思考与写作jacquesmattheij.com
没有电的世界
A world without power
2013 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇短文以停电为引子，讨论现代社会对电力与基础设施的隐形依赖：平时几乎感觉不到，一旦大范围、长时间断供，日常生活和社会秩序就会迅速受考验。它也提醒我们，这类低概率高影响的风险值得提前设计和防护。
为什么经久不衰：它把“电一断会怎样”从猎奇想象变成对现代基础设施脆弱性的清醒提醒，十几年后仍值得读。
HN 评论精选
地磁风暴可能造成持续数年的洲级电网瘫痪，而关键变压器缺乏基本防护。
根据 IEEE，像 1921 年和 1859 年那样的又一次地磁风暴会让整个大陆的电网瘫痪数年。主要问题在于高压变压器，它们大多由高技能工人手工制造。其实有相当简单的保护方法，但没有一家电力公司这么做。
DennisP查看英文原文
According to the IEEE, another geomagnetic storm like the ones that happened in 1921 and 1859 would take out power grids continent-wide, for years: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/a-perfect-storm-of-planetary-proportions/0 The main problem is high-voltage transformers, which are built mostly by hand by highly-skilled labor. There's a fairly simple way to protect them, but no utility does it.
基础设施不能只靠市场，必须用监管要求电力公司保证服务连续性。
我的结论略有不同——监管确实重要。我知道很多人（包括我自己）支持小政府，但基础设施是必须被监管的领域之一。市场并没有纠正这种情况。所以一条简单的监管——你必须被设计成能保持服务持续——似乎就能解决其中很大一部分问题。
lifeisstillgood查看英文原文
My lesson is slightly different - regulation really does matter. I know many (myself included) subscribe to a small (ish) government - but infrastructure is one of those areas that has to be regulated. The markets did not correct the situation (jacques gas station is not now the preferred suppliers for all Ontario) So a simple regulation (you must be designed to keep your service flowing) seems to deal with a huge amount of this - power companies that don't have rolling brown outs get to be in business the next day etc
与其做末日准备，不如加固系统本身；卡特里娜的教训是灾害杀死人往往源于基础设施工程失败。
基础设施正常运转时是隐形的，只有失效时你才会意识到我们有多依赖它、又有多不会应对。我不是那种热衷准备僵尸末日的末日准备者；更理性的做法是加固这张网本身，让我们一开始就不掉下去。卡特里娜飓风是经典例子：杀死人的不是飓风，而是市和州在工程上彻底未能建设稳健的基础设施。
munificent查看英文原文
> Infrastructure is invisible, as long as it works. And only when it fails do you realize just how much we are all dependent on it and how badly we are able to cope with such infrastructure being unavailable for any length of time. I grew up in hurricane country. We are born and mostly live our entire lives suspended in a giant web of infrastructure and support systems. When you're born into it, it's natural take it for granted and treat that as the baseline. But every now and then you have an experience that makes you realize just how far down below the ground really is, how far it is to fall, and how few cables need to fray before people start dropping. I'm not one of those doomsday preppers who seems to relish preparing for the zombie apocalypse. I think the much more rational approach is to strengthen the web itself so that we don't fall in the first place. But I'm definitely aware how quickly and how badly things can go. Hurricane Katrina is the canonical example. Over a thousand people died in the middle of a well-developed urban area, in the richest country on Earth, from a disaster that everyone knew was coming some day. The hurricane didn't kill those people. The city and state's complete failure to engineer robust infrastructure did. If that same hurricane had hit an equally populated city elsewhere, the outcome could have been entirely different.
2003 年大停电展示了秩序与互助，也暴露了对电力的依赖和光污染下的星空。
2003 年大停电是段有趣的经历。我们有燃气灶还能做晚饭，邻居们来前廊一起喝酒。那晚抬头能看到无数星星，通常要开几小时车到安大略北部才看得到。让我印象深刻的是大家多么文明：停电时我在市中心图书馆，走 2 公里回家一路好奇但没有事故，十字路口几乎所有人都减速或停下。
RyanMcGreal查看英文原文
The Great Outage of 2003 was a fun time. We had a gas stove so we could still cook dinner (though as a newspaper columnist friend of mine wrote at the time, the entire neighbourhood was suffused with the smell of everything out of every fridge cooking on the barbecue), and several neighbours came by to share a glass of wine on our front porch. It was breathtaking, that night, to look up at the clear sky and see the countless stars blazing down without having to compete with light pollution from the city. Normally you have to go several hours into northern Ontario to see the like. One of the things that impressed me was how civil everyone was. I was at the downtown library when the power failed, and the 2 km walk home was filled with curiosity (just how big is this thing?) but free of incident. Even at intersections, nearly everyone slowed down or stopped and eased through without trouble. On a few corners, self-appointed crossing guards helped maintain order - in fact, those tended to be the worst intersections, because drivers would cede responsibility to the crossing guard instead of responding directly to the conditions.
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