ROLLING BLACKOUTS LEAVE ABOUT 500,000 CUSTOMERS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WIT

[rodeodance]

just got this as an email:

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

ROLLING BLACKOUTS LEAVE ABOUT 500,000 CUSTOMERS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WITHOUT POWER


http://abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396

[xray s]

1. It's Ahnold's fault!

Worst. Govenor. Ever.

[arcane1]

5. uh-oh, time to recall!!!

TOTAL recall :P

[Cha]

21. Damn Straight!

If they can blame everything on Davis that went on before..it's the shovelnator's Fault NOW!

[Megahurtz]

2. Oh No, Not Again!

:eyes:

[rodeodance]

4. arnie arnie arnie--tsk tsk tsk.

[librechik]

27. It's the Democrat's fault!!!--er, wait...

WTYS!!!! in big letters written across the sky er smog...

[bbernardini]

3. Good. I always thought they were lacking humor there.

Get it? Wit? HAW!

[proud patriot]

6. good grief , here we go again

x(

[longship]

7. Stable electricity here in Ontario.

Due east of LA, west of San Bernadino.

We're pretty lucky here. At least most of my computers have battery backup.

[Trajan]

10. Used to live in Chino Hills, Brea and Fullerton ....

Do I miss it ? .... sometimes ....

[NYC]

8. What's causing this?

Do you know?

[Gregorian]

15. Yes. I know. But it's unspeakable.

There are probably all kinds of reasons that the engineers can point to. A plant might have maintenance in progress. But the truth is that there are a lot of users. Until things change in a very dramatic way, 6.5 billion of us are going to have to get used to things like this. That's right, there are two complete United States worth of people added to the planet since six billion day in 1999.

[mongo]

29. Too bad the public doesn't have the data available

I'll bet the wholesale price of power is through the roof right now - wonder who is selling, who is buying, who had contracts (for a good price) up to X amount of power and is buying their excess at "market price".

Electricity deregulation is a scam to bankrupt the municipal power companies.

[cliss]

32. I have a hunch....

there were a few articles here in the LBN about 3 weeks ago. They said that the "unprecedented demand for air-conditioning is straining the electric power grid".

Apparently, people are using their air conditioners 24/7 to keep cool in this heat. It's been a long, hot summer. It sounds like Arizona is struggling to keep the electricity going, at 120 degrees sometimes.

That's my guess - big demand.

Well, Arnold?

[MissB]

40. According to a local news website in Oregon,

it is the combination of high summer temps and the temporary loss of a key transmission line from the Northwest (Oregon).

[NYC]

44. As long as it's nothing Enronish.

[Tyranny_R_US]

9. I wonder how many people have died because of these unexpected...

outages?

[roughandtumble]

30. I've always wondered if Enron could be sued for MURDER

as they have been found to have created the problem didn't they? I'd like to talk 'deregulation' after kenny boy gets hit with a manslaughter charge.

Profits over people. It seems to be the repuglican way.

[goforit]

37. Probably caused more deaths than any hurricane has. Great Question

[MADem]

42. When does Kenny Boy Lay go on trial? Shit, Martha has been

tried, convicted, jailed, and done house arrest for a relatively minor infraction by comparison...her anklet is coming off, and Kenny has not even hit the courthouse!!!!!!

I swear, they are timing it so that he goes to trial, gets convicted, and Georgie Porgie can pardon him on the way out the door...no jail for Kenny Boy!!! He must have Polaroids, or something....

[neuvocat]

11. But we're better off without Davis.

Right? Right?

[bananas]

12. I think it's a mistake

I got that email, too.
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
http://outages.sdge.com/publicOutageWeb/servlet/OutageMap
http://pge.com

[LaPera]

13. Democrat Gray Davis got thrown out of office (recall) because of the same

rolling black outs...NOW HOW ABOUT MUSCLEHEAD ARNOLD???

[jpak]

14. Update

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2005/aug/25/082500389.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sweltering late-summer heat 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.

The California Independent System Operator, which operates the state's electric grid, declared a transmission emergency at 3:57 p.m., said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for SoCal Edison.

The ISO ordered the utility to reduce its demand, prompting blackouts in parts of Fontana, La Puente, Cathedral City, Huntington Beach, Long Beach and Ontario, Alexander said.

The utility planned to scatter the blackouts to lessen the impact, he said. Blackouts were expected to last about an hour before being shifted to other areas.

<more>

[TrogL]

18. They can borrow my cat

(obscure historical reference)

[DiverDave]

16. They voted for this tool of

the industry...they get what they voted for.

