unclebuck

Including New York among others. Just been announced on the news. What's that all about then? They say it's not terrorism so WTF is going on? Skynet becoming self aware?


UB

unclebuck

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3152451.stm

UB

ozzy

aheem

SIAL ?

Stefan

unclebuck

fair do's, didn't see that

but what is going on

UB

swiss scooby

I see a lot of pregnant women on the horizon!!!

ozzy

no fires, no explosions; just some power stations that shut themselves off after an overload.

Nice to know that the (supposedly) most power country in the world can grind to a hault from shutting down a few power stations.

God help them if they ever start getting attacked regularly by terrorists. Think they should stick to saving the world from little green men

Stefan

Big Goon

lol

esmerelda9920750

Its taking the yanks months to restore power to most of Iraq after the skirmishs.....

How many months for a lightning strike caused power cut in the Eastern Seaboard of the States?

Perhaps they will practice the art of electrical repairs at home first before they try it in Iraq

(altho...a cynical reason for keeping power off in Iraq here.....if the power stays off in Iraq, the yanks won't be shot at so much at night, maybe)

Anyway its still comforting to know that those damned yanks can still do things bigger and better than the rest of us lol

unclebuck

In the context of Iraq, there is certainly an irony in this story.

There must be a lot of people around the world having a good chuckle.

UB

ianmiller999

Andybody see the film on BBC1 last night at 11.30. Similar story line.

SPEN555

Ian,

What was it? 'Threads'

Nimbus

...now there's a film that should be shown again....

logiclee

The UK will be in the same situation within 5 years and we will be in a total pi*s within 10.

The Governments energy white paper is a joke. Most of the UK coal fired stations will have to close in 8 years time as they will not meet the emmission target. Most other large countries the US, Australia, Asia etc are investing heavily in clean coal technology but we are not.
Nuclear is an expensive, dying, ball and chain industry thats only going in one direction.
That leaves us with Gas fired powerstations. We only have proven reserves of natural gas for 6 years, estimates are we have 8 to 10 years left. The eastern European countries are gearing up now as they realise in ten years time the UK will be reliant on imported natural gas through huge pipelines. One eastern block company has control of 60% of the worlds supplies.

But we are getting these windmills I hear you say.

The most optomistic forecast is that renewables will account for 10% of generation within 10 years. What is being hidden is the fact that energy consumption is expected to rise by 12% during the same period.

You had better get a stock of candles in now.

Everyone in the Industry knows whats around the corner. The Government does not want to listen. Tony Blair likes to make his renewable energy speaches and no one in the Government is prepared to argue against him. In 5 years time it will be too late and we will have selective power cuts and power sharing like they have in Canada.
When you get to this point one major problem and the grid goes into overload.

This is going to make the transport situation seem like a minor problem.

Lee



[Edited by logiclee - 8/15/2003 9:37:04 PM]

Beefy

/me packs bags.

I'm off to live outside the EC where all the regulations dont apply. Actually I could always live in europe, they dont seem to bother too much about such things!



[Edited by Beefy - 8/16/2003 12:06:44 AM]

stephen emery

The USA is so short sighted so i don't think they will even notice

Houlbt

I'm not convinced the UK is going to end up in the dire predicament Logiclee forecasts...

US blackouts were due to (by the looks of it) poor managment of the system/systems by the relevant US and Canadian grid operators. Plant trips... it happens but I am surprised that the sytem operator did not have sufficient margin availble to handle compensate for this eventuality or adequate emergency load shedding measures in place.

The UK has plent of surplus generating capacity, plenty of currently mothballed plant and a couple of new plants commissioning now and in the near future.

The UK... forget the environmental considerations, at the end of the day the UK Government is committed to renaewables etc etc but if they cannot meet these targets they will simply move the goal posts or accept some hefty EU fine... either way this commitment is not going to jeopardise security of supply in this country

I can't see how if we need to buy our Gas from outside of the UK this is a big deal and will lead to a situation of selective power cuts etc? There would only be a problem if the Gas industry had not recognised the changing geography of known gas reserves and was not developing the infrastructure to get the gas from the reserves to the demand.

In the UK where it is cost effective, companies are investing in their coal fired plant to reduce emmissions.... you might even see more of this happen if long term wholsale power prices continue to trend up.

TopBanana

Why don't we go nuclear big-time?

logiclee

Most plans for new stations have been scrapped. The biggest coal fired station Drax has narrowly avoided bancruptcy, TXU Europe has gone into liquidation and most of the coal fired plants do not expect to continue after 2010.

The Goverments own forecast for the increase in renewables does not even keep pace with the increase in demand never mind displacing existing generation.

