Next round of black outs

oil pan 4 · December 2014

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/05/coal-power-plant-closures/?intcmp=latestnews

From the article:
"The Institute for Energy Research, in its latest report, predicts more than 72 gigawatts of "electrical generating capacity" are going offline. “To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes – or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas,” IER report says."

Just remember, when the lights go our for more than 3 or 4 days or after several weeks of blackouts with no sign of being turned back on all the time people will start to go a little crazy. When everyones lights are out and yours are on, if any one sees that they will notice, the ignorant masses will come to take your power source by force, even if that source is only solar panes, batteries and inverters that most commoners couldn't possibly understand. When people see your house is immune to the blackout they will automatically assume you have some kind of portable generator and lots of fuel since that is the only thing most people understand to be a stand alone power source. They also know a portable generator and its fuel are usually pretty easy to steal too. Then they will likely take your batteries and maybe the inverter too while they are at it.
When the power goes out, just play along or make it look like you are effected too.

It will start next winter, right about the time it starts to get really cold in most of the U.S.

CALLD · December 2014

Re: Next round of black outs

Actually it's a catch 22 situation, while you don't want to invite the theft of your power source, you don't want your outside security lights off in a prolonged blackout!

Being from South Africa where rolling blackouts and crime are common I can offer a few words of comfort.
1) when there is a shortage on the grid, the utility schedules blackouts to coincide with periods of highest demand, which in summer is a flat peak from 07:00 to 20:00, and in winter a sharp peak from 17:00 to 21:00. Rolling blackouts are unlikely to occur after 22:00 unless there is a very serious power shortage. Weekends are sometimes scheduled for blackouts to build up water supplies for hydro-peaking plants and to stockpile fuel for Gas Turbine peaking plants.

If rolling blackouts are insufficient to protect the grid then a grid collapse results and this could take several weeks to fix. In this apocalyptic scenario life becomes hell, water supply fails, so does sewage pumping and treatment. Gas stations run dry, shops run empty. Phones stop working, so does the internet. Hospitals stop functioning once their generators run dry. Short of having a doomsday bunker there is little you can do to protect yourself from a total grid collapse...

softdown · December 2014

Re: Next round of black outs

It seems like almost every thing I read is trying to convince me that the sky is falling. I don't think the EPA is rational, after all it is a government agency. I don't think Obama is still firmly in touch with reality. But both will surely back up if it really looks like tens of millions will lose their power. Neither one is evil.

Unless of course, Alex Jones has been right all along. So 2015 would be The Year.

Next round of black outs

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