Electricity Apocalypse Soon? 576
mindriot writes "Heise's awarded online magazine Telepolis has published a nice article (English / German) discussing the ongoing series of power blackouts (after the U.S. blackout, London, Scandinavia, and other incidents, the most recent victim being Italy). 'The blackouts bare the Achilles Heel of our "information society" ,' the article states, and sees the recent events as a precursor to a possible massive on-line blackout. As society becomes more and more dependent on information and power networks, the failure of a single wire or the interruption of a satellite uplink can become a major issue and form a great vulnerability. As the article explains, market liberalization, globalization and plain ignorance could endanger our infrastructure to a very discomforting extent." Free markets cause power blackouts?
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Err, how about this... (Score:2, Funny)
Just like everywhere else...
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
Are you advancing a theory whereby the failing of the soviet electrical infrastructure was the direct cause of the fall of the soviet political infrastructure, thus leading to a capitalistic infrastructure and therefore free markets, or are you just making a dumbass Soviet Russia joke?
Yeah, thought so.
Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:2)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:3, Funny)
i gotta build myself a hand powered webserver for redunduncy purposes!
A pr0n server that can be powered with one hand? Excellent! :)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:2)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:2)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:5, Funny)
The Book of the Subgenius teaches that in the face of impending emergency, the only things that need to be stockpiled are firearms, ammunition and cocaine. With this, you can build a loyal army of followers who will provide ( one way or another ) the other necessities of life. This is black-box abstraction at its best.
Anyway, I'm not concerned. All these power outages seem like a distinctly northern hemisphere prob
%% NO CARRIERYupper (Score:2, Funny)
You better believe it! As soon as the power goes out and I can't post on slashdot [slashdot.org] or update my blog [colingregorypalmer.net] my social life is over!
Re:Yupper (Score:3, Insightful)
DR for the home (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, what's the good of a home generator, Mr Anderson, if you're unable to find an ISP that works?
Re:DR for the home (Score:4, Insightful)
I take issue with that. I don't see how you can claim 'Many' people live off the grid, at least by any reasonable definition of the word many.
Even enthusiasts with a tendency to drastically over estimate put the figure at 0.01% of the US population (again, that's a conscious over estimate, based on rounded up figures!). Figures in the rest of the western world aren't even nearly that high (and it's only that high in the USA because you have such a poorly regulated market - especially in places like California where viable alternatives happen to be avalible to those in California, who are uniquely wealthy enough to be able to afford the 20,000 USD to install a system in the first place).
Solar power, wind power, and if you have a fast creek running through your backyard, hydroelectric..
Solar power is not a viable solution in most of the world (it's just not reliable enough, even with very expensive Solar panels running at the giddy heights of 20% efficiency). It's not even a viable solution in most parts of the USA (though it's a fine solution for those in states such as California, Texas, or Florida).
Small Scale Wind Power, apart from being even less reliable, very noisy and an eyesore (promoting NIMBYim), is even less efficient. I think off shore managed Wind Farms are a great idea, personal Wind Farms are unworkable and entirely undesirable.
And as for personal Hydroelectric, it's entirely irrelevant as the number of people who have a 'fast [running] creek' in their backyard is infinitesimal and statistically irrelevant in this context (it makes no difference if they were all off grid, particularly when you think of how they are dispersed across the grid).
The first step is to reduce your consumption.. turn OFF your computer when not in use... (bla bla it hurt's you computer, costs more to start it up, and all the other idiotic lies that have spread through the years... NO it does not do ANY damage to your pc to turn it off
It does cause significantly more wear and tear on your PC when you turn it off and on (and shortens it's lifespan, particularly of components like CPU, PSU and Graphics Card fans and most significantly of Hard Disks, but I see someone else has already pointed that out.
replace all lighting with Compact flouresent lamps
The best I can say about that is it's ill thought out advice spread by people who haven't take the time to work out scientifically the amount of resources actually being used (based on real world usage patterns).
Lights in Living rooms, Kitchens and/or study rooms tend to have lights that are on for extended periods of time and you can benefit from fluorescent lamps (in terms of electricity used and cost to run). But lights which are only normally used briefly for short periods, such as in a Bathroom or Hallways, Utility Rooms or Bedrooms are far better being off being traditional bulbs. They use far less electricity that way.
It's a catch 22 we need power for our luxuries and toys like computers, tv, Air conditioning.... but they are the cause of the power woes
Well I'm still getting over that you think Air Conditioning and Computers are luxuries and 'toys' but I find the suggestion that they are the cause of power supply problems (or even a 'catch 22') boggling.
The problem in the USA is incompetent government management at Federal and State level (and voters that put up with it, and people to apathetic to do anything about it.). Italy also has a problem with virtually all of it's national infrastructure, but it's drastically worse because they have had appalling mismanagement for years (not to mention they elected a crook to run the country).
