Infrastructure wearing out.

[Cougar Mag]

As time goes by things wear out and sometimes " things" need to be replaced. No matter the reason of the Northeast blackout, sometime in the near future our electrical grids need repaired/replaced! Same with some communications equipment. I just hope this is a wakeup call to those in Washington. We should become aware of the impending problem a few years ago and probaly were, but nobody in government or corporate America wants to deal with the problem. Maybe they don' t know how. Many questions to be answered..tough questions. Who will pay for it? Who will do the necessary upgrades? Who best to make the tough decisions on where to start?

I watched Bill O' Reilly today(yes I did[]). He gave ample blame to past and present administrations(democrat and republican), corrupt unions, etc. O' Reilly even mentioned some dollar numbers as to what the Iraqi war is costing us along with other insights. Me...I think he is right!

What it would cost to upgrade an antiquated electrical grid system is miniscule to what it could cost us in the future, in the way of shutdowns and communication....economy wise. Perhaps security-wise also. I just hope if anything is done, that its not patchwork such as many corporations seem to do in factories.

[Vapodog]

With all due respect.....I didn' t realize the electrical companies and systems was owned by the government.

[Dave590]

Those are interesting questions, I' m not sure that you can lump communications together with electricity though.

Looking at the technological advances in communications over the last decade, I would say that they are holding their own.

Electricity on the other hand is a whole ' nother animal. I would like to think that I understand the " concept" of power sharing between states, but the actual mechanics behind such an application are pretty complex and more than a little confusing to the " layman" such as myself.

With that said, I think we are still in the " Oh Crap" phase of this and it' s a little early to start discussing spending a fortune fixing it.

It could be as complex as to require a lot of money being spent to correct specific deficiencies, or it could be as simple as providing better screens to keep the squirrels and chipmonks out.

I suspect I will hold judgement untill a little more time has passed and a few more facts are in.

I personally suspect it' s because all those union electrical employee' s are paid too much and there is not enough money left over to make needed improvements.[>:]

[Cougar Mag]

But it would be nice to see a private company think of the long term instead of instant profits Vapodog.

[MinnFinn]

Just remember, it doesn' t just depend upon utility companies and/or government abilities to pay for and willingness to upgrade transmission lines. They have to fight the wacko " Greenies" and just plain wackos every step of the way even to put new powerlines in place.

30 years ago even, when a regional power company was building a main transmission line from N.D., where the electricity was generated, to the Twin Cities, where most of it was to be used, they dealt with all sorts of of legal and illegal challenges in getting it built. For more than a year, they had to keep rebuilding towers that the " antis" were unbolting, causing them to topple.

The then Professor Paul Wellstone was one of the biggest promoters of the antis' causes and went out to Stearns County to get the fanatics even more fired up against the line than they were already. He was in effect promoting the breaking of laws and destruction of private property.

To get the necessary power grids upgraded, we' re going to first have some tools to deal with the extremist elements who are total obstructionists to all progress and who want everyone to go live in a primitive, extremist state of their making.

[summit daWg]

RIGHT ON MINNFINN!
Same thing here in Wa. state, that is when they' re not trying to lock us out of as much public land as they can.[X(]
The population has increased so much here on the west side of the Cacades in the lowlands it sucks-[X(]but there hasn' t been a new transmission line built here in over 20 years. Between the greenie idiots[&:] and the N.I.M.B.Y.' s[&:] nothing is getting done to try to solve any IMPENDING crisis.[]
It has nothing to do with union labor.(electricians,sparkies etc)

[Coastie]

Well the " Who is going to pay for it" question is a no brainer. We the people are going to pay for it in one form or another, either from our taxes or in higher rates, more likely than not, both.
As to just how much of the infrastructure is in need of replacment remains to be seen. The only information we have at this point is from the Talking heads on TV and the instant experts they drag out for every occaision. Even O' Reilly stunk on this one. I saw him the evening after and he was blathering on about " Panic" and security issues. The only panic I saw through the entire event was on the part of the network (including Fox) talking heads trying to come up with a story where there was no story. Somebody and something screwed up and 50 million people were highly inconvenienced for about 48 hours, story over.
At least it took the focus off of the Scott & Kobe show for a few minutes and gave Gray Davis a respite.
The Telecommunications network and infrastructure is actually fairly new in the U.S. most of it is less than 20 years old when you consider the first fiber optic cables were being put down in the mid to late 80s. The switching system is more than adequate to handle extreme volumes of calling and is monitored constantly. More importantly, it may be reconfigured in a very short time to accomodate emergencies such as this and to allow the people affected to call out while restricting (on purpose) calls into an area until a clear picture is available as to what is needed to help. Routers are replacing switches for the long distance part of the traffic and the local switches (the 4 and 5 ESS) have never been taxed to the point where calls are not able to be handled. Yes there have been problems over the years with software upgrades that caused some trouble, these typically were fixed within a very short time, usually a matter of hours. The Cellular systems still have a way to go to match the hard wired network, but it is only a capacity issue not a switching issue.
The Greens and the NIMBY' s all share part of the blame for the overall situation but the last thing we need is another Government agency or oversight committee to really screw it up.

[vc1111]

I am extremely suspect of what has occurred. As you know, I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories. However, in this case, I suspect that there is a cover-up taking place.

These events do not make sense. Things do not " add up" on this one.

[Coastie]

VC1111 you may very well be right, time will tell. I am highly suspicious when " Infrastructure" is blamed for situations such as this. Human error I can accept, stuff happens, I can even accept avarice and mismanagement. I don' t like it, but I can accept it as an explanation of why something happened.
Transformers, Generators,transmission lines and fuses don' t just wear out. They age and must be replaced, usually on a scheduled basis. If some bean counter with a Harvard MBA decided that the bottom line was far more important than service to a community and the nation then they should be strung up along with the CEO that went along with that decision. If a politician was privy to the decision then they should be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail then treated to a short rope and a tall horse.

[Briman]

If the power blackout did not hit NYC, it would be old news already, it just happens that New Yorkers are in the center of the media world and the sensitized portions of society to these things is brought out front and center- they certainly don' t give a crap if a blackout happens in Minnesota or Wyoming. Blackouts happen all the time in the US and Canada whether it be from Ice storms- I do remember a large portion of Canada and North Carolina being blacked out for nearly a week in the last year or two, or from heat waves that cause people to fire up their AC units- happens in California- and we even had brownouts over the last few years up hear due to this. The government is not responsible for this problem, its between the power companies and the ratepayers. If rate payers in a region don' t want to pony up the bucks to build new transmission lines or oppose them for environmental reasons, they should accept occasional power outages as a fact of life.