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posted by martyb on Monday June 24 2019, @11:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the need-more-redundancy dept.

Early Sunday morning, all of mainland Argentina lost power in an "unprecedented" blackout event that left most of the country's 44 million citizens in the dark until the evening. The blackout also extended to Uruguay (which is connected to Argentina's power grid) and limited parts of Chile. Although the exact cause of the blackout is still being investigated, Argentina experienced heavy rains over the weekend, and there is reason to believe that the inclement weather played a starring role in the largest blackout in recent history.

Extreme weather events are a leading cause of blackouts around the world, and the blackout in Argentina is a reminder that our electric grids aren't ready to handle the increasing intensity of storms resulting from climate change. Although the United States isn't likely to see a nationwide blackout like the one that hit Argentina, localized blackouts in the United States have increased in both frequency and duration in recent years. This is due in no small part to massive forest fires, snow storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes that cause localized blackouts often affecting tens of thousands of people.

"There is clear evidence that extreme weather events have increased over the past 20 years, and so have the number of outages and the number of customer hours out of service," says Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant and previous advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "We need to accept this and do a better job at helping customers and communities survive these growing outages and threats."

https://www.wired.com/story/argentinas-blackout-and-the-storm-battered-future-of-the-grid/


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by gottabeme on Monday June 24 2019, @01:42PM (15 children)

    by gottabeme (1531) on Monday June 24 2019, @01:42PM (#859340)

    ...the increasing intensity of storms resulting from climate change...

    "There is clear evidence that extreme weather events have increased over the past 20 years...

    These are blatant lies. Even climatologists who predict disaster from global warming admit that weather events cannot be tied to climate change. And the frequency of e.g. major hurricanes has declined in the past 50 years.

    But Soylent keeps posting these stories with whatever the submitter quotes or writes.

    Fine. If SN admins want this site to be overrun with leftist propaganda, they can have it. I'm removing it from my RSS feeds. I can get this bullshit from everywhere else on the Internet.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @02:03PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @02:03PM (#859342)

      Submissions of gottabeme (1531)

              InfoSubmissionsJournalRelationFriendsFansFoesFreaks

      gottabeme has 0 submissions.

      Page 1 Next

      Consider this a friendly reminder that if you don't like the content and tone of stories you should submit more. (Cue aristarchus but whatev.....)

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by gottabeme on Monday June 24 2019, @02:08PM (1 child)

        by gottabeme (1531) on Monday June 24 2019, @02:08PM (#859346)

        I have submitted stories on this topic as AC, with well-written summaries and well-chosen quotes, and links to proper sources. They were ignored. Instead, blatantly dishonest submissions like this one are posted.

        I have better things to do with my time than submitting to those whose minds are made up that deceiving the public is necessary to accomplish their policy goals.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @06:52AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @06:52AM (#859635)

          e d g y

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @02:04PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @02:04PM (#859343)

      Like so many stories before it, it is a thinly veiled jab at Trump. No mention of mismanagement within the Argentine power industry.

      I can get this bullshit from everywhere else on the Internet.

      Where do you think SN gets its stories from? I wouldn't be surprised if the editors intentionally pick out stories guaranteed to stir up the shit. 80 comment stories, even on a low quality submission like this gives more utility to the readers than a story that ends up attracting 0.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:20PM (#859470)

        Like so many stories before it, it is a thinly veiled jab at Trump. No mention of mismanagement within the Argentine power industry.

        Granted, Trump is a blowhard and the amounts of methane he spews while talking out of his ass are likely prodigious, but I don't see how this has anything do with Trump, or even the Trump administration.

        I'm sure there are issues with the Argentine power grid, just as there are with the US grid.

        More power outages caused by weather-related damage is certainly an issue. But that's an issue to take up with the folks who run the interconnected power grids in the US, not the Federal government -- and certainly not our jackass-in-chief.

        The above includes a not-so-thinly veiled jab at moron. TFS (didn't read TFA) isn't that at all. Do you see the difference now?

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 24 2019, @02:27PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 24 2019, @02:27PM (#859355) Journal

      But Soylent keeps posting these stories with whatever the submitter quotes or writes.

