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Power Government

Tens of Millions Without Power In Pakistan As National Grid Fails (theguardian.com) 73

Posted by BeauHD from the weak-infrastructure dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Pakistan's national grid suffered a major breakdown, leaving millions of people without electricity for the second time in three months and highlighting the infrastructural weakness of the heavily indebted nation. The energy minister, Khurram Dastgir, said the outage on Monday was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the grid, which affected the entire network. Supplies were being partially restored from north to the south, he added, nearly six hours after factories, hospitals and schools reported outages. The grid should be fully functioning by 10pm (1700 GMT), Dastgir said, adding: "We are trying our utmost to achieve restoration before that."

Like much of the national infrastructure, Pakistan's grid needs an upgrade that the government says it can ill afford. Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand, but it lacks resources to run its oil-and-gas powered plants -- and the sector is so heavily in debt that it cannot afford to invest in infrastructure and power lines. "We have been adding capacity, but we have been doing so without improving transmission infrastructure," Fahad Rauf, the head of research at Karachi-based brokerage Ismail Iqbal Industries, said.
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Tens of Millions Without Power In Pakistan As National Grid Fails More

Tens of Millions Without Power In Pakistan As National Grid Fails

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  • I remember growing up in the 70's when the public owned the utilities, and blackouts were rare. But since then there's been a push to deregulate and privatize public utilities.

    While I applaud their efforts - indeed, dramatic, they'd still have to have regular unplanned blackouts and routine rolling blackouts to achieve the level of service Californians have come to expect.

    • load shedding happens all the time south africa!

      • That's because Eskom, which in the early 2000's was rated the top power company in the world (seriously!) has, like everything else in the country, been slowly disembowelled by the endemic corruption that rots almost everything that happens in Africa.

        In terms of privatisation of public utilities, the country that pioneered all this, New Zealand, doesn't seem to have run into any problems with power. I have no idea why, although they did build in safeguards like requiring majority ownership by the Crown in

    • I don't live in either Ca or Texas. Both are shit run states where the blackouts are only one sign of the horrors of failed government going on.
      Blackout-free in most of the country.

    • We likely also have an electrical grid pretty much unchanged since the 70's because all the regulations make keeping them upgraded a royal pita.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

        Actually the grids are changing a lot. There is inertia to be certain, but there is so much that has changed from the 70s, both in technology and recognition of the problems and intent to deal with them.

        PG&E's problem is generally it's own making, not due to the California directly but more of California having periods of trying to be hands off and letting corporations do as they will. PG&E is too big essentially and got its way for too long, and it's only relatively recently that they're being he

    • Re:So just like Texas and California then... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @07:38PM (#63233910)

      Blackouts were terrible in the 70s in US. Infrastructure and its management has come a very long way since then. Now things that would be a huge blackout are smaller and are resolved more quickly. The fact that blackouts happen is normal: a tree falls, lightning strike, etc. However there is automation to limit the scope of the blackout; in the past there needed to be manual flipping of switches which was too slow. Pakistan likely does not have much of the new equipment.

      • A falling tree not too far from where I am sitting now brought down much of the grid in 2003 in the eastern U.S. and Canadia. I am hoping there have been some improvements since then?

    • Re:So just like Texas and California then... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @10:15AM (#63235148)

      "I remember growing up in the 70's when the public owned the utilities, and blackouts were rare."

      Oh really? [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suss ( 158993 )

      Yeah, Pakistan is known for its blizzards, which freeze the many wind turbines...

      • I didn't know they had wind turbines in Packistan. Well the Taliban want a 5th century civilization. Looks like they will get it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by haruchai ( 17472 )

        Yeah, Pakistan is known for its blizzards, which freeze the many wind turbines...

        Nope, wasn't the fault of the wind turbines but the fault of wind bags like Greg Abbott & his predecessors

    • California.

      And every other poorly run place that can't manage the basics like roads that aren't pot hole strewn disasters, endless fires, and homeless everywhere.

      • California.

        That was 22 years ago. California subsequently learned how to deal with the energy problems caused by deregulation and moved on. The energy grid isn't perfect, but it's no worse nor better than the rest of the US, excluding Texas.

        • Mmmm... yeah... my California power cost literally 3x my power in my new state. Sounds like it working great. Just gouge the shit out of people to live.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Duhavid ( 677874 )

            From a previous post by you in this story: "I don't live in either Ca or Texas."
            ( by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) .. on Monday January 23, 2023 @02:41PM (#63233740) )

            If you dont live in CA, why are you buying power from California?

  • Perhaps some of Pakistan's nuclear technology can be repurposed to generate electricity.
    • They'd be better off with Hydro.
      • Most of the country is desert and they have water shortages. I would think Solar and Wind would work better.

