LA BLACKOUT

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anyone know what's going on?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/12/la.power.outage.ap/index.html

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/previews/ps2/gta-san-andreas/gta-san-andreas-l.jpg

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:27 (twenty years ago)

Eazy looks like he bit his tongue.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

We lost power for only a couple of minutes, but I hear that the rest of Century City is still out.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Thank God that this didn't happen yesterday.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:30 (twenty years ago)

We had a blackout today.

But fortunately the police made him get back into his car before he got too far.

― Emo Philips (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:30 (twenty years ago)

Might it have something to do with the threats from...

Adam Gadahn, the Inland Empire and Orange County's gift to the world (via al-Qaeda)

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:31 (twenty years ago)

http://www.lithicdesigns.com/images/wpa/blackout.jpg

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:31 (twenty years ago)

Hahahahahaha I love Emo Philips!

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

got power still in the west valley

― huell howser (chaki), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

Is that from the alpha GTA? I don't remember Big Smoke looking like that.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

confirmed that a cable was CUT at a distribution center in the sfv.

― huell howser (chaki), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

I SURVIVED THE BLACKOUT 2005

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

PRESIDENT BUSCH SURVIVED THE BLACKOUT OF 2005 AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

― SHIRTBOY, Monday, 12 September 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

extends from downtown to woodland hills

― huell howser (chaki), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

send Michael Brown! he's free.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:40 (twenty years ago)

http://cache.eonline.com/Reviews/Guilty/Images/24.010405.jpg

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:40 (twenty years ago)

PRESIDENT BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACKOUTS

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

where are the valley girls looting in the streets?

― s/c (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

BLACKOUT, YOU'RE DOING A HECK OF A JOB

― Doogie Howser, Monday, 12 September 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

Who can we blame for this? Gray Davis and Enron are out this time around.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:47 (twenty years ago)

michael brown!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

as always, i blame hstencil

― s/c (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

now is not the time for the blame game. at least give it an hour or so.

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

"Who can we blame for this? Gray Davis and Enron are out this time around."

LA has its own publicly-owned utility, it was not affected by the bogus California energy "crisis" (at least, not directly).

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:53 (twenty years ago)

uh Shakey:

http://www.edison.com/pressroom/pr.asp?bu=&year=0&id=5859

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

SoCal Edison breached the truce. Now it's muthafuckin attrition.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

DWP has to keep its shit real, or it won't be around to keep it real.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

Power is back on at my office.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 12 September 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

uh gygax if you'll notice, that article makes no mention of the LADWP, the Los Angeles utility. http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/homepage.jsp

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, DWP is basically L.A. city.. almost everything else outside the city limits (including L.A.-locked Santa Monica) are Southern California Edison.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

notice that no mention is made of SMUD either, the Sacramento utility. Publicly-owned utilities didn't get fucked by the Enron/energy "crisis" because their contracts (and power generation) are not tied to the stupid "deregulation" of the energy market that preceded the whole mess.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

LA has its own publicly-owned utility, it was not affected by the bogus California energy "crisis" (at least, not directly).

You're right and also, I was being 100% serious.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)

Anyways, I blame hstencil too.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

hey just trying to establish some groundrules for the "blame game"! cuz you know us liberals love that blame game shit.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

1AN WILL HAVE AN ELECTRIC LA!

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

http://www.sleazeroxx.com/bands/prettyboyfloyd/leather.jpg

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

(honestly, I am genuinely curious what's going on here and who's gonna take the blame cuz in the absence of a major storm/earthquake or terrorism it means someone over at LADWP is gonna get fired for royally fucking up)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. African-Americans lose power and they are 'temporarily out of electricity'. White people lose power and they get 'blacked out', like it's our fault."

― Cunga (Cunga), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

During the blackout, I found some snacks in my neighbor's desk.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

Why didn't you go out and find a lot of stuff at Amoeba instead? Goldmine!

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I could've made it to Amoeba during the ten minute blackout.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

Fucking blackouts. NO WARNING!

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

And now 6 million people have to spend two days calling their relatives figuring out how to stop the 12:00 blinky blinky on their clocks.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

http://www.blackoutworld.com/blackoutbusters.gif

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

I refuse to set the clock on my microwave ONE MORE FUCKING TIME.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:31 (twenty years ago)

Oh wait, I don't live in LA. Forgot about that one. WHEW.

― President Busch (dr g), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

we just got power back here

― luna (luna.c), Monday, 12 September 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

Barely concealed but hopeful...

