[gt1370a]

Nah. I work for a power company in the South, projected demand is supposed to set new records, but well within peak capacity. If a major source of baseload power went down, like a nuclear plant tripped, then yeah that could be a problem....

They have plans for these types of scenarios, but so far haven't even asked people to cut back on usage in my area, or even turned up the thermostat in our office buildings.

[The_Virginian]

um I'll admit to not fully understanding WTF this guy is talking about...

------------

Edited to add:

OK using a Wi-fi program to get a Cellular link to the internet, while using a Bluetooth personal planner/PC to surf when the power is out, and when it's not linking with the main computer as well.

I'm still a bit fuzzy, ,but I think I get it now...

[CarlinsDarlin]

We've been dealing with the heat here in Arkansas for the last 3 or 4 days. It's been no fun, to say the least. High temps here have ranged from 99 to 106 - with my sister-in-law's truck thermometer reading 111 today. Humidity is always high in Arkansas. that's a given. But, the power has not flickered once. Thankfully .
Kathy

[Frontierenergy1]

I used to live in the Southeast ... Louisiana and Mississippi and it was common practice to have rolling blackouts in the summer. I think that I would prefer that to a brownout.

When line voltage is reduced the ampacity is increased- simple power law. The wattage is the same to the device. The windings in motors, transformers etc, are rated at the amp capacity at normal voltage input. Consequently during brownouts you have damage to these devices. You have a hard time arguing with your local utility that they were responsible for your new $15k geothermal heatpump compressor burnt out because of their power...unless you had a recording voltmeter on it.

There is all kinds of problems that start surfacing when a utility is at capacity- generates lots of business for UPS companies and power quality companies.

That is a good argument for an alternative energy system. Take noncritical loads off line and run critical loads on alternative systems. Distributed generation would go a long way in solving some of these problems- maybe fuel cells or solar. Back up generators that do load shaving can help with industrial/commercial users.

But you know what would be the single biggest help in reducing the loads in the southeast?


Fixing the leaks in the A/C Ductwork.

http://www.natresnet.org/ratings/resour ... /ducts.htm

[kelee877]

WE had no hydro for 7 hours yesterday, and when it went out I said to the kids this could be it...the first thing I did was fill up several jugs with water and couple of big pots, and then told the kids not to use the hot water tap or flush the toilets..and as I was getting all this ready(but not in a panic)..I was greatly releived that i was prepared for this, at least to the best of my ability(which is more then I can say for most)..well after an hour of no power, I loaded up the kids and we decided to go catch some minnows and do some fishing.
There was nothing else we could really do, other then go do what we enjoy doing most..as we drove out we took a look around and it seems the power outage was just in our neighbourhood..
They had power at the variety store about 8 blocks from us..
Truth be known that we where not upset about the lose of power, but as I mentioned it was such a great releif to know I was ready..we left to go fishing at noon and returned at 7.15 and when we got back we had hydro( now I have to reset all the clocks)
And thankfully I have been keeping the car tank filled with gas and had just filled it the other day.

[MrPC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Yavicleus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', 'I') find it hard to believe that Hampton College runs on a diesel generator.

[Geko45]

I had a similar expereince recently when there was a massive blackout north of the Houston area. I still had power, but the news was reporting that seven full counties were completely dark and the affected area started no more than a mile north of where I live. I got in the car and went to the gas station and topped off the tank and then came back and filled water containers. Fortunately, the power was restored in a few hours. It had been caused by a fire and the collapse of a main transmission line. With the heat in the area, it could have been a life threatening problem if the situation had continued into the next day.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]The Basics
Discussion of the "basics" of hydrocarbon depletion and related issues. Have a question or topic that seems too simple for the advanced forums, packed with experienced posters? Post it here!

[rostov]

K. Finally bought and received FOUR (4) shakelight 60s. As advertised and described by all here, it takes extremely little shaking to get it charged good. You don't really have to shake it hard nutil you hear the internal magnet bounce off the front and back walls -- just a little enough for it to pass completely through the wire coils.

Is there compressed air/vacuum on both sides of the magnet or something?

Anyway, the irony is -- they're made in China. So they get shipped to be stocked up in Canada, and shipped to the USA, then shipped to Singapore. It's not a snack, but how many thousand miles is that?

Plus, QA is not so good. Some LEDs are slightly dimmer (all fully charged) from each other (I have 4, so comparisons are easy).

