Power Outages

Trident · Post by **Trident** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 9:21 pm

I was one of the people who lost power a month or so ago in the international power outage thingy. Which, yeah, it was a pain while it lasted, but it wasn't life and death.

Over this past month that I've been back at school, we have lost power in our (on-campus) apartment at least five or six times. Sometimes it's a scheduled outage (they just failed to, y'know, announce it...). Sometimes the power comes right back on after thirty seconds or so. Sometimes, like tonight, it goes out for five or six hours.

Complaint 1: WHY? It's usually just our apartment complex. The rest of the freaking campus is completely fine. Can't they do something to fix that?

Complaint 2: You don't realize how much being in the international power outage thingy really affects you until the next time you lose power. Those of us who had been in said outage before confessed feeling momentary fear upon losing power yet again. It's kinda like how people who lived through the great depression still sometimes stock up for months in advance (sometimes even years) on things like toilet paper and sugar. My initial thoughts on losing power again were on whether or not we should start storing up water in case the outage affected water pumps.

Complaint 3: People don't understand that power outages actually can be a big deal. Does anybody else realize how much we rely on electricity? My roommate complained about watching reports on the outage on TV and how they made such a big deal about how nobody looted and about how everybody spazzed out way too much about getting gasoline and water. "People filled up their gas tanks without realizing that they had no place to go!" First, the lines were long at pumps because there were so few open. Second, some people ran out of gas in their tanks before they even got home. Third, things like generators and grills run on gasoline. Of course there was a line-up for gas. If we wanted to save any food, we needed it so that we could run generators to thus run our refridgerator...

Has anyone else thought about what would happen if we permanently lost power? My family wasn't a nutso one which thought that the world would end on Jan. 1, 2000, or anything, but in some ways, the people who did had valid concerns. We can't do things by hand any more. We don't walk places. It takes power to get power running--if, for some reason, fluke or terrorism, America lost power, we would undoubtedly survive for a while, but if we never got it back for some reason, we would literally be back in the dark ages.

Obviously that's an extreme point of view. Do I honestly fear that in my lifetime? No. But, on the other hand, don't tell me that power outages aren't potentially a big problem.

*pant pant* Sorry that this was very long and rambling. I fully expect most of you to read this and think I'm on crack. But every time the power flickers here (which it does way too often) I can't help but have a moment of panic...

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 12:11 am

The solution is quite simple: buy a gun and lots of ammunition, learn how to use said gun well, and then, when it all comes crashing down, TAKE EVERYONE ELSE'S SUPPLIES.

Utilitarian, selfish, and mean? Yes, but what else is grandma going to do with that colostomy bag and those adult diapers?

Leanan · Post by **Leanan** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:51 am

I lost power/phone last February for a week and was stranded in the middle of an ice storm. Everything was out and my bf and I had to walk in the ice/snow 5 miles to the nearest working phone. All the hotels were booked and we ended up staying at my apartment huddled together for warmth. I'd hate to have to go through that again. I could deal with a summer power outage, but winter is just too scary.

Trident · Post by **Trident** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:52 am

A week? Wow... and I was just complaining that people don't understand how bad even two days can be when it's that widespread...

Toecutter · Post by **Toecutter** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 3:02 pm

Basically, we're having these power outages, because the hippie bastards won't let us build new nuclear power plants, which are by far the most efficient, clean-running plants in the world. OSU has a new second-generation nuclear core design that makes it impossible to have another Three-Mile Island (which wasn't as bad as all the hype, and all radioactive fumes were safely contained by the structure due to it's superior design).

However, because these tree-huggers think a nuclear reactor will blow up like a nuke (which is impossible, because a nuclear weapon works by imploding the Uranium 235/Plutonium, while a nuclear reactor just takes the "hot" control rods, using the radiation to superheat water into steam), they're banning the development of new power plants. Litterally, a nuclear reactor is nothing more than a radioactive steam turbine, which is exactly how coal power plants work.

Right now, those advanced designs from OSU are being used where? France, Germany, Japan, China, etc. What in the hell is our problem? We're letting these fuckers kick us while we're down, and then we have the nerve to let them rip-off our newest technology like we're a 99¢ store! Meanwhile, if we dare to have any nuclear research done, we're charged an arm and a leg to get just the raw materials from these bastards.

The hippies won't even let us put in new hydro-electric dams on the west coast! Mind you, I live in Oregon, which serves as a reserve source of energy when California starts having brownouts. If it weren't for the Grand Cooley and Bonneville Dams, the Columbia River would flood half of the towns west of Pendleton. Of course, the hippies want to take them down, because they "kill off the natural salmon, while we replace them with inferior hatchery fish".

Okay, I'm settling this crap right here! The natural salmon have FISH LADDERS, so they can bypass getting chopped up in the turbine! If these hippies even took a moment to visit the dams, and take the tour, they'd see the fish can easily travel up and downstream under the same currents they'd experience if the Columbia weren't dammed up. The hatchery fish were bred by request from the hippies in the first place, in order to repopulate the dwindling salmon population, because the hippies were cleaning up the streams so well, the salmon eggs were all swept away by the current! Now our government is actually paying people to go and push fallen trees and put debris back into the streams, so as to "recreate the natural obstructions to let the fish breed".

All because the hippies can't sit still, and let nature take it's course! That's why your power, water, and sewer services are slowly being taken away. But heaven forbid they cut out unnecessary telecommunications during the brownouts, because they have to search the web for the next Grateful Dead concert!