Power outages

[Flaptail]

Did you ever notice after storms in winter how often and how many power outages there are? In the mid-west right now people are freezing and have been without power in many areas now for almost if not more than a week. How after a hurricane her in the NE or any storm thaty packs winds over 40 miles and hour we loose power?

When will National Grid, N-Star, Boston Edison and Commonwealth Electric finally realize it's time to go underground like the phone company has been doing for the last twenty years?

Really now, here we are in the 21st century and they still use a technology developed in the mid 1800's to deliver power, namely the wooden pole and cross brace.

Hardly ever loose your phone in a storm these days but power, for which we pay dearly, goes down the shoot regularly.

Tine to put it all underground.

[Skitterpop]

Its Bush`s fault


But your right Flap...... many components of our infrastructure are so fragile to the elements.People are dying in the Mid west with no power and freezing weather but we want to put a permanent station on the moon and spend hundreds of billions on highly misdirected wars....oh I mean democracy implants .

[Mr.Mom]

I hear ya.....up in the sticks part of the state we lose it a lot...

I have a small genset for camping that I run a few things with....and a propane (wood stove type) heater so we can hunker down for awhile need be...still a PIA....but the kids love it.....

I recently heard that if another country detonated a nuke at a high enough altitude above this country something about the energy waves it would create (or something to that effect) would take out all the ability to produce electricity in this country.....

Imagine that?....the whole country with-out electricty for an extended period of time......stock up on the ammo.....

Talk about loot'n, thiev'n, and animal like behavior.....

[JohnR]

The cost per meter to go underground is exhorbitant compared to above ground to install. The cost per meter underground is exhorbitant compared to above ground to repair.

Lots of new communities, when planned for from the outset, go underground. Retrofitting existing infrastructure would be staggering in cost.

I remember Germany had it's utilities placed underground, damn the cost, so that it would support the military in case of war and suffer less damage that would occur than had the utilities been located above ground. But they also build homes of concrete 30-40CM thick to protect occupants and have mechanical or electrical roller shutters to protect your glass.

They also have/had a higher degree of worry of a ground war fought on their soil... Ahhh, to go back to the safe days of the Fulda Gap

[Bigcat]

I love my wood stove,it has bailed us out more then once here on the Cape

[spence]

Originally Posted by Mr.Mom

I recently heard that if another country detonated a nuke at a high enough altitude above this country something about the energy waves it would create (or something to that effect) would take out all the ability to produce electricity in this country.....

The Electro Magnetic Pulse.

I think most first strike nuclear war scenarios with the USSR began with a high altitude blast over the USA to shut down unprotected command and control electronics. Like, how much canned tuna do you have under your bed?

I'm not sure if any nation outside of Russia would have the ability to do this today. It's not very easy to get a powerful nuke up that high.

But if you bank on MAD it's pretty moot anyway. A launch like that would almost have to come from a nation state, in which case we would turn them into glass within the hour.

-spence

[JohnR]

Yeh - EMP...

Figure a few more countries than just Russia could do EMP.

India, France, UK perhaps (though dount France and UK going Nuke on us). But seriously consider PRC capable of doing so...

Anyone remember the movie The Day After? Was played around the Superbowl in 85 I think? It was kinda eery at the time being a teenager, going to school at HQEUCOM in Germany, watching this movie at the O'Club at Patch Barracks and hearing the reports of Soviet tanks fighting Nato tanks in Germany....

[Flaptail]

hOW THE HELL DID WE GET TO NUKING SOMEONE FROM GETTING POWER LINES UNDERGROUND INSTEAD OF OVERHEAD?

ps The Fulda Gap was rendered indefensible at the end of WWII, with airpower and ICBM's and Short range missiles the only thing the gap would be good for was sending in tanks to look for the few, if any survivors, not that you could do much for them anyway.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

hOW THE HELL DID WE GET TO NUKING SOMEONE FROM GETTING POWER LINES UNDERGROUND INSTEAD OF OVERHEAD?

Well, powerlines act like a giant antenna to transmit the EMP

I'd love to see powerlines go underground, it would dramatically improve my waterview, but the cost would be prohibitive.

-spence

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

hOW THE HELL DID WE GET TO NUKING SOMEONE FROM GETTING POWER LINES UNDERGROUND INSTEAD OF OVERHEAD?

My fault

ps The Fulda Gap was rendered indefensible at the end of WWII, with airpower and ICBM's and Short range missiles the only thing the gap would be good for was sending in tanks to look for the few, if any survivors, not that you could do much for them anyway.

The Fulda Gap is a section of territory between the former East German border and Frankfurt, (West) Germany. Named for the nearby town of Fulda, the Fulda Gap was of immense strategic importance during the Cold War. It was one of two obvious routes for a hypothesized Soviet attack on West Germany from its bases in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. (The other obvious route was via the North German Plain; a third, less likely route, involved an attack through Austria up the Danube River valley.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_Gap

[BigFish]

Them tree huggers are funny aren't they Karl? They will burn one in a red hot minute to keep their house warm when the power goes down though!!!

[TheSpecialist]

One thing you guys don't realize is the red tape thats involved with ug utilities. If you find a trouble ug you cant just dig it up, many times you need a permit to break a sidewalk or the street, dig safe and all kinds of other crap. I work on an ug cable failure yesterday from 0730 till 0200 this morning. That's why I am home today. After 16+ hrs in a 24hr period we get the next day off with pay to rest for safety reasons. We had a 3" poly gas main going through the middle of our trench, which prevented us from putting on a heat shrinkable enclosure over the 900 pair cable. Now the gas company has to reroute the main, and we have to build a freaking manhole.

On a brighter note I heard through the grapevine theere is oing to be a more proactive stance taken with the old plant in the future. this means replace known faulty cables...