351–360 of 462 posts
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The issue was exactly the same with Ida and New Orleans in 2021. Areas of the New Orleans metro area were without power for 3 weeks or more
so that's one comparable. Surely there are other First World cities that have storms?
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Look at the numbers and it's not so crazy. This is a last mile issue, not a full grid issue.
Americans like to think they’re a special case. Houston has a higher density than say Magdeburg
I was directly hit by Beryl, and just got power back today. For us, the issue was trees taking out the power lines. We live on acreage with a lot of pecan trees, and lost 4 of them in the storm. 2 of them toppled over on the power line. I personally don't think that Centerpoint has done a bad job here, Houston is a large land mass and there is no way that you can get everyone back online with as much wind damage as w…
One option is multiple feeds to most streets. Ie. If power lines at one end of the street get felled by a tree, power just comes from the other end of the street instead. High voltage distribution lines can be done the same - every transformer getting fed from at least 2 places. Obviously with many lines down, such a system might leave everyone with power, but total power deliverable is still lower. For that, you nee…
That would imply a live wire under a tree. Not a good idea.
> Nowhere in the US does that for consumers yet I don't think.
Tons of places do that, in exchange for a lower rate you install a box that lets the utility shut off your AC when demand is very high. It's available in almost all states last time I checked.
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Yes, building the infrastructure in the cheapest way possible has consequences. Underground lines would not be vulnerable to falling trees. But they are a lot more expensive to install, and when they require maintenence for any other reasons.
As European I find it strange how few power and telecom wires seem to be buried in the US. What's up with that? I get that in rural regions digging a ditch isn't worth it, but the Houston area has pretty high population density and still has wires on poles.
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Just because he didn't add /s doesn't mean it's not implied
you never know what someone thinks /s. There's another guy here claiming there are supernatural phenomena.
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What's wrong with below-ground power distribution for metropolitan areas?
Much more expensive to install and maintain, and while risk from wind and rain is lessened, you add the risk of any below ground construction accidentally severing cables.
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> Sorry to be pedantic, but most US businesses have 208/120V or 480/277V three-phase electrical services. Sorry to be pedantic, but define “business”. As someone who’s worked on many job sites doing commercial electrical work, it’s not as common as you imply that there’s three phase service running to a business. Do a lot have it, yes, most, no. Literally everything else you said I’m aligned with.
Basically just factories yah? And like large hotels. Your random strip mall business is very happy with a standard 200 amp 240V service.
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Consider earthquakes. Preparation and infrastructure are what matter. If you don't do the prep, you'll have a hundred thousand dead from a 6.0. But if you do the prep, you'll have relatively trivial damage from a 7.0. Texas power, thanks to their 'we don't need no regulamazations' attitude, has shown itself to be woefully underreported repeatedly in the last few years.
I can't walk by this comment without noting that their 'we don't need no regulamazations' attitude resulted in a large populous state which people want to migrate to. The other large US state, California, has electricity prices that appear to be 2x higher [0]. And their migratory trends are not encouraging. People underestimate the heavy burden of a strong regulatory state. High standards and high costs. All in it th…
EU is arguably more regulated than California, but the regulations here have more sense to them, and arguably higher benefit to cost ratio.
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I can't walk by this comment without noting that their 'we don't need no regulamazations' attitude resulted in a large populous state which people want to migrate to. The other large US state, California, has electricity prices that appear to be 2x higher [0]. And their migratory trends are not encouraging. People underestimate the heavy burden of a strong regulatory state. High standards and high costs. All in it th…
It's not a simple linear scale of regulations and no regulations. EU is arguably more regulated than California, but the regulations here have more sense to them, and arguably higher benefit to cost ratio.
The last time I checked the EU appeared to be in a full-blown multi-country energy crisis triggered by some of the most stunning displays of regulatory incompetence so far this century. So I would accept that the EU is more regulated but I don't think that is the sort of point that plays well right now.
I would be fighting tooth-and-nail to have my country not do what Germany did. The Texas grid, by comparison, looks like a paradise even if it is currently experiencing a week-long outage!
Germany has overengineered and expensive utilities, but I'm happy sometimes that all power and telephone lines are underground.
> the colonists who arrived in the New World from Europe during the seventeenth century and found North American weather to be, in a word, hellish.