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Joined: Jun 2002
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Was a reason for the big blackout in the US finally determined?
regards
lyle dunn
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Image shamefully copied from another thread: But now that the finger pointing from both sides of the 49th parallel has died down, do we have a proper explanation?
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Joined: Apr 2002
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Just a little side note: Yesterday (8/27/03) heard that there was a power failure in Newark, NJ. Gee, it's not a result of the big one.
Ironically, the PSE&G main office building was affected. (They are the utility, POCO.) Interesting, customer service didn't answer the phones, they were in the dark.
John
John
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Another interesting note about the NorthEast Blackout. A client of mine on Long Island NY is part of the Utility's (LIPA) Curtailment Program. When they sense a load problem, they ask them to go onto their standby generators and take themselves off the grid. Although we had some hot days this summer, no request for curtailment until 12:30PM on the day of the blackout. My client was on generators for approx 4 hours prior to the blackout. Interesting that the Utility company knew something was "going on" 4 hours before the big one.
Ron
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I've seen repeated referances in the news to a power company in Ohio. If its true, they will be hung out to dry. First, they lost a line. Haven't seen why yet. The alarm to tell them it was down malfunctioned so they didn't know and took no action. The load was automatically picked up be a second line. That line overheated and saged into some trees. Line 2 goes down and things start to go really haywire. How would you like th be the maintenance director that has to explain why your alarms didn't work AND you didn't bother to keep the trees trimmed in your right of way?
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Joined: Nov 2002
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If true, there will be some heads rolling at that Ohio power plant. Including the head of a certain maintenance manager. Yep, unemployment claims may be jumping a bit because of this MacWire
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Joined: Jul 2002
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OK, Here is the outage from a Liney's point of view. Take what you like from this, but hold me to nothing!. One Generator(alternator), goes out on over-current trip, because it cannot supply the Grid with the required current base, this could be 5000-8000A at a voltage of 60kV(over here it is 11kV). OK, Station A goes off line, due to an over current trip, the rest of the Grid has to make up for the loss in Generation capacity, meaning that Stations B,C,D and E have to carry the load of Station A, too. This is just not possible, meaning that Stations B,C,D and E, will eventually trip out through over-current, hence the Black-out effect. Anyone want to question this?, go right ahead!.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area where the source of the blackout supposedly occured. My work is 5 km up the road from where one of the high tension lines overheated and began to sag, catching a tree on fire.
Let's face it folks, our power system was designed in the 1950's when the amount of electrical usage was small. Now, with larger homes being built, requiring more energy to heat and air condition, the amount of power demand is raching the limits of the system. We have microwave ovens, hairdryers that people then never had and consume lots of power. We have TV's in every room of the house, Computers, multiple refridgerators, and deep freezers, etc. Think of all the appliances we have now that did not exist 50 years ago and how much power we consume compared to people then. And you will see why our grid is overburdened and starting to fail.
At the same time, the cables and transformers are getting old and can not handle the loads. The new transformers are not as tough as the old ones they are replacing. Our power companies are crying poor, while they pay off politicians for who knows what.
The US does not invest in its infrastructure because that cuts into the bottom line and profits don't look good on paper.
Yes, heads may roll at First Energy, the power company servicing Northeast Ohio, but that will not solve the problems. It is the consumers who have to use less power and be less wasteful. And if some sort of conservation efforts are not put into place and enforced, we will all be sitting in the dark more often in the future. Like it or not.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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OK, Here is the outage from a Liney's point of view. Take what you like from this, but hold me to nothing!. One Generator(alternator), goes out on over-current trip, because it cannot supply the Grid with the required current base, this could be 5000-8000A at a voltage of 60kV(over here it is 11kV). OK, Station A goes off line, due to an over current trip, the rest of the Grid has to make up for the loss in Generation capacity, meaning that Stations B,C,D and E have to carry the load of Station A, too. This is just not possible, meaning that Stations B,C,D and E, will eventually trip out through over-current, hence the Black-out effect. Anyone want to question this?, go right ahead!.
Or, a city or region is served by say high tension lines coming from 5 sources. One set of lines overloads and power is diverted to the other 4. But, one of the other 4 can not handle the capacity and it trips out, forcing the other 3 to handle the load. They can't do it and so, they all trip out. Now, the city is powerless. The genrators that supplied the city begin to shut down due to no load or insignificant load. The other areas they are servicing now have to go elsewhere for power, putting a strain on other power plants and high tension lines. They can't handle it so they start to shut down. As you see a doomino effect (chain reaction) starts and gets worse and worse until the entire system shuts down or the
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Joined: Nov 2002
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Some consumer appliances burn less power today than back in the 1950's. Color TVs back then consumed around 400 watts. Today's equivalent TV consumes about 100W. Fridges are more efficient. But we have more toys today, like computers and VCRs and such. And air conditioning. Power consumption is still up but not as much as if more efficient equipment were not designed.
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