That said, I feel sorry for the folks without power.

BUT,not the people that voted for that imbecile...

[Im_Your_Huckleberry]

20. i voted for the green party guy. call me a dreamer.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

17. 500,000 Fewer Votes for Ahnuld

I hope, anyway.

DTH

[rodeodance]

24. te he. good one.

[Toots]

39. Maybe but a whole bunch of Energy monies into his Coffers

I expect we will hear about record profits coming from the energy companies that supply power to Southern California and that they give huge amounts to GOP. Remember how quickly the "energy crisis" ended when the Senate changed hands in 2001? This is just another example of Republican control over the people.

[Igel]

19. The previous rolling blackouts (winter 2001, I believe)

were due largely to transmission problems, Enron notwithstanding.

They couldn't get the juice from the northern part of the state to the southern.

Plus there were pushes to build more powerplants.

Of course, I had just moved to New York state ... so I have no idea if the wonderful legislature and governor there actually enabled the construction of more powerplants in the Southland, or if they beefed up and failsafed their transmission lines.

Any word on this, anybody?

[Barkley]

31. But the rolling blackout ended when the Dems got control of the Senate

after Jeffords left the Republican Party to become an independent.

"Let's recall the California story. Between November 2000 and June 2001 — or, if you prefer, between last year's election and James Jeffords's defection, which gave the Democrats control of the Senate — a shortage of electric generating capacity, exacerbated by the puzzling fact that much of this capacity stood idle, led to power outages and extremely high prices."

- Paul Krugman
http://www.pkarchive.org/column/111101.html

How many new power plants have been built since the 2001?

[Igel]

38. However, the question at the time was a mixed bag of

lack of generation (whether caused by putting all the output into a particularly large Energizer battery or having plants down) PLUS lack of transmission lines.

Plants are taken off line for all kinds of reasons, some planned, some not. California had absolutely no backup plan: Brown, Wilson, and Davis had none. Even during the rolling blackouts in the Southland in 2001, there was still capacity up north.

There was great bloviation about fast-tracking power plants and approval for the construction of auxiliary power lines.

Then the recession took hold in February-March 2001. With a recession comes a drop in power usage. One could also claim that it was because of politics in DC that power usage in the Southland dropped, or because I started learning some Sor studies for classical guitar, but there are already far too many using "post hoc ergo prompter hoc" reasoning.

My suspicion is that it became easier to blame Enron et al., look at the decline in power consumption, and do nothing.

I was wondering if somebody actually knew if anybody made good on the promises made.

[hunter]

43. Generating capacity was deliberately taken offline.

The system was gamed, and huge amounts of money were siphoned out. There's a whole lot of people who ought to be rotting in jail over this.

If our government was not corrupt we could easily solve these energy problems. A rational society might hire engineers. Instead we let a bunch of corrupt politicians and scientifically illiterate policy wonks lead us down the path to the shearing sheds.

Bahhhhhhh, bahhhhhhhhh....

We probably deserve whatever hell awaits us.

[Igel]

51. Which still doesn't actually address one of the problems

widely reported at the time: power available in the north (when the system wasn't gamed) and rolling blackouts in the south. There was insufficient transmission capacity.

People seem to like blaming people before sorting through all the factors involved. Enron and gaming the system was one of them. Fix that problem, and you get lower prices; no more, no less. Taking plants off line was another; even with the plants on line, the margin of safety was very, very low; and there was insufficient transmission lines to provide backup. Of the set of three problems, two need to be fixed for any security. But people can't get past the first one: much easier, much more satisfying, and completely removes responsibility from any politician to do anything that would upset the NIMBY folks.

I'm beginning to believe that Davis did squat to address the problem but speak, Schwarzenegger sees no problem with lack of transmission capacity (and so forth), and the California legislature sees a problem with increasing transmission capacity (etc.).

Perhaps they thought the Energizer bunny could haul enough batteries down the 5?

[hunter]

55. Increasing transmission capacity would only encourage bad behaviors.

The NIMBY problem that needs to be solved belongs to Southern California. They have two options: cut back on their use of electric power or increase their local generating capacity.

It's my opinion that a smart power switching network could gently remove non-essential loads from the system as demand threatened to exceeded supply, and that such a system would be much more secure than any additional long distance transmission capacity.

The local power company ought to be able to automatically dim the lights of every shopping center and turn up the thermostat of every air conditioner. Some efforts have been made in this direction, but so far these are mostly voluntary programs supported by insufficient rate incentives.