Other western countries don't have the same problem and you shouldn't confuse problems in the US with the rest of the world (though it
Re:DR for the home (Score:3, Insightful)
we need power for our luxuries
You're a much hardier soul than I if you'd be willing to live for extended periods of time without electric refrigeration to keep food from spoiling quickly. I suppose we could go back to the days of ice delivery, but I doubt the cost per Joule would be less than what on-site refrigeration costs.
Where I live I've been afflicted with enough blackouts that I absolutely have a UPS for my computer, just to insure an orderly shutdown and to keep the cordless phone running.
I ha
Re:DR for the home (Score:3, Insightful)
I refuse to lower my standard of living so you can feel better about yourself.
Re:DR for the home (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so TOTALLY off the mark, it is not even funny. The grid is falling apart because environmental lawsuits have effectively KILLED any and ALL attempts to modernize it.
Case in point. Tuscon Power is attempting to update it's grid infrastructure in SW Arizona. Environmentalists immediately slapped a lawsuit on the company claiming that some stupid sage brush would be impacted by the building of the power line transmission towers. The lawsuit failed, so the same groups immediately petitioned to have the plant declared endangered so that the EPA could stop the project by simple bureaucratic decree.
That is NOT free markets destroying our power grid, it's enviro-nazi anti-capitalists.
The first part of the solution is correctly identifying the problem.
Re:Flourescent lamps suck build nukes (Score:3, Interesting)
Look around. I'm sure you'll be able to spot several rooftops that aren't doing much of anything. Now extrapolate that across the country. Are you still honestly going to try and tell me that there's not enough surface area for wind and solar to be viable? I think you know my response to that.
Befo
Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a bonus it will get more expensive also, aren't we lucky
IMHO the privatizing of utilities such as electricity is *not* a matter of consumers' interests and not even a matter of producers' interests really. It's ideology. Religion if you like.
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:2, Insightful)
Some would argue that a free market leads to all those things (maybe not incompetence, that's everywhere). So, perhaps free markets do cause power blackouts, if indirectly.
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:2)
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Improvments in technology enables us to harvest natural resources where it couldn't be harvested before.
I don't think you should worry about the gas running out.
If nothing else, I have a bad stomach, so I could pay you a visit once a month or so to fill up you gastanks
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:2)
Spoken like a true ideologue.
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, we're done for.
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:4, Insightful)
The California crisis was mainly caused by two issues. The first was illegal fraud and price fixing on the part of Enron. The second was the fact that prices for consumers were fixed, but prices for suppliers were not, so suppliers were required to sell electricity for a loss.
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Whats free about a market where the government dictates prices, hinders you from using various financial instruments for mitigating risks etc.?
The US electricity market is merely a bastardized version of the 5 year plans the USSR were so famous for. The same goes for most of the other so-called free markets.
This is not the failure of a de-regulated market but more that of a failure to privatize them.
The Economist carried a few very enlightening articles recently on this - however, they were not free (so no url's for you)
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever there's a problem with deregulation or privatization, the response is "well, you can't really call that a 'free market'" because it wasn't really free enough. That's a cop out, in my opinion.
The reality is all markets have rules and all markets need rules. Figuring out which rules which improve the situ
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Free Markets Also Need Rules
I think the lesson we should take from this is a bit too complicated to put on a bumper sticker.
While of course free markets need rules, their big advantage is that where they work well they need fewer and less intrusive rules -- mainly rules about making contracts etc. For that reason, they can in most circumstances cope with chaos better when regulation is kept to a minimum.
The problem I have is with the superstitious awe some people hold free m
Basically, yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The free market tries to make money out of the infrastructure this means low maintenance, low investment. It's a recipe for blackouts.
Can't say we weren't warned though.
Re:Basically, yes. (Score:5, Informative)
When I worked for the local "Electricity Board" here in the UK, we had some 20 linesmen almost permanently employed cutting and trimming trees which threatened the overhead lines. There were still faults but these usually only occurred in extreme weather conditions.
Nowadays I hear there are just 2 staff allocated to tree cutting in our region - and one of those is the supervising engineer......
PS. Checking an old bill, I find that I pay the same per month now as I did almost 5 years ago.
Re:Basically, yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
All comes apart when that excess is needed due to a failure elsewhere in in the grid...
Re:Basically, yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you stop paying for maintenance, and get to raise prices. Isn't that precious?
steve
Re:Basically, yes. (Score:2)
Basically: No (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get crappy service, you take your business elsewhere, right? If you rent a car, but you find it breaks down all the time because the rental company skimps on maintenance, you go to a differe
Such Chicken Little nonsense I have never read (Score:2, Insightful)
Was it regrettable? yes
Did it endanger our infrastructure? please.
