There's been a bit of speculation lately that somehow WiFi was the mechanism used to cause the recent power grid blackout in the Northwest. I'm very interested in understanding the cause of this blackout and I'm continuing to search the Net for detailed and authoritative information. If you've got any, please post it (although it may be off-topic for this list) or email it to me privately. There's a lot of mass-market media crapola out there right now and I think it's important that the real cause be uncovered. Here's a link to one (good) recent New York Times article that attributes the cause to "human error".
http://nytimes.com/2003/08/27/national/27POWE.html?ex=1062648000&en=2f2f5042c00981be&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Coincidentally, I just happened to be working on-site for a client in the midwest last week that just happened to be an electric power company. Over lunch, I gently inquired if they knew what caused the problem. They confessed that they too were "in the dark" as to the cause. Bravely (or perhaps, foolishly) I plunged ahead. I asked "Would it be possible that the blackout could have been intentionally triggered by a power company itself?" NOTE: I not positive what motivated me to ask this question - perhaps it was the multi-billion dollar ripoff by the electric power industry (Enron and friends) that resulted in California rollling up the massive multi-billion dollar deficits from the "power crisis" of 2001. The California budget may never again (in my lifetime, anyway) be in balance. My power company/client hosts kindly provided the following answer: Well Jack...electric companies practice for many different kinds of power flow scenarios so that they can respond to these situations appropriately and therefore keep the power on, even when supply and demand fluctuate. In fact they use computer software to simulate all of these different power-flow scenarios. They can see in advance what the loss of different transmissions lines or generators will do to these power flows. At that point, I decided not to press for further information. I concluded that an electric company could, if it wanted, use the simulation software to determine in advance how to either preserve the flow of electric power or how to disrupt it. CAUTION: The following paragraphs contain full-frontal speculation. Am I saying that "First Energy" or some other power company intentionally disrupted the power grid for business reasons of their own? No - I'm not saying that and I have no proof of that. Am I saying that "First Energy" had the ability to figure out in advance how to disrupt the electrical grid? Well, it seems probable that they at least have the software that would allow them to know how to disrupt the grid and cause the blackout, if they chose to do so. 1. Is First Energy guilty? - No. 2. Is some other utility company guilty? - No. 3. Was the blackout an accident? - Probably not. 4. Am I speculating? - Yes, I am. 5. Am I acting responsibly? - Yes, I am. 6. Was the blackout caused by WiFi hacking? - Probably not. 7. Will the truth ever really emerge? - Probably not. (The Energy Department is conducting the investigation, in other words, the Energy Industry is investigating itself) 8. Is the Energy Department controlled by the energy industry itself? - Yes. 9. Would First Energy make more profit if the Energy Department spent 50 to 100 billion TAXPAYER DOLLARS to upgrade the electrical grid in the United States? - Yes. I suggest that we all watch to see who is going to be paying (in other words, whose electrical rates are going to go up) to upgrade the electrical grid and which companies are going to profit the most from this money-spending. If we all keep digging, maybe (just maybe) we'll eventually understand why this blackout took place. jack -- Jack Unger - President, Wireless InfoNet Inc. Author of the WISP Handbook - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs" http://www.ask-wi.com/book.html True Vendor-Neutral WISP Training-Troubleshooting-Consulting http://www.ask-wi.com/services.html Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (818)227-4220
