[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ukhopadhyay, who has received $2.3 million for materials research at Wright State during the past seven years, said the energy department and power generation companies have a renewed interest in superconductor research. "We are studying the superconducting materials at their basic, atomic level to identify ways that can increase the efficiency of transmission lines. Superconductors can also be used in high speed magnetic trains and flywheels. Flywheels, or high speed rotating devices, can help the power generation companies store off-peak power, which can later be converted to electricity during peak demand hours. All this technology can help reduce the chances of power blackouts like the major one that hit the Midwest and East Coast last year."

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

the scairy thing is... I'm already ice cream (frozen white mass). I wonder how it could get worse but don't think I really want to find out. actualy maybe a 'frozen dust bunny' would be closer to the truth!

[alexis]

Moscow just had a major blackout probably due to old infrastructure.

A warning sign ?

http://www.mosnews.com/commentary/2005/ ... kout.shtml

[KiddieKorral]

Imagine that happening in January.

[Russian_Cowboy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KiddieKorral', 'I')magine that happening in January:(

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('leaf', 'B')ut signs of NO rioting...Russians are pretty calm.

[heyhoser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alexis', 'M')oscow just had a major blackout probably due to old infrastructure. A warning sign ? Link

[Wildwell]

BBC

[clv101]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Russian_Cowboy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KiddieKorral', 'I')magine that happening in January.

[jaws]

Putin is blaming it on Anatoly Chubais. Another oligarch headed for prison perhaps?

[frankthetank]

What about a fan on a furnace? Last time i checked you need electricity for that...

What would Americans do without American Idol if electricity goes out?

[Russian_Cowboy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', 'E')lectricity might not being used for heating directly but it's the little thinks like the central heating water pump that is, or even the ignition on the gas boiler.

[Kalinka]

Another example that shows how the fragility of our civilization...
I can't imagine being trapped in Moscow's subway - the distance between stops is huge and it's must be hot as in hell..

[Starvid]

The only thing this shows is that the russians can't take care of their power plants. Okay if power lines fail, they aren't checked everyday, but a plant? There have to be people at it everyday! Also, the plant was built in the fifties, and I figure maintenance wasn't really a priority.
Lesson: Take care of stuff or it breaks.

[Rodimus]

Here's more about the Muscovites' reaction.

Wednesday was quite the unusual day for Muscovites - whether they were trapped underground in suddenly still, unlit subway trains, getting stuck in elevators, or simply unable to get to and from work and buy ice-cream. The blackout that Russian officials had said would never happen affected half the city directly and the rest indirectly, by interrupting the traffic and tying up phone lines.

Moscow Blackout: Odd Moments

[alexis]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')uddenly the lights blinked and the hot water stopped running. “Here I am, covered in soap, and thinking, oh ****, the heater has burned out the fuses.” When he discovered the apartment next door also had no electricity, he guessed that his heater had taken out the entire building. “Later we found out that half of Moscow was out. But I still think it was all because of my water heater,” Kaganov says.

[Free]

Chechnian rebels claim that they commited the act of sabotage that lead to the blackout. Would this be the first case of energy-terrorism? That might bring other people on bad ideas?

[khebab]

An interesting article from IEEE Spectrum (August 2004) about the 2003 blackout:

The Unruly Power Grid
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')xtrapolating from the small outages that occur frequently, one might expect a large power grid to collapse only once in, say, 5000 years. But between 1984 (when North American utilities began to systematically report blackouts) and 2000, utilities logged 11 outages affecting more than 4000 megawatts—making the probability of any one outage 325 times greater than mathematicians would have expected. Thus, statistically speaking, the blackout on 14 August, which, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, cost between US $4 billion and $6 billion, was no anomaly
... FOR SYSTEMS THEORISTS like Doyle and Carreras, the first message of their eerily smooth distribution curves is clear: big blackouts are a natural product of the power grid . The culprits that get blamed for each blackout—lax tree trimming, operators who make bad decisions—are actors in a bigger drama, their failings mere triggers for disasters that in some strange ways are predestined. In this systems-level view, massive blackouts are just as inevitable as the megaquake that will one day level much of Tokyo. Just the same, accounting for that inevitability is a contentious exercise.

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('khebab', '2')- some soft landing advocates suggest that we will rely more on electricity and less on oil in the future. This article shows that a bigger grid will give us more frequent blackouts.