Thursday 12 November 2009

Brazilian Blackout

A massive power failure in Brazil led to about 20% of the population without electricity for four hours and also affected Paraguay. This is another example of how our modern civilisation is so dependent on electricity supply and how relatively easily it can be completely disrupted. Initially it was thought to be a fault at the Itaipu hydroelectric plant, but this was ruled out quite quickly as the plant was performing perfectly. It seems likely that a storm affected three power lines and this caused the outage. It is a concern to any major nation that power supplies can be so easily blocked - remember the North-Eastern US power failure in 2003? Or the many others that are listed here. How fragile is our society/civilisation?

Your Thursday questions are: -
  1. Herman Goering announced today in 1938 that which island, off the coast of Africa, would be the new Jewish homeland?

  2. Jalal Talabani (right) was born today in 1933 and is the first non-Arab President of which Middle Eastern country?

  3. Which gymnast was born today in Romania and won five Olympic gold medals?
Yesterday's Answers: 1. Refrigerator; 2. Old Blood and Guts; 3. Angola

1 comment:

Greg Delaney said...

It's crazy to think how many millions of people were affected by this blackout