Power Shortages And Tech Industry 356
TheGeneration writes: "Power shortages in San Francisco, and Silicon Valley have caused power providers to demand that Intel and other tech industry biggies to use less power. Things may get bad enough that rolling blackouts have been warned. The story is reported by the AP. "
Good piece in the Chron (Score:2)
My take on this is that CA massively fucked up deregulation, by establishing perverse incentives to reduce capacity and/or manipulate pricing, combined with strong disincentives to establish new capacity. The ISO is trying mightily to keep the network running, but customers are getting crappy service.
I'm a pretty serious capitalist, but I must say that the LA Dept. of Water and Power [ladwp.com] is looking pretty good right now (their role in Tank Girl notwithstanding!)
Re:That's rediculous you don't need blackouts (Score:2)
2. The engineering problems with that are tremendous and the permits necessary to do such heavy modifications are mind-boggling. It isn't going to happen.
3. You are offering a false choice. The true choice in your situation is sporadic v. sporadic and history is on the side of local positioning of the company's servers being more reliable.
DB
could be bad (Score:2)
Re:Don't blame deregulation, its the greens.. (Score:2)
We want all the conveniences of life (which now days requires even more power every year) but we don't want the side effects. Basically as individuals we're promoting a selfish version of what the greens want: less pollution, but only in Our Back Yard. Some other guy's Back Yard? Might as well be glowing green for all I care, right?
Who seems to be using more common sense here?
that's hilarious. (Score:3)
the problem isn't big companies, they aren't using more power than they usually do, and they are the ones who carry the brunt of the cost of running power plants.
penalize people who are wasting all the electricity on decorations before shutting down industry. People can find other less-wasteful ways to be creative for the holidays.
________
deregulation done wrong (Score:2)
They need to make it easier to add capacity to the system so higher prices will generate new entrants to the market.
Maybe those powerplug (GE labelled) generators are going to save the day but first they have to get through this year without stupid legislation rolling California fully back to a command and control system
DB
Re:nukes (Score:2)
In fact a coal power plant releases more radioactive stuff than a nuclear plant, because there is a lot of uranium in coal, that gets released as soot after burning the coal. During normal operation a nuclear plant releases only heat that escapes from the heat exchangers and may be some water vapor. Of course there is spent fuel that has to be taken care of after it's been used, but this is much better than carbon dioxide that is released by coal and petroleum and causes greenhouse effect.
The Solution to California Power Problems (Score:2)
Electricity Over IP [ietf.org].
All the state needs to do is hack into some of New Jersey's many Nuclear or trash burning power plants and everyone can have lights on their house for Christmas and Intel can continue to make faulty chips.
-gerbik
Re:see what happens... (Score:2)
In the early 1990's more than 20% of the electricity in the US was generated by nuclear power. However, because of the no-nukes crowd, no new nuclear power plants have been commisioned since the mid-80's. Currently, many of the older plants have reached the end of their intended lifetimes and are scheduled to shut down in the near future.
The only viable alternatives for replacing these nuclear power plants are fossil fuel based plants. At the present time renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power are not sufficient to meet the nation's (or even California's) energy needs. Furthermore they are unreliable (no solar on cloudy days or at night). Hydrogen fuel cells are not a viable solution because it requires more energy to produce the Hydrogen than can be produced from the hydrogen.
The problem with replacing nuclear power plants with fossil fuel based power plants is that the fossil fuel based plants are killing the environment. All contribute to global warming. Coal based plants produce acid rain, NOx, SOx and particulates. Even the cleanest natural gas based plants contribute to global warming.
Also, natural gas is relatively expensive compared to other fossil fuels and natural gas reserves are limitted. In fact California's current electricity supply problems are partially due to the limitted supply of natural gas.
Basically, by replacing nuclear power plants with fossil fuel based plants we are exchanging a safe source of power for a dangerous source of power. That's right! Fossil fuel based power is destroying the world. Nuclear power is relatively safe by comparison. In the US there have been no significant nuclear accidents that have threatened the lives and health of the surrounding population even after 40 years of nuclear power generation. By contrast thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of people living near coal-fired power plants have suffered from asthma and other lung-diseases due to the pollution.
Of course there have been accidents at nuclear facilities, including severe accidents in some foreign countries. However, in all cases the nuclear accidents resulted from inherently flawed reactor designs and negligence. Nuclear reactors can be operated safely and the wastes, which are relatively small can be disposed of safely. Over 40 years of safe production of nuclear power in the US proves that we should not allow the scare-tactics of a vocal minority to scare us away from nuclear power.
Well, don't underestimate the load. (Score:2)
These sorts of austerity measures aren't anything new to California, as anyone who's visited during drought years can attest.
That said, is it really that important that Las Vegas uses so many damn lights during the power crunch?
Bah Humbug....
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Ah low power. We forgot all about that. (Score:2)
Yes, the article is talking about industrial power usage, but it sure would be nice for low power consumption to filter down thoughout the PC world. The big speed increases we've been seeing lately aren't coming for free. We just jack up the transistor count and die size and get performance in return. That's on par with putting a 16 cylinder engine in a car. Of *course* it will be faster, but there's more to cars than raw horsepower, you know?
