We’ve had repeated and somewhat extended power outages here as well as absurdly hot temperatures the last four days. We lose electricity for 4-9 hours at a time about once a day, yesterday twice…
There was a huge transformer explosion a block from here taking down the entire city center and knocking out all electricity.
Despite the power outages, we stay open and keep on moving. Last night I was in here working with flashlghts. Aderhold also bought a $700 generator last night so we can get the computers up (possibly) as the power goes off again today.
I got in just before 5:00 AM, it is 7:14 AM here now local zone time.
The power went back on here in Dearborn at about 4:43 AM. Everything working pretty normally now. The road up the street is closed due to the transformer explosion.
Power just went out again three blocks north of here and three blocks south. It’s out now. The news says they may have it on by 4:00 PM today. We have power here right now, no problems.
What is it with this? Is this happening where you live?
I couldn’t say but the humidity has jacked right up in my office as I sit here. A storms coming and here on the brit south coast we’ve got a severe weather warning being issued. Thats should make this weekends Tri a more intriguing affair…
I’d bet IF you have power up there, and IF you turn on the TV, the local reporters are repeating the usual inane warning from the power folks to “reduce” power consumption…turn off lights, TVs (how would you get the recommendation to turn it off if it was off in the first place???), etc…
The north-eastern U.S. power grid (which pretty much extends out to Detroit area) is a complete mess…this happens every year when the mercury hits 95+.
I saw one of the smaller can-type transformers explode on Sunday. It was on a pole in my neighbors back yard. It produced a ball of smoke 30 feet across and spread oil all over my nieghbor’s yard. Unfortunately, the oil is toxic so they lost alot of grass and landscaping.
They put up a new transformer yesterday morning and it started overheating immediately. The 1960’s power grid in our neighborhood can’t handle 2005 consumption levels. They had to rewire the circuits on our block last night.
Not that bizarre. It just speaks to North America’s insaitable demand for energy. I agree that heat can be dangerous and that there should be places people can go to get out of the heat and that certain places should have AC during the day. However, the real problem is with the people who have 2,000 - 3,000 sq ft or more houses and keep these places ice box cool all day long while they are at work with no one in the house! Why? To keep the furniture cool! Who knows. Turn off the AC during the day if you are not going to be in the house or at least allow the place to warm up a bit. Programmable thermostats have been around for years and make it very easy to allow the temp in the house to go up during the day then have the AC kick in in the late afternoon a cool the house down a bit in the evening. So simple.
Many homes now have heat pumps instead of conventional a/c systems. Heat pumps are not designed to ramp up and down as you describe but are more efficient when minor changes to the t-stat are made. In fact that goes for conventional systems as well. It’s best to leave the system on and nudge the stat up a bit instead of turning it completely off. When you get home you’ll turn it on and make the system work harder to cool the house back down.
You sound like you know something about this, and that’s what I tend to do, just let the temp go up a bit during the day and then bring it down a bit in the evening or . . . . leave it off completely and open a few windows!
On a Sunday night in metro Detroit, there is enough unused generating capacity to air condition every house in town 2 times over. We aren’t at risk of running short of power (assuming the system is working) until the businesses come on line during the week. (Ever seen the electric bill for a medium size factory?)
The problem in my neighborhood (and I’m sure elsewhere too) is not a shortage of electricity but rather the wiring grid can’t handle the load. It was put up when AC was rare. Now every house on our block is running AC, 2 or 3 computers, a couple big TV’s etc. The eletric company is just being a little lazy about updating their infrastructure.
We have interuptible AC which allows the power company to remotely shut it off when there is a shortage of power. Our AC was still running right up until the transformer blew.
“It was put up when AC was rare. Now every house on our block is running AC, 2 or 3 computers, a couple big TV’s etc. The eletric company is just being a little lazy about updating their infrastructure.”
Obviously infrastructure should be kept up to speed, but what about the other side - conservation on the part of users. Per-person/household energy consumption continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Despite all this talk of conservation, it remains just that - talk. How about turning stuff off? How about prepping meals that don’t require heat( electricity) when it’s hot and so on? People just keep doing what they normally do or if the numbers are right, using more energy than before with what they do.
I’m actually fairly involved in the energy sector and on the side have been able to help design and persuade homeowners to heat and cool their houses using geothermal heat pumps instead of conventional systems. My last project was for my parents where they are able to heat and cool their 6500 sq. ft house for the same cost as a 2000 sq ft house using very efficient building techniques and geothermal energy. In fact the system takes waste heat from their heat pump compressor to heat their domestic hot water for free.
The problem with the grid is there is no incentive for energy companies to keep them upgraded…they don’t make money off of them so they concentrate on their plants. In the summer there is generally a peak that begins around 4pm and lasts until 7 or so…Businesses, plants, etc are still open and people are starting to go home. So the grid is in a dual mode of supplying both industry and residential use…on top of that heat builds through the day and starts to peak as well…when people go home they start turning on the A/C, tvs, cook dinner, etc and place even more demand on the grid so things start to get dicey. In addition grid managers are trying to keep everything balanced as peak power plants start to kick on and off to feed the consumption for power. The grid is extremely complicated to manage…send too much power or starve an area of not enough and things begin to pop.
I was impressed they were able to get the power up again as quickly as they did. When I saw that big box-thingy with all the wires going into it belching smoke I figured, “Oh well, there goes the power for four days…” But it was back up and running before 5:00 AM. I was only out last night about 8 hours, yesterday for about 2 hours and a couple days before for about five hours. Power at my house and the store is up now, but Aderholds house- four blocks south of mine, is still without power. Odd.
Ahhh, the irony. We have “power outages” when the source that energizes our entire planet is beating down on us with it’s greatest intensity.
Instead of spending more and more money on our outdated infrastructure, which will not be able to support the energy demands of a world that is accelerating on so many levels as fast as we are, I wish we were funding more research on how to go wireless.
