@#$% Politicians

[selenite0]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030815/wl_canada_nm/canada_power_cause_col&e=5&ncid=

So now the pols are trying to blame each other for the blackouts, or find some poor power plant operator who happened to be chairless when the music stopped. Sheesh. When 100 plants go down at once, it's not because one of them was screwed up. They were all running on the ragged edge, and normal variation was going to push one of them over. Then once the first one went down its load was dumped on another which had no reserve left to help out, and it went down. So the whole collapse spread until it reached choke-points. That gave operators a chance to do the power system equivalent of cutting a mountain climber's line so he doesn't pull the whole group down.

The system's coming back up, quite quickly when you consider these 60-cycle-per-second generators have to all be synchronized and their connections are down. And we'll be in the same positon as Thursday, one hot day or system glitch from bringing it all down again. If you want the system to stay up all the time you have to build in extra capability. We used to have that but the population's been growing and everybody's buying more gadgets, so now it's gone. That's the same thing that took down California's grid (aggravated by a set of regulations that were the moral equivalent of turning your life savings into gold bars and stacking them on the front porch).

It's not like the warnings weren't there. Gray Davis got briefed on the weakness of the power system a year before the blackouts. All the power operators publish how much reserve they have, and it's been shrinking for years.

So whose fault is it? That's easy:

The environmental activists who've tried to prevent any power plants from getting built.
The EMF fear-mongers who've prevented power lines from being built.
The neighborhood associations who've blocked both of them.
The anti-nuclear activists who've taken finished power plants off-line.
The regulators who refuse to let the price of electricity have anything to do with the cost to produce it.
The conservation activists who took the money for new power plants and plowed it into advertisments for reducing power use.
And, of course, the polticians who were fine with a more fragile system as long as the disaster wouldn't happen until after the next election.

How to fix it? That's easy too. Build more power plants. Tell those objecting to shut up. Build more transmission lines. Pay compensation to those in the way of the new construction, if they don't delay it. Track usage every year and make sure there's always margin above the peak usage. Accept that this means spending money.

All those pointing fingers have three pointing back at themselves, and they are the cause of this mess.

Comments

Ummm, people too....

[meerkat1.livejournal.com]

While you and I agree on many things, on this we may have to dispute a little.

Ultimately a huge part of the problem is that we are a lazy, greedy, inconsiderate, short sighted society and becoming more so every year.

We buy more gadgets and on the whole don't think about much beyond our immediate pocketbook. So most people don't have energy efficient appliances, lights etc. They don't bother to build for efficiency beyond minimal code requirements. Hell most people don't even turn off their extra lights or computers. Because we have made power so cheap and convenient nobody thinks about long term costs of being any other way.

If the majority of people don't start thinking about more than next week, we are going to destroy much of what is beautiful and wonderful about this planet.

How many people don't even have Compact Florescent Bulbs in most of their home lighting systems yet??

Water and Power are not Freebies... they cost in money and environmental impact. And so the answer is not "just build more capasity"... part of the answer is to start making people aware of what our usage really is and trying to get them to start conserving. Maybe technology will progress until we do have clean endless solar power and an ablity to throughly clean up water before we return it to nature. But until then, these are not in endless supply. No matter how much the ease of fliping a switch or turning a faucet and always having them avalible might make that illusion seem real.

One more factor

[patgund.livejournal.com]

NIMBY - Not In My BackYard. Everyone wants the extra power plants, or bigger airports with improved access, or high-speed rail, or better/more freeways, etc. As long as they're in *someone* else's backyard, not yours.

Great case in point - the shoebox that is San Diego's Lindburgh field. They've been wanting to build a replacement for that airport since before I moved here in 1978. But nobody wants it in their backyard? Otay Mesa, either as a seperate airport or sharing runways with Tiajuna's Rodrequez Field? No, people living there don't want the noise. How about Miramar MCAS ? Between two major freeways, with rail access to boot. The Marines took the place over when they closed down MCAS El Toro, and the Navy moved to Fallon NV. No reason why the Marines can't do the same, especially since there's no room to grow, right? Wrong, the Miramar flight path goes over La Jolla and Scrips Ranch, two of the most expensive neighborhoods in San Diego. And they don't want those nasty commercial airliners flying overhead and upsetting their views, (never mind that military aircraft is noiser that commercial).

How about expanding Lindburgh? After all, NTC-San Diego is now decommissioned, and it's right next to Lindburgh. No, the people who live under the airport's flight path have been complaining about the noise for years and don't want the airport expanded. Plus the developers had wet dreams about developing all that prime real estate without using it on something as useless as an airport. End result, the former NTC-San Diego is being developed as mixed used residentual and commercial, and the aiport remains boxed in. (plus we'll have a whole new batch of idiots who move underneath an airport's flight path and then complain about the noise.

NIMBYism is one of the biggest problems that developing any form of intrastructure faces. Sad but true.