I don't work in the industry but I recall reading that most power plants would go into automatic shut down a few hours of being unmanned.
Something about a safety protocol to prevent explosions/meltdowns/overloads.
Asking the right questions.
How about municipal water supply systems?
Used to work in power a long time back. Power/electric workers don't want to live in the dark any more than you do. There will be someone to take over if some assholes decide to say 'fuck it' and leave. The old guys especially will scramble to keep things going. They will call in anyone they can including retirees to keep it running. This isn't something power people take lightly (no pun intended).
You ever see the army of bucket trucks go into a disaster area to get shit done? They mean business and will work 20-hour days to get power restored after a hurricane or wildfire. It's more than a job for these guys.These are good people and they wouldn't just leave because it will mean the deaths of many if they do. I occasionally ran some power distribution boards (SCADA systems) when we needed extra people to help out or we were commissioning new equipment. As an engineer who isn't used to running the boards, it was a terrifying thing to know that I could make a mistake that would cutoff thousands of homes and businesses or worse yet, kill someone by energizing the wrong line that wasn't locked out properly. I would say a prayer on my drive into work every morning that I ran a board just to give me some hope that I wouldn't kill anyone that day. It's crazy shit, but power people are some tough sons of bitches. They wouldn't walk off the job, at least not the White ones. Fuck anyone who does though.
I think that the original poster was getting at the idea that certain workers have more power than government. And that were the government to become some kind of Stalinist nightmare, those workers may be able to cut the dictator off at the ankles. Would people die if you cut off power? Yes, some. Will people die if you dont? Ask the 50+ million Russian ghosts. Imagine a world with AI based 1984 control, with secret police, with social credit scores controlling your ability to even survive. Imagine a world where the elite "party members" get all the good jobs and your only hope is to pick potatoes. A world where the vehicles are all electric and the money is too. A few guys can 'vanish' for a while and leave that 'glorious brave new world' to collapse into itself within a few weeks. Thats power. Its Fight Club. Its what people under the jack boot this last century WISH they could have pulled off so easy, but alas, back then things were far more robust.
You speak like the guys working the power plants are just parts of a machine and will strive to do this 'job' of theirs even if it is the key to the nightmare world created by psychopathic rulers. Fine. But they're not the only ones that control the grid. Its just sitting there, too big to protect. Whether its EMP, Chinese hackers, Iranian sleepers, American revolutionaries, or the guys working the plants, the grid IS a huge weakness-- We all know it. Prepare thusly.
Conscientiousness is the reason that the power stays on in white majority countries.
The lights in South Africa will become dimmer and dimmer as more and more white workers retire or leave South Africa. South Africa which was once the greatest economic power in Africa will resemble Zimbabwe.
Thank you for your service.
I don't deserve the thanks. I was a young desk jockey engineer who was as green as they come back then. The linesman and board runners are the real heroes. Anybody who will climb into a bucket in the cold and rain in the middle of the night and rise up to fix a 12KV distribution line, transformer or insulator is an amazing person. Same goes for the people back at the operations center who monitor and manage the substations and feeder/transmission lines. These are the people who deserve thanks, gratitude and respect. Too bad there are too many of them retiring or passing away without young replacements to take their place. Power is not a glamorous field of work and we're losing the good and wise ones way too often now. We'll make it somehow, but the brain drain is going to be big over the next 20 years or so.
I remember after hurricane Sandy a bunch of power workers/linemen came from other states to assist in restoring the power to thousands and thousands of people. They were turned away by the local unions, likely under the direction of the evil 0bama administration.
Also how much would it cost for the US to build a robust power grid for 96% of the US? Not the hudgepodge mess we have now
Robust? 96%? The continental US has three power grids. East, West and Texas. My best guess is it would be within the first day we would see rolling brownouts. These would lead to complete blackouts as power failed across the Nation. You want to think in shifts. As the next shift doesn't report in you'll start having automatic shutdowns at nuclear power plants- Scrams to avoid meltdowns. If the next shift doesn't report into dump the coal in the furnaces, when the natural gas stops flowing to the plants, etc.
Solar energy is a complete scam, but I suddenly would like to know more.
Are the lucrative tax bennies still around for it? If not, can we bring them back stat? Autistic faglord Elon Musk desperately needs a bailout, after all.
(post is archived)