Infrastructure Reforms

[Diogenes]

Having witnessed some of the issues with the ageing infrastructure in the US first hand and seeing how many power outages a little bit of wind has caused even in landlocked Pennsylvania, I have to say that Obama had a very valid point when he proposed an infrastructure reform.

Tis a shame that some of the five trillion dollars he spent on idiocy couldn't have been applied to that.

[Diogenes]

Having witnessed some of the issues with the ageing infrastructure in the US first hand and seeing how many power outages a little bit of wind has caused even in landlocked Pennsylvania, I have to say that Obama had a very valid point when he proposed an infrastructure reform.

I agree. Of all things to spend on, local infrastructure is a must. It's an investment into future economic activity that comes with a better / more stable infrastructure.

So you are adamantly against all his green energy boondoggles and crony buy-outs then?

[Skipjack]

It is the exception. You can look up the numbers online of you like, but people very seldom go without power for more than a couple days. I've been through more than half a dozen direct hits from hurricanes and the power almost always goes out, but never for more than a day or two. When millions of people lose power, it takes longer to have it restored. The cost a=of avoiding this is however, extremely high and with the economy as it is right now, there's no many in people's pockets to fix it.

If you're that worried, buy a generator.

I dont know anyone in Austria who was without power for that long within my lifetime. Some 30 years ago, or so it was more common to have power outages, but none ever lasted for more than 12 hours (none that I have ever experienced myself, or heard of from a friend). And Austria is mostly high mountains (the alps). Installing powerlines is much more difficult in some of the more remote areas there.
Yet, someone in Austria managed to come up with the money for a proper infrastructure. In the US, even major cities get power outages.
Another thing that is completely unheard of in Austria is rolling power outages. I know they do them frequently in the Dallas/FW area.
I guess this is why so many americans want grid independence...

Regarding the generator, my friend had to buy one and run it for a long time. It is very expensive to do that. Would be nice if the power company instead cut their profits a bit and actually invested some of the money into servicing their customers. Guess the problem is a lack of competition there...

[Skipjack]

So you are adamantly against all his green energy boondoggles and crony buy-outs then?

Cant say that I am in agreement with all of the things he did there.
Not all of them were completely bad, but I think that overall it was not the best he did.

[GIThruster]

It is the exception. You can look up the numbers online of you like, but people very seldom go without power for more than a couple days. I've been through more than half a dozen direct hits from hurricanes and the power almost always goes out, but never for more than a day or two. When millions of people lose power, it takes longer to have it restored. The cost a=of avoiding this is however, extremely high and with the economy as it is right now, there's no many in people's pockets to fix it.

If you're that worried, buy a generator.

I dont know anyone in Austria who was without power for that long within my lifetime. Some 30 years ago, or so it was more common to have power outages, but none ever lasted for more than 12 hours (none that I have ever experienced myself, or heard of from a friend). And Austria is mostly high mountains (the alps). Installing powerlines is much more difficult in some of the more remote areas there.
Yet, someone in Austria managed to come up with the money for a proper infrastructure. In the US, even major cities get power outages.
Another thing that is completely unheard of in Austria is rolling power outages. I know they do them frequently in the Dallas/FW area.
I guess this is why so many americans want grid independence...

Regarding the generator, my friend had to buy one and run it for a long time. It is very expensive to do that. Would be nice if the power company instead cut their profits a bit and actually invested some of the money into servicing their customers. Guess the problem is a lack of competition there...

Again, you're comparing apples with oranges. Local thunderheads knock out power here and there all over the country, and the power is out for a few hours at most. This is the situation you have in Austria too. Unless and until you bury all the power lines, this is the natural result of high winds and downed trees.

Austria doesn't get hurricanes. This is a completely different situation. We're not talking about mobilizing a handful of repair teams and getting the job done in a few hours. We're talking about a storm 900 miles in diameter knocking out power to millions of people over an area many times the size of all of Austria. When was the last time Austria had weather that knocked down so many trees that 15X its area was affected? Try NEVER.

And just saying again, this is NOT a federal issue. Demonizing the utilities and claiming they should take the money for this from their profits is the childish rhetoric of the left, always seeking to make an enemy of big business. The people who buy the power need to pay for the infrastructure to move it underground, and they are in general unwilling to pay for this given they lose power so infrequently. Personally, I think the argument from aesthetic appeal to move the lines underground is the stronger argument. The lines here are underground, and I'm 20 miles from the nearest nuke, but we still lost power because not all the lines in the region are underground.

[Diogenes]

So you are adamantly against all his green energy boondoggles and crony buy-outs then?

Cant say that I am in agreement with all of the things he did there.
Not all of them were completely bad, but I think that overall it was not the best he did.

You know something he did which was useful? Pray tell.

[MSimon]

Months? I find that hard to believe.