Personally, I think low power and reliability should be the two goals for the computing industry. Does a secretary really need an 800MHz Athlon? Do students? Heck, I've done commercial game development with much, much less than that.
Re:Way off base (Score:2)
The big draw tho, is multiply the following by about 500,000 or more:
Get home, open door turn on lights
Turn on TV (presumably to watch the talking heads discuss looming power crisis)
Turn on PC, dial up ISP, start downloading email
Go to the bathroom, turn on light, drain the vein or pinch a loaf, wash up
Turn on kitchen light, fire up the range or nuke oven, cook dinner
Turn on dining room light, eat dinner (or in front of TV or computer or whever the hell the nuclear family eats dinner now)
It does add up, particularly if you're one of the civic minded types with an animatronic Santa or 500 watts of lights around your abode.
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And they get a better rate. (Score:2)
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
It's the logical result of a lack of a market. (Score:2)
The demand spike alone is enough. The real problem is that there is no market in electricity at the consumer level. In general, people pay one rate per KWH regardless of time-of-day or state of the grid, and anyone can tell you that a KWH at 4 PM on a scorcher is worth a lot more than a KWH at 3 AM on any day of the year. But people pay no more for the 4 PM KWH, and they have no incentive to shift their demand to 3 AM.
There's a huge problem with lack of infrastructure, and I don't mean turbines and wires and transformers. The infrastructure that's lacking is the market at the consumer level, and the information technology required to support it. People can and do drive around until they see gasoline at an acceptably low price, but they have no way to put the dishwasher on standby until the price of electricity is reasonable. You could make a huge dent in your peak-hour electic consumption if you had an air-conditioner that froze water overnight and cooled your house with the ice during the day, but if your electric meter can't distinguish (or just as badly, can't tell you) the difference between a 4 PM and 3 AM kilowatt-hour, you have no way to benefit from this. The consumer could make a big cut in the capital costs of the grid, but the consumer has no way to reap the benefits even if they'd pay for the hardware. This is a failure of the market: the pricing information is not getting where it needs to go.
The power companies probably don't want this to happen. If people could actually be full participants in the market, they could sell power as well as buying it. They could stuff KWH into batteries overnight and try to make a profit by selling back to the grid during the day, and you'd see lots of guerilla solar [homepower.com] installations (except they wouldn't be guerillas any more). You'd see lots of people running co-generators, and the real sophisticates would be doing things like burning natural gas to re-heat their water tanks between 3 PM and 8 PM while selling the electricity, and running off the grid for electricity the rest of the day. If electricity was a quarter a KWH, you could make a rather tidy profit off your hot water heater. But none of this can happen unless and until there is a real, minute-by-minute market in electric power where everyone can participate, and you know who's not going to let that happen.
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The Right to Cheap Power? (Score:2)
Power is not free - especially in the environmental sense. And you know what? Those pollutants that are the byproduct of your precious power go everywhere. And you don't have the right to pollute MY backyard.
But instead of being snippy and berating your skewed viewpoint, I'll offer some constructive suggestions:
Some things to consider (Score:2)
As a condition of deregulation, the California legislature placed a price cap on electricity producers at about $250 per megawatt. If, due to the high price of natural gas for instance, it costs $300 per megawatt to produce electricity at a particular plant, that plant will be shut down.
Re:Way off base - a correction and an addition (Score:3)
PG&E was prohibited by the PUC from signing long term contracts because there was a period where spot prices tended to be lower than long-term prices. The PUC never took into account that they were looking at an aberation in pricing and that the situation might change.
Another factor taking plants offline is they've reached their pollution allowance for the year.
The Christmas lights aren't blameless. The State Christmas Tree in Sacramento eats 25KW. I live in a neighborhood where a lot of my neighbor's electricity bill jumps between 20-100% The homeowner's association sponsors an annual christmas competition and more than a few of my neighbors go all out in an attempt to win a dinner for two. Just suggesting that maybe they hold off till 7 before they light up is considered Grinchiness.
"We're between the dog and the fire hydrant." - Florida Senator King
Re:Way off base (Score:2)
> vigorously fighting a plan by the local PP
> owner to remove the existing (BIG) plant, and
> replace it with a smaller,lower-profile plant.
> The locals have decided they want it replaced
> with a bare lot. Another 500MW of capacity lost.
The city is Morro Bay and the local PP owner is Duke Electricity. Yes the town is opposing the plan. The current plant has caused a measurable deterioration of the air quality of the town.
The new plant has shorter stacks which will concentrate the pollutants in the town even further. That is combined with the stacks disrupting the scenic coast (Morro Bay is on the Pacific Ocean) which hurts tourism.
Loss of tourism $ + Cost of public health + Cost of environmental cleanup > Income from new plant
Simple equation, NIMBY my ass.
Move to Canada.. gobs of power (Score:2)
We've got more power than we know what to do with up here. Hell, we sell most of it to the USA. Why not relocate some of the plants up here, and then the local governments can lament the NIMBY phenonomon when they don't have the growth in the local economy and the corresponding tax revenue that these companies provide?
That said.. people need to accept that if they're not going to look at techniques for affordable power generation other than coal and oil - specifically, nuclear technologies, solar power, and the best and baddest, hydroelectric and the corresponding impact on whatever you're damming up - there's going to be (real) economic impacts. I never understood why more people didn't look at geothermal power.. Lots of heat in the earth's core to tap. Although, people will probably whine about that, too.