There isn't another Government in the world that doesn't consider security of supply as Vital. The Dash for Gas has meant that we have wasted our natural gas supplies on Electricity generation. We have only a handful of mines left for coal supplies most of which will close within 7 years. We will be totally reliant on gas pipelines that run through some of the most unstable countries in the world. What do you think will happen when our terrorist friends realise they can shut the UK down by blowing up pipelines at any point between the old USSR an the UK?
Every other country including the EU countries value security of supply. Large parts of Germany like the UK is built on coal. The German mines produce coal at 300% of the cost of UK mines but the German Government is commited to a secure supply for its country.

This is a Defence issue and should not be left to market forces.

That would mean massive investment from Government, the tax payer and electricity customers. Nuclear is very expensive its already dying and being propped up by the Government.
The money would be better invested in clean fossil fuel technology, investing in the UK's own supplies and continuing the push for renewables.

Lee






[Edited by logiclee - 8/16/2003 10:13:46 AM]

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Saw it on the news last night and found it highly amusing, they get a power cut and the whole of NY grinds to a halt, no one knows what to do, they abandon there cars and walk home how pathetic is that, do American cars not have headlights or something

It was complete pandamonium peoplw milling around all over the place, not seen anything that funny in ages

[Edited by Wurzel - 8/16/2003 2:16:55 PM]

Markus

Also effected Canada too! Power went out here in Toronto at about 4pm on Thursday, and we're not talking about just one part, the whole fapping place! mental! we adjourned to the bar on the ground floor for a few hours, then went home. I got my power back home at 3am Friday morning, but I was very lucky, Nicky did not have her power back until about 4 -5 pm ish on Friday, and that seemed to be the norm. We're told there could be more black outs to follow, as people start using power and stations that are not 100 percent online take the strain and possibly fail.

The cause? well, not much info on that. however, they know it was something to do with the grid in the lakie eierie (sp?) area, ie; Niagra area.

Detroit, Ottowa, Toronto, New York, and other places are all on the same big grid, and they all flow through the Nigara exchange type place, and that is where they think the problem occured.

totally mad!

As to what happened? who knows, comments range from some terrorist attack that is being covered up to someone pressing the wrong button in a power plant. One thing that has been mentioned is that there are anti-terrorisim mechanisms in place on the power grid, which, if triggered, so cause a shutdown in power, so it's possible this was accidentialy triggered.

Some put this down to the heat, but it's not been overly hot here or in the effect areas, well, not as hot as it has been.

Best thing? got a day off work, I had power at home, but the office did not, oh dear, what a shame *snigger* .

Other good thing was the mayor of Toronto. There is the ususal USA blaming Canada and Canada blaming usa thing going on. When the mayor was asked about this, he said "When have you EVER heard America take the blame for ANYTHING" oh how true is that!

Oh and bush was on the news going on about this, like he has even the slightest clue WTF happened or why, or even what to do!

As for this happening in the UK, interesting. Not sure how good our grid is. I do know how easy it is to knock out the power in my local area back in the UK, and I guess the same would apply to most if not all the UK. But I would like to think we have a better clue about setting up and maintaining power grids than the the chaps over here.

Little Miss WRX

On the news lately was a story that in the summer due to the ancient power cables and such around certain suburbs in Sydney, blackouts and shortages will be a major issue from the strain of lots of air conditioning units in use.......

One of the suburbs likely to be affected is the one I am living in. Fantastic......sweaty summers here we come.

Markus

Wurzel - it was slightly funny, however, I can see why people abandoned cars, well, when it got dark. There would be headlights but no traffic lights or other illuminations, and in a big city, with people milling around anyway, it's a recipie for disaster. Hell, even in my little area where I live, when it got dark there was no way I was goin out in the car, why/ I saw way to many people all over the road, no idea where things were! was manic!

good time to cop a feel of that nice girl whose in the crush next to you though hehehe. Plus major sharking bonus points when you tell the lovely ladies "oh, you don't have power? I do? oh, water is not working? you need a shower? feel free to use mine!" bwahahahaha hehehe.

logiclee

The engineers all know how to set up and maintain the UK's supply. The Government however, has screwed up the deregulation. No two departments know what the other is doing, files including maintenance and safety data have been lost in transfers and the Governments white paper on Energy is seriously flawed.

Its another Railtrack but on a large scale. The only difference is on the rails the crashes cause a loss of life. We won't see anything like that with the Electricity Generation until blackouts occur and people are left without power and heat.

Lee

Davestamf

It's happened before, as seen in the film "Where were you when the lights went out?" (1968) Threads was good, but an entirely different thread, so to speak!

boomer

I was staying in the Gatwick Hilton on the night of the mid-eighties hurricaine (where everything blew down ).

Woke up in the morning to no power, but i was impressed that all street signs/traffic lights were still functioning, and even the phones worked - because i called the office at 9:00am to find out what the **** was happening (no TV or radio, so not a clue locally).

Sounds like the US have a thing or two to learn!!!!

mb