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A light on light's going out...
Oct. 11th, 2003 04:31 pmFor those of you still curious about the August blackout in the Northeast...
Imagine that electricity is water. The power grid is pipes, and the generating stations are pumps.
Under current regulations, the pipes and pumps are owned by different people. The pipe-owners are required, by law, to carry whatever the pumpers choose to put out. The pumpers are not required to give the pipe-guys detailed information on what they'll be doing, and they can gain economic advantage by not making their pumping-plans public.
Under current regulations, there's also economic advantage to be gained from pumping more water into the system than people actually use, keeping the pipes rather full. The extra just circulates around, helping nobody.
When something goes wrong with the pipes, they close. But the pumps keep going. Same amount of water going into a smaller volume of piping means more stress on the remaining pipes. More pipes burst and close, putting even more stress on the pipes, etc. You get a cascade of pipe-failures.
The obvious answer is that we need more and newer pipes, right? Not necessarily. If you want to keep the regulations the same, yes, we need more and better power lines. But that's not the only solution.
You see, the power grid is currently more than sufficient to carry the power consumers use. If the power generators didn't put excess into the system, such problems would not arise as frequently. If the power generators were required to tell the grid their intentions, so that the grid could plan ahead for heavy loads, they'd also be able to better deal.
So, we can build more and newer power lines. But that costs money, and has ecological impacts. Or, we could change how power companies are regulated. The current regulations were put in place expecting that a more free energy market would yield benefits to the customer in terms of pricing. Instead, prices have not dropped, the NE suffers a major blackout, and California suffers rolling blackouts.
Which is easier - building infrastructure, or passing new laws?
http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p8.html
Imagine that electricity is water. The power grid is pipes, and the generating stations are pumps.
Under current regulations, the pipes and pumps are owned by different people. The pipe-owners are required, by law, to carry whatever the pumpers choose to put out. The pumpers are not required to give the pipe-guys detailed information on what they'll be doing, and they can gain economic advantage by not making their pumping-plans public.
Under current regulations, there's also economic advantage to be gained from pumping more water into the system than people actually use, keeping the pipes rather full. The extra just circulates around, helping nobody.
When something goes wrong with the pipes, they close. But the pumps keep going. Same amount of water going into a smaller volume of piping means more stress on the remaining pipes. More pipes burst and close, putting even more stress on the pipes, etc. You get a cascade of pipe-failures.
The obvious answer is that we need more and newer pipes, right? Not necessarily. If you want to keep the regulations the same, yes, we need more and better power lines. But that's not the only solution.
You see, the power grid is currently more than sufficient to carry the power consumers use. If the power generators didn't put excess into the system, such problems would not arise as frequently. If the power generators were required to tell the grid their intentions, so that the grid could plan ahead for heavy loads, they'd also be able to better deal.
So, we can build more and newer power lines. But that costs money, and has ecological impacts. Or, we could change how power companies are regulated. The current regulations were put in place expecting that a more free energy market would yield benefits to the customer in terms of pricing. Instead, prices have not dropped, the NE suffers a major blackout, and California suffers rolling blackouts.
Which is easier - building infrastructure, or passing new laws?
http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p8.html
