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Thread: Significant Risk of Nor'easter This Week

  1. #16
    Moderator Matt Molnar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mirrodie View Post
    ...



    I don't know if solar is a good option yet. Battery tech is still relatively unreliable I think, an there's the likelihood of the solar panels blowing off your house. There are other alternatives to gasoline generators, they're just more expensive. My uncle has one hooked up to his natural gas line which can also run on propane in the unlikely event gas service gets cut off (earthquake?) There are also hydrogen fuel cells which are clean and reliable but even more expensive.
    Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem.
    All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control.
    I trust you are not in too much distress. —Captain Eric Moody, British Airways Flight 9

  2. #17
    Senior Member yankees368's Avatar
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    What concerns me the most about LIPA is the lack of preparation and real-time management. Utilities in both NJ and NYC took proactive measures to shut down substations when flooding became an issue there. This lets them turn the power back on much faster.
    LIPA, on the other hand, let 50/185 of their substations explode due to flooding, creating much worse problems.
    It's almost as if they wanted the substations totaled so they could collect insurance on them.
    Our local substation just came back online yesterday, according to Newsday.
    Last edited by yankees368; 2012-11-06 at 01:30 PM.
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  3. #18
    Administrator Landing Lights's Avatar
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    As an electrician friend of mine put it, there is no way to make even a portion of the electrical grid outage proof. Sure underground electrical systems are much less prone to outages from falling limbs and high winds. But they are significantly more expensive to install and maintain. $30 billion is not a small number by any means, and the idea of doubling electric bills in an area of the country with some of the highest electrical rates in the country would be a non starter. Not to mention the public outrage at the prospects of digging up every street in the county with overhead wires. The electrical distribution system is the single largest investment that your local utility has. Putting everything underground would mean taking that entire investment, throwing it in the trash, and starting over. There is little if anything that can be reused between an above ground and an underground electrical system.

    Just before we moved out of the City, ConEd dug up the road in front of our apartment to lay a main electrical feed coming from Yonkers to Manhattan. For about a month we had a road of steel plates as they would dig a long section, and then lay the cables and do other related work, and then come back to cover the section. It took about a month or so to complete just that section. There is also the matter of connecting each individual customer to the now underground electrical grid. Those connections would probably be solely on the home or business owner's dime and would cost thousands of dollars. Sure in a perfect world all electrical lines would be underground, but I just don't see it happening given the costs and inconveniences involved.

    Electricity, for all that we use it for is, like you said, a wonder of modern life. There are ways that we can live without it for relatively short periods, just like we can live with road and bridge closures for relatively short periods. But I think that you underestimate the costs involved with the upkeep of said system. Roughly half of your electrical bill is the "delivery" portion, which is the costs for the utility to deliver your electricity from the generating plant to your home or business. It is just like the costs associated with maintaining roads and bridges. We don't rip up every road or bridge in the entire county simply because there is a better way to build them that leads to fewer potholes, but instead we make repairs and rebuild sections as necessary.
    Ben Granucci, Wappingers Falls, NY
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