Or, you can just pay more. Heh. Help out that Canadian trade defict!
Re:that's hilarious. (Score:2)
Re:Win Boxen and Nix Boxen & Power (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
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Re:Way off base (Score:2)
What do you want, a purpose built power plant or lots of people running diesel fired peaking generators to satisfy curtailment policies that are a requirement of industrial surplus pricing? When you run a small manufacturing plant that requires 3 megawatts for continuous operations, shutting down during peak times is not an option as this causes lots of scrap for landfills. Peaking generators that keep plants running during blackout conditions are a magnitude more expensive and create local pollution right next to your back yard. They are used or many people wouldn't have a job.
The cost of electricity is a major cost in manufacturing plants. Expect jobs to move where electricity is cheap. Two power plants are under construction 20 miles from where I live. Property values have doubled each year for the least three years. If California does not open up new plants soon, expect a return to farming and desert life.
I love the sound of 2800 horsepower twin turbocharged CAT generators hammering the pistons away, but let's leave the job of power generation to the power companies.
Re:nukes (Score:3)
http://www.whistleblower.org/www/hanford.htm
Coal-burning, is also majorly unacceptable to most environmentalists. And they may release clouds of radioactive stuff into the atmosphere, but they don't make entire regions unlivable for millions of years. It's not the plants mostly, it's the fuel production, transportation, and waste storage that is so terrifyingly vexing. If you're not afraid of that, then why don't you go buy a house in Richland, WA? Take a swim in the Columbia river? Got Strontium-90?
Personally, and I think that a lot of
Of course that will never happen if we keep electing oil barons into the presidency (both Gore AND Bush).
We Have Met the Enemy... (Score:2)
One thing has bugged me in the past few years. The US had energy shortages, high energy prices for years back in the 70's. We learned to make autos and homes more energy efficient. Ironically, people seem to have adopted the belief that everything is so much more efficient that you can now have more of it. Fuel efficient cars became SUV's, 65F became 65F in bigger houses (more volume), energy efficient ovens and ranges became & a microwave & an espresso machine, all putting us back where we were, using the same amount of power and now there's more of us. We're our own best enemies. NIMBY, indeed.
BTW, I paid $28.00 for my gas and electric for a townhouse apartment for the last month, half the nights running the furnace for a few degrees of warmth. I'm not the most concientious, I leave lights on in other rooms, the TV blathering away while I surf the web upstairs. I could reduce my consumption down to about $20.00 a month if I push it. That's with using the range twice a day, too. Consider that that's for November and I read about all the whiners pissing and moaning about how their energy bills doubled in southern California (I'm Central Coast.) S'cuse me while I get out some tweezers and the world's tiniest violin. I used to live in the Great White North (eh!) of Michigan, where you weren't getting things down if you didn't spend at least $100 a month on gas and electric for a house. More likely well over that, my parents spend close to $200 a month back in Michigan. So, southern California, just shut up, ok?
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Re:Way off base (Score:3)
BTW: Edison (and PG&E, et al) have been eating the difference between what they pay to buy power from Cal-ISO and what consumers are willing to pay, enforced by governmental authorities in the form rate-caps. These rate-caps are basically those instituted as part of the transition to a de-regulated market. Edison claims US$3 Billion is owed it as result of the difference (and only since last summer!).
As I ranted to my pair-bond last night (as we walked the (still) well-lit sidewalks of Long Beach, CA -- part of the de-regulated market)): How's it possible that here in the richest region, of the richest state, of the wealthiest nation in the history of the fscking world we're ducking our heads and waiting for a Rolling Blackout? This may be SOP for the Third & Second world, esp those places that haven't fully tossed off the chains of Socialism, but this ain't fscking Havana! If the Free-market can't deliver the goods, what's it good for?
Face it: Cali De-regulation hasn't worked thus far. However, Socialist power up in Los Angeles (via a municipal utility, the DWP) has been awfully successful: Their rates are due to go down 10% next year, and they've made a killing selling excess juice to CAL-ISO, so much in fact they'll be able to replace a real dirty coal-fired plant in Nevada with alternatives (NG) much sooner than planned.
Of course, we all know the free-market is not doing well in this case because it isn't free-market enough...
EC
Re:NOT the high tech industry (Score:2)
Sigh
Re:When will these idiots learn? (Score:2)
Re:Time To Get Off The Pot (Score:2)
Skyscrapers kill birds.
Airplanes kill birds.
Hunters kill birds.
But you know what kills the most birds of all? The car sitting in your driveway, and millions of others just like it.
If you want to go to the site of the bloodiest bird holocaust in the country, go check out your local expressway. When you're ready to give up motorized transportation, then maybe I'll be ready to listen to your "wind turbines are bad for the birds" rallying cry without doubling over in laughter.
No more fuel (Score:2)
Mindless banter - here's some facts (Score:2)
As an employee of one of California's electric utilities, let me fill you in on a few facts:
1) The government has little or nothing to do with providing the citizens of CA with electricity. Yes, the industry was recently deregulated, but even before that the electric utilities were publicly owned companies. The government simply regulated the prices that the utilities were allowed to charge, due to the implicit monopoly power that a utility normally has.
