Iced Earth

[ellyssian]

Well, that's a deceptive practice... all these music videos, and then I use the name of one of my favorite bands as the title of a post that has nothing to do with music...

I was kind of surprised to see that the ice storm ~ that made things slippery here, but not much more than that ~ took out power to so many just off the western edge of the state. It wasn't so long ago that bits and pieces of New England was similarly laid low. Go back a bit further, and there was that ice storm that did so much damage to the mid west, and quite a few others to boot.

I don't know if the reporting is better, or the internet just makes the information more accessible, or because I am in contact with so many more people from such a wide ~ world wide, really, although this particular trend is more national in nature ~ area, it makes it personal and I care more... but it seems to me that ice storms have been knocking out more power for more people more often.

Now, I'm not sure if there's more of a tendency for ice storms to arise with the weather patterns we have in stock these days, but my gut feeling ~ which isn't even based on a cursory glance at statistics ~ is that ice storms happen, and before that, many moons ago, they also happened, and they most likely will happen again.

Maybe its an aging infrastructure.

I mean, as I said, ice storms will happen. The damage associated with a heavy layer of ice ~ from slip and falls to cars tangling around trees or each other to trees dropping limbs or their whole selves ~ isn't going to go away.

Since ice storms happened, why does it seem the lights go out more now?

Excepting areas seriously troubled by earthquakes, you'd think more lines would be "going up" underground. They can't escape the disruption caused by an uprooted tree, but they're a lot safer than the lines that are catching and supporting fallen trees above ground. It costs more to get them in the ground in the first place, especially if there's no convenient way to route them through existing tunnels that creep all Lovecraftian-like under the bigger cities. I'm not sure how much more it costs, but is it significantly more than the cost of replacing them whenever there's some moisture and the temperature drops? Really, you don't even need ice to bring down some wires and knock out power.

There's a bigger price to factor in, but it's spread amongst the customers in an indirect fashion. What price does the (literally and figuratively) power-less consumer have to face? What's the cost when power is out for a week? While you're not paying for electricity that's nowhere to be found because that meter is just not spinning, there could be costs for fuel for the generators of a few. Perhaps the costs of having to temporarily relocate to a place with running water and heat, or to put up without showers and to layer up.

I know if the power goes out on us we're good for maybe six to eight hours when temperature is not an issue. Hotter, we'll be throwing out food. Colder, this house is insulated only slightly better than a roadside bus shelter, so that won't work. Longer, we're done ~ no electricity means no running water and no flushing toilets in addition to no lights, heat, or other usual useful things.

Beyond the convenience annoyances, there's also danger. When the power goes out on some folks, for whatever reason, bad things can happen.

Getting cables underground will prevent some of the problems, but I'm sure it has other issues of its own beyond the monetary cost. There's an environmental cost to ripping things up and burying cables. Running a trencher to lay just a handful of cables is enough to destroy tree roots, making it more likely that you'll see some toppling within a few years. It may not take out power lines, but the loss of an otherwise healthy tree is a serious hit on the local environment as well as an outright hazard to the health and property that might happen to try to break the tree's fall.

The best solution would be to have less reliance on ~ or, dare I say it ~ get rid of the grid all together.

Of course, this transfers the cost to the property owners and away from a centralized utility. Of course, that has good points and bad points. Of course, that's less likely to happen than having all the electric companies of the world decide all local power lines will be moved underground posty hasty.

Still, it's something to consider.

Then again, that storm may drop ice-forged lances that shatter your solar array, freeze your waterwheel until Spring thaw, and topple your windmill...

Comments

[cissa.livejournal.com]

In MN, when I was growing up, we only got a serious ice storm maybe every 5 years or so.

Here in MA, we do seem to get at least one per year. How badly this trashes the power delivery is variable.