4 replies to this topic

[monkey]

Ouch!



http://www.sfgate.co.../BAPF1BCOBS.DTL

[ryan smith]

monkey, on 04 January 2010 - 06:10 AM, said:

Ouch!
http://www.sfgate.co.../BAPF1BCOBS.DTL

I'm curious if other major lift operations have such reliance on a single point of failure for power. It seems like a disaster waiting to happen to have essentially all power generation located in the same building. The direct costs of failure in this case (as well as the embarrassment) seem to argue for an operation the size of Kirkwood to have distributed power...

[monkey]

Due to remote locations quite a few ski areas are at the end of the line, and thus one bark beetle infested snow loaded falling tree away from running on APU. However I do believe Kirkwood has been seeking approval from the Forrest Service to run utilities as the lines would cross there land.

[ryan smith]

monkey, on 04 January 2010 - 10:27 AM, said:

Due to remote locations quite a few ski areas are at the end of the line, and thus one bark beetle infested snow loaded falling tree away from running on APU. However I do believe Kirkwood has been seeking approval from the Forrest Service to run utilities as the lines would cross there land.

My understanding from the reports is that Kirkwood generates it's own power for lifts via diesel generators, and isn't reliant on power-line delivery. So, physically distributing the generators seems like a good idea for redundancy, but there would be obvious costs involved.

[monkey]

I agree don't put all your eggs in one basket, unfortunately cost constraints usually make the decisions for the ones who sign the checks. Bummer none the less and good luck to the ones who have "make it right".