Anyway, the switch is magnetically triggered, so when you put 2 or more of them cluster-f*cking together (touching each other), they'll turn each other on. That could explain why 2 were fully discharged while the other two were charged upon arrival. The magnetism is much stronger than other imitation and sub-brands, so it's a bigger danger to computers than ever. BTW, the switch is a moving magnet to turn on/off the torch, meaning the switch has no physical contact with the main components of the torch itself. I've tested it in the bathtub while bathing my sons, and it's ok.

Later I'll try 1 in the pool, tonight I'll drain test another.. In the meantime, these two for active use, two for reserve.

[Klatuu]

(08-25) 16:55 PDT $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')os Angeles (AP) -- High temperatures and the loss of a key transmission line Thursday forced power officials in Southern California to impose rolling blackouts, leaving as many as half a million people without power for an hour at a time, officials said. ...

[BabyPeanut]

http://www.sce.com/Safety/RotatingOutages/

[MicroHydro]

Please, please, please let Dallas be next

[backstop]

If I could, I'd choose Hooston (sorry Aaron, no offence) as it's apparently the global capital of the oil industry.

What's Dallas done ?

[OilsNotWell]

Texas probably won't have rolling blackouts before other areas...yesterday they had record electrical usage at just over 60,000 megawatts, fired up a peaker or two (peaking units using natural gas to supply power when needed, idle most of the time), and have peaking power to about 70,000 megawatts, or so they say. But the peakers are old I hear, so who knows if that 70K figure is accurate.

[Pfish]

Maybe all us Californians should move to Nebraska or Kansas.....Not....

[I_Like_Plants]

One thing about those rolling blackouts, drivers get practice dealing with stoplights being out, and get good at treating it as a bigger 4-way stop sign setup which is the right way. So, when signals go out down there, drivers handle it fairly gracefully.

[pea-jay]

Today's rolling blackout took me by surprise, only because of the fact that it happened today as opposed to yesterday. The underlying reasons (high utilization, poor transmission capacity, continued growth, low hydro resources and high gas prices) are not the least bit surprising if you have been following the CA power situation over the past half decade.

The ironic aspect about this is that on Tuesday I was chatting with the California ENergy Commission Chief electrical analyst, who was trying to tell me that the situation wasnt quite as dire as their original projections had dictated. HMMM. Their forecast for this year called for the grid being slightly short on 1:10 year heat events, resulting in the possibility of limited curtailments. So far the official forecast hasn't been too shabby.

Like I have been saying, brace yourself. This year is the good year on the ISO projections.

[NeoPeasant]

Anyone have contingency plans for the possibility of losing some or all of: electricity, natural gas, water, or sewage service to your home? Including the unpleasant possibility that sewage may stop flowing out of, and start flowing into your home if you are a low-lying user of a dysfunctional sewer system.

Is your suburban house ready to go into a "cabin in the woods" mode?

[strider3700]

electricity -
I'm starting to look into this here
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic12479.html
It's shortterm not longterm. To go off grid permanently is damn expensive.

Before I even concidered going off grid I started with getting more efficient
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8859.html
The end of this month I get my next electric bill and I believe it should be 40-45% of my first bill before I started conserving

One of the major savings is coming in the form of wood heat instead of electric heat during the winters.
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic2835.html
If need be I'll be cooking and heating water on the woodstove as well.

I don't have natural gas for anything and I don't see it as a smart move to continue relying on it.

Water - my water comes from a spring goes through a filtration system and ends up being pumped into my house. I have 3000 gallons of storage. Within the next month I will be adding rainfall collection to the system from a roughly 500 sqft roof, this should get me through the october period where my spring runs dry for a month or so.
Here's more info on my system
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic11440.html

Sewage - I have a septic. It was pumped a year ago. If I'm careful not to abuse it it should be ok for awhile yet. Longterm I intend to build a guest cabin in the back with a composting toilet but we'll see what the future brings.

[RonMN]

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 12) - A large portion of Los Angeles was blacked out Monday when electrical power was lost.
The power got knocked out shortly before 1 p.m. after two power surges.
Traffic lights throughout downtown and the San Fernando Valley were not working, causing major traffic problems, according to video from helicopter news crews.
Downtown highrises also were darkened.
The city's department of water and power said it was investigating the cause and extent of the outage. 09/12/05 16:17 EDT