• TrickDacy@lemmy.world
    710·
    2 days ago

    There would always be a risk any backup systems fail. As another commenter pointed out, in other countries it would be illegal to cut power like that for that kind of reason. And that’s a good thing. Power is literally keeping people alive and shouldn’t be turned off because it seems mean to leave it on.

    But a better point is, no one discussing this knows what downstream effects could happen if they killed the power. Seems kind of crazy to me to pretend we do.

    • scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
      101·
      1 day ago

      A backup system that isn’t tested regularly is not a backup at all, just the illusion of one.

      If you can’t turn the power off with 24h notice then nature will turn it off with zero notice at the most inconvenient moment.

      • Robin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 day ago

        They should indeed do regular tests of their backups. They should also ensure technical staff is on-site during those tests.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
        412·
        1 day ago

        I do not follow the logic of people being so blinded by their love of cats that they literally think they can become electrical grid engineers and know all the risks, just because they want to know them.

        It does not matter if every single vulnerable building has backups and tested them yesterday (obviously none of that could ever be close to true), it’s still a non-zero risk to human lives, for one cat.

        • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
          102·
          1 day ago

          They reroute and turn off sections of wiring all the damn time for maintenance, they have crews out in the field who are literally going around, turning some lines off after turning others on, and doing routine work on lines, transformers and other components. It’s not life and death, it’s just a company being cheap and lazy.

          If having a love for life and wanting better outcomes and hope and inspiration for innocent life baffles your sense of logic, then maybe your sense of logic is flawed and holding you back from emotional growth.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
            34·
            1 day ago

            Sure go ahead and assume I want the cat to die. Which I didn’t. What the fuck.

            The cat was rescued apparently anyway.

            • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
              61·
              1 day ago

              You’re digging yourself into a hole that seems oblivious to normal human feelings and getting irate at the responses. This is all you baby.

        • scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
          61·
          1 day ago

          The cat isn’t part of the equation, I gave no opinion on that. The risk of never testing your failure response is much higher than the risk of testing your failure response.

          If a test happens to save a cat? Lucky cat. If not, they’ll still have to test it at some other point anyway.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
            48·
            1 day ago

            I never remotely commented that backup systems shouldn’t be tested. Bizarre.

    • ickplant@lemmy.worldOP
      91·
      2 days ago

      If their back up system fails then it’s their fault for not keeping it up to date. Seriously, my husband is an engineer who designs these battery systems. They do not “fail” if they are maintained and replaced properly.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
        511·
        2 days ago

        Patently absurd. Technology often fails regardless of what you do. Inviting that failure would be negligence and should be illegal.

        The one thing I know for sure about any engineer is that we are intimately familiar with the concept of things failing when it’s least convenient.

        • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
          37·
          1 day ago

          We’ve got the Lemmy/Reddit worldview out in force. We should shut down vital infrastructure, risking life safety of many, for a cat. I say this loving cats: that’s silly.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
            28·
            1 day ago

            Yeah, I knew when I commented it might get some backlash, but the strength of it is somewhat depressing. Isn’t Lemmy supposed to be mostly rational intelligent people?

            I guess it just tells us how commonplace it is for people to declare a risk either worth it or non-existent without a fucking clue about the actual risk they are talking about.

            In any case, thank you for demonstrating that there are still some sane people left out there.