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Lights POWERR AC-
I'm back, lights and A/C on, in fact I never lost them, the new backup system worked flawlessly, when the grid went down the automatic transfer switch rolled everything required onto the gen-set, lots of capacity, I even watched the satelite TV, although my ISP was down until Saturday am.
I however was required (actually I bribed my cousin to phone the Head of Domestic Affairs and fake it) at the farm since none of the employees that live off-site could get in, there was a travel ban imposed even if you had gas.
Here is a couple of observations from the black-out area experience;
1) there is NO LPG available during a black-out, if you don't have enough on-site when the lights go out, tough.
2) the use of Natural Gas was strictly curtailed, in most areas it was switched off completely for safety reasons.
3) there was NO black-out induced crime (in Toronto & area), the closest thing to a 'prowler' we had was the wife said the dogs went crazy about 11pm Thursday, when she flipped the yard lights on see what the problem was there were 3 coyotes standing there bewildered.
4) line-ups for gasoline (and to a lesser extent for food) were long, about 2 hours in most cases, as Doc mentioned, diesel was usually readily available. Oil dealers were delivering diesel, colored and 'normal', to regular customers and keeping up with demand easily (they even called to see if we wanted a top-up on the gen-set).
All in all the only serious repercussions may show up in the maternity ward sarting around the middle of May 2004,  .
Best of luck.
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Lights POWERR AC-
F350, the 'propane is not available' comment is because, with the exception of pre-filled cyclinders which were sold out in the first 5 minutes, the only LPG available was at refill stations that are powered by ELECTRIC pumps, no electricity no pumps, this was the case in Toronto, the gas stations which had gas and propane were unable to pump it. If you have a yard tank that is another case, few people relatively speaking, have bulk LP tanks, most are on natural gas where it is available because of the cost savings.
The travel ban was imposed for two reasons, neither of which had diddly to do with security, first, there was a shortage of gas, because of the above situation, but most importantly because without electricity there are no traffic lights, can you say 'traffic jams'? They were also concerned that if they din't keep people off the streets the hospitals could become overwhelmed quickly.
My neighbour, who NORMALLY has a 1 hour commute from a downtown office left for home at 4:30 on Thursday and got home at 8:30pm.
Best of luck.
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Lights POWERR AC-
F350, your right on the money about the locale being the key to it all.
We don't have stores with much in the way of pre-filled propane tanks in stock around here, our Fire Code, and some Occupational Health & Safety Reg.'s limit the amount of LPG (or other flammables) that can be stored in one place without an inordinate amount of safety equipment (blast shields, etc.) in case of fire, etc.
As for the travel bans thing, as Doc has mentioned a few times, the distance between USA & Canada is only a few hundred feet in places, but a world away in attitude, crime statistics, etc. Case in point, the Greater Toronto Area has a population of over 5 million people, there was not even one case of looting reported and grocery stores and bakeries gave away free food rather than have it spoil.
Wind restrictions, hardly, we're gearing up for a soon to be announced provincial election, there's all the 'wind' you could possibly ever want.... MAO.
Seriously though, there is a big interest in wind genrators around my place, we are on top of a glacial ridge 'above' Toronto so we are seldom without at least a breeze. They are also starting to build micro hydro-electric plants on many of the historic mills and dams in southern Ontario because of significant tax reductions on revenue made from electrical generation.
Besdies it's easy to alieve fears of 'big brother' by saying "everybody stay home & have a 3 day weekend".
Best of luck.
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Lights POWERR AC-
I just got a call from our farm, they in turn had just got a call from the local office of the provincial electrical service, commencing about 5pm Toronto time they will commence a series of rolling, RANDOM blackouts. They will likely affect ALL of southern Ontario. Each INTENTIONAL blackout will last approx. 2 hours.
The point of their call was to ask us to be prepared to switch to our own backup generators, and to switch back into the grid slowly when the grid does come back up in our area so as to not overload the grid on start-up.
Ahhh, modern technology, ain't it grand.
Somewhere Mr. Edison is rolling in his grave....laughing.
Best of luck.
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Lights POWERR AC-
Well, so far nobody has thrown the big switch, at least not in our neck of the woods.
As for the $100 million generators he paid his friends for (the company that supplies them was created by one of his party's biggest for the sole purpose, and got the contract as a "direct award contract" without it going to tender) came up in an article in our local newspaper after the blackout.
What follows is that article from Sunday August 17th;
"Think you felt frustrated Thursday? Three hours after all of Ontario went dark, Larry Moffat was standing beside emergency generators in Markham that could power thousands of homes -- and he couldn't turn them on.
"This is unprecedented right now," Mr. Moffat said with a wave at the 19 trailer-sized turbines his Vaughan-based company, Toromont Industries Ltd., had lined up along 14th Avenue in Markham.
The province recently ordered the natural gas-fired machines and seven smaller engines beside Toromont's Hwy. 7 headquarters in Concord to stand ready for the rest of the year, able in 15 minutes to pour power into the grid.
But when the whole system failed, it was not safe to turn on any of the generators, at least by Thursday evening.
"We're ready, but until they get some power into the grid to allow these things to operate, these things are on standby awaiting their call," the Toromont vice-president said at about 7 p.m.
Mr. Moffat expected the machines to be turned on as the grid was pieced back together in sequence but said that decision belonged to Ontario's Independent Electricity Market Operator, not Toromont or Markham Hydro.
"Otherwise, you have a risk of damaging a whole lot of valuable equipment," he said before boarding a motor coach that headed west.
Yesterday, the company was finally told to start its generators at 4:30 a.m. and keep them running.
"They continue to operate," Mr. Moffat said."
Now they are saying the present spell of hot humid weather (high 80's & lw 90's with 90+% humidity), which will be with us until at least early next week, will certainly push the electric system to the breaking point unless loads are reduced. The 'state of emergency' continues and the electrical authorities are inspecting large users and telling them to reduce usage drastically or they will be cut off.
The big fear is a collapse in a portion of the grid taking everything else down again, each time that happens it is harder and more costly to put it back up.
Best of luck.
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Lights POWERR AC-
Actually Tom it wasn't squat to do with the cost, Uncle Ernie was gearing up for an expected election call at the time the decision to RENT these gen-sets was made, I guess he didn't envy having to campaign in the dark.
Then SARS hit...
Then the lights went out...
Then his Energy Minister fired the just-hired "Commissioner of Energy Conservation"...
The electric workers union is allegedly poised to release a scathing report that says if the 'big guys' had been on the ball Thursday around 4pm they could have kept Toronto & surrounding area lit up NO PROBLEM, but they left the grid intact hoping to keep the whole thing up for POLITICAL REASONS...
Now the FERTILIZER is hitting the fan...
Should be an interesting campaign after all.
Best of luck.
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08-18-2003, 09:41 
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