People only 100 miles away from the blackout's edge lived their days normally.
As for "the interruption of a satellite" becoming a major issue, I fail to see how this is becomming a problem. It happened about a week ago didn't it? I'm still here. I could still buy food that morning.
In fact, this article is just flat out wrong. As our global inf
Re:Such Chicken Little nonsense I have never read (Score:2, Insightful)
That food you bought in the grocery store. It was fresh. It probably had to be ordered from a market.
If the phones ('the net') go down for a week, maybe two
Give this information-addicted society 4 weeks of nothing - i.e., the grid goes down - and what will things be like when it comes back up again? The scenario wherein a massive population is without power for weeks on end is no
Re:Such Chicken Little nonsense I have never read (Score:4, Interesting)
Being prepared helps an awful lot.
In 1990 we had two weeks with roads blocked and blackouts in many parts of France due to heavy snowfalls (1 meter where I lived) but given that the part where I live is used to snow we didn't have any major problem (a few generators made the rounds to keep the freezers cold enough); we used candles and made our own butter (the cows have to be milked daily to avoid getting them sick but there was no electricity to keep the milk turning so the cream came to the top and we made butter the old fashioned way) and lived a lot like they did in the past and rather enjoyed it (especially given that we got two weeks free of school
Shit happens, you just have to be plan for it as much as reasonably possible and be psychologically prepared and try to enjoy it as a rare experience rather than panic and mess things even further.
NIMBY (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is simply one of NIMBY. We need to build more transmission lines, but nobody wants the lines in *their* backyard. It's going to give them brain cancer; give their children leukemia; impede their views; reduce the value of their homes; destroy the last known habitat of the seven-toed porcupine.
Sometimes I really wonder if democracy is a good idea.
Power Generation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Power Generation (Score:3, Insightful)
No, ideally power plants would be built close to the fuel. Transmission line losses over a high voltage line are small. What is the energy loss to transport a train load of coal from a mine (coal isn't found everywhere you know) to the power plant. How about the cost to pump gas (somewhat self flowing, but they still have to pump it at times) from the well to the power plant? High voltage elecrisity is a good cheap low loss way to transport energy.
The best way to transport electrisity is DC, so you
you just described a transmission problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
which means it's a... wait for it.... transmission problem.
if the problem is that there is dramatically more power on the line now than 50 years ago, and the transmission lines are failing - it's a transmission problem by definition.
a generation problem only includes failures to generate enough electricity. If you have rolling brownouts or blackouts because there isn't enough power to meet demand, that's a generation problem.
But that isn't whats been happening. during the US/Canada blackout, all plants were online (excepting the nuke plants which were shut down by procedure when the grid was dead).
NIMBY is stressing transmission and leading to serious quantities of waste as energy is lost on the line.
people don't want fossil plants, they don't want nuke plants, heck even the proposed wind farm on the nantucket sound is being blocked by the very politicians that play to a 'green' constituency.
This attitude is creating problems we can no longer pretend don't exist. Before we only had to suffer the energy wasted from unnecessary transmission distances. Now we have to suffer the fragility of the entire distribution system.
the -solution- is indeed a generation solution. It's to educate and inform communities that local municipality-run utilities are the only way to go. dependence on basics like power and water from another locale is dangerous, expensive and wasteful.
while my lights were out last month, my buddy's never were. I was sleeping on his couch, enjoying the AC while 50 million people floundered in the heat and hoarded water, because his city had the foresight to have local municpal power generation.
the 'correct' solution is hardly likely however.
my recommendation for dealing with reality is: get as 'off the grid' as possible, because it will only get worse.
Deepness in the Sky (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really funny how the end-of-civilisation scenarios mentioned in the book become reality. In particular, this is a case of his over-efficiency scenario: as the automation and control systems become more efficient, the margin for error gets narrower, until even a minor glitch can escalate to affect a large proportion of the planet. This happens in part because no single person fully understands the structure of the control mechanisms, so the catastrophic scenarios can't be predicted.
(the other scenario I remembered was ubiquitous law enforcement. Things like RFID tags, smart dust, and ubiquitous surveilance are all becoming possible)
That said, I don't think we're going to have the end of the world. But there will have to be some fundamental changes in the way we design and use the technology.
--
Damn, blackout (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Damn, blackout (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Damn, blackout (Score:2)
Of course. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course. Free markets seek to maximize profits. In a sector where the barriers to entry are quite high, companies are much more able to increase price by lowering demand. It's one thing if the product in question is a luxury item, it's entirely another if it's an absolute necessity.
To put it more simply, they can charge us more money for the same amount of electricity if electricity is seen as something scarce. If electricity is seen as something that there is an abundance of, then they can't charge us as much.
