As a result of the quake, eastern Japan’s major power company Tepco has announced it plans to introduce rolling blackouts throughout much of the region, the first since the end of WWII, for as much as 6 hours a day and possibly lasting until next year.
The rolling blackouts will apparently take the form of daily blackouts in 3-4 hour blocks, with timing determined by a system of zones and blackouts occurring from 6AM to 10PM. Particularly unfortunate areas could see two blackouts in one day.
As there are no separate circuits, everything in these areas will be affected: medical facilities, traffic signals, trains, elevators, mobile reception, street lighting, etc.
Worse yet, the blackouts are set to continue “at least until the end of April,” with Tepco suggesting they may be even reinstated later in the summer and winter months to cope with elevated demand from cooling and heating .
However, to prevent complete national paralysis the majority of the 23 wards of central Tokyo will be completely unaffected.
The blackouts are the result of a roughly 25% shortfall in capacity at peak hours; as the western half of the country uses 60hz transmission rather than the eastern half’s 50hz, surplus cannot easily be redistributed between the two, and power storage capacity from using gravity reservoirs has already been exhausted.
With the duration and severity of the blackouts a virtual death blow to the region’s economy and quality of life, there is some understandable concern about the competency of Tepco’s handling of the affair – it already has a history of covering up nuclear accidents, evidently overstated the ability of its plants to withstand earthquakes, and seems to have no clear plan for restoring capacity.
The fact that the announcement of the zones was made only the night before the cuts were to begin has also aroused some criticism, as has the fact it was online only and initially provided information riddled with errors and inconsistencies.
Maybe I’ve missed something , but everybody is still talking about today. And what’s next?
They are going to rebuild that old electricity system as it was before and wait for another event with nature ?
What about wind and solar power?
http://www.kleanindustries.com/s/PressReleases.asp?ReportID=345580
that’s an old article , but I guess hardly anything changes there.
There are many problems also in my country (Lithuania) with electricity because
We had to close our both reactors up to 2010, but that’s not the main thing.
“s♥♥t-heads” similar to those in “Tepco” are still in action and if you’ll try to do something like to use wind generator you’ll face big bureaucratic obstacles.
They don’t care about people and their safety, but only in their company’s profits and “face” .
It is not so easy to control these greedy bastards.
They keep announcing blackouts throughout Tokyo, but in my neighborhood they keep not happening. Does the disaster area not have enough of a grid to take the power, or what?
Also, anyone bitching about only having a day after the announcement can shut their fucking hole. It isn’t like an extra day (which is all they would have had, at best) would have given them any better chance at getting ready. Supplies would have run out a day earlier.
Also…the store shelves are fucking bare of any bread or rice. Now bread, I understand. But rice? If you’re worried about not having electricity, how do you plan to cook the rice, guys? (Badly, would be my guess.) Other than that, it’s not so bad in Western Tokyo.
I wonder if it would be faster to work on getting power from western Japan than trying to restore generating capacity in the east.
Medical facilities and other important government buildings will have diesel generators in order to continue functioning.
Well, they do in any city with a half-decent facilities management department of government, hopefully Ishihara hasn’t been diverting that money to pay for his blow and hookers.
You know, I thought of something that might be considered a slight extremity… what if the people in the affected areas were to be granted temporary sanctuary in an allied country? That way they would be taken out of harm’s way in the case of another damaging quake, and repair crews could work on the areas that had been nearly destroyed. I realize they’re already doing something similar by evacuating people to other cities, but not only would that jack the population density in those areas to incredible levels it would also not guarantee they would remain unaffected by power outages or further aftershocks should they occur. Not to mention the radiation if a reactor does in fact blow…