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A beach in Rio de Janeiro  (Source: Brazil Travel Pictures)
Brazil has endured another major blackout, as officials remain unclear what is causing the problem

Brazil suffered yet another major blackout in a higher-scale Rio de Janeiro beach neighborhood earlier in the week, with employees sent home as restaurants and other businesses disposed of spoiled food. It was a sweltering 95 degrees Fahrenheit when the blackout hit, forcing residents and tourists to endure the summer heat while out on the beaches. 

Brazilian energy regulators plan on opening an official investigation sometime next week, as the country aims to prevent additional blackouts from taking place in the future. Before the most recent major power outage, government officials denied a cyber attack was responsible for several incidents in 2005 and 2007.  

Around two weeks ago, a major blackout hit the country, with 60 million people left without electricity.  The blackout on November 10 reportedly occurred due to a power station short circuit, leading to the largest hydroelectric dam temporarily cutting off service.

Rio de Janeiro was recently given the rights to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, though some onlookers are concerned the country may not have the necessary infrastructure to support such a large influx of international visitors.

Officials are working with the city and country to develop some type of fail-safe plan, including a power island able to serve as a reliable power source during the Olympics.

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Another major blackout? Don't think so
By banvetor on 11/27/2009 5:02:48 AM , Rating: 5
I am Brazilian and I live in Rio de Janeiro, and I can say that this week "blackout" was anything but major. At least compared to the one on November 10th...

Just to make clear: parts of 3 neighbourhoods of Rio stayed without power for about 12hs. This thing was only noticed by the media (let alone DailyTech!!!) because of the recent major blackout AND because the 3 affected neighbourhoods are the most rich of the city.

I have no idea about how common a "blackout" of these proportions are on the US, but if the media was to report on every "blackout" of this proportion accross ALL neighbourhoods in every city of Brazil... I mean, these would be the only that we would see at Dailytech.




By achintya on 11/27/2009 5:28:54 AM , Rating: 2
I can safely say the same for most of the cities in India too. Large parts of New Delhi used to be out of power for 12-16 hours on a very regular basis a few years back. Although the situation has improved considerably now.


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By iFX on 11/27/2009 6:37:39 AM , Rating: 2
Very common. I live in FL and our power grid sucks. Probably three-four times a year we get a similar 10-12 hour "blackout" in my area.


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By ertomas on 11/27/2009 2:00:06 PM , Rating: 4
HA! Here in Venezuela, thanks in great part to 11 years of "revolution", we have to face 1 - 2 hours a day without electricity on several cities so that Caracas (our nation's capital) can have power all day...

And no, we don't get tornadoes, hurricanes or any other natural disaster that can affect the power grid.

So, please... don't tell me that your power grid in FL sucks!


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By TheEinstein on 11/29/2009 4:35:13 PM , Rating: 2
I feel for you, the certain party rich get richer under socialism, while all others must suffer for those elite few.

I hope you can win back your nation soon. Good luck man!


By Klinky1984 on 11/30/2009 12:45:56 AM , Rating: 3
Rich getting richer never happens under capitalism...


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By Kakao on 11/27/2009 7:14:04 AM , Rating: 2
Where I live it is enough that the cat urinate on the pole to make a minor blackout, from one or two to several minutes.


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By Mitch101 on 11/27/2009 12:08:22 PM , Rating: 3
When I was at a major technology company they had a state of the art backup power system with some really expensive backup generators. This was their premier show off how great we are facility. A squirrel managed to get into the power grid frying himself. That line happened to be between the the building and the UPS/Backup generators. Only a handful of servers that still have UPS's on them stayed up.

In SauPaulo we had a group that twice unplugged an exchange (E-mail) server to plug in the coffee machine. Buddy of mine dealt with an outage at this location because Monkeys had got into the ventilation system. He had to put that into the ticket when explaining why they had an outage.


By leexgx on 12/1/2009 12:58:14 PM , Rating: 2
thats very funny

that most of been an interesting read i bet the managers gave him an ring up to make sure he was not making stuff up


By kalak on 12/1/2009 3:00:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Buddy of mine dealt with an outage at this location because Monkeys had got into the ventilation system


Ah.. por favor... quem vai acreditar numa babaquice dessas ? Macacos no sistema de ventilação ? Vcs imbecis pensam que o Brasil é algum tipo de floresta, com índios e animais selvagens pra todo lado !!!! Que imbecis.....


By rtrski on 11/27/2009 4:39:16 PM , Rating: 2
But on the bright side, while you wait for the lights to come back on, you can snack on Fried Kitteh.


RE: Another major blackout? Don't think so
By JS on 11/27/2009 7:28:34 AM , Rating: 3
I am Swede living in Brazil since a couple of years. Let's just say that before I moved here I had never even heard of a power conditioners or UPS:es for personal use. Now I have all my computer equipment connected to a UPS with two 60 Ah car batteries.