Speaking of "Free Markets" in the sense of electricity isn't quite the same as speaking of free markets in terms of something like, say, cabbage. In my city of 0.5 million people, there are at least 0.4 million people capable of producing and selling cabbage. So, if the price of cabbage went up dramatically, you'd see people planting cabbage and selling it at lower prices. The barriers to entry (seed, land, water) are very common and cheap. Competition works for the consumers.
Now, if Scottish Power, which owns the local electric monopoly (company) were allowed to do what they wish with prices, of course they'd jack them up. But purchasing a large generator, becoming a public utility, going through the red-tape, putting up bonds, etc. is a long, expensive, and difficult process. In other words, the barriers to entry are much higher, so far, far fewer people would be able to provide an alternative to Scottish Power. That means, of course, that while it's not a true monopoly, Scottish power would have the ability to squeeze more money out of us for no other reason that "We can, so we will."
When options and alternatives are available, competition from free markets works. However, until sufficient options and alternatives exist to create competition, a deregulated market is essentially a government-created monopoly. ("You have no competitors, and provide an essential service? Well, then, feel free to rake the serfs over the coals at your leisure.")
steve
It's the combination of nationalism and capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
It has long been accepted and promoted by internationally minded people within the electrical utilities that power could be shared internationally in a global HVDC grid that would be both technically and economically superior to the primitive, isolated systems that predominate today.
The obstacles have nothing to do with technical or efficiency problems. Quite the contrary, the proposed system would be technically superior in the sense of being less prone to blackouts and without a doubt would lower electricity prices globally.
The problems arise when some countries have a slavish, not conicidentally religous fervor for "free markets" while others take a progressive attitude. This leads to a form of international competition that is not productive at all in the sense of the over-used market metaphor. This is highly destructive competion of the cold war sort in which destruction of the "enemy" at all costs displaces the goal of efficiency.
The London Blackout.... (Score:2, Interesting)
It was a power failure on a significant part of the London Underground (the underground train system).
The article furthers this misconception by compairing the London blackout the the blacking out of the US Eastern seaboard, which borders on the sensational. At no point does it tell you what actually blacked out.
Blackouts like the one that occured in Italy, and I *think*, but could well be wrong,
Re:The London Blackout.... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know where you got that idea from but it's completely wrong. London Underground ran their own power plant for nearly 100 years before they closed it last year [tfl.gov.uk] and went onto mains power. Bad (or unlucky) call. The report on the power failure [nationalgrid.com] is instructive reading on how a combination of circumstances can break what should have been a quadruply redundant system.
It annoyed the hell out of me that even here in London they reported a "London Blackout!" over the top of footage of a brightly lit evening street focusing on an entrance to a tube station (lit) with a flashing emergency sign (powered by electric not hampster power).
Sure, they don't have many feeds into the Tube power supply, so there were areas of London with power but no Underground trains. And once you've decided to evacuate, you can't switch the power back on without electrocuting a few commuters. You have to cold restart by clearing the whole system.
Re:The London Blackout.... (Score:3, Informative)
Moderators, please check facts before moderating. I can assure you that the London blackout was not a caused by or confined to the London Underground. It covered most of South London, plus the entire Underground system. Moreover the blackout happened at rush hour and on a system carrying nearly 6 million people a day, that results in a lot of people stuck underground in darkness.
No, it wasn't on the same scale as the US and Italy blackouts but the reason for that is largely because the UK's infrastructure
Think again.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It strikes me that national power systems often have dangerous reliance on a small number of big power-providers - large coal/gas/oil/nuclear stations, with electricity imported/transported down a few very large critical power lines. Alternative energy may provide a solution, because by its nature it needs a higher level of redundancy and a more intelligent and distributed power supply model. And its good for the planet too.. Wind energy [bwea.com] has really started to prove its use here in the UK, and is set to take off in the USA too [awea.org]. In the UK we should have 20% of national power from the Wind by 2020, and we have the offshore sites to get 100% eventually if we wanted. Add to that Solar, Tidal, etc.. Because of the very nature of these resources local/national distribution must be better, and include mechanisms to regulate in the case of a drop in power..
Oh, and what do you do when you have excess production? Turn the electricity into Hydrogen for your cars!
Lack of redundancy (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with the London blackout was a lack of redundant generating/distributing structure. Ironically, Transport for London had only very recently had a large ceremony in which they switched off the generator that had been powering the Tube, DLR, etc. These train networks were switched over to the national grid. Because of this, when two small (and easily repairable) failures in the distribution network occurred and the Grid provision to London and the south-east was interrupted, the trains and stations were rendered inactive. Only recently they would have been able to carry on unaffected thanks to their own generator, which the Mayor of London (Red Ken Livingstone) had insisted should continue suplying TfL.
So is a free market to blame? The problem here was a lack of redundant equipment, which was definitely a cost-saving exercise. But whether the costs are reduced in order to increase profit, or in order to reduce the tax burden, is insignificant in context. So no, in the case of the London blackout a free market wasn't the cause of the problems.
