MASSIVE FUCKING BLACKOUT

[Uraniun235]

How can the power going out cause a roller coaster to stop? Roller coasters coast, hence the name. They only use electric power to get up that first hill.

You haven't ridden many coasters, have you? There are definitely some that use power to propel you up a second hill. Also, what if you get stuck going up the hill?

[HemlockGrey]

I bet City Hall was shitting itself when this started. Well, nothing done here.

Although, how exactly does one build a magentohydralic-whatsit power plant in one's garage?

[zombie84]

Fuck! That was an interesting 24 hours!

Our power came back on around 4 AM this morning. The traffic is still fucking insane. Have you guys been on the road? Have you seen the gas stations? Line ups 2 and a half miles long. None of the pumps were working because they're all powered on electrical systems. I saw four cars stranded on the road yesterday because people ran out of gas but couldnt fill up at any station.

But anyway, y'know this whole thing has been a pain in the ass, but its not that bad really and i have to say i've actually enjoyed it a bit. Last night i went for a walk at 10 at night--no street lights, no store or window lights, no flashing neon signs. Just pitch blackness, as far as the eye could see, save for the headlights of passing cars. Up above the sky was as clear as its been all summer--i couldnt believe it, i could actually see stars in the city sky! I couldnt believe it when i spotted a shooting star. I walked up to the highest point in my area, one of the highest points in York Region and it was beautiful; down in the valley below me, what would normally be a metropolis of lights, signs, buildings and unrecognizable city lights was replaced with a blanket of blackness, save for the tiny rows of lights making their way up the hill in the distance that were car headlights. The sky stretched on endlessly in a sea of stars as far as the eye could see, mars as red and bright as its been in thousands of years, and tiny meteors zipping around here and there. I'll never be able to see that in the city again for as long as i live. A few couples made there way up there too, some brought lawn chairs. For all the trouble this shit has caused, moments like that make it all worth it, if you ask me. Hell, people actually began talking to neighbours and people they wouldnt normally even speak to; i love it when situations like that cause people to actually acknowledge each others existance. Sometimes we need things like this to put us in touch with humanity.

Okay, im done. Now get this fucking thing fixed, i can only stand being deprived of tv and music and the internet for so long.

supposedly the power will be out again later tonight. Rolling blackouts...they have to distribute power evenly across all the grids.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

The transmission system is overloaded because of deregulation, because private companies will never build excess capacity since it will make them lose money. What part of this do you not comprehend?

Private compaines WILL build excess capacity if the savings of doing so will outweigh the cost, for example; if you made the companies pay for, even in part, the losses that are a direct result of this incident then I guarantee that you'll see excess capacity building up pretty darn quick. What this is a result of is a legal failure, companies are not being held responsible for the consequences of their actions, or in this case their inactions.

[/u][/quote]

[aerius]

Private compaines WILL build excess capacity if the savings of doing so will outweigh the cost, for example; if you made the companies pay for, even in part, the losses that are a direct result of this incident then I guarantee that you'll see excess capacity building up pretty darn quick. What this is a result of is a legal failure, companies are not being held responsible for the consequences of their actions, or in this case their inactions.

Problem then is then the companies go belly up and we are left with no power at all. If they have to cover the costs of a large blackout they have a good chance of going bankrupt, and if they do, lights out. Which leads to the government bailing them out so we can all have power, but if the power companies know that they'll get bailed out, why bother preventing blackouts if you don't have to pay for them?

You can slap them on the wrist and it'll be business as usual, or you can really whack them and watch as all the lights go out again. A happy middleground? Fuck, I doubt it, I know if I was running a power company I'd just fudge some finances, screw with things a bit, people'll be out of power, I'll be rich, and it'll be Enron all over again.

[Slartibartfast]

Was there another blackout? haven't been able to access the site in the last 4 or so hours.

[fgalkin]

Greetings, all. I'm officially back. Power went out at 4 pm yesterday, came back at 6 am this morning. I tried logging on the board in the morning, but it was still out IIRC.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[MKSheppard]

We were knocked off-line for about 25 hours by a massive cascade power failure in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada.

Nice rant on the neo-cons on your TOC...

I just laughed and said "It's mike again"

[Gandalf]

Woo!, the board is back, my life has meaning again.

[MKSheppard]

For fucks' sake, just buy a goddamned Generator everyone, instead of
ranting about the evil neo-conservatives.

[The Dark]

Well, my life has returned .

Just wanted to pop in real quick and check on what Mike had to say (I figured out what happened last night when the board was down).

We actually got a bit of a blip from the power outage all the way down here in Florida. The generators cycled up over normal frequency (went from 60 Hz to 60.23 Hz), but our grid cut out properly. Even if we'd lost every generator that was running, bringing up the backup that Florida keeps because of unpredictable weather would have had the state at 20-30% power within a couple hours.

We lost power today at an unknown time (was out of the house), but it came back on at ~5:30 PM. Given the weather, it was almost definitely a lightning strike and localized outage. Happens roughly once a week during the summer.

