Off the Keyboard of RE 

Discuss this article at the Energy Table of the Diner 

Another “Official” thread to join the Earthquake, Flood, Tornado and Hurricane threads here in the Diner.  Main difference, this thread isn’t in “Natural” disasters under Geological and Cosmological Events, its in the Man-Made category under Energy problemos.  OK, I know a few of you think HAARP is causing the Weather problems and a few more than that think the Climate change is Anthropogenic, but Blackouts aren’t open to dispute or conspiracy theorizing. They ARE a man made problem.

Anyhow, to lead off this thread, Newz of the Day is that India had a major Blackout Monday Morning during the Rush Hour Commute, knocking out power to more than 300M people.  That’s right, power to approximately a population size equal to that of the ENTIRE FSofA!

According to the story, power was being restored after the grid collapse, but meanwhile for a few hours SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS went offline also.  Once the power goes out for more than a few hours, how long do you think it takes for Cholera to spread through Delhi and Calcutta?

Also according to said story, India is chronically short of electric power with 100sM people still not connected to the grid, and has an aging transmission network in need of upgrade, AND needs to build some NUKES!

Who is gonna front up money for India to upgrade here to Electric v2.0?  The guys who did the IPO on Electric v1.0 left with the credit and they ain’t coming back here.

Some speculation on stuff not included in this story.  What caused the grid to crash?  It is unlikely there was a major surge in demand that overwhelmed the transformers, so likely it came from the supply end.  All it really takes is for a couple of decent size power plants to go off line and the rest of them become overloaded unless you can adjust quickly by rolling around Brownouts to the customers.  I’ll bet a coupleof plants are just FRESH OUT of Coal to burn here and the municipalities running them are FRESH OUT of MONEY to buy more.

So the Indians are getting the grid up again here, but one has to suspect probably 10% of the customers won’t get their lights back on here anytime too soon if EVER. In order to make sure the Delhi trains keep moving and Calcutta Sewage Plants keep processing the shit, somebodies out on the periphery will have to go back to Candle Power.

How long before Delhi and Calcutta go Lights Out for GOOD?  Over/Under on this, 5 years MAX IMHO. When they do, call in the Zombie Squad, that’s 30M people easy who also go Offline.

Probably a bit longer before it’s Lights Out permanently on this side of the pond.  Make no mistake though, this Show IS Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You.

RE

 

Power cut hits northern India causing major disruption Trains were stranded after the outage

Continue reading the main story Related Stories Indian workers protest power cuts Watch Indian students who study on railway platforms

A massive power cut has caused disruption across northern India, including in the capital, Delhi.

It hit a vast swathe of the country affecting more than 300 million people in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states.

Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said 60% of the supply had been restored and the rest would be reinstated soon.

It is unclear why supply collapsed, but states using more power than they were authorised to could be one reason.

Mr Shinde said he had appointed a committee to inquire into the causes of the blackout, one of the worst to hit the country in more than a decade.
Travel chaos The outage happened at 02:30 local time (2100 GMT) on Monday after India’s Northern Grid network collapsed.

Monday morning saw travel chaos engulf the region with thousands of passengers stranded when train services were disrupted in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.
Delhi Metro railway services were stalled for three hours, although the network later resumed service when it received back-up power from Bhutan, one official said.

Traffic lights on the streets of the capital were not functioning as early morning commuters made their way into work, leading to gridlock.

Water treatment plants in the city also had to be shut for a few hours.
Officials said restoring services to hospitals and transport systems were a priority.
Power cuts are a common occurrence in Indian cities because of a fundamental shortage of power and an ageing grid. The chaos caused by such cuts has led to protests and unrest on the streets.

Earlier in July, crowds in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon blocked traffic and clashed with police after blackouts there.

Correspondents say that India urgently needs a huge increase in power production, as hundreds of millions of its people are not even connected to the national grid.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long said that India must look to nuclear energy to supply power to the people.

Estimates say that nuclear energy contributes only 3% to the country’s current power supply. But the construction of some proposed nuclear power stations have been stalled by intense local opposition.