Badly formed markets cause blackouts (Score:2, Insightful)
A shared infrastructure may make it hard to deliver differing levels of reliability - which is where a central body (government usually) comes in and specifies the requirements.
In most cases, the government has simply demanded low cost electricity provis
Re:Badly formed markets cause blackouts (Score:2)
"should" and "do" are entirely different things. If it costs 1.25x more to provide reliable power, and electrical companies want to charge 5x more, then they use whatever legal (and often illegal) means to give the illusion that it's necessary to pay 5x
Is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that many of these countries have not had significant blackouts for years, decades even, and then they all have signigicant blackouts within the same six month period?
Personally I find it really hard to believe that, for instance, a falling tree branch somewhere in the mountains managed to down just the right powerline to cause a blackout in the whole of Italy. It just doesn't ring true to me. This is critical infrastructure for christsakes! Governments know where the weaknesses are and have all kinds of plans in place to prevent this type of thing happening in case of war. (My father used to be on some of the comittees that put these plans together in the UK. They know where the weaknesses in infrastructure are.)
So I find it really difficult to believe that there have been small incidents that just so happened to have hit the critical spot to take out large sections of the powergrids in a number of different countries all within a few months. Somethings going on here. What is it? I can only speculate:
1) These are actually well planned terrorist attacks which are hushed up because politically Bush/Blair etc. need to be seen to be "winning the war on terrorism", and so we the general public don't get to know about them. (Notice that the blackouts affected NY, London and Italy - all of which supported the Iraq war?)
2) There is some kind of power (pun not intended) game going on between different governments.
3) The utility companies are doing this on purpose in order to get more tax dollars invested in their industries.
(Some people are going to respond that I am paranoid and need a tinfoil hat. You might be right. But personally I think the current mentality of completely dismissing offhand anything that suggests governments or corporations can act in an underhand manner on a coordinated scale is unhealthy - these things should get discussed, otherwise people in power will start to think they can get away with crazy things just because nobody would believe they would do it!)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when the tree fell in the woods, nobody was around to hear it. Power outtages are one of the currently "trendy" things to report on, so you hear about much more of them.
Over the past several decades, the ability of the media to provide timely stories from farther away has greatly increased. Because of that, every glitzy, trendy subject can get far more coverage. When blackouts are the media's attention, you'll hear about plenty of them. When gun violence is their target, you'll hear about plenty of that.
The bit is that most of these things really aren't happening any more frquently than usual (sometimes actually LESS frequently!), but because you hear so much about it, it gives you the impression that it happens much more often.
Pick out a make, model, and color of car, and fixate your mind on it for a day or two. Suddenly, you will see far more of them on the road than you ever have before. There aren't really more of them, you just notice more of them.
steve
Re:Is it just me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh come on. I agree that there are trends in news stories, but Italy had not had a power outage on this scale for decades, nor had London or the USA. These are getting reported because they are significant.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Let's not forget southern Sweden. The last time we had an incident on this scale was in the eighties. And we beefed up our distribution infrastructure as a result that time.
Now, granted, this outage was rather 'unlucky' as such go, with two major unrelated outages in the same part of the country within minutes, while both the backups (sea cables to the continent) were down for maintainance.
It could be argued that taking both of them down at the s
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the USA, I've seen several instances nearly an entire state was without power, and it never hit the national media, and was never really discussed afterwards.
Large-area blackouts happen. They just hadn't happened in New York for a while.
steve
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:4, Insightful)
My bet is on the weather this summer, at least here in Europe. Nuclear power plants had to reduce their energy output (some down to 50%) because the streams and rivers used for cooling the plant were too warm (max. temp is, iirc, 25 celsius). If a majority of the power plants had to do this, the total amount of power produced is reduced, increasing the chance for an outage...
Overall, while harsh market conditions might create "inferior products", due to budget restraints, those failings put the company in a bad light. I guess the budget for the energy infrastructure will rise in the next years.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
4) the Grey Men's Mothership, buried for centuries beneath the antarctic ice cap, is powering up to send its invasion beacon back to the Home World. The ship's ion-magneto drive crystals are sucking electrical energy through and across the planetary leylines, and as foretold through the bible codes and Atlantean runes kept in that Bilderberg safe and passed down by centuries of Illuminati, even our tin-foil hats won't save us now, Sparky!
Hey, could happen, right?
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
You are mocking me. Well, you know I was expecting it...
Let me put the converse to you. Do you believe that it is impossible, or even highly improbable, that a government would hush-up something like a terrorist attack? If you do, go ahead and call me paranoid. I'll call you naive. Read some modern history books. You'd be suprised what governments are capable of.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Hush-up? I was pretty certain the government was going to accredit the recent US NorthEast blackout to terrorism REGARDLESS of the "real" reason. I think they think we could use a little bloodless terror attack to shock us out of complacency and re-focus pre-election attention onto terror threats and homeland security and away from economic issues.