2) There are many reasons for the current power shortage, among them: a cold snap in the Midwest has limited the amount of power that can be imported from that region; many power plants are undergoing maintenance, since we beat the hell out of them this summer; still other power plants are out of service because they have exceeded their allowed amount of noxious emmissions.
3) Have you ever filed to build a power plant? This process takes years. CA's population growth in recent years has exceeded all estimates, and is growing at a much faster rate than the power supply.
4) Deregulation took place just a couple of years ago. During the transition period, companies were reluctant to commit to building power plants due to market uncertainty. There are several plants in various stages of development, but most won't come on line until 2002 at the earliest.
5) A previous poster noted that the large customers that have been asked to shut down did indeed sign up for this, although nobody expected them to have to do this almost 30 times this year. However, they do receive reduced rates throughout the year as compensation.
6) The utilities own a very small fraction of the power production. As part of deregulation, the utilities were required by state law to divest themselves of their production capability (with a few exceptions, such as nuclear generation). CA has little control over the actions of the companies that are currently responsible for running the plants, and we are in the midst of discovering that this is a bad thing. Your precious capitalists are screwing over the rest of CA by withholding generation in order to drive up prices.
I'm disappointed in the /. moderators for moding up the parent post. I hope I've shed some light on what's really happening here.
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Re:It's the logical result of a lack of a market. (Score:2)
There's a whole bunch of issues there that need to be addressed.
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Re:That's rediculous you don't need blackouts (Score:2)
Blame the greenies. (Score:2)
I'm no big Intel fan. However it's not fair to threaten them with blackouts if they don't lower their power consumption. Intel is a big employer. If you hurt Intel you hurt the families of it's employees and indirectly many of the tech companies that have publicly traded stock.
LK
Wrong (Score:2)
The problem is, absolutely and 100%, the influx of tech companies. It takes years to bring new power plants online, and the demand for electricity has increased much faster than they expected a few years ago when they were deciding how many plants they'd need to have running by the end of 2000.
They've even brought in portable plants via ship, and it still hasn't been enough. When you've got several years of lead time before you can really bring more power to the grid, and a sudden, unexpected influx of tech companies, no one on earth could prevent the shortages that have occured.
No Moore for you (Score:2)
So much for supply and demand. (Score:2)
This is one of the few reasons I can be glad I live in a socialist country, I suppose. No one is going to cut off my electricity.
But every system has its drawbacks, I suppose.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
Re:that's hilarious. (Score:2)
The problem, fundamentally, isn't extra load, it's the political system that doesn't let new powerplants pop up as needed. NIMBY is alive and well and it will probably take localized, quiet fuel cell generators to fix this problem. NIMBY doesn't care about what it doesn't notice.
DB
Using renewable energy to solve the power crisis (Score:4)
The problems in California are solvable and solvable in a renewable way. The technology exists, but people have to downsize their power requirements or move to localised power generation.
To release more power for industry, houses could reduce their power requirements to less than 5% present values as illustrated by Huf Haus [futureenergies.com] and Dr Susan Roaf [futureenergies.com]
Taking this theme further, why not get rid of the bureacracy required to put power into the grid. Solar Guerillas [futureenergies.com] are acting illegally in contributing green power back into the grid.
In England, forward thinking Dot Com companies [futureenergies.com] are using Solar power to powerer their buildings and how many hours of sunlight do we get compared to California?
And when there is not enough sun (in California??) there are certainly waves [futureenergies.com]
There is an online magazine that charts all renewable power sources, from hydro to solar to biomass. Check it out at http://www.FutureEnergies.com/ [futureenergies.com].Gordon Foat
Re:A little misleading... (Score:3)
As a fellow Californian (Oh, 'scuze me, I mean "a fellow Californian, Dude"), I've been wondering the same things you are. I know MY power consumption in winter goes down to about 1/3 of what it was in the summer (and that's just to keep the apartment down to around 80F!)
I concur, this sounds "manufactured" to me, as well.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Re:deregulation done wrong (Score:4)
Almost there (Score:2)
Re:nukes (Score:2)
It's not normal operation that people are afraid of. It's the idea that something that could render a good sized chunk of land uninhabitable for centurys is being run by the same corperate mentality that decided the wrongful death suits would be cheaper than a strip of rubber in the new Pinto.
Re:that's hilarious. (Score:2)
Please start conserving enery by shutting off your own computer. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Re:Blackouts wont work (Score:2)
Re:Harness the joggers! (Score:2)
Though, I think the football players will convince the geeks that they should perform power duty so the football players can dance with the cheerleaders.
- Sam
Re:California has 29% excess generating capacity (Score:2)
Exactly. Inspectors swooped into the power plants and questions are raised as to why they don't coordinate these scheduled outages. That's the big deal. The pollution thing won't carry any salt in the Bay area, but they could probably get away with it in LA, what's a little more smog.
California is selling power throughout the west, and some of that is being frowned upon, too, as Washington state has seen much growth and increased draw on CA.
Used to be 'water rights' was the history of the west, seems like it's power, now. Too bad they haven't worked out a viable way to store excess capacity, say, pump some water up into a resevoir during the night.