      And we can post corrections to those lies just like you did here. Besides who reads the stories?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @03:10PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @03:10PM (#859366)

      Agreed, and blaming everything on "climate change" is actively harmful since it stops people from figuring out the true cause of the problems. If left alone these people would destroy themselves with this idiocy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @04:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @04:37AM (#859621)

        молодец, парень.

        Я просто говорил Магде, что мы должны позволить тебе держать все здесь, даже если Юрий считает это глупым.

        Это отправит тех идиотов через край.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @03:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @03:34PM (#859376)

      This site and its submissions are already right-leaning so your removal will only help balance things.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 24 2019, @06:03PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday June 24 2019, @06:03PM (#859434) Journal

      Even climatologists who predict disaster from global warming admit that weather events cannot be tied to climate change.

      Good thing they're talking about RATES then, eh?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @06:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @06:32AM (#859630)

        The Jews will always talk about RATES, it doesn't mean it's not a scam.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:10PM (#859467)

      If SN admins want this site to be overrun with leftist propaganda, they can have it. I'm removing it from my RSS feeds. I can get this bullshit from everywhere else on the Internet.

      Bye! Have a great day! I hear they've got some good stuff cookin' over at Stormfront and InfoWars!

      Have fun!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @04:34AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @04:34AM (#859620)
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @08:36PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 25 2019, @08:36PM (#859845)

        Records collected since the late 1800s suggest that the actual number of hurricanes per year has not increased.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 26 2019, @03:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 26 2019, @03:55PM (#860127)

          I can pick and choose too. Except you only get one quote out of the whole summary. Oops.

          From https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate [epa.gov] :

          Average temperatures have risen across the contiguous 48 states since 1901, with an increased rate of warming over the past 30 years.
          Eight of the top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998. Average global temperatures show a similar trend, and all of the top 10 warmest years on record worldwide have occurred since 1998.

          Many extreme temperature conditions are becoming more common. Since the 1970s, unusually hot summer days (highs) have become more common over the last few decades in the United States. Unusually hot summer nights (lows) have become more common at an even faster rate. This trend indicates less “cooling off” at night. Although the United States has experienced many winters with unusually low temperatures, unusually cold winter temperatures have become less common—particularly very cold nights (lows). Record-setting daily high temperatures have become more common than record lows. The decade from 2000 to 2009 had twice as many record highs as record lows.

          Total annual precipitation has increased over land areas in the United States and worldwide. Since 1901, precipitation has increased at an average rate of 0.08 inches per decade over land areas worldwide. However, shifting weather patterns have caused certain areas, such as the Southwest, to experience less precipitation than usual.

          In recent years, a higher percentage of precipitation in the United States has come in the form of intense single-day events. The prevalence of extreme single-day precipitation events remained fairly steady between 1910 and the 1980s but has risen substantially since then.

          Tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico has increased during the past 20 years.

          Increases and decreases in the frequency and magnitude of river flood events vary by region. Floods have generally become larger across parts of the Northeast and Midwest and smaller in the West, southern Appalachia, and northern Michigan. Large floods have become more frequent across the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, and parts of the northern Great Plains, and less frequent in the Southwest and the Rockies.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday June 24 2019, @02:07PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday June 24 2019, @02:07PM (#859345) Journal

    ... Absolute dependency on electricity for living, or near enough. Maybe you or I can survive for 72 hours without grid power (I can but will have a couple of issues. OK, a couple more than usual. ;) ). Some people are able to survive indefinitely with their own reserves. But society itself begins to fall apart almost immediately.

    --
    This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday June 24 2019, @08:20PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 24 2019, @08:20PM (#859491) Journal

      I'll be able to survive. Thinking may be a separate issue, as I depend on a cpap machine to sleep. Extending it beyond 72 hours and I'm threatened with permanent damage.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday June 24 2019, @02:32PM

    by richtopia (3160) on Monday June 24 2019, @02:32PM (#859357) Homepage Journal

    I live in the USA where electricity is reliable!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 [wikipedia.org]

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