I am also virtually certai
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
You think so? I don't. I think if the blackout in the US NE was due to a terrorist attack it would be highly embarrassing to the government.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
It's because reserves of coal/oil that were deemed uneconomic in the 70's can now be mined because of (a) improvements in technique and (b) people are willing to pay more for it.
Rough estimates today put this shortage to be in t
Shark Attacks! (Score:5, Insightful)
We tend to focus too much on the news of the moment. If we have a bunch of blackouts, all that will happen is we'll work real hard and turn the power back on.
Although the sequence of blackouts is an odd coincidence. Mebbe somebody's playing a trick.
Here's something to think about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every eocnomic and/or industrial revolution in the history of our planet has come about as a result of an increase in the ability to provide energy. That energy can be in the way of food (provide more workers), or it can be mechanical energy to perform tasks WITHOUT the workers. In either case, an increase of energy production and availability has spurred the revolution.
So, if a country wanted to greatly increase it's industry and economy, it's not entirely unreasonable that looking for ways to provide as much power as possible at the lowest rates would be a great way to start out.
Here's some more to think about: In prtty much all of those revolutions, the changes came from the bottom up, so to speak - the workers/merchants were the ones doing the innovating, and freedom to do so was a critically important ingredient for the recipe to work.
In previous times, it wasn't very easy to get a monopoly on energy without stifling growth - once you completely controlled the food or other source of energy, the motivation to innovate was greatly stifled - people don't care about producing excesses of food if they know you'll just take it away. And if you didn't take control (left the market free), then there was plenty of competition in the markets of food, lumber, and other sources of energy.
Today, however, things are different. Our energy sources (oil, electricity, natural gas, etc.), which allow us to use much greater amounts of energy, are also very easily monopolized because of distribution. If you own the oil/natural gas pipes, the electrical lines, or the phone lines, then it's awfully tough for someone to cut in on your profiteering racket. To do so takes a governmental mandate, and as we've seen in the telecom industry, at times even THAT isn't enough.
steve
overdependence (Score:3, Funny)
because god knows, dying in the electricity apocalypse would suck, but i'd rather go there than in the sewage apocolypse.
thank you, good night.
utilities (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it? The picture is clear on all utilities: Privatisation has almost always had the same effect:
* In the short run, prices plummet and more alternatives appear.
* In the long run, after a low number of de-facto monopolists remain, prices rise and reliability and service go down
Exceptions I know about are:
* Some 2nd world countries that were forced to privatisation by the WTO, where the first step was skipped (water in south america, great topic)
* A few 1st world countries who - so far - managed to keep competition going, usually by the dreaded government intervention against emerging monopolies.
The problem is simple: As a government company, a utilities' purpose is to supply something to the people, be it water, power or phone service.
As a commercial entity, its purpose is to make money for its stockholders. If regular blackouts increase your profits, we will see more of them. If firing half your service people, reducing maintainance costs and saving the R&D money for future developments rises the stock prices, that is what we will see to happen.
Oh, sorry, have seen happening.
Re:utilities (Score:2)
The exceptions are markets with low barriers of entry. When barriers to entry are low, competition abounds. The higher the barriers to entry, the less competition there is, and the more the market fits your description.
steve
Re:utilities (Score:2)
Bullshit... (Score:2)
And about the b
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
Also, small lapses in productivity can often be written off, but as for anything non-trivial, perhaps you should look more into the mechanics of what drives industry and economy. Guess what the driving factor is... energy!
Sure, Poland survived with lon
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
Speaking as someone who used to need a life-support machine, I'd say that opinion is a tad blase;, personally...
OK, medical facilities will (or at least, should) have their own backups but those only last for so long. A blackout is bit more serious than somebody's work PC switching off.
Cheers,
Ian
Telepolis ... (Score:4, Insightful)
- Welcome to Brainwashington D.C. [heise.de]
- Lenin lives [heise.de]
- The New Black Gold [heise.de]
- Skepticism about the Official Explanation of 9-11 Spreads [heise.de]
Just so you know who you are getting your information fromSuccesful free market is a generalization (Score:2)
The fact that free market has been demonstrated to be succesful in most areas of economy is a generalization. The free market, just like any other economical method, is subject to human mistakes and misexpectations, even in a global scale (e.g. the Y2K issues). The free market only gives an advantage to the ones who make less mistakes and do more accurate predictions.
Weakest Link = Problem (Score:2)
Correct problem, wrong cause (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is in the design of networks. Information networks are designed to be fault-tolerant (famously but erroneously attributed to a desire to withstand nuclear attacks) -- multiple connections and a "mesh" network mean that if nodes break, traffic is routed elsewhere and the network continues to function. This works great, and there's no problem with it. But the problem is, humans don't build networks this way, and economics is against doing so.