BLACKOUT

― Not David J (Ned), Monday, 12 September 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 43 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Shakey OTM. This was discussed at length in the news media after the blackout in NYC (& elsewhere) in Summer 2003. All it took in that case was a couple of power lines failing somewhere in Ohio to bring down a sizeable chunk of the Northeast.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

See analysis of cause of 2003 blackout here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A62280-2003Nov19¬Found=true

It basically came down to a couple of low-hanging tree limbs in Northern Ohio.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

Right, well, I guess we're just f*cked then and we shouldn't ever try to improve the performance of these things. I'm sure we're exactly the same now as we were 100 years ago and that we'll all just die when we live on the moon and the power goes out etc etc. I guess I'm just ignorant of the way the world works.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

hahaha - man there were some serious boneheads involved in that one.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

When Carter nationalized the grid in 1976 or so, there were plans to upgrade and ruggedize, especially the midwest and plains states which are vulnerable. But funding went away in a regime change and because things work well enough with the duct tape and bandages currently in place it never became a real issue again. It was brought up after the 2003 blackout, but not much has been done on the distribution front. The western grid is actually robust compared to the rest of the infrastructure, believe it or not. It was set up initially as a distributed grid, not a bunch of patched-together rural electric co-ops.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

Time to work on Tesla's concepts of free distribution of AC current via broadcasting.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

Amen to that.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

I don't know that much about electrical transmission grids but it seems like there must be a more reliable way to run such a crucial piece of the national infrastructure. Electrically speaking, it seems like the whole country is sitting below sea-level with nothing but a few crumbling levees protecting us from major catastrophe. But I wouldn't expect the ideologues behind the Bush regime to do anything that would require government initiative or creativity.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

Leaving public utilities as non-profit entities rather than making them commercial for-profit ventures, not separating production from distribution, focusing on small-scale, localized production rather than massive plants in the middle of nowhere and massive connected grids, adding redundancy to the local distribution network - all these things would provide resiliency to the electrical infrastructure. Unfortunately, the federal government and capitalism have pretty much botched all the above.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

that's funny - my company just did some similar wind-generation project for a local tribal consortium in Alaska a few years ago... I do think we're likely to see more of those kinds of projects. Particularly solar ones here in CA.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Leaving public utilities as non-profit entities rather than making them commercial for-profit ventures,

― kingfish superman ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

yeah dudes like wtf you cali dudes got mad solar broseph!

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Kingfish - i.e. Pinnacle West, owner of Arizona Public Service.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

Shakey, of course there will always be human error. Hence what Spencer is saying. Keep up.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

except that in this case Spencer seems to think that human error can be avoided altogether, somehow.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Shakey, I don't even see how this is an arguable point.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL TALKING ABOUT IT?

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

Pardon me?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

I don't get it - so you think the grid should be fully automated? like, run by robots? how do you eliminate people from the equation?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

It does seem like there should be better failsafes in place. To us laymen, a power outage does not seem like one, even though it is. It's a bit unnerving knowing that a lone moron or a few trees can cause millions of people's power to go out. Fin.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

OK, real simple now: Safeguards and redundant systems should be developed and deployed to mitigate the effects of inevitable human error and/or mechanical failure.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

Also Nick, WTF?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

IF YOUR POINT IS INARGUABLE, WHY ARE YOU ARGUING ABOUT IT?

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

but Spencer what you're suggesting is that every block/neighborhood have its own, isolated, independent (and redundant) generation system in place so that if something happens in another part of town, it won't affect anybody else. For a number of reasons that I would assume are rather self-evident such a scenario is wildly unfeasible, expensive, and implausible.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

(for example, would you mind installing a couple LM600 engines in your backyard? oh yeah, and monitor their performance and upkeep too. k thx bye)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:01 (twenty years ago)

Shakey, I'm assuming you know quite a bit about this, so I'm asking you, is it impossible to make an incident like yesterday's blackout less likely or frequent?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

Also Nick, again WTF?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

During the California rolling blackout deal (2000-2001), there was a big push for decentralized generation - I worked on three small generator projects (hospital, tennis club, and a McDonald's of all things) that would all be able to feed back into the grid if extra kW were produced. The minute the Enron stuff (artificial shortages, etc.) came to light, all three ground to a quick halt and none were delivered. It takes someone with specialized knowledge to properly maintain this kind of equipment, on top of the up-front investment. Solar works great for DC systems, but is expensive up front and converting it to AC is inefficient. Same with wind energy. For small residential systems especially, people have to become very aware of their consumption and make lifestyle trade-offs.

