Keep in mind that going Bankrupt in this day and age does not mean that a company immediately ceases all operations, its services would still be rendered in this process. Just look at K-mart, its been bankrupt for what a year and a half, two years?

You're seriously comparing K-Mart to an electrical power generation company? You can smooth over business disruptions in a retailer that won't wash in a utility which is literally monitored SECOND BY SECOND. Moreover, it would not have been a catastrophe if K-Mart did go down at some point; hardly the case with public utilities.

Secondly, even if the Neo-cons were consistent backers of free market economics it does not change the fact that free market economics is a theory that can be adopted by anyone, not only Neo-cons.

So? It is mostly the neo-cons who consistently push it. If somebody else chooses to push it, that's nice but it has nothing to do with the main thrust of my argument, which is only to claim that public involvement and regulation is necessary in the power industry. Even Marina agrees on this score.

Thirdly, Aerius's arguments were based on two unsupported assumptions, that one, wide spread blackout's will occur if a company goes bankrupt, and two, that the government should/will bail them out. He provided no evidence to support that either senario will/should occur, nor can I recall this situation occuring often, if at all. Knowing that, I fail to see how his position is supported by "repeated observations".

I was referring to repeated observations of major problems arising in the aftermath of deregulating power in any given region, as opposed to the wondrous benefits being promised. As for your claim that it's a mere "assumption" that unreliability would follow bankruptcy, you obviously have no comprehension of how difficult a power utility is to operate. The mere act of comparing it to a fucking dime-store retailer like K-Mart simply beggars belief.

Oh right, the transference of juristicion and assets in a given area must inevitibily and automatically result in widespread disruption of services.

Public utilities are more complicated than K-mart, genius.

In other words, the power companies should be allowed to continue operate without ever having to face the finical consequences of their actions.

Bullshit. What I'm saying is that the power companies should be heavily regulated, and many of their functions should be taken over outright by the government if they won't toe the line.

What you're saying is that the free market system will somehow create a reliable network with no market incentive to do so, provided that certain penalties are created. All this means is that they will try to find ways around the penalties, AS PER THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CORPORATE CONDUCT.

Don't you realize that is a recipie for disaster in any Industry? Just imagine what would happen if this type of system were introduced in the drug industry, do you really think drug companies would perform extensive and EXPENSIVE long range tests if there was NO possible way that they would ever be held accountable for the damage they caused?

I'm sure you think it's quite impressive to beat up that strawman. Please, by all means, continue fondling yourself. No one is saying that these companies should ideally be made immune. What we are saying is that they WILL be immune anyway, because that's how society works IN REALITY, as opposed to your fantasy land. Major corporations hold governments to blackmail unless the governments step in and wield much greater power than you are willing to admit is necessary.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Wow, so the power got cut off for about 24 hours, you're all talking
like it was some sort of national catastrophe...SHIT HAPPENS...

reminds me of the time a transformer blew near our house...

Shep, do you have any idea how much money this cost in terms of goods and services that should have been produced? The consequences of this are much larger the one neighborhood losing power because a transformer blew out...

[Lord Poe]

Note to self, obtain 3kW Diesel Generator and about 1,000 gallons of Diesel fuel.

Solar is better...

There's a little phenomenon known as "night time" (not to mention "cloud cover" and "incident angle of sunlight at northern latitudes") which drastically reduces the effectiveness of this solution.

Many of these houses have capacitors which store up the energy on days like that, and when that fails, there's always gas generators:

http://www.offgrid.cjb.net/

[Lord Poe]

Propane is good.

"My dad says butane is a bastard gas."


Bobby Hill

[Darth Wong]

Many of these houses have capacitors which store up the energy on days like that, and when that fails, there's always gas generators:

http://www.offgrid.cjb.net/

There's a practical limit to electricity storage; those people seem like environmental activists. I don't get the impression that they're cranking the A/C much in those places (or surfing the Net).

