US turns to India for blackout advice

NEW DELHI: What does the world's one and only super power do when it faces power blackouts? It comes to the expert, of course! And what if that expert happens to be a Third World country?

Well, exactly such a situation arose when the US approached India on Friday seeking advice on how to tackle power blackouts, reports the Financial Times.

But this is nothing to be shocked about. After the total blackout in north-east America earlier this month, the US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson had rightly remarked: "We're the world's greatest superpower but we have a third world electricity grid."

India, for the uninitiated, is world's No. 1 when it comes to tackling grid failures. It comes from all that experience, you see! After all, with five blackouts in the last seven years, India, is a top hand at tackling such crises.

"I have learned a lot from my Indian counterparts," said William Massey, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, on a visit scheduled before the US blackout, quotes the Financial Times.

R P Singh, chairman of India's Power Grid Corporation, had said: "We have had lots of visits from other countries, including Japan and China," said Singh.

With a hot summer and a worsening power situation in the western hemisphere, it wouldn't be surprising if more First World powers queue up before India in the near future.

Shortage = Demand > Supply
at some particular time and place
at some government-specified price

Under any given conditions the government could always produce either a shortage or a surplus of supply, by specifying a low or a high price.

A high price stinks.

But not like a blackout does . . .

"Under any given conditions the government could always produce either a shortage or a surplus of supply, by specifying a low or a high price."

Am I understanding you to say, "raise the price of electricity and the demand will go down"? Then will we have fixed-income old folks dying of heat strokes cause they can't afford their power bills... resulting in the cry for gov't subsidized power for seniors (like gov't paid drugs for seniors)... thus a need for more taxes to cover the cost of it?

I don't think the answer is to force less use of power, but instead to increase the power we generate.

India uses a form of rolling blackouts to try to prevent power grid failures. I don't think this is something Americans are willing to live with.

Our power problems are simply supply side problems, not enough generating capacity. Clean air regulations discourage many utilities to delay or forego new plant construction. America had a leg up on nuclear plants until the greens killed that idea. American coal production has been hampered by enviromental wacko regulations as well as Clinton's declaration of Utah's low sulfer coal reserves being a national monument.

In a nutshell, the leftists have caused the problem with power grids and now they want to consult with people who don't have a clue but who are "Asians" and therefore so much smarter than Americans.

Do you want to solve the problem? Build more capacity. End of story.

Some utilities in different areas have plenty of capacity. Others have not kept supply up with demand. Political solution. Power grid. Rob from the able and efficient and give to the less able and efficient. Result: As in Califoria, do not solve the situation, but rely on the able and efficient to keep subsidizing the free-loaders. Works great in a socialist system but fails as miserably as all other schemes to give to each according to his needs, at the expense of those providing for his own needs.

What a pile of crap....I lived in India, and I can tell you that the power black outs are a hourly event, in fact we had a 20 KW diesel generator to run the house.....

The local power man would ride up on his bike, and strap in a piece of copper wire for a fuse, then the wire would glow red hot for a couple of hours, until it melted; then the same little guy would ride up and repeat the sequence.

Nothing has changed since the Brits left in 1947.

Our power problems are simply supply side problems, not enough generating capacity.

Bzzzt!

Wrong!

WHILE some of the blackouts we've had in recent times has been due to resources being off line and down for maintenance at a *critical* time, this doesn't exactly translate directly into a simple 'supply side' problem ...

NEW DELHI: What does the world's one and only super power do when it faces power blackouts?

I DOUBT 'the grid' in India has EVER faced a sudden loss of 1100 to 2200 MW of 'load' (as HAPPENED a week ago Thursday) - RESULTING in a power 'swell' into the rest of the system (to the east) that then caused lines and power plants to 'trip' off line ... this last blackout (2003) plus the 1965 NE blackout make for TWO cases now where this effect has been seen.

RE: Richardson's smart a$$ "third world" remark According to a Reuters report, Wednesday, June 28, 2000

"U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said today a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest region could cause rolling blackouts along the West Coast, highlighting the situation as an example of how stressed-out the nation's power grid is as summer starts.

"Appearing before the House Commerce Committee to discuss national energy policy, the energy secretary said an unplanned outage at the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire also raised his concern about possible New England power shortages."

He'd been Energy Secretary for how long and DID NOTHING! Now the puke Democrats blame President Bush.

Liberalism is an emotional illness.

The problem, ultimately, is technological. The current technology of centralized electricity generation no longer works. What's needed is distributed energy generation.

When fuel cells are finally used to power cars, the family car could easily become the power source for the house, with just water vapor as the exhaust locally, and CO2 exhaust at the fuel reformation (hydrogen) stations. And the CO2 wouldn't have to be from "greenhouse warming" sources. Recent advances in de-polymerization of organic substances will allow the recycling of everything organic, from landfill to yard clippings.

In addition, recent breakthroughs in solar cell technology promise conversion ratios of 50% or more, making it possible for a 20'x 20' rooftop area to supply more than enough electricity for one house.

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