As LA Lights Go Out, Power Worries Rise: Doubts about system's integrity

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: As Lights Go Out, Power Worries Rise
Mistake by DWP workers cuts electricity across the L.A. area. Public officials express doubts about the city system's integrity.

By Sharon Bernstein, Hector Becerra and Mitchell Landsberg, Times Staff Writers


A mistake on a single bundle of wires Monday cascaded into a major blackout in and around Los Angeles, inconveniencing millions of people and renewing questions about the vulnerability of the region's power system.

Coming one day after a purported Al Qaeda threat of attack on the city, the midday outage pricked nerves and caused isolated incidents of panic. Plumes of flame and smoke heightened the drama as refineries, temporarily shut by the outage, flared off excess gases.

But backup generators, many newly installed since California's 2001 energy crisis, kept many companies and most emergency services operating without major disruption, and there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries caused by the blackout....

***

"As an engineer, it's unnerving that one individual act can cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers," said Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas, chairman of a panel overseeing the DWP.

Cardenas, who was stuck in traffic on Van Nuys Boulevard when traffic signals went out, said he would demand to know whether the outage betrayed a broader vulnerability for the city's electrical system....


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-power13sep13,0,625591,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[phantom power]

1. It's funny. Engineers have been warning them for years.

It actually has to happen for people to believe it. Why do humans even have the power of speech and thinking-ahead? We don't use them for anything.

[Inland]

2. Not true! Nobody could have EVER PREDICTED [put disaster here] nt

[Kagemusha]

3. Seriously? Until things go bad, it's an advantage to be dense

Until things really hit the fan there is some biological advantage in just being live-for-the-moment. Helps get people ahead of deep thinkers and analysts and hence, worriers. People like me. Now that I've analyzed that, too, what good does it do me? I've wasted 20 seconds of my life typing this. Someone too devoted to living for the moment has an edge on me, right now.

[phantom power]

7. True enough.

Survival in the long term means nothing if somebody brains you with a club in the short term.

[Coventina]

4. I assume that there is a recall effort against the Governor for this....

Isn't this why they recalled the last one?

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

5. Gee, do you think that maybe more deregulation

would fix things? Or how about a lower tax rate on dividend income?

I know, repeal the estate tax! The Paris Hilton Relief Act!

[Bushwick Bill]

6. It's A sign of Things to Come

FTW: What's the most important thing you want the American people to know about Black Thursday?

SIMMONS: This blackout ought to be an incredible jolt telling us about a host of energy problems that are ultimately going to prevent any future economic growth. It's like people have been ignoring annoying phone calls and living in denial about a problem that won't go away. It's like the ghost of Enron calling. The event itself was astonishing. Senior people like Governor Pataki or the head of NERC were asking how this could happen. But the problem was inevitable. The only thing we didn't know was when it would happen.

FTW: What did happen?

Simmons: On a large scale what happened was deregulation. Deregulation destroyed excess capacity. Under deregulation, excess capacity was labeled as "massive glut" and removed from the system to cut costs and increase profits. Experience has taught us that weather is the chief culprit in events like this. The system needs to be designed for a 100-year cyclical event of peak demand. If you don't prepare for this, you are asking for a massive blackout. New plants generally aren't built unless they are mandated, and free markets don't make investments that give one percent returns. There was also no investment in new transmission lines.

Underlying all this is the fact that we have no idea how to store electricity. And every aspect of carrying capacity, from generators, to transmission lines, to the lines to and inside your house, has a rated capacity of x. When you exceed x, the lines melt. That's why we have fuse boxes and why power grids shut down. So we have now created a vicious cyclicality that progresses over time.

<snip>

FTW: What is the solution?

Simmons: I don't think there is one… The solution is to pray. Pray for mild weather and a mild winter. Pray for no hurricanes and to stop the erosion of natural gas supplies. Under the best of circumstances, if all prayers are answered there will be no crisis for maybe two years. After that it's a certainty.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082103_blackout.html

[Nikki Stone 1]

8. SdG&E and Edison would LOVE to get their hands on the LA market

LA is one of the few places in SoCal that has its own municipal power. It was the only place in 2001 that DIDN'T have blackouts. LATimes must be very careful at what they suggest for solutions. LA power must remain INDEPENDENT.