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

You're seriously comparing K-Mart to an electrical power generation company? You can smooth over business disruptions in a retailer that won't wash in a utility which is literally monitored SECOND BY SECOND. Moreover, it would not have been a catastrophe if K-Mart did go down at some point; hardly the case with public utilities.

K-mart was merely brought forth as evidence to support the arguement that companies can continue to operate even if they declare bankruptcy.

So? It is mostly the neo-cons who consistently push it. If somebody else chooses to push it, that's nice but it has nothing to do with the main thrust of my argument,

Your the one who brought it up originally, or was I supose to just leave your "comment" unanswered?

I was referring to repeated observations of major problems arising in the aftermath of deregulating power in any given region, as opposed to the wondrous benefits being promised

Except that power has never been "deregulated" in any given region, its merely been re-regulated to allow some competition, which I freely admit is a bad idea given the current system in many areas.

As for your claim that it's a mere "assumption" that unreliability would follow bankruptcy, you obviously have no comprehension of how difficult a power utility is to operate.

Except that what I'm suggesting is that the same systems and personel would remain in place during the bankruptcy and subsequent purchasing of the companies "assets". I fail to see why this particular plan would necessarily result in unrelibility, regardless of how complex the system is.

The mere act of comparing it to a fucking dime-store retailer like K-Mart simply beggars belief.

I was using K-Mart to demonstate that Bankrupcy does not necessarily mean cessesation of services and production, I didn't not imply that the two were in any way were or could be similar outside of this.

Bullshit. What I'm saying is that the power companies should be heavily regulated, and many of their functions should be taken over outright by the government if they won't toe the line

Ah right, because we all know how well government quickly and efficiently responds to the demands and needs of the populace, let alone a dynamic system like power generation... nevermind that THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN BOTH THE 60s AND 70s when the government "heavily regulated" or outright controled the power generation in the US. One also need only look at the former Soviet Union to see the efficiency of State run industries....

What you're saying is that the free market system will somehow create a reliable network with no market incentive to do so, provided that certain penalties are created.

No, what I'm saying is that these "penalties" (which is really the wrong word considering im simply suggesting that companies be held accountable, at least in part, for the damages that result in breach of contract) will provide the market incentive for them to provide a reliable network.

All this means is that they will try to find ways around the penalties, AS PER THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CORPORATE CONDUCT.

Ah, but is this the result of corrupt coporations, bad laws/regulations, or a corrupt political system? I'm included to say the latter is the main cause, as we wouldn't have this sort of probelm would politicans not sell their souls for campaign contributions.

No one is saying that these companies should ideally be made immune. What we are saying is that they WILL be immune anyway, because that's how society works IN REALITY, as opposed to your fantasy land.

Well, EXCUSE ME for trying to suggest a course of action that could solve the problems that exist within the CURRENT system. (Current, Ha ha!)

Major corporations hold governments to blackmail unless the governments step in and wield much greater power than you are willing to admit is necessary.

Huh? Sorry but you lost me on this last part.....

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Bah, should have caught those two double negatives.

[Drewcifer]

=

Glad to see the sdnetters back safe and sound for the most part. I live in the midwest, so no power problems here, but I can empathize. Last January, in the dead of winter, we had a terrible bad ice storm and we didn't have power for a week. Talk about suck. I had to drain all my plumbing and pour antifreeze down the drains. And I guarantee that my next residence will have a fireplace!

I don't think that lightning had anything to do with the blackout; our local weather folks all played radar loops from the upper NE, and nary a storm was in sight.

hehe, I'm sure sb.com enjoyed the influx of sdnetters during the blackout I think Shep almost got himself tempbanned

[Vympel]

Ahhh, back.

I was wondering if this issue would be tackled, I was going to start a topic on it after being subjected to hours upon hours worth of rabid neocon bullshit served up as expert opinion on Fox News (surprise!).

[Dahak]

Good to see the board an dall back. I had feared to look for a new purpose in my life

And once again I'm happy to live in Germany, where we may have a liberalized energy market, but so heavily regulated that something like *this* is damn near impossible to happen...

And this whole thing shows how utterly dependent we're on those litttle things we take for granted...