Posted on 08/14/2003 4:42:39 PM PDT by Shermy
BOULDER, COLORADO - Energy experts have been warning about large-scale blackouts in North America since the early eighties.
Bill Browning of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado says a report for the U.S. Pentagon in 1982 cautioned the American government about the fragility of the power grid system in North America.
The institute is an energy think tank. Browning runs the green development section.
"Everyone is pulling power and there's lots of big stations on the grid. All you need is one tenuous problem and it cascades throughout," Browning told CBC News Online.
Other experts agree.
"It's pretty close to peak demand," Gerry Angiovine of Navigant Consulting in Calgary, told CBC News Online.
"If suddenly you get one or two of the big suppliers going down…you may have a situation where you've got more being drawn than the system can supply…" he said.
Browning says a few years ago the same thing happened on the West Coast. Six states lost power all because a squirrel got burned on one of the transformers at a crucial time.
"Can you imagine? The entire power system breaks down because of a small rodent?" He says the solution would be to have something called "distributed generation" — a grid system supported by smaller producers, almost on a building by building scale. Browning says other energy sources such as fuel cells and micro-turbines should be used to shoulder the burden of energy distribution.
"At one time, the grid system seemed logical. If you have to do maintenance on one plant, then the grid connects everyone so the power keeps up. But that is also a fragility in the system."
Browning says energy experts such as himself are not surprised by the current blackout. He says it is bound to happen from time to time.
"The system, as we have designed it, is brittle. The only way we can make it resilient is to a mixture so that if portion of it goes down we can have islands of power still operating."
Browning says it often takes a major event to make authorities realize something needs to be done.
Written by CBC News Online staff
There should be a debate with Gray Davis asking what he is doing to prevent this kind of thing happenning in California!
That would just be real interesting!
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Amen, brother!
What a golden opportunity for Bush to slam the Demon-cratic leftist-greenie-ELF-envirowacko-obstructionists who think we are going to "conserve our way out of an energy crisis".
We want power and we want it cheap. And we don't want a power plant built within 50 miles of where any of us live, and in the case of California, not even in Mexico.
I've been predicting snowstorms and hurricanes since the early eighties, too. And since I am right a few times a year instead of once or twice every three decades, my track record is clearly better than anything these "experts" have to offer.
/sarcasm off/
P.S. The irony here is that the nuclear plants and natural gas plants were the ones that shut down. The hydroelectric plants were the only ones that had no disruption.
And ever vigilant FReepers have dutifully tracked these events:
Squirrel Plunges Downtown Saginaw Into Darkness
Squirrel fell on power line, authorities say
Squirrel (islamic militant?) knocks out power in OKC buildings
Squirrel Cuts Power Supply To 5,000
This conclusive evidence PROVES that there is a vast squirrelly conspiracy against our nation's electrical infrastructure.
Congress needs to act and place a bounty on ALL squirrels!
As every Seinfeld fan knows, while we have a deal with the pigeons, we have no deal with the squirrels.
That sums up this problem. What this problem does show should be a MAJOR concern to everyone.
First, it highlights the vulnerability of the grid for those who wish to do evil.
Second, it shows the impact of complete non-action over the last 20 years. Hell, France is loaded with Nuke plants yet this country hasn't built a new one in years.
Third, it shows our HUGE reliability on abundant, available, clean power.
Fourth, as long as we continue to keep our collective head in the sand, this problem will get worse.
So...what do we need?
IMO we need:
Yucca Mountain to open up for Nuke waste.
Nuke plants being built and licensed across the country.
Rate increases to cover re-investment in generation and transmission assets.
IPP's - Independent Power Producers need to be supported financially. Enron killed this promising market.
Deregulation needs to move forward more rapidly.
There are others...I'd like to hear them.
Wrong answer, but you got it right later. It's deregulation.
Prices need to fluctuate in order to balance supply and demand.
I couldn't get the same price today, but competition benefits everyone except the lazy.
As long as there are enough suppliers, dereg works quite well. In Montana, I can't find enough suppliers for my customers to make it a go. In the Northeast, there are plenty.
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