Thursday, July 18, 2019

Blackout

We saw it again Saturday night, and it's a subject I've prattled on about before-- the fragility of the American infrastructure.  In this case, it was the power grid.  One transmission line, at one substation fails, and a huge chunk of New York city falls in to darkness.  It took about six hours to fix the problem.

New York's governor was right when he said things like this shouldn't happen.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

The system is old.  It can be easily overwhelmed.  It can become unreliable.  A book written by Ted Koppel showed the American grid is prone to infiltration by unfriendlies.

A fix will cost trillions and no one wants a power generating station next door, and massive lines running overhead.

We will just have to learn to live with the danger.