Free Republic

Forget all the concern about al Qaeda terrorists using explosions to take out our power grid or foreign hackers disabling it from afar - in Texas a cold front can apparently do the job. As the lights flickered and went dark across Texas on Wednesday in response to a state-mandated rolling blackout plan, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was clearly irritated. He wasn't the only one. "This should not happen," Dewhurst told reporters on Wednesday. Dewhurst said that cold weather knocked 50 of the 550 power plants in Texas offline. That, coupled with increased demand, turned out the lights. "Lack of...

DALLAS – They are the critical care safety nets for North Texas: Parkland, Baylor, Methodist and Presbyterian Dallas. So, during Wednesday’s rolling outages, why was the power cut to these vital hospitals? Jorie Klein runs disaster management for Parkland Hospital, and is still upset that her hospital was included in the rotating outages. “We were not happy,” she said. “You can’t just go down for 15 minutes and come back up. It really does disrupt hospital care.” “We are sorry this happened. We are in a process of refining our processes, so in the unlikely event of future mandates for...

Gaza residents have been without electricity for most of the day this week due to the Palestinian Authority’s halt in fuel shipments through Israeli crossings. Unlike previous blackouts allegedly caused by limited Israeli shipments of diesel, the international community generally has remained silent. The PA in Ramallah, headed by the Fatah party, is demanding back payment of millions of dollars for electricity. The rival Hamas party, which controls Gaza, claims that most of the money wasn’t paid because it is used for operating costs of the Gaza generator

Twitter is the rage at the White House...Obama hasn't held a wide-ranging press conference since July and rarely talks to the small press pool following him around. Obama aides say it's because they don't want to craft "message events," only to have the press ask about something else that makes news and steps on their spin. Gibbs and other top administration imagemakers argue their direct-marketing strategy is not an anti-First Amendment ploy or an attempt to make the White House press corps obsolete. Instead, they say it's simply about controlling the message.

<p>RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's two largest cities have been hit by a massive blackout that has also affected other parts of Latin America's largest nation.</p> <p>Media reports say problems at a huge hydroelectric dam are to blame for the electrial outages affecting large parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities in several states.</p>

In an explosive interview by Dr. Laurie Roth on her syndicated West Coast radio show on August 7th, Douglas Hagmann—a respected journalist, director of the Northeast Intelligence Network and longtime private investigator, and Judi McLeod, a prolific journalist and the managing editor of Canada Free Press—the reason for the media blackout about the birth-certificate issue was nothing less than organized Mafia-like dire threats to members of the media issued not only from the heads of major TV and radio stations but also from Federal Communication Commission officials!

More info: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Cal-ISO-Declares-Power-Emergency-64172852.html

The article at the link cites other publications like Le Monde, L'Union, and La Provence discussing the state induced media blackout - the press has been ordered not to report what appears to be record levels of violence. Police ambushes, burning cars, neighborhood fires etc.

Deployments of smart grids should be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed, according to some cybersecurity experts, citing tests showing that a hacker can cause a major blackout after breaking into a smart-grid system. The idea behind smart grids, a burgeoning energy sector in which even Google is playing a role, is that automated meters and two-way power consumption data can be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of an electrical system's power distribution. A washing machine in a household hooked up to a smart meter, for instance, could be set up to run only at lower-cost, off-peak hours,...

February 4, 2009 Dear Mr. Secretary: Since the Committee last convened in early November, the contraction in economic activity has deepened and broadened, while financial markets have remained under duress. The unprecedented volatility present in capital markets when the Committee last met has diminished somewhat but conditions still are exceptionally challenging. Policy efforts have begun to unlock credit for select high-quality borrowers. But the magnitude of wealth destruction, the still heightened cost of economy-wide capital and the impaired system of financial intermediation continue to cast a dark cloud over the economic outlook. Monetary and fiscal policy action now being implemented...

POSTED: 5:29 am HST January 5, 2009 UPDATED: 9:20 am HST January 5, 2009 Gabbard Wants Answers On Cause, Length Of Outage HONOLULU -- Some powerful state senators are seeking an explanation for why the power went out the day after Christmas and why it took so long to restore it. The chairman of the Senate committee on energy and environment announced Sunday he'll hold a hearing later this month to look into the power outage. Parts of Oahu were without electricity all night Dec. 26 and into the next day. On Sunday, Sen. Mike Gabbard called a news conference...

Oahu was without power overnight, possibly from a lightning strike, and Hawaiian Electric Co. officials said to expect it to last until morning. The outages, which began hitting various parts of the island at about 6:30 p.m., also affected the Kailua neighborhood where President-elect Barack Obama is staying. Mayor Mufi Hannemann said at about 10:10 p.m. that Honolulu police had talked to Obama. “He said he is fine and he and his family are going to bed,” the mayor said on KSSK. Gov. Linda Lingle advised all residents to do the same. She said Heco officials advised her that it...

HONOLULU (Reuters) - The resort and much of the island of Oahu where President-elect Barack Obama is vacationing was hit by a major blackout on Friday evening but it was not immediately clear if his compound had a backup source of electricity.

Some stuck without power powerless to fight bank fees Friday, September 19, 2008 By Margaret Harding THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH When his power returned without Internet service Monday, Tom Perry had a bit of a financial freakout. "It was kind of a panic-stricken moment there: 'Oh, no, what am I going to do?' " said Perry, whose credit-card and mortgage payment were both due that day. Perry, like many others, pays his bills online. Online banking and bill payment are pushed as the easiest and most efficient ways to handle such transactions, but a power outage such as the one central...

<p>Five years after the worst blackout in North American history, the country's largest power providers say the problems that turned out the lights on 50 million people have largely been resolved, but they fear that larger, systemic issues could soon lead to even bigger and more damaging outages.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Thousands homes and businesses are without power and Dupont Circle and Metro Center Metrorail stations are closed after a major outage in northwest D.C. on Friday. Officials said the outage was due to a failure at a substation on 10th Street. About 12,000 customers were without power at 10:30 a.m. Pepco said the outages stretches from as far north as U Street N.W. to F Street N.W., the Dupont Circle area to the west and Third Street N.W. to the east. Many downtown workers have been waiting outside on city streets because their offices are dark. Power is...

Bo (woof) In Commentary: I’ve always known that mice can’t read, but this story makes me wonder whether the same is true of cats. (A cat chasing a mouse in Tirana’s main power station caused a 72-hour blackout across parts of the Albanian capital, the electricity company said on Friday (local time). “A cat and a mouse ran into the high-voltage cables,” a company spokeswoman said, showing pictures of the electrocuted animals.) What part of the DANGER - High Voltage sign did Mittens not understand? (con't @ http://boknowsonline.com/2008/05/21/442/#more-442 )

The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The date was November 15, 2007. The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an...

HOUSTON, Feb 29 (Reuters) - FPL Group's (FPL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Florida utility Florida Power & Light said preliminary results of the investigation into Tuesday's four-hour blackout indicated that human error was the primary cause. The blackout affected about 584,000 FPL customers in South Florida, the Juno Beach-based company said in a release on Friday. A total of about 1 million customers of four utilities across the state lost power as emergency safety systems were activated to prevent long-term damage to power plants and transmission equipment. FPL said preliminary findings indicated that a field engineer diagnosing a problem switch at...

<p>Widespread power outages were reported Tuesday from Miami to Jacksonville on Florida's east coast and as far north as Tampa on the Gulf Coast, police and utility officials said.</p> <p>As many 800,000 Florida Power & Light Co. customers are without power Tuesday afternoon, the company said.</p>