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Digimon? (Score:2)
As an aside, why do people who run server farms and the like rely heavily on utilities? Get creative with your electricity needs. You can save alot of money if you supply a portion of your power. I know a manager for P&G (Protor and Gamble) who was running one of their factories in Texas IIRC. They bought a pair of jet engines and attached them to the factory for heating and power generation. It saved them a ton of money in the long run because they ended up producing more energy than they used. Invest some of your startup capital into making your building(s) more efficient (creative server farm cooling) so you're less of a hassle on everyone else.
It's not bunk (Score:2)
Christmas lights (Score:2)
Alerts are usually called before 5:15 pm. They try to predict whether they will have to interrupt power as early as possible, and they even have a page [caiso.com] lists the forecasted peak throughout the day. (Another student at my school uses gnuplot to turn the on that page into a nice-looking graph [hmc.edu].) So just because the alert was called before people started turning on Christmas lights doesn't mean the lights didn't affect the electricity use at the peak time (which is usually around 6 pm).
Also, some of the shortages are due to annual pollution credits for individual plants running out, so it's possible that using electricity even late at night could contribute to additional plants running out by the end of the year.
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Time for nuclear power - the green energy (Score:2)
Nuclear power is by far the cleanest, safest and among the cheapest of all large scale power generation schemes.
Nuclear power is usually compared to other technologies by comparing the nuclear worst case with others normal case, and by counting 1 nuclear death as 1000 other deaths. If you do an honest comparision nuclear comes out clearly ahead, even though it is forced by regulators to have a 1000 times higher security than the competition.
Re:Common sense limitations (Score:2)
Assuming the power switch dosn't give up the ghost before then.
This is ridiculous (Score:2)
One: It's The Silicon Valley. It's not a city.
Two: This is a story submission, please fix your grammar. "...to demand that Intel and other tech industry biggies to..." has one too many to's in it; That is, it has two. *cough*
Three: This is just ridiculous. This is just another example of government screwing over the capitalists that it claims to love. A city and/or state invites these companies in, happy about the jobs it will provide, and the money it will bring to the region. Then, they fail to provide power infrastructure. This is patently unfair. Also, I've been hearing that people are actually being asked to minimize the number of christmas lights that they put up this holiday season. California's inability to even provide a reasonable Christmas Holiday experience (American-Style) is simply pathetic. Is this what we call caring for the emotional welfare of our citizens?
Now, I'm of the mind that Christmas is a Hallmark holiday at this point anyway, and I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense. Christmas is more about spending money and keeping up with the Joneses than it is about Jesus, or even a reasonable family value like getting together and getting along. (Note: Jesus is just all right with me, as I don't care what they may say, and I don't care what they may do -- And the holiday was snatched from older "religions" anyway.)
The answer? More goddamn power plants. Solar, nuclear, tidal, I don't care, but put them in, put them in service. California, you must provide for the needs of industry in California, or it will go to Mexico. Jobs here will be lost, people there will be exploited, and it will all be for the simple want of Kilowatt-Hours.
Re:Alternative Power Sources (Score:2)
The new big lie of the 00's.
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Re:It's the logical result of a lack of a market. (Score:2)
Meters which can charge differently by time have been available for decades in other parts of the world. Triggered by either radio signal or an internal clock... Utterly no reason why these couldn't be used in the US...
It's totally capitalist, but... (Score:2)
It seems that the "power issue" has been in the news quite a bit lately. Lots of "infrastructure" work needs to be done, etc. So who will be doing this? Who are the major industrial players in the US that will have (hopefully) lots of money pumped into their coffers to fix these problems? Or better yet, who will be the "new generation" players, such as power cell manufacturers, energy efficient device manufacturers, etc.?
Re:could be bad (Score:2)
Socialist power? (Score:2)
*ROFL* over "we all know the free-market is not doing well in this case because it isn't free-market enough..." you'd think people would get a clue...
It's all bunk (Score:3)
There are some issues, which are being addressed, but it boils down to deregulation hasn't fully kicked in. When people stop wasting cheap electicity because the rates have gone up there will be plenty to go around. This is one of the warmer states, so they can't really use the argument 'the poor will freeze.' The poor will just have to watch less TV.
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America resumes amazing me. (Score:3)
You guys actually warn people about the chance of rolling blackouts? In Tel Aviv, no warnings unless it was known that there was going to be a rolling blackout. And even then, not much notice, and only in the form of a few notices pasted on light poles.
Not to mention the rolling blackouts that happened without any warning at all...
Alternative Power Sources (Score:4)
Joshua
Terradot [terradot.org]
Re:could be bad (Score:2)
Would the environmentalists get upset if they took the obvious preventative measure. Installing some batteries and generators in the basement...
Deregulation (Score:2)
The question is, if the providers don't have the capacity to supply the power for everybody that wants it, who would you rather have not enough power for: the companies or people in their homes?
Personally, I'd rather have companies have to reduce their power slightly, and have people in their homes still be able to cook, depend on a refrigerator, etc.
As for a socialist country not running out of power, are you serious? Just because you belong to a certain type of society doesn't mean that your country won't exceed it's power supply.
