Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of hydroelectric power station failures


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was  No consensus Mandsford 19:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

List of hydroelectric power station failures

 * – ( View AfD View log )

No one knows what the list is for. If it's not for dam failures, which is covered elsewhere, it shouldn't be for a hodge-podge of enemy action, transmission failures, mechanical failures. There's no criterion for what failures go on the list, and every plant trips once in a while anyway. Wtshymanski (talk) 03:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. When I first saw that page, I wanted to AFD it too. So I don't know, maybe we could delete iff the creator doesn't have good reasons... Reh  man  05:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename to List of catastrophic hydroelectric power generation station failures, and restrict content to failures in the generating yard/generating house/transformer yard. 65.95.13.158 (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Err, isn't the new name a bit too long? If you want to keep it, we could always simply mention the criterion in the lead, without really renaming the whole page... Reh  man  05:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it's a bit too long... though yeah, you could just add my proviso to the current article/name. 65.94.232.153 (talk) 07:17, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no list elswhere which covers solely the catastophic loss of power from a dam - such an occurence iis highly significant and is quite seperate from the structural faiure of a dam. Thereofore this list is highly significant. It cannot easilly be ocmbined with the dam faiure list which includes many non hydro elctric dams. The fact it is a hodge podge of different causes could equally well be applied to the existing dam failure list. It is quite abnormal for a large dam to lose all its output since this involves many simaltaneous unit failurs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Engineman (talk • contribs)
 * Delete There is nothing inherently more "catastrophic" about a hydro generation site going off line than a fossil unit going offline. It might be more unexpected, since there are fewer things to go wrong. A hydro site can typically go back online quicker, since they do not have to go through such a long startup sequence with boiler feedpumps etc. The list is a hodgepodge of dam overtopping and transmission yard problems, mixed with wartime bombing. No prospects for a complete list, no clear definition of which trips are catastrophic: "hours or months" of outage: how many hours? Cite some standard industry definition of "catastrophic outage." Edison (talk) 20:23, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Note - ref the above comment - the use of the term catasrophic applies to the effect of losing say the 16 GW of the iataupu Dam - losing a nuclear stations of say 2 Gw is not catasrophic in this sense. some of these dams are much bigger than single nuke or fossil stations and if all the breakers open simaltaneoulsy or the line is lost, then this is indeed catasrophic and makes headliens round the world.Engineman (talk) 19:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC) "This caused massive power outages in Brazil and Paraguay, blacking out the entire country of Paraguay for 15 minutes, and plunging Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo into darkness for more than 2 hours. 50 million people were reportedly affected.[7] "¬¬¬¬
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Going offline is not a catastrophic failure, a boiler exploding is a catastrophic failure. So your statement about going offline makes no sense. The generating house of a Russian dam recently was destroyed, killing most of the workers inside when a turbine destablized and blew apart, flooding the entire structure and blowing huge holes in the building. That would be a catastrophic failure, a complete loss of power is not a catastrophic failure, and that sort of failure should not be listed. 65.94.232.153 (talk) 07:17, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is an interesting list that can not be found elsewhere. BTW, do we have List of nuclear power station failures?If not, we should. Biophys (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is surely not realistic to compare the routine outage of a tyical 500 MW turbine gen set, with the for example the Iatapu failure which caused lost the entire 16,000 Mw and which would not have been anticipated by the designers,whereas routine tripping would have been. The article specifically excludes routine tripping.

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  D u s t i *poke* 05:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a transmission failure, not a hydroelectric failure; you might as well call the great blackout of 2003 a hydroelectric failure, I'm sure a few hydro plants went off line during that debacle, too. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * yes but it is inherently linked to the fact that the transmission is to a very large singel source of power.
 * Delete for reasons listed by Edison.  coccyx bloccyx  (toccyx)  00:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Those are notable disasters, and to have their list seems to be very much reasonable.Biophys (talk) 23:08, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Merge back into hydroelectricity. I forgot what happened along the way, but this list used to be in the hydroelectricity article. I agree with the article's author that these types of failures are significant mainly because hydro plants are the largest in the world. But I don't think a stand-alone article is necessary for the amount of failures.--NortyNort (Holla) 10:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep and perhaps give the list more structure. Moving information out of main articles into subsidiary lists and then deleting the list is yet another of the ways in which Wikipedia devours and discards the effort involved in its own creation. Opbeith (talk) 14:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination. Johnfos (talk) 00:22, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I see no strong reasons for deleting the page, although the structure and content could perhaps be improved to make it more useful — Preceding unsigned comment added by HerbEppel (talk • contribs) 11:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - Needs attention but the inclusion criteria is clear: This list is concerned with severe and abnormal power outages which caused major power failures due to damage to the hydro site itself. ; however I'd like to be sure that the entries are verifiable: can someone clarify that? I see only one entry sourced and at least another entry has mismatched information in the power station article (Itaipu Dam reports a failure in 2009, but the list talks of a 18 GW failure in 2008). -- Cycl o pia talk  01:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.