MASSIVE FUCKING BLACKOUT

[CorSec]

I'm glad to hear that most everyone is alive and well. To the denizen who did lose a friend, I am sorry for your loss.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I remember talking with folks about the blackout, and California

I jokingly reminded everyone I had plenty of power even during the rolling blackouts as being on a Federal Government Hydroelectric grid....

drink up BAY AREA you provide me with juice for my computer.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Actually, I'm sort-of glad it happened. It gave the Iraqis something to laugh about, you see. Most people in third-world countries sort of look to the First World like some sort of omnipotent paved-with-gold miracle land to which various bizzare things are attributed--not the educated elite, obviously, but the lower classes (or, witness the belief that our tanks were protected with "Force-fields" by some Iraqi fighters)--while they are used to blistering incompetence from their own governments.

Therefore, when America, AMERICA of all countries, came in and could not immediately make everything better, no wonder everybody was rather irritated. However, now that we have had an example of laughable incompetence and a large-scale blackout of our own, and the Iraqis can point and laugh at us and how incompetent our own politicians and bureaucrats are, perhaps they will be a bit more tolerant of delays in the effort to repair their own infrastructure.

[Dahak]

Actually, I'm sort-of glad it happened. It gave the Iraqis something to laugh about, you see. Most people in third-world countries sort of look to the First World like some sort of omnipotent paved-with-gold miracle land to which various bizzare things are attributed--not the educated elite, obviously, but the lower classes (or, witness the belief that our tanks were protected with "Force-fields" by some Iraqi fighters)--while they are used to blistering incompetence from their own governments.

Therefore, when America, AMERICA of all countries, came in and could not immediately make everything better, no wonder everybody was rather irritated. However, now that we have had an example of laughable incompetence and a large-scale blackout of our own, and the Iraqis can point and laugh at us and how incompetent our own politicians and bureaucrats are, perhaps they will be a bit more tolerant of delays in the effort to repair their own infrastructure.

If you were dependent on energy, would you be happier to see that some incompetent fools arre "repairing" your system?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If you were dependent on energy, would you be happier to see that some incompetent fools arre "repairing" your system?

I was more thinking of the sympathy and tolerance factor--they probably already think we're incompetent by now, though that's due to planning and not technical know-how.

[LordShaithis]

This is going to require us to strangle the enviromentalists and step over their bodies.

Marina rules.

[Patrick Degan]

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....

Hasty Generalisation Fallacy, False Cause Fallacy, Red Herring and Strawman all wrapped up in one statement. Breathtaking, to say the least.

First, public control of the utilities can hardly be blamed for the two great New York Blackouts prior to this one as those incidents as well as this one were due entirely to engineering failures, which can happen even to privately-owned and operated entities.

Second, yes we do know how quickly and efficently government responds to the demands and needs of the populace: disaster relief, rural electrification, disease control, the Interstate Highway System, sewage treatment, toxic waste cleanup, police and fire protection, emergency medical response and rescue, to name but a few examples.

Third, the example of the Soviet Union (always pointed to by doctrinaire conservatives) is such a ridiculous extreme that it bears no valid comparison to any advanced Western industrial nation where public utilities and health care have existed without resulting in the wholesale misery of a system which rarely if ever ran its activities with respect to the welfare of its subjects. So let's cut the bullshit, shall we?

[ArmorPierce]

I'm visiting friends at flatbush brooklyn and the power was out till after 8 pm this evening. Another fucked up part is that it seemed that all the rich communities got their power back up first (the area stayin at was just about last part to get power back up with exception of most of china town at manhattan). Most of my family works at manhattan and none lives at manhattan so it was a long walk. my parents walked all the way from manhattan to Brooklyn to stay at my grandparents and I myself got stuck at prospect park. There were thousands of people walking trying to get home, the subway was out, and the buses were packed so they weren't even stopping. Fortunately me and my friends were able to get into a dollar van who were charging extra.

[ArmorPierce]

CNN had an cell phone interview with a lady in Toronto last night, she was saying how everyone was treating intersections as 4-way stop signs, being as cooperative towards each other as possible. It hit just as rush hour did, what a nightmare....

Actually I think that it was easier to drive at the non big intersections without lights.

The way people in New York were being helpful to each other is also very cool, there was a civilian directing traffic this morning. Funny.
Any reports of looting? If there was any, they aren't mentioning it in what I've seen.

Along flatbush there was a lot of looting.

[Sebastin]

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).

You CAN store electricity. The most common method for large scale applications would be a hydroelectric battery (<--- bad translation by me). Basically you build two water reservoirs in a mountanious region in different heights, by damming valleys for example. When you have excess power you use it to pump water from the lower reservoir into the higher one. When you need the power again you reverse the flow and run the water through turbines. Often pumps and turbines are the same too. We have quite a number of such installations in germany and they have a surprisingly high effeciency (over 95%) and storage density. A higher reservoir of usualy just a few hectares can store the output of a nuke plant of several months, mostly because you can easily reach high height differences of several hundret meters at low cost.

[LordShaithis]

WTF is a hectare?

[Andrew J.]

WTF is a hectare?

It's a metric unit of meaure. I think it's a meaure of area, but I'm not sure.

[Warspite]

WTF is a hectare?

It's a metric unit of meaure. I think it's a meaure of area, but I'm not sure.

It's a hundred square metres.

