Oh, by the way, during that event, it was Navy carriers in port that brought up their reactors and powered critical infrastructure in the city. That's not exac

Oh, by the way, during that event, it was Navy carriers in port that brought up their reactors and powered critical infrastructure in the city. That's not exactly what happened. I was skeptical that a Naval ship's generator could be quickly and safely connected to the power grid during a short term (~12 hour) power outage, so I looked it up: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/09/california.power.outages/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/09/california.power.outages/in... Officials also thanked the U.S. Navy for powering up generators aboard its many ships in port, freeing up the utility to restore power sooner to other customers. So it sounds like the Naval ships switched from shore power to their own onboard generators, which meant that the utility didn't need to restore power to them, and that as the restored power, the considerable electrical load from large vessels didn't need to be restored immediately. I'd be surprised if a modern carrier even had a feasible way to get the power from the main generator off-board and into a common electrical grid.