From: Christian Nielsen (no email)
Date: Mon Jul 24 2006 - 13:31:58 EDT
20 - 30 years ago, Air Conditioning in a house was more of a luxury. For
us, it was a Swamp Cooler. Most new houses today are built with AC and
it is becoming standard practice to install them on older houses. So the
load on the system will only get worse if things start to heat up.
Back when Exodus was building a couple of Datacenters in Santa Clara,
the goal was to put a power generating plant right in the back yard of a
Datacenter, they even 'bought' the land:
http://www.itworld.com/Man/3906/CIO010501think/
While some Silicon Valley companies make noises about leaving the area,
Exodus recently announced plans to build its own onsite plant that it
hopes will supply power for several new IDCs.
-
From what I see, the answer to power problems are generate locally. That
means, if you want AC, you need to put solar on your roof. If you are in
need of lots of power for your Datacenter, build near power sources:
Microsoft and Yahoo in Washington and Google in Oregon:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003114987_microsoft09.h
tml
Christian
-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of
Frank Coluccio
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 9:45 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Hot weather and power outages continue
There are a few tens of thousand families at this time around the
country who
wouldn't see any humor in this. Local to me, the problems that began
eight days
ago in Queens NY persist to this day, and the best ETAs now being given
by the
City and Con Ed is at least two more days. But that's what was projected
last
Friday, or three days ago.
Some lawmakers in the affected districts are calling for the resignation
of Con
Ed's CEO, while some blackout victims are calling for his imprisonment.
The article doesn't go far enough to inform the reader that many of the
"restored" residential and small business units that are holding their
own (as
opposed to sputtering out within two hours, like many that were placed
back onto
the grid) are being fed by a slew of portable truck-mounted generators
that are
tied directly into the local low-voltage feeder networks going to
customer
locations.
A report on CNN (IIRC) earlier today focused on a range of "hot-spots"
around the
country, from Beverly Hills to St. Louis to New England, noting that for
the most
part the electric power problems that are being encountered (as roads
and rails
buckle from the heat) do NOT point to supply as much as they do to the
inability
of distribution networks in the last mile to withstand the increased
loads being
caused by mounting demand from air conditioning (and while no other
application
was mentioned at that point, you've got to know what other drains on
power went
through my mind).
As a society we've already taken ample note of the aging (in many
instances,
crumbling) infrastructure, ranging from sewer systems, roads and rails,
water
tunnels, bridges and so on that are still working decades beyond their
time. Has
anyone given serious focus to the underspaces and overheads that house
the
nation's last mile electrical distribution systems, in toto? If so, what
does it
say about Queens' ability to handle summer loads?
Frank
On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
>
> Come on Sean, this "very few disruptions" stuff is below your usual
> standards. The least you can do to help us pass the time in this damn
heat
> is to recount a few good stories about routers you could scramble eggs
on.
> :)
there is a funny story of some dial devices on fire, and still passing
packets...
)
Frank A. Coluccio
DTI Consulting Inc.
212-587-8150 Office
347-526-6788 Mobile
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