Well, it looks like Italy had a very dark night last night as the Italian power grid completely failed, plunging the entire country into darkness.
And guess who’s to blame for this?
Electrical power to almost the entire country of Italy failed early Sunday, a problem blamed on lines that deliver power from France damaged by a storm.
First reports of the blackout came at about 3:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT). Officials told CNN the entire country of some 57 million people — with the exception of the island of Sardinia — lost power at some point.
Both of the lines importing electricity from France failed at the same time, something officials called an "extraordinary event." Italy imports most of its power from France and Switzerland.
Yes, the French have fouled up again. Then again, the French power system is actually one of the most efficient in the world – as 70% of French electricity is based on nuclear power plants – meaning that France has enough electricity to power not only themselves but Italy as well. While there are a very few number of things that the French do right, in this case power generation is one of them.
Like the blackout in the United States, a single point of failure was the main transmission lines that act as the "backbone" of national power grids. Unlike those in Congress who blamed the blackout on deregulation, it is clear that the US blackout, the London blackout, and now the Italian blackout are all based on the same structural flaw in modern power networks.
Of course, I could just blame France for the whole thing…
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Jay,
It’s positively hilarious to see a US citizen lecturing France about electricity management. Please do yourself a favour: get some greenbacks somewhere to fix up your antideluvian, primitive, 3rd-world power grid first, and THEN come back to bark nonsense about France.
I still can’t make up my mind to decide whether each of both, 1/ the recent power failure that plunged 50 million Northern Americans in the dark – 2/ the recent hyperpower failure that plunged 23 millions Iraqi into darkness, is the most typical of US backwardness.
Last, Jesus told me it’s Satan himself who decided to castigate the Axis of Good & caused elctricity outages in the USA, the UK & Italy. Spaniards (a stalwart anti Bush’s war people) ought to topple Aznar at their fastest convenience for fear Lucifer might spread the night on them.
Frankish, thanks for the laughs.
There are certain comments worth picking apart for instructional value, and there are others so patently stupid that they need no further criticism. Frankish’s demented rant firmly falls into the latter category.
Jay,
Thank you for you august approval, rhetorical verve notwithstanding…
I can’t believe you’re blaming someone for making (obviously) a joke.
Satan and Jesus are not involved in any of these stories. Only fools like Ben Laden or Bush can believe this crap, and make statement like this one while actualy believing it.