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| Iraq |
| Baghdad Celebrates End of Power Outage |
| 2003-04-25 |
| Jubilant residents of south Baghdad celebrated the end of a three-week power outage Thursday by firing guns into the air, now ritual as electricity blinks back on, neighborhood by neighborhood. The lights stayed off throughout much of the Iraqi capital, however — despite the fusillade of automatic weapon and small-arm fire. Engineers in some areas said there was little more they could do without spare parts they said had been promised by American forces — essential to repairing damage from bombs and gun battles in the city of 5 million people. ``Without the parts, Baghdad will have a big gap between what is available and what is needed,'' engineer Manhal Abbas said at east Baghdad's Al-Mashtal repair headquarters. Electricity went off citywide in the first week of April, knocked out — in part — by damage from the war, workers abandoning their posts, and breakdown of essential systemwide coordination. Security failed with the power, leaving Baghdad's people homebound and sleep-deprived as they stayed up nights to guard their families against roaming robbers. Power returned to parts of west Baghdad, and elsewhere, earlier in the week. The restoration has been sporadic. Shopkeepers on one side of an east Baghdad block stared resentfully Thursday at their neighbors on the other. One side preserved their wares with blocks of ice, the other, with smoothly running refrigerators. Baghdad citywide needs 1,000 to 1,200 megawatts, engineers said. Thursday, it was getting 150 to 300 megawatts. According to Iraqi engineers, U.S. bombs damaged cables, fuel lines and at least one power station's system. Gun battles between U.S. forces and Saddam Hussein's defenders took out transformers. Parts for repair, never in large supply in recent years, were looted during the last two weeks' pillaging. Put out a call — a small part of that $700 million in Sammy's cash for the spare parts, no questions asked. The U.S. military has identified power as their No. 1 priority for Baghdad. At a news conference, U.S. Maj. Gen. Carl Strock said natural gas production at one refinery was expected to resume Friday. ``That is critical for the gas turbines, which drive most of the electrical grid in the Baghdad area,'' Strock said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 PCB's,known carcinagin. Transfomers containing PCB's have been banned in the U.S.for over 20years.Absolutly no reaction with DU,STFU d-ass. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-04-26 09:25:42 |
| #9 My solution: Clappers. Big ones |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-04-25 15:17:56 |
| #8 Leaking Transformers? PCB's mixing with DU? A humanitarian crisis of mega proportions! Call George Galloway! Oh sorry. |
| Posted by: john 2003-04-25 15:08:03 |
| #7 Isn't most of the power transmission and distribution French? I hope that our engineers are looking into converting alot of that stuff into other national brands. Old Patriot is right. Transformers are extremely vulnerable to damage, especially high voltage units. They are oil filled for insulation and cooling. Broken insulators, dirt, moisture, lack of maintenance and loss of oil will kill these units, which are critical to the integrity of the system. Most of these big units should have backups, but flying bullets and debris could easily take out a substation. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-04-25 13:48:06 |
| #6 Also complicating affairs is the lack of reliable grid maps which were classified by Bathists. This place wasn't wired to "code", and is in many ways worse than a hillbilly trailer park without zoning. |
| Posted by: Capsu78 2003-04-25 12:27:53 |
| #5 My wife worked for one of the rural electric cooperatives here in the West some 20 years ago. Transformers, used to step down high-voltage feeder lines to the voltage used in homes and shops, are extremely vulnerable to damage. Anti-aircraft fire, ground fire, even fire from a handful of AK-47's can damage one beyond the ability to repair it, and it has to be replaced. Another problem is that the oil usually found in transformers as a coolant is not good stuff to have leak out, especially large step-down transformers at transformer yards. Not only does Garner have to rebuild the power grid, but also clean up a large environmental mess that's probably spread throughout Baghdad. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-04-25 12:12:55 |
| #4 UNICEF reports schools open in north, parts of Basra - calls for schools to reopen quickly elsewhere. US official says Baghdad schools may not reopen till September. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-04-25 11:38:11 |
| #3 Baghdad needs 1200 megawatts and is getting 300.... Tallahassee FL a city of 150,000 uses nearly 1000 megawatts. Per capita energy consumption is still pretty low there. My understanding is that Baghdads base load generator is gas powered and they're waiting on getting the pipeline north of the city back in working order. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-04-25 11:35:21 |
| #2 apparently the plants are largely intact - the problems are in the distribution lines and substations. Which could have been the victims of air power (directed most likely at other targets) ground fighting, Baathist sabotage, or looting. when you have power you cant just send it down a line if that line is not intact, or you can fry stuff. Also if a power station is turned off you need some power to turn it back on - to run all the equipment inside the power station - so bringing back a downed system is not simple - IIUC this was the case after the big east coast blackout in '65, and was extensively discussed in the context of the Y2K bug. Apparently its been aggravated by looting of the small diesel generators that would have been used to kick start large power plants and of spare parts to repair the substations and lines, by interruption in the supply of oil and Nat. Gas to Baghdad to fuel the plants, and by the difficulties in getting power system employees back to work. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-04-25 09:53:13 |
| #1 I'm still confused at the extent of the damage and how long it's taking to restore power. We all saw the lights blazing night after night during the bombing and were fully aware the civilian infrastructure was not targetted. I have to think most of this damage was willful sabotage by Saddam and Co. in a desperate bid to keep the public afraid of and angry at the Coalition. |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-04-25 09:22:01 |