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The solution is to cut off industrial and commercial sites first, which draw the most power anyways, and keep residential zoning online as much as possible. The
by nexuist 5y ago
The solution is to cut off industrial and commercial sites first, which draw the most power anyways, and keep residential zoning online as much as possible. The economy can take a break for one day.
- anonporridge 5y agoDepends. Some industrial customers like datacenters have strict availability agreements with customers and won't be able to accept prolonged cutoffs. Forcing non residential customers like these to curtail their use would likely end up driving the industry (and corresponding tax revenue) elsewhere. But what you're talking about does already exist, and it's called demand response, https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/grid-modernization-and-smart-grid/demand-response https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/...
- cortesoft 5y agoIf people are freezing in their homes, then damn any availability agreement a datacenter has.
- anonporridge 5y agoI'm inclined to agree, because I think our civilization should exist to serve humanity, not use humanity simply as another disposable cog in the machine. But that's not the way our legal and political system actually works.
- epgui 5y agoI don’t disagree with anything you’re saying, but you’re confusing “what is” for “what ought to be”. It’s Hume’s classic “is-ought problem”. Edit: I’ve interpreted the second part of your comment as an objection to the first part, but if that wasn’t the intended message it’s my bad :)
- anonporridge 5y agoI don't think I'm confusing the two. I'm suggesting that what I think ought to be the way the world works in fact is not the way it actually works. This is a criticism of our current system, not using it as a reason to dismiss the idea of changing it to something better.
- ceejayoz 5y agoAgreed, but one hopes said datacenter isn't hosting, say, the utility company's dispatching systems...
- politician 5y agoIf you shut down the datacenter, then all of the folks that rely on IoT-controlled furnaces will freeze in _their_ homes!
- danans 5y agoSmart thermostats all fall back to offline manual operation.
- vel0city 5y agoDatacenters should be able to stay online even with a full power cut. If your datacenter can't go days without mains power, you need to move datacenters.
- nine_k 5y agoThis is reasonable, but the grid should support such separation then. Each building needs to be connected to a known tier of power grid, and parts of one building may need different tiers: e.g. an ICU that should stay powered no matter what vs the rest of the clinic that could afford to lose power without hurting anyone. Unless it's already built, it's rather expensive to rebuild.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoI'm sorry, but that's on the datacenter provider to put their operations in such a free-market state. The fact that we would suggest that datacenters be allowed to run freely, and then tell residents that they need to stock up on batteries as opposed to mandating a winterized network is kind of appalling.
- 8note 5y agoI don't think residential customers are any less strict with their minimum needs.
- vorpalhex 5y agoYou probably don't want to cut off power suddenly to your water treatment plants, fabs (which have all kinds of dangerous chemicals), medical providers, and so on.