If you're buying a network connection, you buy it from the best provider available, which naturally means network connections become concentrated to a few suppliers, who in turn find economies of scale and provide lower prices, thus attracting more customers. Thus the economics of building networks naturally produces networks that have a few or even single points of failure: we noticed this on September 11th, when the knockout of the huge links through New York noticeably slowed transatlantic traffic, even to sites other than CNN and the other news sites that were being toasted by demand at that point. Centralisation is something that we naturally do because it's economically efficient, but centralisation leads to problems for networks.
In the energy sector, things are even less flexible, because energy connections are a lot more expensive to set up and difficult to maintain than information links. The US powercut was caused by the cascading failure of a daisy-chain of power stations around the great lakes. Nobody would build an information network that way any more, but it's still the natural way to build a power network. Italy's powercut was caused by a huge reliance on foreign power, supplied by JUST TWO LINKS to France -- one fell over, instantly overloading the second and knocking it out too.
Yes, we are critically reliant on these fragile networks. And yes, economic realities tend to cause these problems, but not because of privatization: it's simply because humans naturally tend to build poor networks, because those are cheaper -- no matter who pays the bills. To solve the problem, we need to pay more attention to networking theory when building all of our networks, and provide regulatory incentives to build better networks of both kinds.
Or one day, a critical failure will cause a cascading catastrophe, and it will be nobody's fault. We built the network to fail that way.
Local power plants (Score:2)
However, Joe Moron, who is convinced that it's fine to dig up fossil fuels out of the ground to use for generating electricity {increasing atmospheric CO2 levels}, OK to dump energy-rich organic matter in landfill where it will decay into methane {which
Free markets? (Score:5, Interesting)
The energy industry was underinvested for more than 15 years now, but we still had no major blackouts (other than customers disconnected for not paying their bills). The United Energy System is being reformed now to make it attractive for investors. I don't know if the positive effect of much needed investment will be offset by poor reliability, but I hope that remaining government regulation and "traditions" of the industry will help us avoid freemarket-style blackouts.
Competition has its drawbacks, but no alternative (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically, the Soviet power grid was very close to optimal design: decentralised network encompassing the whole country, efficient, built with ability to sustain major damage (large-scale war) in mind. However, with the fall of Soviet Union all infrastructure has ended with a handful of individuals, who now have a perfect monopoly and use it to enforce prices they want. The end result is often similar: public schools and hospitals are getting cut off because they can't afford electricity.
"Free" Markets (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is politicians don't understand free markets. If you want a company to do something, you have to motivate them with their balance sheet. Regulation, inspections, requirements, whatever don't work because they will always find a way to cut corners. That's their job, save money, increase profits. Duh.
For electricity, if you real want to deregulate, do it right. First, if you want reliability, make the companies financially responsible for outages. If it hits them in the bottom line, they will invest the infrastructure, procedures, etc. to make sure the lights stay on.
Second, you have to make sure it's not at all a monopoly. If it even smells like a monopoly, then you should remain regulated. It's pretty hard to make electricty a non-monopoly when there's only one line coming to my house. This means we really only have one distributor. Ever. As long as we have one, leave it regulated, state-owned, etc. and let the suppliers compete. This is coming from the biggest capitalist you are likely to meet. But without competition, capitalism doesn't work.
Just make blackouts cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Power Distribution Tax (Score:3, Interesting)
Nordpool = evil (Score:3, Interesting)
economics 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in and of themselves, but it s arguable that blackouts will be more prevalent under free market conditions than if the power supply and grid are regulated.
The demand for eletricity is relatively inelastic. Regardless of price, we need to turn on the lights, run our refrigerators and cook our meals. Electricity is an unusual commodity insofar as once it is generated, it cannot be stored for future use. We have to use it or lose it.
If the electricity market is operating under free market conditions, the power generator will be interested in producing only as much electricity as can be sold (as excess goes to immediately to waste) and wants to sell this power at the highest possible price.
There is no virtue in over-supply as that serves to drive the prices down. If anything, the power generators will attempt to create artificial shortages in order to use the laws of supply and demand to their advantage. Hence the concept of "gaming" which we saw in California in which the power generating companies would temporarily take functional generating capacity offline in an attempt to drive up the price of power. The demand was relatively constant, and when the prices rose sufficiently high, the offline generators would be plugged back into the grid and the power companies would make a premium.