Americans want their power and their gasoline cheap and easy, like it's always been. Adding redundancy to a local distribution network (as is done for both the generation plants and the transmission lines) would increase the cost of electricity in most areas by 5-6 times. Most people would balk at that kind of increase in cost, especially when power is out for so few hours each year for the events that a redundant system could prevent.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

It's not impossible Spencer, but it's expensive and therefore considered impractical.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:11 (twenty years ago)

It's simply regarded as too expensive to put UPS systems everywhere. I mean telecom hotels and certain types of govt. facilities will have literally tons of arrayed batteries and capacitors so that they can weather a 6-8 hour blackout without losing critical functionality - modernizing to this level is something that our phone and data companies are somehow magically capable of without massive interruptions to their business, but we can't do it for our goddamned traffic lights.

Real modernization of the power grid would have to include building-by-building rewiring such that certain outlets (for low-watt lighting, alarm systems, CCTV systems, and other electrical preservers of general social order) would be part of a reinforced network supported by distributed UPS systems, while other outlets could just be allowed to go out (for your tv and your stereo and your washer and dryer and cuisinart etc. etc.) - I'm just thinking out loud though really.

Given the current attitude towards non-transporkation public works projects in this country, it's likely that we'll never see anything half as impressive, but OTOH maybe somebody could sell it as homeland bullshit, like that $200m+ contract to put ANTITERROR WEBCAMS in the NYC subway system.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

well if they had had someone out there on that installation crew who knew what they were doing, obviously that would have avoided it, so no its not impossible. and if there's some notification system that broke down that prevented anyone at LADWP from isolating the incident then obviously anything like that should be fixed too. It's not clear from the Yahoo story if that's what happened (by comparison the Ohio blackout story linked above is much more detailed), so its hard to say.

and I'm not saying you don't have a right to be angry - obviously this was a stupid mistake that could have been avoided. I just think your anger is misdirected - small things will always be capable of taking down big systems, its like that with anything. In this case, the fault lies more with the ineptitude of the people running the system, not the system itself. I mean, from what I understand the LADWP functions remarkably well. Honestly, I was rather jealous that LA, of all places in CA, was insulated from the energy crisis - and that was due specifically to the way the LADWP is set-up to operate.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

Jaq who do you work for (just curious)...?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

I've been in the physical presence of some of the carrier-class UPS battery banks and it's more than a little intimidating. In the "Oh, you little people with your little lives can't see in the dark anymore? We giant, loudly humming machines never noticed a thing" sense.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

also Uninterruptible Power Supply systems are a bit rubbish - ours at UCL has gone down twice in the last month.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

well, again yr still at the mercy of those pesky human errors...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

Thanks Shakey. I'm still a bit incredulous that developing less expensive/more practical redundancy isn't a top public-good priority, but hey, this is America after all.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

America's relationship to energy consumption is totally fucked, to say the least.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

Also, I do in fact endorse the widespread use of robots!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:27 (twenty years ago)

hahaha

I welcome our metal overlords

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:27 (twenty years ago)

I'm a SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system engineer and programmer, currently with Fluor and working at the Hanford nuclear reservation on cleanup. Before this, I did freelance sCADA work for all kinds of companies.

It is interesting that the union is spinning this as "the city was too cheap to do the work at night", while they are in contract negotiations. But then I worked in Labor Relations for a brief time at GM, so I'm jaded about things like that.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

wow. you're actually on-site? Admirable work, to be sure, but me personally I'd be super-spooked to go anywhere near there.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

Well, it's even scarier now that all the funding has been cut and all work on cleanup has essentially stopped. And they are burning up all that sarin just a few miles away at Umatilla! It's a lovely place, I tell you.

What I'd really like to see is some pure research into Hidetsugu Yagi's proof of concept for wireless power transmission, but there's no real incentive for anyone to look into it.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

yikes! huh, interesting about Yagi, never heard of that before, will have to research. I've always loved Tesla's vision of free electricity, but I oughta learn more about this stuff.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:10 (twenty years ago)

Yagi expanded Tesla's concept of transmission and apparently made a working model (in the late 60's maybe?), but decided the engineering problems overcame the benefits. Yagi antennas were the main outcome of his research, but for telecom instead of power.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

I personally think the only way to achieve an inexpensive redundant or self-healing power distribution network is to get away from the wires. We do it with ethernet and radio, and should be able to do the same for power.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

Would all our hairs always be standing on end??

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:27 (twenty years ago)

provide a model that can show it being economically feasible and I'm sure someone would take you up on it. the energy industry is going to be going absolutely bonkers with new investments, technologies, developments over the next few decades, now that corporate America seems increasingly resigned to the fact that fossil fuels and the current system are not sustainable for much longer.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

xpost to Spencer - Probably so, but you get used to it. And, no more need for the Flo-bee!

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

I predict a renewed interest in the work of Yahoo Serious!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

Be careful what you wish for.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 22:49 (twenty years ago)

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