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I find it fascinating that this is considered some kind of doomsday scenario in Europe, but happens regularly in the US. Different priorities, I guess.
by fsh 4y ago
I find it fascinating that this is considered some kind of doomsday scenario in Europe, but happens regularly in the US. Different priorities, I guess.
- zrail 4y agoI don't know what you mean by "regularly". The article states that the last time this happened was 2014, nine years ago.
- yread 4y agoTexas had some hiccups last year
- KennyBlanken 4y agoBecause it didn't winterize much of its generation despite lots of warnings it needed to do so, and doesn't interconnect with the national grid because they didn't want to have to follow federal regulations.
- WeylandYutani 4y agoYes some would consider every ten years as regular.
- skullone 4y agoEuropean utilities never struggle during extreme hot or cold snaps, right?
- fsh 4y agoBlackouts happen if the power lines themselves get damaged. But rationing and rolling blackouts due to insufficient capacity are basically unheard-of.
- Symbiote 4y agoRationing happens, but it only affects large industry etc who have contracted to the arrangement.
- sidlls 4y agoWhich is what this scenario was.
- landemva 4y agoI heard it happened in California. "In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of Californians briefly lost power in rolling blackouts ..." https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-blackouts-power-grid/story?id=89460998 https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-blackouts-power-grid/st...
- fragmede 4y agoThere are various ways to prepare for future potential badness. One solution embraced by Texas, amounts to "yolo", resulting in gas-fired plants being inoperable during the cold snap in Feb 2021[0] . A different solution, favored by many other locations across the globe including in Europe, is for there to be regulations set by the government, saying "you must perform this upgrade". While these regulations cannot alter the fundamental laws of physics, it is eminently possible to “winterize” various aspects of power generation and delivery systems through practices like insulating pipelines. [0] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-fai...
- 2000UltraDeluxe 4y agoDoomsday scenario? Narh, but some areas are dependent on electric heating to keep people warm and fed. And there's no backup plan because it was considered inconcievable that electricity wouldn't be widely available. Most of us will manage power cuts just fine.
- ljoshua 4y agoOne must put in perspective the difference though. This is a single, contained event during a fairly extreme weather scenario. Contrast that to what could have been a whole winter-long event in Europe had the continent not taken extreme and well-coordinated action very early (and had the international community coordinating as well). Let’s compare them on proper footings.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoIt's not even that extreme for the northern US. Just that these temps usually happen in Late Jan-Feb. 60 miles east of Buffalo I'm still waiting for the first shovelable snowfall for the season.
- throw827474737 4y agoHuh, not seeing the difference really, expectations there were also usually not a whole winter-long event but contained events? Or otherwise then totally the same though to the planned load shedding SA is running on now on different levels for some time? Doesn't make it better..
- vba616 4y agoThe Northeastern US largely gets its gas and electric power from National Grid plc. headquartered in London, England. I guess that's not Europe.
- JamesAdir 4y agoI'm sure that if we've looked on the electricity consumption per person in the EU vs the US there will be a huge difference towards the US. The American living standards are vastly higher in terms of electricity consumption and are supported by a poorly maintained infrastructure most of the times.
- skrause 4y agoIt's a weird thing so say that a higher electricity consumption equals to "vastly higher living standards" when the higher consumption might just be in part because of badly insulated homes.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoAmericans pay way more attention to ventilation, air quality etc. We euros barely use AC, seeing mold at home in big cities like Porto is just part of living there. I don't think Americans would accept it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- landemva 4y ago(Many) Americans also equate higher living standards with a huge TV which is generally turned on.
- Throwawayaerlei 4y agoIs that really a lot in the scheme of things? I don't have CFL backlit LCD TV info handy since they've been supplanted by LEDs, but I looked at Best Buy (a big US seller of these sorts of things) and found a popular $500 65" and their most insane 98" $15,000 Samsung ones, 190 and 360 watts respectively. I'm old and by my family's standards 65" diagonal would be questionable at best, so I checked in the vicinity of 48", 43" and 50" only gets you down to 120-5 watts. Add probably not very many watts for whatever's supplying the signal and it doesn't sound like a big deal, although of course everything adds up.
- jacquesm 4y agoIf that kind of weather would hit Europe right now I'm pretty sure we'd be in dire straits.
- WeylandYutani 4y agoCan't even remember the last time I experienced a blackout. Extreme weather events are actually very predictable the question is do you build resilience for these rare events? If not you get 1953. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953