Will "rolling blackouts" in CA affect SEs?

[mnw]

I have to believe that there will be a burp or hiccup somewhere along the way. Any thoughts?

[grnidone]

Good question.

I know a few years back during the summertime when power usage was so high that power plants couldn't keep up, many many companies in 'Silly Valley' lost lots of money. I had heard 2 million dollars every hour they weren't online.

I had also heard that some online companies even tossed around the idea building their own power plants just so they would have their own grid and not have to worry about the public utilities going ka-poot.

I would like to think that that experience taught them to either put mirrored sites in other states on other power grids, or to at least have good back-up generators.

A good question, and I am sure we will find out. But I thought that California was already implementing rolling blackouts...am I incorrect? Little? Aren't you in the SF area?

-G

[rcjordan]

Silicon Valley Zapped By Power Blackout [techweb.com]

If I were in the biz I'd be scouting locations around the DC beltway, figuring that their region of the eastern power grid would be the last to suffer.

[WebRookie]

I'm in Sonoma County, CA. Yep, rolling blackouts are happening today, alerts yesterday as well. Nothing hit my town yet, but up the road there was a blackout in Santa Rosa.

Using the least amount of electricity I can today, it's interesting for sure.

[Hope]

Don't give them any ideas of coming out here to DC. Traffic is bad enough. We really don't need anymore. As it is, it took me 2 hours to go 25 miles yesterday. I can't handle another hour on the capital beltway. ;)

[Mike_Mackin]

Time to come clean PEOPLE.
Who has their sites hosted in Northern California?

I do not BUT a client has 10 sites in Rockland at OneMain formerly jpsnet. We are moving them to NJ.

[mnw]

All of my clients, where I can control their hosting :) , are hosted east of the Mississippi, either Atlanta or North Jersey.

[grnidone]

So..

Has anyone noticed any difference in search engine performance from the blackouts?

-G

[seth_wilde]

I doubt that the blackouts will have any effects. I know our host here in denver has a huge backup generator. And from what I've seen on TV the hosts for the big boys are incredible....were talking located in a bunker with bullet proof glass and a retinal scanner at the front enterance. I know their proctecting against terrorists I would hope their protecting against blackouts....

[rcjordan]

>the hosts for the big boys are incredible
>
...and so is their power consumption. I read a WSJ article that said one of those bunker-type outfits pulled as many kilowatts as a small specialty steel mill. I'm just glad I'm not buying natural gas or diesel fuel and feeding a it to a bank of machines while trying to amortize the 7-digit debt for same. We're talking about a serious drain on pocket money.

[msgraph]

This might provide insight on what some tech companies are doing...

Dear CNET Affiliate Partner -

As many of you are aware, the state of California is experiencing a shortage in available power. As a precautionary measure, we are switching the servers that host News.com content. This will help insure the stability of the News.com headline feeds you presently display on your site. Due to this change in servers, we are asking you to modify the dynamic News.com html you are presently hosting. Failure to update the existing News.com html will result in a lack of displayed content. This does not affect the News.com logos; only the dynamic News.com headline feeds.

Though reactionary, this precautionary response will become the permanent host for the News.com headline feeds. You will not be asked to change the html once California's power issue has been resolved. This change in servers does not affect other types of CNET affiliate content - only the dynamic News.com feeds. Due to their static nature, unaffected content types include: Download.com, Shopper.com, Game Shopper.com, Help.com, CNET Special Promos, and CNET.com News logos. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Regards,

CNET Affiliate Team

[Mike_Mackin]

>Will "rolling blackouts" in CA affect SEs?

An additional question is this "Will "rolling blackouts" in CA affect consumers purchasing power and therefore reduce spending on and off line?

The comsumer will pay the bill for this in the form of higher rates or by paying of bonds floated to cover the losses brought on by poor legislation. What effects California effects the whole country and it's trading partners.

imho

[grnidone]

I think companies in the Silly Valley will decide that these kinds of risks aren't worth and move operations somewhere else. It would not surprise me to see lots of fab plants pop up in Arizona or New Mexico and software places move to the central US or east coast.

-G

[ajsinclair]

NPR story on this just now - it sounds like everyone is paying attention to the situation and making sure they have back up power (generators) or in some cases (ie the CNET example) changing servers to those in other states.

I doubt it's going to effect any SEs - as I suspect they are prepared to deal with outages - the consumer "time online" argument might make sense though, not only during a blackout, but in effort to save power (if anyone is actually trying to conserve).