Norway: Record electricity consumption - Blackout threatens

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Record electricity consumption - Blackout threatens

Norway has never used more electricity than right now. - Colder weather over most of the country has resulted in a new record in electricity consumption.

Between 08:00 and 09:00 on Thursday morning, Norwegian consumers used 21,342 Megawatts per hour, only the peak of 21.360 mWh from January 17th was higher.

-If this keeps up, parts of the country may be hit by black-out, says Erik Haugen, Director of the National Association of Process Industries (PIL). -We are now near the point where demand outstrips production, Haugen says.

He fears that this may happen already this winter. The record consumption right now, comes without any severe cold-wave, just normal winter temperatures in Norway.

-We must either produce more electricity, or use use less, Haugen warns.

Other experts say the shortage of electricity has been aggravated by the fact that many Norwegian homeowners have switched from oil to electricity for heating.

http://www.norwaypost.no/content.asp?folder_id=1&cluster_id=15297

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 02, 2001

Answers

Did they have deregulation in Norway?
Have they had a dry winter and their
dams are down. Are people using more
electricity? Or is it the squirrels ::::-§

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), February 02, 2001.

I vote for the squirrels!

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 02, 2001.

<rant topic="units">
Sorry, but two different misusages of units in one sentence is more than I can forbear:
Between 08:00 and 09:00 on Thursday morning, Norwegian consumers used 21,342 Megawatts per hour, only the peak of 21.360 mWh from January 17th was higher.
  1. "Megawatts per hour" (megawatts divided by hours) is not a meaningful unit; it should be "megawatt-hours" (megawatts times hours).

  2. "mWh" would be milliwatt-hours; megawatt-hours is "MWh". Being off by a factor of a billion is unacceptably sloppy journalism.
</rant>

-- Barb Knox (barbara-knox@iname.com), February 03, 2001.

Maybe something got lost in the translation from Norwegian to English.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 03, 2001.

Maybe, but http://www.norwaypost.no is an all-English site. From http://www.norwaypost.no/content.asp?folder_id=1&cluster_id=15297 -- "The Norway Post is the only English speaking daily newschannel published in Norway specifically for the Internet."

Besides, equally egregious units errors occur frequently in the N. American press (see previous rants...)

-- Barb Knox (barbara-knox@iname.com), February 03, 2001.



I have to agree about the reporting of power problems. I don't think I have seen any story where they have had it right concerning megawatts, killowats etc.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 03, 2001.

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