AB3A's Journal: YAPGFO

...That stands for Yet Another Power Grid Failure Opinion.

Mine comes from my experiences with control systems, SCADA, and industrial culture in general. The first issue to consider is that the grid is a very organic creature. It grows in a rather haphazard way.

Planning transmission lines is always a difficult thing, and as population centers spread out it gets even more difficult because people don't want these things in their back yards. Meanwhile, consumption per capita is going nowhere but up.

In the background, regulators have had a terrible time keeping things in check. This is because of a plethora of interest groups which can't be ignored. Basically the old set of regulations got so complex that it was getting difficult for a person to wrap their minds around the whole idea. The baby was already drowning in too much bathwater, so in desperation they threw out the baby with the bathwater because nobody knew where it was.

So in a fit of "deregulation" power plants were decoupled from the grid and everyone had to start re-regulating from step one.

Now we have a haphazard growth, a meta-stable system, a grid which has to be paid for and maintained, but which pays much more poorly than the power generation jobs. So the brain drain goes to the plants and the grid is left to those who probably don't understand it.

Enter First Energy. Yes, they were ignorant. Yes, they had a problem and they didn't react to it. I don't blame them. They're a creature of the society that created them.

Most utilities get this way when nobody remembers what they do and why. Cities live on a lifeblood of energy, transportation, and water services. Nobody treats these things with any respect. They don't even realize they're there, until something big breaks. Then the recriminations start, the money flows for a while, and then they coast for a few years until the next disaster.

I wish such things were more plain to the public eye; but the truth is that as long as they can get home, watch TV and flush the toilet, most people don't think twice about how the energy, roads, and water gets to their house.

I think we ought to encourage more to live off the grid. When water is delivered to your door, in a pipe, and the overall cost is extremely small, nobody conserves. But when you have an oil fired furnace, the tank is low, and you may not get a delivery until next week, you'll find a way to turn that thermostat down.

Telling a city to conserve water is not nearly as effective as an individual realizing that she or he is running out of fuel and they need to throttle their use...

That's the bottom line: just as with credit cards, the less people keep track of what their spending, the more likely they are to spend more. I'll bet that if we all had wells, septic systems, generators, and dirt roads, we'd appreciate the services a city provides...