Memo to Mr. President Elect -- Could We Please Get Some Help with A Decent Power Grid on Oahu? (That's in Hawaii, Santa)
Where: Statewide || Grouped in: Statewide Any Kine || Tagged:
Barack Obama and his entourage were in the dark for 12 hours from early Friday evening until the following morning. Many other parts of Oahu had power outages lasting 16 hours or longer. Supposedly, a lightning strike took down one generator that forced the whole grid to shut down -- peak electricity time is 7 pm or so, precisely when the strike happened. This is the second time in three years that Oahu has suffered an outage in excess of 12 hours -- the first one was due to an Earthquake off the Big Island that caused little or no damage to Oahu but did manage to shut down our power. Of course, even the Big Island's own grid came up faster than Oahu's. So the question is, there must be new technologies that can prevent this from happening. Santa, could you bring us in Hawaii a late present and tell us how to stop a blackout (particularly one that lands in the middle of shopping season right as dozens of Oahu retailers are struggling mightily and possibly heading into the abyss). Any thoughts? Earthly insights welcome, as well.
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Comments
John Davis said:
The power grid situation is abysmal. I worked for nearly 10 years in Oahu’s power plant, as a boilermaker. Their maintenance techniques are archaic and outdated, with little regard to crucial engineering standards that would, if acknowledged, have saved the populace from the angst caused by the lack of power on too many occasions. The current state of the system is at any time in danger of shutting down. It has been that way for many years. It is just a lot worse, now. The high wages paid maintenance crews that travel from one site to the other (2 locations) on this island is not justified, as all things repaired are done so with the idea that if done too well, there will be no need for them to work the overtime that they rely on to pay their exceedingly high cost of living. The newest plant for Hawaiian Electric was built in the 70’s. The oldest—40’s. Go figure…
—01/24/09