Well it is the truth though. It was quite a scandal and the governor took some serious beating about how he handled things with the power company. He should have been much tougher on them.
In Austria we do have storms with 100 km/h winds about once a year. Very often forrests get devastated and sometimes roofs get blown off some of the newer and less well built houses. In the city where I live, roof tiles get blown off at times (and that is quite dangerous). But I have not lost power for more than an hour since I was little kid.
This storm caused people to loose power very far in land, like central Pennsylvania. Winds there were not THAT dramatic, yet people have been without power for a night now. I live in Michigan and in the suburb where I live ( one of the richest in the US), the power lines are hanging from some wooden poles like wild lianas with the cable TV cables mixed in on top of that. With something like that, I am not surprised that people end up without power whenever a bit of wind causes branches to fall of trees.

160 km/h winds are not unusual in the US. Sometimes 200km/h

But lets go with 160. That is 4X the power of your winds. 2.5X as much force. Not comparable. In the US 160 km/h is a stiff breeze.

[Skipjack]

We're talking about a storm 900 miles in diameter knocking out power to millions of people over an area many times the size of all of Austria. When was the last time Austria had weather that knocked down so many trees that 15X its area was affected? Try NEVER.

And there are much more people paying the power company to fix it too and much more people working for the power company. So in the end it comes out the same. Plus as I mentioned the geography in Austria is usually pretty unpleasent.

160 km/h winds are not unusual in the US. Sometimes 200km/h

Sure, we have had those in some instances too and they dod a lot of damage then. But last nights winds in PA were below 100 Km/h and power in Clearfield, PA has been out for 14 hours or so now and is still unstable.

[GIThruster]

And there are much more people paying the power company to fix it too and much more people working for the power company. So in the end it comes out the same.

No, it doesn't. You don't understand what a hurricane entails. All the emergency teams in the neighboring states get mobilized and they're all busy constantly. The reason the wait for power to be restored after a hurricane is longer than after a normal storm is these teams have more work than they can reasonably handle, and people who live with hurricane threats understand this.

Another point for you to consider is that much of the problem with storms like this has nothing to do with downed power lines or blown transformers. The Raritan river flooded because of the 11' storm surge, and 5 power substations went under water. That put a huge swath of Northern NJ without power and I can tell you, this sort of thing NEVER happens from local thunderstorms. You can't compare a Hurricane to any other phenomena. There is no comparison.

[seedload]

Austria is even better at dealing with hurricanes.

[ladajo]

According to Skip, Austria is better at everything. If you are in doubt, check his posting history.

[Skipjack]

No, it doesn't. You don't understand what a hurricane entails. All the emergency teams in the neighboring states get mobilized and they're all busy constantly. The reason the wait for power to be restored after a hurricane is longer than after a normal storm is these teams have more work than they can reasonably handle, and people who live with hurricane threats understand this.

And that explains why people are without power for months?
Give me a break!

According to Skip, Austria is better at everything. If you are in doubt, check his posting history.

If you actually did, you would see that I never said such a thing.

[GIThruster]

And that explains why people are without power for months?

No. If you know someone who was without power for more than a few days, then you can tell us why. That is the rare exception. We can't have a sensible conversation about this while you continue to treat rare exceptions as normal. Does your friend live on a farm and is the only person on his power line? Did he act inappropriately toward the nice customer relations lady on the phone, and get himself sent to the end of the line for his stupidity? You tell us, what made your friend the exception? Certainly, more than a few days wait is very unusual and hard to believe.

And just reminding, I am at ground zero--just outside Atlantic City and 1/2 mile from the ocean. The center of the storm passed directly overhead. The power went out at 5 PM. The storm center passed by from 7-10 PM. The power was restored at 11 AM this morning. 18 hours for a direct hit. Nothing like several months.

[Skipjack]

If you know someone who was without power for more than a few days, then you can tell us why. That is the rare exception. We can't have a sensible conversation about this while you continue to treat rare exceptions as normal.

Can you read? I have the feeling that you cant! I posted a link to an article that tells the story and it shows that this was NOT a rare case, but rather happened several times and to quite a few people.

[GIThruster]

I can read and I watched the vid. I see no evidence of what you're saying.

one of my friends who lives just a few miles away from DC had a power out that lasted months a couple of years or so ago. . .

You then post a vid where a reporter claims there were outages that lasted weeks, but I can't find any source for this. Even if it's true however, that example was weeks, not months and more likely it was a few days. When millions or tens of millions of people have their power disrupted by unusual circumstances, for one or two to lose power for more than a few days is not reason to spend billions of dollars digging trenches and burying power lines.

So you're new to America. Did anyone mention we're having some financial difficulties here and really are not looking to spend on every pet project? Do you have any idea what $16,000,000,000,000.00 in debt actually means?