        • They do not have "water shortages" - they have floods.
          Water shortage is a news worthy term, which does not man what you think it means.
          They have shortage of drinking water? Perhaps.
          They have shortage of water for farming? Perhaps.

          During global warming and all its problems it causes it is helpful to look at reasons, e.g. lack of irrigation infra structure.

        • They have a water distribution problem really. You're right about most of the country being arid desert but they have vast mountains in the north which catch the monsoon every year, and storing water to create electricity is early 20th century technology and they could do it no problem.
          Their major handicap is the endemic corruption they live with.
    • Their current mainstays are fossil+hydro. If they don't have the economic or technical base to generate and distribute energy using those, I don't think trying to ramp up nuclear is a great idea.

    • Please try reading the summary at least.

      Pakistan's problem is NOT generating capacity. It's grid capacity. They just can't get the electricity to the places that it is needed.

      • I think I did read the summary, it clearly says:

        Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand, but it lacks resources to run its oil-and-gas powered plants ...

        Therefore they have fossil fuel generating facilities, but no fossil fuel. Since they possess nuclear armaments, it stands to reason they at least have the basis for nuclear fuel.

        • Nice piece of selective reading. Now try reading the rest of that paragraph, which clearly points to grid infrastructure as the problem.

  • 17h GMT?

  • The energy minister, Khurram Dastgir, said the outage on Monday was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the grid...

    What the hell does that mean? How can the voltage on a grid just suddenly increase?

    • A surge can occur if something suddenly turns off that was previously pulling a high load. Some cutoff switches can cause a surge in the supply side (especially if there are any automated switches).

      • A surge can occur if something suddenly turns off that was previously pulling a high load. Some cutoff switches can cause a surge in the supply side (especially if there are any automated switches).

        I think you're talking about a current surge. I was talking about a voltage surge.

    • Same way this happens in the US. There was the east coast blackout; more of a misnomer since it was only one half of the entire East Coast, in 2003. Another Northeast blackout i 65, the New York City blackout in the 70s, etc.

      What happens is that you get a small blackout. You can't really prevent this; there's a lightning strike that takes out a transformer or even substation. Now the electricity coming into that neighborhood ends up trying to go somewhere else, and that neighborhood now has too much curr

      • There's a lightning strike that takes out a transformer or even substation. Now the electricity coming into that neighborhood ends up trying to go somewhere else, and that neighborhood now has too much current and maybe another transformer blows.

        I'm not sure that your description is technically correct, as you seem to be thinking of current as having some sort of momentum like a moving train. It's true that an inductive circuit will try to keep current going when voltage drops (reclaiming energy from the collapse of its magnetic field), so maybe there's something like that in power grids. Nevertheless, I was referring specifically to surge in voltage, not in current. It's easy to understand equipment being taken out by a current surge, when one bra

    • Re:Voltage Surge? (Score:4, Funny)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday January 23, 2023 @08:08PM (#63233950)

      How can the voltage on a grid just suddenly increase?

      Allah willed it.

    • By e.g. suddenly activating AC, or fridges or what ever?

      • By e.g. suddenly activating AC, or fridges or what ever?

        That would be a current increase, not a voltage increase.

    • Geomagnetic storms, for one thing.

    • Don't you keep up with current events? There has been a lot of resistance lately.

  • Nikola Tesla had a solution for this, and they killed him for it.

  • Maybe less spam phone calls now?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      Maybe less spam phone calls now?

      I think you meant fewer not less but just so you know, India & Pakistan has been separate countries for 75 years

  • Failed State (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hoofie ( 201045 )

    Pakistan is basically a failed state that hasn't failed yet.

    It's being completely eclipsed by its sibling India and has a massive inferiority complex overlaid with an almost fanatical Islamic state.

    The best and brightest get out as soon as possible whilst the economy collapses under the cost of the military [who cannot win any battle with India] and corruption.

    The ruling elite are out for themselves and damn the rest.

    The nuclear program was initiated and bought and paid for by Saudi Arabia to give them a la

    • A nuclear capable failed state is extremely dangerous and noone's friend as anyone working with the weapons can just sell / give it away to their friends.

      From the highest general to the lowest guard guarding the weapons.

  • Few nations have done grids correctly. The right solution is to have smaller grids that are interconnected. And yes, the west needs to change ours.

  • No big deal. Fortunately, Pakistan has improved its anti-blasphemy laws so people can now be executed for insulting any of Mohammed's lady friends. Removing the electricity is just part of the return to the halcyon days of Mohammed's time.

  • Which suggests Texas is equivalent to a third-world nation, with full corruption....

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