Solar
would help
ThePiedPiper 29May2000
Alamaine wrote:
>
> From
> http://shns.scripps.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=POWERWOES-05-29-00&cat=AN
>
> }}>Begin
> NATIONAL HEADLINES
> High-energy nation could pull the plug on the power grid
> By LISA HOFFMAN
> Scripps Howard News Service
> May 29, 2000
>
> - You grab a few cubes from the ice-maker for your iced tea, nuke a frozen
> pizza in the microwave, toss a load of wash in the dryer, notch up the AC,
> crank the stereo, scan in a couple of photos to e-mail to relatives, and sit
> back for an evening cruising the Internet.
>
> Upstairs, the kids are styling their hair, playing computer games and listening
> to the radio, while your spouse is in the basement office finishing the
> spreadsheet work that didn't get done that day on the job.
>
> That seemingly serene summer scenario is anything but that for those in charge
> of supplying electricity to the nation.
>
> Energy experts warn that the onset of the hot season, coupled with the recent
> acceleration in the wiring of America, is likely to bring months of power
> brownout and blackout alerts in unprecedented number.
>
> As demand drains supply, the cost of power for companies and consumers is
> headed for a dramatic uptick. Peak-time prices hundreds of times higher than
> usual are forecast this summer in some regions.
>
> Why? Combine a sizzling economy, an explosion of computer users at home and on
> the job, and a proliferation of other electronic devices ruled by
> microprocessors for work and play. The result is a ravenous appetite for
> reliable electricity that must travel over a lagging transmission system
> designed for a largely bygone era.
>
> "The system, designed as a two-lane road, is now being used as an autobahn or
> New Jersey Turnpike," said James Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric
> Institute, an interest group of private electric companies.
>
> Particularly worried is the burgeoning high-tech industry, as well as firms
> engaged in Internet commerce or otherwise dependent on e-mail and similar
> online ways of doing business.
>
> For them, a blackout, or complete power failure, can be ruinous. From online
> stock trading outfits to such Internet merchants as eBay and Amazon.com, every
> minute the power is out can mean millions of dollars lost.
>
> Brownouts _ caused by intentional cutbacks in electrical juice _ also can wreak
> havoc on sensitive equipment, including that used by everything from ATM
> machines to auto mechanics. Surges or other blips, even those imperceptible to
> an office worker, can knock a microprocessor for a loop.
>
> The digital world, according to experts, demands a power supply that is
> essentially 99.9999 percent steady and reliable. Despite its stresses, the U.S.
> system is remarkably dependable, but even so, the average residential customer
> can count on glitches causing a cumulative seven or eight hours without power a
> year.
>
> That would be catastrophic for new economy enterprises, where a disruption as
> brief as "one-60th of one second is enough to make everything go blooey," said
> Karl Stahlkopf, vice president of the non-profit Electric Power Research
> Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.
>
> Estimates are that the economy will lose more than $25 billion a year as a
> result of power disruptions which, until the digital age, were far from rare
> but hardly so crippling.
>
> In the past decade alone, the power "load," or demand, has increased 35 percent
> while the capacity to get that electricity to users has grown only 18 percent.
> Conservative forecasts predict another 20 percent boost in demand ahead, but no
> more than a 4 percent hike in transmission capacity. A big part of the problem
> is that no one wants new power poles or stations near their homes or
> businesses.
>
> Complicating the situation is the ongoing deregulation of the power industry.
> "The country is increasingly sensitive to any type of disruption," said Jamie
> Wimberly, vice president of the Consumer Energy Council, a watchdog group in
> Washington.
>
> Already this summer, the Silicon Valley region of California, broiling now in a
> heat wave, is being warned by Pacific Gas & Electric to make a concerted
> conservation effort or face significant power problems and financial penalties.
> Energy experts expect the same situation to bedevil other parts of the country
> this summer, particularly in other high-tech hubs.
>
> Some technology firms are shelling out big bucks to build their own power
> plants to insulate themselves from disruptions. In Redwood Shores, Calif., for
> instance, computer hardware and software giant Oracle Corp. has spent $6
> million to construct its own generators and substation system.
>
> The Energy Department and conservation groups have begun to amplify their calls
> for the country to cut back consumption through more energy-efficient
> appliances and power-stingy habits.
>
> Some in the industry are demanding more financial incentives to stimulate
> investment in the nation's power grid, coupled with fewer restrictions from the
> Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
>
> "We have to build a type of electrical power infrastructure that will support a
> microprocessor-based society," Stahlkopf said. "We have very little choice."
> (Contact Lisa Hoffman at HoffmanL(at)shns.com or http://www.shns.com.)
>
> End<{{
>
> A<>E<>R
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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--
Any person can stand adversity,
The true test is to give a person power.
If you treat a relationship as if you are the only one in it, eventually
you will be.
Atrocities happen when the people about you -
start considering you surplus.
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others to differ from me in opinion"
---- Thomas Jefferson <br><br>
My Grandfather told me there are two kinds of people:
those who do the work and
those who take the credit.
He told me to be in the first group -
there is less competition there. -
Indira Gandhi
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