Just my $.02 or 2-pence, or what-have-you
When will these idiots learn? (Score:2)
An interesting side note is that the California Public Utilities Commision is investigating why approx. 25 percent of the power generation capacity in California is off-line. There is speculation that Pacific Gas and Electric is attempting to justify their request for a significant rate increase on the basis that power capacity in the state is inadequate and they need to increase rates to afford buying power on the wholesale market.
At the same time though there is significant Not-In-My-Backyard going on. A proposal to build a new plant just south of San Jose has been bogged down and may not get off the ground.
When will everyone figure out that in order to keep having affordable power new generation facilities need to be built?
James P. Hogan wrote an essay a few years ago called "Know Nukes" where he discusses why well-built nuclear generation is not only more efficient but in fact far safer than building any other form of generator. I just hope we figure it out before we discover that we can't maintain the current status quo. Of course whether the US nuclear power industry can build a "safe, well-built" generation plant is a whole 'nother question. (CANDU! CANDU!)
FYI: For the record, I'm not affiliated in any way shape or form with anyone in the power generation business.
The NIMBY solution (Score:2)
But what if you went into a community and said "If we can build a 500MW plant, we'll give the community up to 50MW of power $0.01/kWh." I know I'd let 'em build a power plant in my town if it meant cutting my electric bill by 85%. It could be a big incentive to power-thirsty industries as well -- move to an area and get nearly free electricity.
The reason NIMBY has been such a problem with power is that everyone sees it as lots of bad being imposed on them with only dubious "community good", often at the state or national level.
Notice that many communities *beg* to have prisons or other eco-neutral facilities built near them because they provide good-paying jobs and a tax base. The power industry just needs to start seeing incentives as way to get themselves welcomed into backyards instead of chased out.
Re:Intel should swithc to on-site power generation (Score:2)
Otherwise they might have ended up buying electricity from Mirage
Re:deregulation done wrong (Score:4)
To make things worse, I'm under the impression that if we wanted to help out by generating our own power and putting our surplus on "the grid" for others to use, we either have to pay excessive amounts of money to jump through various procedural hoops, or are completely forbidden to do it.
"Home Power" magazine [homepower.com] (they also put their current issues online in .pdf format) has a series of "guerilla solar" articles about people "sneaking" power they've produced onto the grid, which I find pretty amusing. Maybe enough people "sneaking" "illegal" power back onto the grid might help (and reduce reliance on ponderous corporations and governmental regulations to keep us powered.)
My god, did I just mix "Green"-style "Renewable Energy" and "Down with Giant Corporations" rhetoric with "Libertarian"-style "I should be able to get [power] wherever and want and sell it to whoever wants it" and "If I want to be self-sufficient it's my business"? Shouldn't "Green" and "Libertarian" rhetoric cancel each other out in a giant explosion or something?...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Cali Always Outta Something... (Score:2)
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
This is California we're talking about (Score:2)
Look, up here in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington have built record numbers of wind generation systems, and natural gas turbines are being put in place.
Out of curiousity, where are these record numbers of wind turbines located?
the California legislature has to take action yesterday and build environmentally-friendly power plants yesterday.
This is California we're talking about. Environmental concerns aren't exactly a high priority.
Re:Nuclear power is dead in the US. (Score:2)
While it is true that nuclear power generation in the US is currently not very economical, this is largely due to high regulatory costs. Basically, some of the environmentalists figured out that the easiest way to prevent construction of more nuclear power plants was to increase the cost of building and operating such a plant.
They accomplished this by lobbying government agencies to increase the regulatory requirements. They also lobbied the government to place some unreasonable demands on the requirements for selecting new sites for nuclear power plants. Finally, they had their lawyers sue companies to prevent them from building new plants. This effectively drove up costs.
If you don't believe me, then how come nuclear power is economical in France where 70% of the electricity generation is from nuclear power?
Sim city (Score:2)
Re:Intel (Score:2)
Works well for everyone. They have to have the generating capacity sitting there for emergencies anyway, so they get some use out of it during the summer (around here)
Re:Using renewable energy to solve the power crisi (Score:2)
Solar power simply doesn't have the energy density to power a high-rise office building. It works when there is a lot of land and people who are willing to use natural light, heating, and cooling, but in an office building, the square footage the sun hits isn't sufficient to make any major inroads on the power usage of the building for artificial lights, elevators, heat, cooling, business machines, etc.
Of course, I favor nuclear, but that just isn't done anymore...
Sorry, No... (Score:2)
Now if you could set up a nuclear reactor in your garage or something...
Re:Watch the Grid... (Score:2)
Just so no one is mislead, there were no rolling blackouts last night. There's a white paper linked at the bottom of the other system status page at http://www2.caiso.com/awe/systemstatus.html [caiso.com] that describes what really happens at each stage.
Stage three is when the CAISO predicts that operating reserves will drop below 1.5%, and unless resolved quickly will probably result in rolling blackouts of the various blocks around the state. But that did not happen last night, thank goodness. I've got a UPS for my two systems (bought a couple of weeks ago, before all the craziness), but it won't last through all of the blackout...
Walt
What you may not know (Score:4)
By the way, futures contracts for power delivered in California are going as high as 25 cents per kilowatthour. Last May we were getting it for around 4. If you think power is expensive now, just wait till next summer. And you in the rest of the nation, your turn is coming. California-style 'deregulation' is being pushed in many states. If they succeed, get ready to see your rates quadruple.
