Could the Super Bowl blackout energize a debate on the power grid?
“I think any of you who watched the Super Bowl last night know that energy is not only good, it’s necessary. And whether it’s keeping the lights on so that we can enjoy the game or whether it’s keeping the lights on so that we can work, this is — this is essential to who we are as a prosperous nation,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at a press conference to unveil an energy proposal on Monday. …
Minutes into the second half of the game, an electrical-load monitor sensed an “abnormality in the system,” according to a joint statement from the management company of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and the stadium’s energy supplier. The monitor then opened a breaker, cutting power to part of the Superdome “in order to isolate the issue.” That kind of fast response is a sign of things to come if and when the nation upgrades its energy infrastructure.
“I mean, in the past, there haven’t been that many sensors out there, there haven’t been that many ways to redirect things and control things and there also haven’t been that many different resources, so if one power plant were to run into a problem, that was a major problem,” said Dan Delurey, the president of the Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition, a trade association for providers of smart grid technologies. …
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s energy infrastructure a D+ in an infrastructure report card released in 2009. The U.S. “quality of electricity supply” is ranked 33rd globally by the World Economic Forum’s 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Report. Proponents say improvements to the nation’s infrastructure will create jobs.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Nah the media will be told by the donks that is a bad idea.
The ‘green’ Superdome most likely had a tranformer or a battery iverter pop.
“Change”
harlekwin15 on February 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM
Funny, I was pretty sure the power company put out a statement right after this happened blaming the stadium officials and claiming that the power going into the stadium from the utility was all good to go.
Outlander on February 5, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Just ask yourself this question, who stands to gain quite a bit if the grades they give out are really really bad?
You think they’ll be much engineering on all these projects?
reddevil on February 5, 2013 at 10:16 AM
If the blackout in 2003 that actually effected millions of people didn’t (has an explanation ever been given?) I don’t see why having to endure a second halftime (and one with better entertainment) would do the trick.
Flange on February 5, 2013 at 10:16 AM
No graves to stand on sooooo no.
Gatsu on February 5, 2013 at 10:16 AM
I know the stadium keeps blaming their electricity provider, but it seems as if this monitor either malfunctioned or was designed to be excessively sensitive.
There’s no reason why the system should have taken the lights off-line for that long of a period simply because some slight anomaly was detected in voltage or frequency.
Additionally, it’s interesting that it’s being called an “electrical-load monitor”. This implies that it was monitoring the stadium’s electrical load – which means that it was measuring the stadium’s internal load (unless it does both).
blink on February 5, 2013 at 10:17 AM
Barky and the lunatic are dems are concentrating on the hard work of closing sown all electricity production, except for the useless, intermittent, and expensive wind farms.
I thought that we all saw the example of a lack of energy production (thanks in large part to an administration and EPA that are attacking industry in every way possible, Constitution be damned) and the brittle nature that the energy markets and infrastructure have been brought to during the mess of Sooper-Dooper Storm Sandy, when none of the governments involved were able to do anything correctly, the electric companies were held hostage to unions and government, and the people were left in a state of Nature – and unarmed, thanks to the idiotic anti-gun silliness of New York and New Jersey.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM
Next year’s game will start a debate on global cooling and alternate New Jersey traffic patterns to and from the Lincoln Tunnel.
jon1979 on February 5, 2013 at 10:21 AM
Great observation. I wish the people of Staten Island could chime in… oh wait, they’re still huddled around Coleman lanterns.
rhombus on February 5, 2013 at 10:22 AM
Which one? The New York one or the one in London just two weeks later?
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 10:25 AM
That is exactly right. The equipment that caused the power outage was INSIDE the Super Dome and was monitoring INTERNAL load. The power coming into the Super Dome was fine.
The most likely reason it was off for 35 minutes is because you can’t just immediately turn those lights back on AND you have to find out what tripped in the first place so that it can be reset. But nut until after you check it out and make sure there wasn’t an actual problem with the incoming power. In reality, 35 minutes is pretty damn good.
deadrody on February 5, 2013 at 10:29 AM
The one that affected 45 million Americans, not just New Yorker.
Flange on February 5, 2013 at 10:33 AM
I doubt it’s going to raise a debate or discussion. Too dry of a topic for the average American. Moreover, it’s already a recognized fact that our electricity power grid is old and outdated. Most of the current electric infrastructure is left over from the 1960s and has be re-patched several times over.
It’s not like we aren’t putting money into updating it (we are), and we certainly could speed up the upgrading process and put even more money into modernization, but it’s not like our crappy old electric grid is a sudden discovery for public policy makers. It’s a known issue.
ZachV on February 5, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Anything can spark an inane debate, where politicians and press are involved. However, the blackout had NOTHING to do with the grid (sort of like sandyhook and gun control). The blackout was caused by an internal computer sensing. This is the sort of failure you had better get used to, not because of the national grid, but because of smart sensors on your home. Do you really want to trust your uninterrupted power on a graduate of east overshoe university who screwed up the programming, so what ever unexpectedly happens is beyond the control of knowledgeable engineers.
Old Country Boy on February 5, 2013 at 11:07 AM
If the EPA gets its way this will be a fact of life in many areas not just a Sports Arena in a big city.
chemman on February 5, 2013 at 11:24 AM
I’m not sure this is true. How did they get the lights back on so quickly after the half-time show? Do the lights have some type of stand-by mode?
I think this is more likely. They probably couldn’t get the lights back on because the “breaker” continued to “trip” every time they tried. They probably had to figure out what the problem was, and I doubt the problem was external.
blink on February 5, 2013 at 11:40 AM
You’re racist. Debate over.
forest on February 5, 2013 at 11:46 AM
New headline:
Could the Super Bowl
blackoutenergize a debate on thepower gridquality of music sung by Beyoncé?Was not impressed.
albill on February 5, 2013 at 12:13 PM