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Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

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Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#31

Post by mr_tophat »

tlrobinson wrote: post #26
api wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a valid hypothesis and not crazy at all. If this were random I'd expect totally random cities, not the three most economically significant. It might not be covert economic warfare, but more of a covert demonstration whose audience is intended to be the US government. "We have lots of dangerous 0-days, and there's a lot more where these came from." In that case public credit would never be claimed. It reminds me…

"If this were random I'd expect totally random cities, not the three most economically significant." I would be very surprised if there weren't at least 3 power outages in random cities on a daily basis, you just don't hear about it until it's 3 major cities.

This is along the lines of my thinking... I think before jumping to conclusions, it would be worth digging up some semi-current data on frequencies of outages. Not sure how conveniently/centrally that data is available, however.

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#32

Post by tyingq »

api wrote: post #29
tlrobinson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If this were random I'd expect totally random cities, not the three most economically significant." I would be very surprised if there weren't at least 3 power outages in random cities on a daily basis, you just don't hear about it until it's 3 major cities.

That is also possible. I can't find any comprehensive history of blackouts anywhere so it's hard to check probabilities.

There's this: http://insideenergy.org/2014/08/18/data-explore-15-years-of-...

Which includes a link to this Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AdxhulfM9jeqviIZihuO...

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#33

Post by yequalsx »

pps43 wrote: post #16
perlin wrote: post #7

Crazy conspiracy theory: the Chinese and/or Russians have most likely already compromised our power grid and other infrastructure control systems and are waging covert economical war by disrupting important services.

Not likely because of Hanlon's razor: "don't attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Hanlon's Razor is not an established law of reasoning or of philosophy. Quoting it is not a valid counter argument without additional reasoning given.

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#35

Post by flowersoldier »

Hmmmm...I'm trying to verify the outage in LA. The tweet about the power outage at LAX is from today, but the other tweet in the example is from 2/22/17. No articles about a power outage in LA are popping up on google. Something about this article feels a bit click-baity.

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#36

Post by xer0x »

flowersoldier wrote: post #35

Hmmmm...I'm trying to verify the outage in LA. The tweet about the power outage at LAX is from today, but the other tweet in the example is from 2/22/17. No articles about a power outage in LA are popping up on google. Something about this article feels a bit click-baity.

Seems like something is going on in LA: https://m.sce.com/outage/OutageMap.html

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#37

Post by rdiddly »

groby_b wrote: post #30
perlin wrote: post #7

Crazy conspiracy theory: the Chinese and/or Russians have most likely already compromised our power grid and other infrastructure control systems and are waging covert economical war by disrupting important services.

Crazy reality here: SF was caused by a substation fire. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/21/power-outage-shu...

A substation fire isn't a root cause. What caused the fire?

Possibilities I know of would mostly require failure of safety measures, but would include such things as hapless squirrels & birds, problems elsewhere in the system, and yes even remote operation of substation equipment by humans in dangerous ways. (Including both incompetence and malice, though in the latter case you would have to assume the safety measures didn't fail but were overridden.)

Addendum: I'm not coming out full force in favor of a conspiracy theory, I'm coming out full force in favor of keeping an open mind, not getting overly comfortable in one's beliefs, and remembering one knows a lot less than one thinks one knows.

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#38

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII »

yequalsx wrote: post #33
pps43 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not likely because of Hanlon's razor: "don't attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Hanlon's Razor is not an established law of reasoning or of philosophy. Quoting it is not a valid counter argument without additional reasoning given.

That reminds me of this cartoon:

http://i.imgur.com/aI80YDO.jpg

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#39

Post by api »

tyingq wrote: post #32
api wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is also possible. I can't find any comprehensive history of blackouts anywhere so it's hard to check probabilities.

There's this: http://insideenergy.org/2014/08/18/data-explore-15-years-of-... Which includes a link to this Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AdxhulfM9jeqviIZihuO...

Great find.

At a glance it looks like 1-2 dozen per month, so a coincidence is definitely plausible.

Have to wait and see.

Re: Power Outages Coincide in LA, New York, and San Francisco

#40

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII »

beamatronic wrote: post #17
rjbwork wrote: post #3

The seeming reluctance to spend lots of money on infrastructure maintenance and modernization really worries me, especially when I read these kinds of stories.

Isn't this a self-correcting problem? The grid will become more robust when there is an economic need to do so.

I think the chance that it leads to lots of quick fixes rather than a redesign for the new demands and taking a long-term view is considerable.
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