International Law

Blackouts

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

TEPCO is continuing their rolling blackouts, but from today on they have introduced a more finely tuned method of announcing them (Kyodonews article).

I have yet to experience my first blackout. There have been announcements of impending blackouts just about every day, but they were all canceled.

TEPCO should publish actual usage data in real-time (they do publish some, but only once per hour). It is already half past nine, but the latest data is from 8 AM.

They then should refrain from announcing any blackout. Instead, they should only publish the point from which on they will shut off some service, and the order in which they will do so. People could look at the meter themselves and decide for themselves about the probability of a blackout in their area.

Of course, having all citizens look at the overall consumption figures regularly should help with efforts at saving energy.

As it is, a large majority of their blackout announcements is canceled later, which adds to the damage and confusion, as well as to doubts about their ability to handle more complex tasks (like the safe shutdown of a nuclear plant).

They should also leave the order of the revolving blackout areas constant for at least a week. Right now, I need to look up their plans every day, since they change all the time.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on March 27, 2011 (boomark / email).