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As long as we’re throwing shade at EU vs US, I can’t remember the last time the US had a nationwide blackout, certainly not in my lifetime!

bombcar 1y ago
The US has three “independent” grids so losing them all would be hard. But I believe at times Texas has gotten close, and East went pretty dark at some point recently. CA of course has rolling blackouts for other reasons.
- voidUpdate 1y ago
  2021 was pretty bad in Texas, IIRC
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    2021 would have been a non-event if people in Texas weren't propagandized about some nonsensical "Independence" bullshit. A few more interconnects with the rest of the country and it wouldn't have even made the news. this is after decades of Texans bragging about their independent power supply. Many Texans still believe outright lies about the blackout, like it being "caused" by green energy sources, which was false. It was caused by free market participants not spending capital to harden their network. Solar panels and Wind Turbines work great in the cold climate of Canada. The storm that caused such a problem is a once every ten years storm. The grid companies all should have foreseen this with even minimal investment in planning. They didn't, because that's less profitable, and the "regulator" in Texas has no ability to punish them for pinching pennies on reliability and resilience. Free Market at work baby!
    - SaintGhurka 1y ago
      >> The storm that caused such a problem is a once every ten years storm. This is incorrect. That storm set multiple records, most notably the longest freezing streak the state has ever experienced [1] Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Waco hit 30 year lows while Dallas set 80 year lows. It also hit the entire state at the same time. Maybe there's validity to some of the rest of your post, but that storm was absolutely not a regular occurance. 1. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/streaks/mapping/TX/832/20210219#close https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/streaks/mapping/...
throw0101a 1y ago
> As long as we’re throwing shade at EU vs US, I can’t remember the last time the US had a nationwide blackout, certainly not in my lifetime! Talking about "national" in the sense Spain (pop. 48M, 506,030 km²) is roughly equivalent to a few US states. A similarly (population/area) sized outage occurred a couple of decades ago: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 North America is organized in regional grids: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss...
- pmlnr 1y ago
  US nationwide would be the whole of Europe category, which, I don't believe had ever happened. Texas, on the other hand, which is easily the size of a country...
  - anonfordays 1y ago
    Just verified: Texas is larger than Spain and Portugal combined!
pjc50 1y ago
US, no, Texas and California are .. not doing so well.
immibis 1y ago
There was a very famous one in 2003. As was pointed out, the USA has three independent grids (east, west, and Texas) and EU countries are roughly comparable to states (except with less federal power). The equivalent of a European nationwide blackout would be a US statewide blackout, and those HAVE happened, definitely within your lifetime if you're old enough to use Hacker News, mostly in Texas.
- gwbas1c 1y ago
  It was about 7 hours long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003. Where I lived it was restored very quickly. I had a long blackout as a kid during a hurricane in 1985. Once it was safe it was repaired rather quickly.
razakel 1y ago
There's five different grids in North America (Eastern, Western, Texas, Alaska, Quebec) so something would have to go very wrong for a nationwide blackout.
PedroBatista 1y ago
Indeed, and that’s the main problem: you can’t remember or know anything. It’s is a known fact that in general the US power grid is orders of magnitude less reliable than in Europe. And the excuse of “the weather is more extreme” is just that: a lame excuse. Just count the number of American households that have generators and/or batteries vs the Europeans if you really have an honest desire to know anything about anything.
nottorp 1y ago
Except this is Spain and Portugal which combined have 1/3 of the area of Texas, which had a state wide outage recently.

bombcar 1y ago

The US has three “independent” grids so losing them all would be hard. But I believe at times Texas has gotten close, and East went pretty dark at some point recently. CA of course has rolling blackouts for other reasons.

voidUpdate 1y ago
2021 was pretty bad in Texas, IIRC
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  2021 would have been a non-event if people in Texas weren't propagandized about some nonsensical "Independence" bullshit. A few more interconnects with the rest of the country and it wouldn't have even made the news. this is after decades of Texans bragging about their independent power supply. Many Texans still believe outright lies about the blackout, like it being "caused" by green energy sources, which was false. It was caused by free market participants not spending capital to harden their network. Solar panels and Wind Turbines work great in the cold climate of Canada. The storm that caused such a problem is a once every ten years storm. The grid companies all should have foreseen this with even minimal investment in planning. They didn't, because that's less profitable, and the "regulator" in Texas has no ability to punish them for pinching pennies on reliability and resilience. Free Market at work baby!
  - SaintGhurka 1y ago
    >> The storm that caused such a problem is a once every ten years storm. This is incorrect. That storm set multiple records, most notably the longest freezing streak the state has ever experienced [1] Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Waco hit 30 year lows while Dallas set 80 year lows. It also hit the entire state at the same time. Maybe there's validity to some of the rest of your post, but that storm was absolutely not a regular occurance. 1. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/streaks/mapping/TX/832/20210219#close https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/streaks/mapping/...

throw0101a 1y ago

> As long as we’re throwing shade at EU vs US, I can’t remember the last time the US had a nationwide blackout, certainly not in my lifetime! Talking about "national" in the sense Spain (pop. 48M, 506,030 km²) is roughly equivalent to a few US states. A similarly (population/area) sized outage occurred a couple of decades ago: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 North America is organized in regional grids: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss...

pmlnr 1y ago
US nationwide would be the whole of Europe category, which, I don't believe had ever happened. Texas, on the other hand, which is easily the size of a country...
- anonfordays 1y ago
  Just verified: Texas is larger than Spain and Portugal combined!

pjc50 1y ago

US, no, Texas and California are .. not doing so well.

immibis 1y ago

There was a very famous one in 2003. As was pointed out, the USA has three independent grids (east, west, and Texas) and EU countries are roughly comparable to states (except with less federal power). The equivalent of a European nationwide blackout would be a US statewide blackout, and those HAVE happened, definitely within your lifetime if you're old enough to use Hacker News, mostly in Texas.

gwbas1c 1y ago
It was about 7 hours long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003. Where I lived it was restored very quickly. I had a long blackout as a kid during a hurricane in 1985. Once it was safe it was repaired rather quickly.

razakel 1y ago

There's five different grids in North America (Eastern, Western, Texas, Alaska, Quebec) so something would have to go very wrong for a nationwide blackout.

PedroBatista 1y ago

Indeed, and that’s the main problem: you can’t remember or know anything. It’s is a known fact that in general the US power grid is orders of magnitude less reliable than in Europe. And the excuse of “the weather is more extreme” is just that: a lame excuse. Just count the number of American households that have generators and/or batteries vs the Europeans if you really have an honest desire to know anything about anything.

nottorp 1y ago

Except this is Spain and Portugal which combined have 1/3 of the area of Texas, which had a state wide outage recently.