I live in a rural neighborhood, and we have power failures several times a week. Mostly just for a couple of seconds or minutes, but outages for up to 4 hours are not uncommon during the rainy season.

The problem is they don't invest in burying the power transmission cables underground. I guess it's easier in a low-wage country to have lots of people on 24/7 standby to remove fallen trees than to pay for weather-proofed infrastructure. :o/


By banvetor on 11/27/2009 12:05:16 PM , Rating: 2
You're absolutely right. It's much cheaper for them to have technicians on call everyday than to do something right. This can be applied to A LOT of things in Brazil.

Anyway, if you live in a rural area I definitely understand your need for the UPS with the car batteries...


By RjBass on 11/30/2009 9:34:05 AM , Rating: 2
Where I live in Kansas City MO USA we don't have any of our power lines buried. We had an ice storm a few years ago that knocked out power to 90% of the area and it stayed out for some people for over a week.

Every year I have to break out the chain saw and climb the trees in my backyard to ensure that a future high wind or ice storms won't fall the line running from the pole to my house.

As for Brasil, I was in Recife just a year ago for two weeks and during that entire time we never lost power, never had a serious surge or anything like that. I was told on the way down to be prepared for frequent power outages but they never occurred.

Regardless, just as another poster pointed out, power outages in the USA happen all the time. Some for just a few minutes, others for longer, but yet we don't see reporting on those all the time. Brasil has one of the top 10 economy's in the world right now and is expected to rise to within the top 5 in the next 10 years. They have made huge improvements to their infrastructure and will continue to do so for both the upcoming Olympics and World Cup, and their own personal satisfaction.


By jonmcc33 on 11/27/2009 8:22:17 AM , Rating: 5
Why do you care? You have plenty of hot women down there anyway. No need to worry about electricity.


Eek!
By JonnyDough on 11/27/2009 4:20:30 AM , Rating: 3
Yikes! No internet?!! How do they survive?!!




RE: Eek!
By amanojaku on 11/27/2009 7:32:18 AM , Rating: 2
It's BRAZIL. Considering all the shapely women walking around I doubt the Internet use was impacted much. ;-)


RE: Eek!
By Marlonsm on 11/27/2009 10:32:31 AM , Rating: 2
I'm from Brazil, and I can say, it's not AS good as most people think... Unless you're talking about TV shows.


RE: Eek!
By amanojaku on 11/27/2009 10:57:36 AM , Rating: 3
It's never as good as people think. According to TV/movies most of the women in the US are hot and great in bed. The reality is 25% are obese, 30% are just fat, 15% are too skinny, and +80% (good looking or otherwise) wouldn't know how to handle Peter if he came with a manual.

But what would life be without the occasional stereotypical joke?


RE: Eek!
By Chaser on 11/27/2009 12:54:06 PM , Rating: 2
I live in Kentucky. The stereoypes with the women here are real. they are either fat, they smoke, or both. Sigh. it sucks to be me.


RE: Eek!
By Parhel on 11/28/2009 1:11:26 PM , Rating: 2
I don't know. My wife and my brother's wife are Brazilian, so I've spent some time there. There are a ton of beautiful women everywhere you go.

My take is that when people say "Brazil has the most beautiful women in the world," it's about the quantity rather than the quality. It's not that the world's 500 most beautiful women are all from Brazil, it's that you can't walk 100 feet in Brazil without passing a beautiful woman.


RE: Eek!
By Mitch101 on 11/27/2009 12:15:13 PM , Rating: 4
They immigrate to California becuase they hear there may still be some internet out in California.


The inhumanity of it all
By ggordonliddy on 11/28/2009 12:00:53 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
It was a sweltering 95 degrees Fahrenheit when the blackout hit, forcing residents and tourists to endure the summer heat while out on the beaches.
Just awful. Sounds like pure hell, being out on a nice hot beach and all.




RE: The inhumanity of it all
By Parhel on 11/28/2009 1:07:43 PM , Rating: 2
They're used to the heat. When I was in Brazil, it was about that hot the whole time I was there. I was dying in shorts and a T-shirt. Seriously, I looked like I was about to melt. And all around me, guys were wearing long-sleeved shirts and ties . . . even suit coats . . . on there way to work, and weren't even breaking a sweat. Heck, nobody even has air conditioning there.


RE: The inhumanity of it all
By AnnihilatorX on 11/30/2009 4:20:41 AM , Rating: 2
lol I agree
A hot beach will be hot regardless of electricity.


Sounds good to me!
By messyunkempt on 11/27/2009 5:58:09 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
It was a sweltering 95 degrees Fahrenheit when the blackout hit, forcing residents and tourists to endure the summer heat while out on the beaches


Yeah they must have been gutted...




"So, I think the same thing of the music industry. They can't say that they're losing money, you know what I'm saying. They just probably don't have the same surplus that they had." -- Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA











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