Nigeria hit by widespread blackout in 'total system collapse' | Hacker News Reader

Nigeria hit by widespread blackout in 'total system collapse'

bbc.com

15 pointsperfunctory14 comments

Shouldn't someone be subsidizing solar panels over there?

It would have a lot more Co2 reduction than here, since they'd no longer be forced to use random crappy generators, it would probably save lives by eliminating monoxide poisonings, and if they're ramping up use of air conditioning that's a lot of daytime load.

You’re not balancing a grid or running your house with just solar panels, and solar+batteries is prohibitively expensive?

Without batteries you are charging your cellphones and maybe not running the generators as much to cool food, which may make up for some of the fuel subsidies.

They mean 'total electrical system collapse'. Incredibly irresponsible reporting from the BBC, as sadly we've come to expect.

"Blackout" kind of implies "electrical", no?

I think total system collapse is used synonymously with a total societal collapse, which could stem from a single infrastructure system collapsing. Quite a thing to happen in a single day.

Blackout doesn't strictly refer to electrical. Communication blackout is an example. Another example is for certain sports on TV may have a blackout due to contract negotiations and whatnot.

If somebody reads the first sentence of the article they would know it is electrical though...

its a quote. would you rather they mis quote?

plus its prefaced by blackout, so the context is clearly (electrical) system.

Finally it's a headline. You're supposed to read the article before judging whether it's 'irresponsible reporting'

Nope, the headline gets way more views. They've click-baited the headline on purpose. I'll accept "irresponsible news editing" if you like as any actual reporter [no true Scotsman, anyone‽] would have made sure it's clear that it's not societal collapse as the headline intimates.

National news outlets should hold themselves to high standards and not be reduced to scummy clickbaiting tactics. And yes, including in headlines; probably, especially headlines. It's disrespectful to the UK public who pay their wages, and irresponsible.

The BBC are absolutely coasting on past reputation.

Well, at least we know their blackstart systems work. I would have my doubts about whether the Texas grid could do a blackstart because that's stuff that's extremely rarely used but costs money--does it even exist and is it maintained if it does exist?

And even if it is maintained that is still not a guarantee that it will work.

12,500MW - that is way lower than I expected - they clearly not industrialized.

I was going to say seems like a lot to me, that is 2 or three nuclear plants worth. But I don't know anything about Nigeria or the sizing of power grids. So I decided to look it up.

Nigeria is the 6th most populous country on earth with 230 million people in 920_000 km2. for comparison Texas is 700_000 km2 with 30 million people and they are making 65 gigiwatts.

So yeah, that is very low.

Nuclear reactors are in the range of 700-900 MW, afaik. Those 3 nuclear power plants would be pretty big - 6 reactors each.

The other issue is that while Nigeria has a lot of people, is rural, which makes the electricity usage pretty small per capita.

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