Re:The electricity market is non-standard... (Score:2)
Depends on the type of plant, with coal and nuclear plants which rely on creating steam starting them up is very time consuming. Other systems such as internal combustion engines or hydroelectric can start up in seconds.
Re:Time for decentralized power (Score:2)
But you'll have to get the gas from somewhere...
Re:California Deserves This (Score:2)
As for Governor Davis, the words "Governor Davis" and "idealism" don't belong in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence. I think the words you're looking for are "spineless," "middle-of-the-road," and "Republican in Democrats' clothing."
The Navy to the rescue (Score:2)
Question: any carriers laid up in San Diego right now? Those things have mammoth power generators.
I can just see it, though: US Navy funds an increase in basic pay by selling electricity to southern California...
The real problem is PG&E (Score:3)
Don't blame deregulation, its the greens.. (Score:2)
The issue in California is that they can't build powerplants to provide for the growing use of the state.
why? Because every damn one of them gets shot down by some green organization.
Sorry, if your state's growth stagnates because lack of resources they ain't going to have the cash to help the environment either.
Someone please explain how applying regulation is going to fix it? It won't, because you cannot regulate what DOESN'T EXIST.
Re:Sorry, No... (Score:2)
Yes, NG, or even LP is expensive today, but we also have alternative fuel vehicles emerging. This *should* help to bring the cost of NG down, due to supply and demand and all that.
The most important thing to note, however, is that we are developing realistic alternatives to some of the monopolistic providers.
Re:Time To Get Off The Pot (Score:2)
>Oh, and those air conditioners? Lose them. Buy a fan and deal with it. Ceiling fans are probably the best.
Heh. You wanna come spend a week at my place here in Austin or my parents' places in Houston next summer? I think a good 5-7 days of the Texas summertime will change your tune. The fastest land animal is not the cheetah, its a no-ac-cuz-it-harms-the-poor-widdle-animals eco-friend running to turn the AC back on...
(Note that I am a liberal and an environmentalist, but let's face facts, summertime sucks hardcore in the south. ;-) )
--
A little misleading... (Score:3)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Caught in a power crunch even before winter has begun, California ordered some major commercial users to cut back on electricity Thursday...
California doesn't have power crunches in the winter - most of the state is mild enough. Summer is when we typically have our "power crunch"; everyone and their mother using their AC.
Second, this just seems created to me. Local news going crazy (as they typically do) about the crisis, and how we all better turn off our Christmas displays... it's making old ladies think thier one string of blinking lights is going to take out the state's power grid. Yet we aren't being asked to not cook, iron, or use hot water - all things that will use considerably more electricity than even a large display of holiday lights. There's news in this, but I don't know if there's an actual story in there anywhere.
The Good Reverend
So, does this mean.... (Score:2)
I work in Campbell, CA (just a tad south of San Jose), and the power grid here sucks a big one anyway. In the summer, all of the AC units in the valley get turned on and...
BANG!
SirPoopsalot
To send me an email, remove the SPAM's and replace the -at- with @.
Re:deregulation done wrong (Score:2)
B-)
Personally, I don't see a green ethic inconsistent with libertarianism as long as the green's don't wish to use the power of the state to compel me to use fewer computers (I'm currently using three).
DB
Harness the joggers! (Score:3)
Why not set them up on some power generating treadmills and bikes and let their exercise do something useful... like a bunch of little high-tech gerbils.
-S
Way off base (Score:5)
- A large number of generators have been running flat out since this summer, and need maintenance. Most of the generators in CA have pretty much been running non-stop since early this summer, and need necessary maintenance work. The result is that ~11,000 MW of capacity was offline yesterday. Given that the (potential) shortfall was ~500 MW, that's a big hit.
- Prices in CA aren't competitive, driving a lot of power out of state. Most CA power distributors (remember, generators and distributors are generally separated now) buy their power under short-term agreements (nobody had the foresight to sign long-term deals, locking in prices). The CA rate top-end is around $250/MW, which is significantly below the rates available out of state. The result? A lot of power gets exported at the same time there's a shortage in CA.
- Older generators and rampant NIMBYism. Most generators in CA are older plants (20+ years). There's been a widespread attack of NIMBYism since then, preventing construction of new plants. San Jose, for example, just gave the finger to a new ~650MW plant next to the new Cisco campus. Similarly, there's a town on the central coast whose name completely escapes me who is vigorously fighting a plan by the local PP owner to remove the existing (BIG) plant, and replace it with a smaller,lower-profile plant. The locals have decided they want it replaced with a bare lot. Another 500MW of capacity lost.
- Server farms are bigger power consumers. A given office space converted to server farm space will consume ~4x as much power.
Now, if you think this is bad, wait until next week. There's a cold front due in.OBTW-- For those who think the Christmas lights are the big villain - think again. The alert was called at 5:15PM, before the lights went on.
Re:Time To Get Off The Pot (Score:2)
Have you ever been to California? There aren't as many areas that get winds consistantly strong enough to power wind generators. There are areas that have wind turbines (such as Techapie (sp?--it's at the southern tip of the Sierra Nevada Mountains by Mojave)), but the wind we get off the ocean isn't as strong or consistant as the wind the Pacific Northwest gets (note, I'm saying this as a San Diegan who lived in Tacoma for a few years)
The other thing is - get rid of those WinNT and Win2K boxen! Switch to some decent boxen with good cycle usage like *nix.
