Parts of Brazil including the major cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are gradually resuming power after a major blackout left these areas without electricity last night:
As mentioned in the above video, officials have laid blame on a problem at the Itaipu hydroelectric dam. There was a "99-percent chance the blackout happened because of a storm" said the head of the agency in charge of the dam to CNN. Traffic lights were knocked out in Sao Paulo and most travel ground to a halt in Rio as residents waited out the outage.
The Itaipu dam is the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer and exports energy to neighboring countries. Thus, it should come as no surprise that there was a 30-minute interruption of electricity in Paraguay.
The outage has raised questions over the viability of Brazil’s electrical grid, especially in anticipation of a pair of major sporting vents (the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Rio). "We don't need this to happen. I don't know how it could get worse," said one Rio resident to the AP over how the outage could have a negative impact on his city’s global image.
Brazil had previously suffered two major blackouts in 2005 and 2007 which “60 Minutes” claimed to have been caused by hackers. However, government investigators subsequently concluded that the 2007 outage was caused by the “utility company’s negligent maintenance of high voltage insulators on two transmission lines.”
Online Sources- Huffington Post, wired.com, Bloomberg, CNN, Wikipedia, NPR, YouTube
practically speaking, a huge widespread blackout would be scary from the point of view of crime outbreaks
ReplyDeleteThe media coverage of this has been a bit unbalanced. The country--specifically Rio and Sao Paulo--didn't descend into "chaos" as reported. These immensely dense populations fared pretty well, all things considered.
ReplyDeleteFood for thought according to the AP:
ReplyDelete"The blackouts came late at night when most people were already safely at home. There were no increases in crime in Rio, and Sao Paulo saw a drop in the number of incidents, police said."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gvYTfvBdDutkp67sdM0KKETo0JpQD9BTLGU00