55 comments on Forties - Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system
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55 comments on Forties - Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system
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This is the new world order, now that maximizing profit is the number one goal, and no one cares a whole lot about details like reliability. We have broken off parts of pieces of big companies, and sold the pieces (with lots of leverage) to much less financially strong companies. I understand that this has also happened to quite a few electric utilities in the United States - another place where we really need reliability. We have created a much more complex system, with less reliable parts, and a greater chance of system failure.
The new world order looks a lot like the 19th century. Gilded and greedy. Complete with addictions to gambling and the likely return of smoke filled rooms. The systems and infrastructure of the 20th results, as much, in progress as the availability of energy. What we have witnesses is the concentration of power into the hands of a short-sighted, greedy, and unreliable few. I sincerely hope things change as we enter the peak oil crisis. Otherwise, I'm afraid anarchy is likely to follow.
Robert, I'm afraid that concentration of power into fewer hands--particularly as it concerns grid power--is exactly what we should expect in the US.
When Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, they repealed the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) of 1935, after intensive lobbying by utilities & their owners. This opened the floodgates once again to the possibility of having a small number of utility holding companies in control of vast portions of the grid. As individual utilities and providers now sell off the unwanted parts of their businesses, it will be possible for evil-minded opportunists to buy up key parts of the infrastructure and hold everyone else hostage.
There is some fascinating reading to be had on PUHCA...how it came to be and the danger of its repeal:
PUHCA for Dummies
The PUHCA Primer
It's 11:55pm. Do you know where your Grid is?
ChrisN--
Thanks! Very interesting.
Chris - I've not read your links. But I'm told by capitalist b*sta*srd that larger units are required to muster the scale of investment required in power systems.
Thoughts?
Yooooon, that may be true in some cases, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that. The holding companies that PUCHA sought to limit are very large, owning many companies and facilities. That's a different sort of animal.
I don't buy that argument for another reason: I think we should be focusing on massively distributed, renewable production of grid power, not giant facilities in the hundreds of megawatts. In which case micro-financing is what we need. (Although long-distance grid building & operation would certainly require a larger company and more capital.)
Nothing new about it Gail, people are intrinsically greedy, here are just a few of the well known bubbles where people were looking to make "easy money":
1634 Tulip craze when one tulip was "worth" more than a house.
1711 South sea bubble, including promises to reclaim sunshine from vegetables.
1719 Mississippi Company.
1926 Florida real estate.
1929 Great depression.
1987 19 October largest crash in a single day.
1990 Japanese land and stock.
2001 Dot-com.
2006 Chinese stocks.
on-going somewhere near you, various property bubbles.
Many get-rich-quick schemes every week, Nigerian 419 - someone you have never met wants your help in illegally transferring millions of dollars...
When people are more interested in celebrities and an easy life what do you expect?
Now if i was in charge...