http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/26849.htm

BLACKOUTS MAY GENERATE RIOTS, STATE WARNS

By KENNETH LOVETT

May 25, 2001 -- ALBANY - The state yesterday warned of possible riots, looting and "social unrest" in New York City if steps are not taken to keep the lights on this summer.

The dire concerns were included in a new emergency regulation unveiled by the state that will allow backup diesel generators in some buildings to begin operating before there is an actual loss of service.

With demand for electricity growing at faster rates than the supply, officials have expressed concerns that a particularly hot summer could lead to blackouts.

"Since peak-demand periods generally occur during sunny, hot, summer afternoons, electricity-service interruption will expose people to extreme temperatures, unyielding traffic congestion and even trap many people in elevators," the Pataki administration warned.

The state already has moved to install 10 temporary generators throughout the city to create more power. Allowing large businesses, colleges, factories and office towers to turn on their emergency generators when outages are deemed imminent would help reduce demand on the state's power grid, according to the regulation, which takes effect immediately.

Waiting until the lights go out - as the current regulation requires - could wreak havoc on the public, it says. Public safety could be jeopardized, it says. Blackouts could lead to mass looting, stalled subways and elevators, vandalism and "social unrest," such as that seen during the 1977 city blackout, according to the regulation.

Traffic lights, refrigerators and building security systems also would stop working. So would air conditioners, leaving residents at risk - between 50 and 150 heat-related deaths occurred in the United States in 1999.

Meanwhile, hospitals would likely need to limit their operations to emergency services, the state warns. Following the 1999 Washington Heights power outage, several hospitals without power were forced to transfer emergency surgeries.

Environmental groups have expressed concern that the diesel backup generators will be used during nonemergencies, adding pollution on days when smog is already a problem in the city.

-- Swissrose (cellier3@mindspring.com), May 25, 2001

Answers

Environmentalists are still concerned about pollution, under such dire coditions? Interesting.

-- Loner (loner@bigfoot.com), May 25, 2001.

If we had any brains, we'd be retrofitting solar photovoltaics as window shades on the skyscrapers. Kyocera corp's new HQ in Japan has one quarter megawatt of PV on its south wall and roof.

Japan doesn't have any fossil fuels nor do they believe that Santa Claus will power everything for them. Perhaps it will take blackouts to shake Americans out of their sleepwalking. I hope not.

Meanwhile, frivolous uses of power (skyscrapers lit at night when no one is inside, billboards, phantom loads, etc etc) are wasting enormous amounts of electricity generated by burning coal and fissioning uranium.

-- mark (mrobinowitz@igc.org), May 26, 2001.