Heard at least one of the reactors which shut down had to use the SCRAM. Good to know we're not quite at Federation level failsafes yet.

[MKSheppard]

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

[weemadando]

My favourite quote:

"This blackout has nothing at all to do with terrorism..." (five minutes later after a lot of fluff) "Though a malicious attack by hackers cannot be ruled out..."

Riiiiight.

[fgalkin]

For fucks' sake, just buy a goddamned Generator everyone, instead of
ranting about the evil neo-conservatives.

And where would I put it, considering that I live in a fucking apartment complex?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Gandalf]

My favourite quote:

"This blackout has nothing at all to do with terrorism..." (five minutes later after a lot of fluff) "Though a malicious attack by hackers cannot be ruled out..."

Riiiiight.

LOL!!!

Though it's good to see they ruled out terrorism quickly.

[Crown]

I never thought that a power black out on the other side of the world, would affect my life soooooo much. I am glad to see that all you guys made it all right, and my thoughts with those that had a hard time out of it.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Problem then is then the companies go belly up and we are left with no power at all.

Unsupported conclusion. Do you really think that other companies, or new companies, would not spring up to fill in the demend for power in the areas covered by companies that went bankrupt?

If they have to cover the costs of a large blackout they have a good chance of going bankrupt, and if they do, lights out. Which leads to the government bailing them out so we can all have power, but if the power companies know that they'll get bailed out, why bother preventing blackouts if you don't have to pay for them?

Won't happen if market forces are allowed to act, the entire senario is based upon the assumption that the government will bail out the power companies. If the companies are allowed to go bankrupt then other ocmpanies will take over their "territory".

You can slap them on the wrist and it'll be business as usual, or you can really whack them and watch as all the lights go out again.

Im simply stating that they should at least be PARTIALLY responsible for the costs incurred for their failure to provide the services that we PAY them for. If they go bankrupt then they go bankrupt, just like any other company. If the demand is there you can be sure that someone will be ther to buy up the assets and rectify their mistakes.

A happy middleground? Fuck, I doubt it, I know if I was running a power company I'd just fudge some finances, screw with things a bit, people'll be out of power, I'll be rich, and it'll be Enron all over again.

Whats this have to do with letting market forces operate? Also, if you remember correctly Enron went bankrupt and the heads of the coporation were dragged away in handcuffs, not exactly a model to emulate if your goal is business success.

[Stuart Mackey]

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

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

[MKSheppard]

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

Yeah, and Solar costs a shitload more, and doesn't match the power
density of a cheep generator.

[Darth Wong]

Unsupported conclusion. Do you really think that other companies, or new companies, would not spring up to fill in the demend for power in the areas covered by companies that went bankrupt?

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. 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.

Won't happen if market forces are allowed to act,

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

the entire senario is based upon the assumption that the government will bail out the power companies. If the companies are allowed to go bankrupt then other ocmpanies will take over their "territory".

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

Whats this have to do with letting market forces operate? Also, if you remember correctly Enron went bankrupt and the heads of the coporation were dragged away in handcuffs, not exactly a model to emulate if your goal is business success.

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.

[Darth Wong]

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.

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.

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.

[Stuart Mackey]

Tis interesting..NZ recently had power scares due to a drought depleting our hydro lakes, and no spare capacity..due to deregultion of the power industry. Plus our major gas feild is running out.
The government is to build a new power station {but one that is only 3% of the national grid which is way to small given that use increaces at two percent a year. } and a mothballed plant is to be refitted and set as a backup. The power companies are supposidly looking at increasing extra generation.I shall beleive that when I see it.

One thing is certain and that is that there must be spare power generation capacity within a modern economy and that power must get to where it is needed, even when some lines fail.
It is also true that someone must pay for it.

[RedImperator]

Solar is better...so is having the ability and basic skills to live without electricity.[/quote]

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).

[Darth Wong]

The major problem with solar and wind is that it doesn't reduce power generation requirements one iota; it only increases the swing from low to high demand.

Solar and wind cannot match supply to demand. If you need more power, you can't exactly walk outside and instruct the Sun to shine more brightly or the wind to blow harder. So you could have a whole nation running off solar, and you wouldn't be able to take a single power generating station off line if you want to retain the ability to meet peaks in demand patterns.

In a deregulated industry, widespread adoption of solar might very well be disastrous, as power companies would probably try and find ways to take advantage of this large demand swing in order to improve their profit margins.

[Macross]

I live in Connecticut, and I was fortunate not be affected. Hartford was affected, and that city is only a few miles south of me. Another town, to the north west was also out. To be honest I am really surprised that i still had power, considering that 94% of the state was out.

The only thing I noticed was that around 4:12, the lights dimmed for a second but didnt go out, and my computer rebooted. I didnt think anything of it, because it has happened before in the summer time. It wasnt until an hour later when I turned on the TV that I heard that New York City and most of the north east was out.