Comments on: Most Powerful Blackouts In History

By: Marcacci Communications

Marcacci Communications — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:32:55 +0000

[…] for all forms of energy. In addition, bases located within the United States and abroad depend on aging transmission systems susceptible to cyber-terrorism and extreme […]

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:18:00 +0000

I’m not sure of any links between actual blackouts and nuclear, but nuclear clearly has some big weak spots that hardly get any mention. A decentralized grid is much safer and more stable. I know US security forces have been pushing for more decentralization and microgrids. Of course, behemoth nuclear power plants don’t fit that bill. They also have very long start & stop times, which causes problems with a grid increasingly focused on variable renewable resources.

By: Lundberg

Lundberg — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:29:00 +0000

Nuclear power is sometimes a cause of blackouts, because a scram is ususally not anticipated and can mean that 1000 megawatt is lost from one second to the next. Reactor also tend to trip if the grid is unstable. It is difficult to bring the reactor to a state where it supplies steam for its own needs, no more, no less. If this state “in-house turbine” is not achieved, the reactor will be down for several hours.

Nuclear power explains much for the two biggest blackouts we have had in Sweden in for a very long time, in 1983 and 2003. The first one was not caused by nuclear, but was much aggravated by it.

Is this a general pattern or not, for example in India 2012?

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:42:00 +0000

extensively updated now. i will try to be *much* more attentive with these guest posts, which are often the ones that are on subjects I don’t follow as closely. thanks again for the note.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:43:00 +0000

Will try to do better on the fact-checking. Editing 10-15 articles a day (on top of plenty of other duties) and not being a specialist in every single one results in some things slipping through the cracks. Thanks for the info here — will try to get the post corrected.

By: jonesey jonesey

jonesey jonesey — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:23:00 +0000

July 2012 “the largest non-hurricane blackout in history for the United States”? Have we forgotten August 2003 already? 1965? Even the September 2011 Southwest blackout was about the same size as July 2012.

And the India blackout was the largest in world history by a factor of about 6, not just in the last 10 years in India.

Any of this information could have been fact-checked with a quick visit to Wikipedia:

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

I’m finding that CleanTechnica is a mix of articles, some loaded with information and facts that I can’t find anywhere else, and some that are pure WTF that appear to be copied and pasted with no fact-checking or thought put into them at all. I prefer the former type.