Under ideal free market conditions, other investors would notice that the existing power companies were making out like bandits and invest in additional power generation utilities in hopes of getting a piece of that action. The demand curve is relatively constant, so as the supply increased, the price charged to consumers would ultimately decrease to something more reasonable. The reality is that it takes several years in order to go through the regulatory process to get approval to build a power generator. Rightly so, as it would not be appropriate to build nuclear generating plants just anywhwere, nor would it be acceptable to build dams for hydro-electric generators ad-hoc. So, it is simply not the case that other sources of power generation would show up in the short term to increase the supply (resulting in lower prices) in the short term. For all intents and purposes, electricity generation is a monopoly where there is little opportunity for competitors to enter the market place, and no incentive for existing manufacturers to increase the supply of electricity beyond a certain minimal level.
Western society has progressed to the point where electrical power is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity that is vital to our existence and economy. From that perspective it makes sense that power generation (and transmission) should be at the very least a heavily regulated monopoly where the existing operators are permitted a reasonable profit but are required to meet certain levels of service.
Personally, I would prefer to see power generation and transmission run as not-for-profit ventures and the consumers should be charged on a cost-recovery basis.I do not think that for-profit enterprises would voluntarily invest in redundancy or the necessary capacity planning for the future. It is difficult to make a business case and calculate ROI for a project that may take 20 years to complete. It the private sector, many companies and investors are focused on the next quarter, and there is apparently no interest in the long-term for those day-traders.
That's my $.02 and I experienced the blackout in North America earlier this summer first-hand, for whatever that is worth...
Transmission and Generation are Different (Score:4, Insightful)
The reasoning is simple: competition is good, monopolies are bad; if you can introduce competition, then do so; if you can't, then a government run monopoly is preferable to a private monopoly.
Power generation can clearly be run as a competative free market. Not free from government regulation, mind you; but there's no need for governments to run power plants. And the regulation has to work both ways, including fighting against the NIMBY instincts of land owners.
But for power transmission, on the other hand, it's very hard to have real competition. The barriers to entry (the start up capital of running lots of wires) are too high (generally. there are a few exceptions). So in that case, the government should run the distribution network (whether it's paid for out of general taxation or a user fee is another issue).
The worst thing you can do is have the government contract out a monopoly to the private sector. This produces the worst of both worlds and allows people to negatively caricature free markets, even though it isn't a free market, just a private company operating a monopoly.
There, problem solved. We've got free markets and we've got public ownership. Everyone's happy. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, each turbine (there will be 30 or so in total) requires a 400 cubic metre concrete foundation. Now, 1cu.m. of concrete weighs 7 tonnes. Making 1 tonne of concrete releases 1 tonne of carbon dioxide (damn slashcode, no >sub<tag). That means that casting each foundation will release 2,800 tonnes of CO2 (again, imagine the "2" subscripted), a total of 84,000 tonnes of CO2. That doesn't include the exhaust gases from the machinery used to dig the founds. And that's only for the founds, never mind the cast concrete masts that will be built.
Nuclear power isn't actually that dirty, you know. If fast breeder reactors were researched a little more, we'd have good, relatively clean, power stations. Although, at the moment, combined cycle gas turbines take the prize.
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:4, Interesting)
OTOH, I raise issue with your discussion of the CO2 emissions involved in erecting wind farms. I've been reading up about the construction of wind farms (they plan to build one in Portland Harbour - I live in Weymouth[*]) and accept the ~84Gg CO2 figure you give. Remember though, that wind farms only need to be built once during their career. Think of how much CO2 a coal-fired station - which has an efficiency of about 29%[@] puts out over its whole career, including constructing the huge concrete cooling towers. Wind still wins.
Also, wind farms are generally nicer-looking. Down in the West Country (and over in Holland, FWIW) they're minor tourist attractions.
[*]They're using a few big masts instead of a lot of small ones; the test station is 30m (~100ft) tall.
[@]Nuclear power stations are less efficient than this - about 23% - because of the complexity of handling the fuel after it's been used.
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is, each turbine (there will be 30 or so in total) requires a 400 cubic metre concrete foundation. Now, 1cu.m. of concrete weighs 7 tonnes. Making 1 tonne of concrete releases 1 tonne of carbon dioxide (damn slashcode, no sub tag). That means that casting each
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:2)
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact the nearest thing I've seen to a "battery" for generation was in Scotland, where they have a system that can use excess power to pump water uphill, then use it for hydroelectric generation when required. You do need
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
We do have an efficient way of storing power (Score:3, Interesting)
The technique's being used effectively by the Solar II experimental station in California.
http://rhlx01.rz.fht-esslingen.de/projects/alt_
Re:So, what do YOU propose? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is needed is the ability to store energy during off times. A good example is useing Boeings idea of a heated salt-based sterling engine to store and generate electricity.
In fact, I would love to see small companies started up that has the sole approach of storing electricity generated at off-hours, which is normally charged at lesser rate. They would then release during the daytime at the h
Re:So, what do YOU propose? (Score:2)