We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – the Net Zero blackouts Renewables don’t risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it’s clear that too little “inertia” due to excess solar resulted in system collapse.
– Michael Shellenberger
Also… here.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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We need more resilience and non-solar ways of getting reliable energy.
More nukes would help here.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around black starts, but people have the idea that, when the grid collapses, someone runs into a back room and clicks a breaker back on.
Not so. This restart could take days – weeks? – for parts of the affected area.
This is the sort of occurrence that could trigger huge social problems across a country. I remember the New York City blackout in ’77 – riots, looting, and chaos.
Hopefully (yeah, I know, insane expectations), other countries will take a lesson here.
Probably not, though. Buy generators, and lots of fuel.
I recall from my University course in Electrical/Electronic Engineering (1987 to 1991), one of the lecturers who had worked in the power generating industry said that the most complex technology in the UK was the electricity grid, not computers. With the various power stations inputting power and having to balance the conflicting loads/demands, the second to second adjustments were understood by literally a hand full of technicians.
Solar and wind power inputs, since they were intermittent and unpredictable, severely destabilised the system and very, very few people understood the hows and whys of this.
The grid going down is, as Bobby B said, not simply a matter of “doing a Microsoft Windoze reset” by switching it off and then back on. A complicated sequence of power station start ups and load balancing operations will be needed and that will take a while. Likely weeks to fully restore functionality.
I also note with some vast amusement that the numpties in the UK Government are pushing for solar generation and exploring the possibility of dimming the incoming sunlight to prevent glowbull warbling. Joined up thinking it most certainly ain’t.
@Phil B
I also note with some vast amusement that the numpties in the UK Government are pushing for solar generation and exploring the possibility of dimming the incoming sunlight to prevent glowbull warbling. Joined up thinking it most certainly ain’t.
Solar is obvious. But the fact that wind and wave energy as is hydroelectric power are also just a different form of solar energy is completely lost on them. As is the fact that the biggest consumer of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are various living organisms such as algae and vegetation, which convert carbon dioxide into oxygen in direct proportion to the amount of sunshine there is.
I’d say these people are stupid, but they managed to con us all out of $50 million quid, and that surely takes quite a bit of smarts. Nobody ever gave me fifty million quid.