“Green” Super Bowl XLVII Lost Power for 34 Minutes. What Happened?
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Last night’s Super Bowl XLVII was remarkable in many respects, Save Jerseyans, due in part to a positively bizarre 34-minute power outage.
Ironically, this super bowl was supposed to be superiorly powered by renewable or “green” energy sources. Check out this excerpt from the U.S. Department of Energy’s website:
To make this the greenest Super Bowl, the New Orleans Host Committee has partnered with fans and the community to offset energy use across the major Super Bowl venues. The exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome features more than 26,000 LED lights on 96 full-color graphic display panels, designed to wash the building in a spectrum of animated colors, patterns and images. The system draws only 10 kilowatts of electricity — equivalent to the amount of energy used by a small home — and the lights are expected to last for many years before needing replacement.
After the outage occurred, officials told the press that, according to ESPN, “too much electricity was being pumped into the 73,000-seat Superdome, causing a surge, and it took time to return power to the building.” An investigation conducted by stadium officials is reportedly ongoing. The NFL still hasn’t announced a cause.
Prior to the big game, however, the NFL boasted about its “Climate Change Initiative” and commitment to reducing the Super Bowl’s greenhouse gas impact:
Use of renewable energy offsets to “green” the power usage at major Super Bowl XLVII event venues including the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the Super Bowl XLVII Media Center, NFL Super Bowl headquarters, the NFL Experience Football Theme Park and the AFC and NFC team hotels. These energy offsets are provided by host committee sponsor Entergy and will include travel offsets to reduce the environmental impact of air travel by NFL staff and the two Super Bowl teams.”
What do we know concerning the outage? Again, the NFL has been heavily pushing green energy over the past couple years. Did green energy nearly ruin Super Bowl XLVII? We’ll wait for a follow up before jumping to conclusions… after all, we’re not global warming groupies! Facts actually matter to conservatives.
Ruin it?? It made the rest of the game worth watching?
@Chris It would've been ruined if the lights hadn't come back on! That's my point…