If I'm looking into my crystal ball, I see the United States abandoning it's current form of bullshit capitalism (or corporate kleptocracy if you like that term) and building government owned and operated nuclear power plants at Camp Pendleton. We could fuel these power plants for a long time using plutonium removed from nuclear weapons.

As happened during the Great Depression, the United States will once again embrace some sort of "New Deal" socialism or the nation will die.

[LeftyMom]

45. We had blackouts in Northern CA, too

It really f'n sucked because we didn't have any real shortage here (the Sacramento area has it's own municipal utility with thier own facilities and doesn't have to buy much power) but we had blackouts anyhow so power coud be diverted to places that didn't plan ahead.

Inevitably I'd be stuck halfway through making something to eat when the power would go out and I'd be stuck sitting around in the dark, uncomfortable apartment with a crying, scared baby. The fact that my power shouldn't have been off at all made it even more galling. :grr:

[Neshanic]

22. Palo Verde Nuclear. Two of three reactors off line. That can't help.

"Palo Verde is jointly owned by APS, Salt River Project, Southern California Edison Co., El Paso Electric, Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Southern California Public Power Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power."

[Horse with no Name]

47. Ahh memories

I lived in Buckeye when they were building Palo Verde Nuclear.
I think the land belonged to the Beamis family or one of their relatives (can't quite remember--only that it was a cousin of a friend of mines).
We had a school field trip to the site when they were building it. Have to say it was pretty impressive--you know...all the Bechtel equipment and everything.:)
I even got a T-shirt that said to support Proposition 10(I think that was it). Of course...wasn't sure what it was--only that it was for the nuclear plant to be built.
But then again--I used to ride my horse along the dirt that was being laid for Interstate 10.
Christ I am old.:)
ANYWAY...if I recall correctly, the initial use of that power plant was supposed to exclusively for Arizona residents? I haven't lived out there in almost 30 years so I can't quite remember...but I do remember that being one of the selling points of Proposition 10(?).:shrug:

[Mark E. Smith]

23. It's A Schwarz-Out

[librechik]

28. heh

beat me to it!

[durablend]

25. Tinfoil time!

Bushco rendering punishment for CA voting blue last November? :tinfoilhat:

[FlemingsGhost]

26. Good thing Gray Davis is gone ... eh, Californians?

So whose fault is it, THIS time?

[DiverDave]

33. Why, it's the Clinton's fault.

of course 'Ol Grey has a hand in this too.
The rethugs NEVER take responsibility for anything BAD...for heavens sake

[melody]

54. Davis was no more recalled than Bush was elected

Wilson is Arnie's puppetmaster. It was a NeoCon inside job to "take over" the state, just as they did with Florida and Texas.

[Roland99]

34. America is turning into Baghdad?

[Roland99]

35. dupe

[goforit]

36. Do you think there will be a revolt?

[rustydad]

41. Yep

We had power down at 4pm back on at 5pm. I am in Santa Barbara. Temp was aboput 85 yesterday with moderate humidity, no wind. Nothing unusual. The beginning of the end IMO. Bob

[Redstone]

46. Well, maybe they should stop building 5,000 square foot McMansions

that are air-conditioned down to 65 degrees, and stop watching those big-screen plasma televisions in their "home theaters" that draw a thousand watts of electricity.

I don't feel sorry for the yuppie assholes. (Yes, Iknow there are plenty of "regular people" in that area as well. But the greedy yuppie shitbags are the ones causing the problem.)

Redstone

[Jersey Ginny]

48. Iraq is 120 degrees and no electricity

And some wonder why Iraqi's who might have initially been happy Saddam is gone, now hate us. How do those families survive with no refridgerators, clean water, lights for YEARS now-never mind there is a war waging around them.

[Redstone]

49. Hell of a good point you make. And the people in California bitch

and complain like it's the end of the world to be without electricity for half an hour.

Redstone

[melody]

52. Actually, no we didn't

And yet I find it ironic that someone in a place that had electricity when some Californians didn't feels free to point fingers. ;-)

The whole rolling black out thing was a terror device used by the Enron Cabal to oust Davis and plant Pete Wilson's hand puppet Arnie in there. Californians are excellent and responsible users of resources.

But any sacrifice that helps get Arnie out of office is fine by me. He's hated on so many levels now, it's hard to keep score.

[melody]

53. Californians are excellent resource handlers and responsible consumers

...as a generalization. There aren't McMansions in other parts of the country? There are *maybe* 1000 of those here. The rest of us (the vast majority of us) recycle and conserve and live out our little lives in fairly small houses. (I've never even seen a plasma TV and I'm middle class in LA County)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

50. Arnold should "JaBone" Chimp.

Problem solved.