On 19 Dec 99, at 13:36, Cyndi Norman wrote:
> Sandra, yeah that makes sense. At least here there's very little chance of
> the weather being so cold or so hot that an electrical outage will cause
> serious harm. It can be too cold for people sleeping on the streets but
> then electricity doesn't matter anyway.
Heat was only a portion of the problem, and in fact, for the first few
days of the ice storm the temperatures were at or near freezing so
not especially hard to compensate for. It did get very cold right
after the ice stopped though.
Issues equal to heating were water and cooking. Rural people were
especially hard hit when it came to water. Most of them have their
pumps running on electricity from the grid. Those who had
woodstoves could manage to warm a room, and possibly do
minimal cooking but could not get water. Many who had manual
pumps available as backup could not cope with the physical labour
of hauling water. Many who had woodstoves had no wood for them,
because buying in wood is expensive, and heating with oil or gas
cheaper and easier.
Urbanites did ok for water, although if that last line had gone down
the water treatment plants did not have sufficient backup generator
power to supply the whole city. I believe they have rectified that
situation now. I also believe that emergency officials have taken
advantage of the Y2K hysteria to communicate to people that they
always should have at least 3 days emergency supplies available to
them.
Most people who lost the grid connection had no means of cooking.
We were, by the way, lucky in that we were only without electricity
for a few hours, although the supply was unstable for several days.
Some areas of the city were without electricity for several days,
and some rural areas were without electricity for several weeks.
>
> My ideal would be on the grid (assuming the grid is already hooked up to
> the house) with a backup non-grid system. A backup for a few hours isn't
> too expensive ($700US for a house I think) but a full backup would amount
> to a paraelle system, no? I really don't know too much about this stuff
> but I'm learning!
My ideal for urban areas would be local grids being fed by a
combination of wind and solar power and/or small hydro electric
systems. With a portion of the generation being fed back into the
grid by individuals. So almost everyone would have some kind of
solar generation going on in their building or home, that would feed
back into the system, or take from the system as needed. The
transmission lines would be shortened and less vulnerable. More
people would have access to some minimal generation power in the
event that the local grid went down.
Rurally, I would consider it a priority to go completely off grid.
snip
> Aside from a major earthquake (knock on wood), I'd guess the grid is
> reasonably safe here. But who would have thought Canada's would have gone
> down so badly?
>
California is going to have a major earthquake, it is just the when
that is in question. No one believed Canada's grid is so vulnerable.
They are rebuilding it the same way because the ice storm was
considered a once in several hundred years phenomena and putting
all the wires underground is expensive and environmentally
problematic.
> Cyndi
> who is itching to get out of hte city but that will be a couple years, if
> ever
Sigh, all I want is a garden next to the place I live. I no longer see
life in terms of wanting to be out of the city or in the city. I just want
a piece of ground to work with right next to where I live. I no longer
believe I can realistically aspire to even that. It's been a very bad
year for me.
sph
Sandra P. Hoffman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.flora.org/sandra/