Good point
Re:There is that... (Score:2)
I agree, you could set it up so that this "power sharing" was linked to small geographic areas like subdivisions or cities. That way if your genset can't cope with an instantaneous load (AC kicking on, for example) you could take up some slack from the neighbors gennie.
Re:what does intel have to do with power shortage? (Score:2)
Intel is not the only one using a lot of power, and I strongly suspect they're not the only company cutting their power usage, probably due to money-saving agreements with the power company (as pointed out by someone's earlier post).
This has nothing to do with what Intel does for a business, or how much power their chips use. It has to do with the big facility Intel has there.
-Puk
Re:it's "cold", turn the furnace up full-blast (Score:2)
Obviously they have not played.... (Score:2)
NOT the high tech industry (Score:3)
So it's no wonder that the stories we read in the media point the finger in any direction but at the ones responsible. Is it the California legislation's fault? Is it Intel's fault? Is it Santa Claus' fault? Is it a severe case of NIMBY? (I don't know about y'all, but I have a nuclear plant AND a gas plant with big ugly smokestacks within 20 miles of my house).
California's supply of power is low, because the industry has been fighting tooth and nail with lobbyists to become privatized and deregulated (so they can bill whatever the fuck they want). The people have been fighting it. (through the California legistlature). And though it would be illegal to bill more for power, it's not illegal for them to drag their feet on construction of new plants, and upkeep of old plants. So, as it has been said, old plants have mysteriously dropped off the grid for maintenance reasons, new plants are not coming on line to meet demand. This is in a PARTIALLY deregulated system.
In other words, the power companies are trying to build their case for rate-raising, by artificially constraining supply, in an attempt to increase demand (gee, where have we seen THAT movie before? Oh yeah, that old TV series, "RIAA's Angels".)
Interruptible power (Score:3)
In a stage two emergency, they tell one or more blocks [scebiz.com] to shut off power during some part of the evening. (The evening is when power consumption is highest [hmc.edu].) If we don't shut off our power, we get charged about 90 times as we normally do (from our lowered rate). This has happened about 10 times this semester (which is much higher than any other semester during the last 10 years).
Since finals are next week, the school decided to leave power on for the dorms during the outages, but only leave emergency lights on in academics. This is costing a lot of money, so most students try to turn off their computers when they find out that our block is supposed to be interrupted.
Btw, CA was at stage 3 for a while yesterday (pdf link [caiso.com]), but I don't know if they actually started involuntary rolling blackouts.
--
Power-off HOWTO (Score:3)
Here is a short guide on how to turn computers off at night.
Method one: Advanced Power Management computer
Restart your computer. Right now. Press or whatever to enter the BIOS setup utility. Now look around for an option called 'Wake on Real-time clock' or suchlike. Set this to 10 minutes before you normally arrive. Now get your choice programming language and write a program to shut down your computer. I use Visual DialogScript [dialogscript.com]. Here is the program:
:Start
Exitwin force
Stop
Compile to an executable, then use the task scheduler to run it at an appropriate time. 6:00 PM would be a good example, running every day.
This will turn your computer off, and turn it on again.
Method two: Old computer
Go to your local radio shack (You've got questions. We've got batteries.) and get a security timeswitch. Plug the computer into it (Or just the monitor, if you like) and set the times. If you want, you can write a power-off utility above to turn off your computer.
You too can try this at home!
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
Re:NOT the high tech industry (Score:4)
The thing that annoys me more is that people want lower prices and fewer generation facilities. You can't have that, it's not possible. In a deregulated scenario, prices will rise, encouraging construction of new facilities. In a regulated scenario, there is often less motivation to build. Regardless, there is no way to build generation facilities when any proposal to do so is defeated by the tree-huggers.
The solution, of course, is to 100% deregulate, allow rates to float on the open market, and build incentives into the process that encourage the construction of ecologically responsible facilities. If the tree-huggers fight even that, then they should have their power turned off. The plant they didn't want built will supply their power when they allow its construction. If power plants are so evil, then they should be honored to be decreasing the need for them.
Re:Don't blame deregulation, its the greens.. (Score:3)
OTOH, IMO putting a strict limit on the amount of pollution that a given plant can put out is not a good solution, and neither is blocking the construction of new plants. A much fairer way to discourage pollution is to tax it of it based on the how much the pollution costs society, or how much it would cost to clean up. That way, we wouldn't get suddenly get interruptions, blackouts, and high prices at load conditions that shouldn't produce those problems.
--
A Christmas fit for Uncle Scrooge (Score:4)
Yeah, have sympathy for a company that can afford to shell out a few million dollars to the local congressmen (of course, they are not expecting anything in return), and can afford to hire PR reps who whine about turning off the lights so their employees can make chips in the dark.
Guys like you need your heads rattled to see if they make a hollow sound. Sheesh. Check your temperature and see if you're alive.
I bet you probably snitch on your co-workers if they are playing games or reading email jokes, just to boost that 0.0000013 % improvement in the economy.
Andy Grove himself would send you a personal generic christmas greeting card.
I bet you're a bundle of fun at Christmas.
w/m