[Lagmonster]

Well, I'm back online. Ottawa was a hell of a mess during the first little bit (I work right in the downtown core a few blocks from the Hill), but people were unfailingly polite and things cleared up quick.

I spent a couple of hours right away with a flashlight helping people out of our building (no emergency lights in the stairwell, and no windows either. What the hell is THAT?), and helped direct traffic near our house courtesy of the City of Ottawa, who were taking any help they could get, especially in the evening. Power came back on here at around 2:00 AM (all this in case Karma means anything. ).

Overall, it was more annoying than dangerous here thanks to the good nature and patience of Ottawans; I haven't heard if larger metropolises had it worse or no.

[Sebastin]

WTF is a hectare?

It's a metric unit of meaure. I think it's a meaure of area, but I'm not sure.

It's a hundred square metres.

It´s 10000 square meters.

[Next of Kin]

There was almost no looting or public disturbances, and volunteers went to many of the major intersections (all of which had dead traffic lights) and helped direct traffic until the cops arrived.

It made me proud to hear that alot of off-duty police officers simply put on their uniforms and went to work even if they lived in a different jurisdiction.

[Sea Skimmer]

You CAN store electricity.

Your example is not storing electricity, its storing fuel with which to create it. Not the same thing. It's also highly impractical to build such facilities close to every community, so you're still going to be dependent on the wider power grid which defeats the whole point of the idea.

The environmentalists also hate dams and reservoirs as much as they hate nuclear stations.

[Iceberg]

If XCel Energy had been connected to the same sector of the North American power grid as the East Coast, I don't want to think about how long I'd be still without power - probably until tonight at the very least.

I'm not kidding. XCel is fucking incompetent.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The environmentalists also hate dams and reservoirs as much as they hate nuclear stations.

[Greenpeacenik]Must blow up the dams to save the fishies! Must blow up the dams to save the fishies! Must blow up the dams to save the fishies![/Greenpeacenik]

Is there an online tally of how much generating capacity we lost through dam-cracking during the Klintoon years?

[Straha]

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.

With all due respect, that's bullshit. You are trying to distract from the failure of the free market in this situation by arguing that it should have been made even more free.

The problem is one of simply motives; in a free market, corporations inevitably move to build the least amount of generation they can get away with, because excess capacity is LOST PROFITS. You can spin this any way you want, but the end result is that free-market thinking and profit motives are precisely what got us into this mess.

Actually, thou seems to forget that the TRANSMISSION section of the market was not deregulated, making it incredibly incredibly hard for a power company to upgrade the transmission part of their grids, making it so that there is no way to upgrade that with profit. If it was deregulated on the other hand, they would upgrade for the profit thus helping to ensure that this would never happen again.

[Sea Skimmer]

[Greenpeacenik]Must blow up the dams to save the fishies! Must blow up the dams to save the fishies! Must blow up the dams to save the fishies![/Greenpeacenik]

*The resulting floods wash out a chemical plant and sterilized the river*

Is there an online tally of how much generating capacity we lost through dam-cracking during the Klintoon years?

I don't know of one but I'd bet such a thing exists. Though it seems that many of the damns breached weren't power stations but rather for flood control, and for keeping waterways navigable.

[HemlockGrey]

Er...magentohydralic home generator...?

He wasn't kidding, was he...?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Er...magentohydralic home generator...?

He wasn't kidding, was he...?

Actually, I could attempt at making a model one using a circular pipe filled with heavy salted water, some old RADAR magnets of high-power and a connection to a capacitor and water pump.

Seriously, the energy crisis is looked into more in New Scientist this week and also explains why the US is going towards getting more oil etc. of their own for use in making hydrogen and possibly giving nuclear power a second chance, while the EU is looking towards solar and wind.

There are problems with both and advantages, the main problems are that the US isn't really getting anything renewable as the oil will still eventually run out even if they fully control it, it also produces CO2 which is a no-no for a greener future (guess we should all hold our breath). The EU is relying on solar and wind farms to help produce the leccy to the entire continent, though wind and solar are intermittent power sources they will be used to split water and make the hydrogen to power the hydrogen economy that will inevitably arrive.

The future for storing electricity is easy; fuel-cells. You just need hydrogen which is readily obtained given 95+% of the Universe is made of the stuff and we're surrounded by water. The real issue is about making fuel-cells cheaper, more efficient and getting people to accept them over standard power generators. London is getting several fuel-cell powered buses to test much like the propane ones already used, but they cost over £1M making them the most expensive vehicles on the road. The platinum coatings used in the fuel-cells need to be trimmed and the efficiency, while higher than any petrol or diesel engine, is still not the best we could get, plus all those ricer kids probably hate the fact that a hydrogen powered car can't wake up the entire neighbourhood with revving the engine.

So at least the idea is sound, hydrogen is the way, not hydrocarbons, we just need to get a move on, it's already taken the best part of 200 years given fuel-cells were first invented by Sir. William Grove in 1843.

[Sea Skimmer]

London is getting several fuel-cell powered buses to test much like the propane ones already used, but they cost over £1M making them the most expensive vehicles on the road.

Tanks routinely drive on British roads and cost quite a bit more then a million pounds.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

*steps into thread, doesn't bother to read the other 300 posts*

I'mmmm Baaackkkk!

AND NOW A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MARK PENDER:

"The powers all gone, the generators grinded to a halt. I don't know what caused it, but its probably Canada's fault...SCREW YOU CANADA! SCREW YOU CANADA!! SCREW YOU CANADAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"