670 million without power in India

[Quiksilver]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...86U01G20120731

Wonder how many of them have flashlights?

Wonder how many of them have a lifestyle that requires a flashlight to maintain in a blackout.

[StarHalo]

Roughly 500 million Indians have no grid to speak of, so while this blackout sounds bad, their "normal" is actually a lot worse..

[AnAppleSnail]

My understanding is that 600 million Indians who had (Perhaps intermittent) power yesterday, have none today.

[scout24]

Definitely a frightening scenario, especially if it persists.

[Sub_Umbra]

"...coming to a city near you..."

EDIT-

I didn't mean to be flip but I'm sleep deprived and in reading the comments of the Indian officials I cannot see any difference in what US officials say when there's a big outage.

...it's crap.

[AnAppleSnail]

1. Power outages are reported as 'customers.' A power customer is a power bill (Family of ??)
2. Power outages often cascade...like all engineering failures, they find the path with worst maintenance.
3. This is why hospitals have generators...and hope that they have enough fuel.
4. Speeches after the power goes out don't do much to help!

[blasterman]

Asia's third-largest economy suffers a peak-hour power deficit of about 10 percent, dragging on economic growth.

Ouch. That's a big problem for such a growing economy.

I know the U.S. suffers from an aging grid as well, but the difference is demand has actually fallen in some parts of the country.

[AnAppleSnail]

...Demand has actually fallen in some parts of the country.

Unfortunately, this reduces power company revenues, which can't be good for maintenance budgets. Progress Energy recently tried a big merger in the Southeast US, but they're already being accused of plans to reduce maintenance work.

[Hooked on Fenix]

Forget about maintenance work, power supplies have not kept up with demand. In fact, power supplies are dwindling in the U.S.. San Onofre is permanently offline in southern CA, which was 20% of San Diego's power. After the disaster in Japan, nuclear power will not be increased in the U.S.. Our nuclear plants are all aging and there is no alternative to replace their loss of power in the near future. Coal plants are being shut down across the country do to new E.P.A. regulations and the companies that can afford to are switching to natural gas. The companies that can't afford to switch are going out of business and not being replaced. Wind generators are being run at reduced speeds out of environmental concerns over the birds. They aren't being allowed to run at a rate at which investors get a return on investment. That means electric rates go up and the future investment in wind energy is blown. Solar power is getting cheaper but after paying for the inverter and permits, it still costs 10s of thousands of dollars to power a home. Hydroelectric is on the decline because the entire country is in a drought. San Francisco will be voting this year on whether or not to recycle the water from Hetch Hetchy, a valley next to Yosemite that will soon be drained. This is not only their water supply, but 1% of California's power comes from Hetch Hetchy's hydroelectric dam. That will put a drain on power across the state.