Power Outages Strike East Coast 1697
fordp writes "CNN, CNBC and others are reporting that major power outages are happening just after 4:00PM EDT in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto, Toledo." There are reports of a Con Edison transformer on fire on 14th Street in NYC, and lots of people stuck in trains and elevators. CNN is reporting that it is, according to power officials, most likely not related to terrorism, because you know you were wondering. The Niagra Mohawk power grid is overloaded, which feeds electricity throughout the northeast U.S. and into Canada. Update: 08/14 21:06 GMT by P : The mayor said there was no fire, that it was black smoke brought on by an automatic shutdown because of the power grid failure.
Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Informative)
Some reports have suggested that Boston, MA, US was affected. Downtown is operating normally.
It's affecting Illinois too (Score:3, Informative)
Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Informative)
NO. NOT TERRORISM AT THIS TIME! (Score:2, Informative)
not a fire, not terrorism, according to mayor (Score:3, Informative)
They are not sure the cause of the Niagra outage but they do not have any indication of terrorism at this time.
from drudge website (Score:4, Informative)
Power's back up here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First Question. Is it terrorism? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Come On Now.. Overreaction? (Score:3, Informative)
You're full of crap. CNN did not mention "terrorism" or anything related to it for a good half hour, and when they did it was only to say there was no evidence of it. They did not jump to conclusions. Stop making shit up.
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:3, Informative)
-kb, the Kent whose wife is in NYC and doesn't answer her cellphone or respond to wireless Palm e-mail.
New Haven, CT problems (Score:3, Informative)
Tried to call a friend in Manhattan on her Verizon cell phone before I realized everything that was happening and kept getting "all circuits down", so obviously lots of things are messed up.
Watching some CNBC and CNN on the news, people seem to be going a bit insane here, wandering the streets in mobs, etc.
Re:Wacky... (Score:2, Informative)
Also, no power problems reported in central Boston:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=& threadid=406947 [nasioc.com]
Re:Manhattan (Score:4, Informative)
everything is fine and the power is out as far west as detroit, as south as cleaveland and as far north as toronto.
A niagra falls power grod overloaded and shut down, causing a power cascade.
simply a failure that brought down the whole setup.
Sun spots, transformers, and you. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't believe that sunspots can trigger power outages? Think again [nasa.gov].
More articles (Score:2, Informative)
Massive Blackout Hits Northeastern States
3 minutes ago
NEW YORK - A huge power blackout hit U.S. cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada Thursday afternoon.
In New York City, the blackout affected subways, elevators and airports, including John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.
Thousands of people streamed into the streets of lower Manhattan in 90-degree heat.
In Toronto, Ontario, too, workers left their offices after the blackout hit shortly after 4 p.m. EDT.
Traffic lights were out throughout downtown Cleveland, creating havoc at the beginning of rush hour.
There were reports of outages in New Jersey and Connecticut as well.
Every prison in New York state reported a loss of power and had switched to backup generators, said James Flateau, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.
White House officials were monitoring the blackout from Washington and from San Diego, where President Bush (news - web sites) addressed troops at midday.
http://www.drudgereport.com/
A huge power blackout hit U.S. cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada Thursday afternoon. In New York City, the blackout affected subways, elevators and airports, including John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Thousands of people streamed into the streets of lower Manhattan in 90-degree heat. In Toronto, Ontario, too, workers left their offices after the blackout hit shortly after 4 p.m. EDT. Traffic lights were out throughout downtown Cleveland, creating havoc at the beginning of rush hour. There were reports of outages in New Jersey and Connecticut as well. Every prison in New York state reported a loss of power and had switched to backup generators, said James Flateau, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59083-2
Power Outage Hits Major U.S., Canadian Cities
Reuters Thursday, August 14, 2003; 4:59 PM
NEW YORK - A massive power outage swept across swaths of the eastern United States and Canada on Thursday, leaving sections of New York City, Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto without electricity, witnesses said. Subways in New York came to a complete halt, and power was out at all three of the New York area's major airports. Commuter train service also came to a halt, and cellular telephone service was disrupted. The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Forked River, New Jersey was not functioning, according to people familiar with the plant's operation. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they did not know the reason for the power outages, but said the department was looking into it.
Historical Perspective - 1977 (Score:5, Informative)
It's still moving. Erie, PA, flickered when it happened and just went out (5:10 PM Eastern). It's on the lake between New York and Ohio, so it's on the cusp of whatever grid we have here in Pittsburgh. I think I'll go turn off my air conditioning.
9 NOVEMBER 1975 - IT HAPPENED BEFORE (Score:1, Informative)
http://vms.cc.wmich.edu/~dlouhy/scitechsu03/uni
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sun Spots could be partly to blame? (Score:1, Informative)
That says planet-wide radio blackouts? That's pretty fuckin hardcore.
Just from Reuters... (Score:3, Informative)
New York Official Says Power Grid Overloaded -CNN
Thu August 14, 2003 05:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A New York State official said the Niagara Mohawk power grid overloaded on Thursday, causing a massive power outage, CNN reported, and New York Major Michael Bloomberg said it was likely a natural occurrence. "It may be well into the evening before power comes back on," Bloomberg told the U.S. cable television network. He said smoke from a Consolidated Edison Inc. plant in the city was due to the plant's automatic shutdown, not to a fire, as had been reported. He said, "I can tell you 100 percent sure that there is no evidence as of this moment whatsoever of any terrorism." A massive power outage swept across swaths of the eastern United States and Canada on Thursday, leaving sections of New York, Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto without electricity, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear whether the Niagara Mohawk problem caused the wider outage.
Happened on West Coast years ago... (Score:3, Informative)
I believe it was either 1995 or 1996, IIRC.
Power was out for hours throughout California and parts of Oregon and Washington (I believe parts of Arizona and Nevada were affected as well).
It sucked, but it wasn't the end of the world.
Re:Probably not this time (Score:5, Informative)
With only C level flares, I really doubt it is the flares. They would have had the X level listed if it happened.
url to watch (Score:3, Informative)
http://a1181.l882824180.c8828.g.lm.akamaist
(no spaces in there)
The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And California? (Score:4, Informative)
Real-Time power grid info from ISO-New England (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can we see the evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
- Hot day with tons of ACs running. Check.
- The "magic smoke" being released from one or more power substations. Check.
- Instant power shutdown as a domino effect of overloaded substations occure. Check.
Really, this isn't even the first time something like this has happened at NYC (and surrounding area). A huge power outage just like this happened in 1977 [gmu.edu]. Also, just a couple of years ago several STATES lost power for a short while.Re:Sun Spots could be partly to blame? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sun Spots could be partly to blame? (Score:2, Informative)
It's hard to take a site like that seriously when they misspell 'magnetic' on the front page.
Misspellings aside, when you actually read the data they have up, you'll see that there is NOT an X-class flare happening right now, only a C-class, which has negligible effects. There is, however, a sunspot with the energy potential to release an X-class flare, but it has not done yet. (At least as I write this the data they have up is just 10 minutes old, and shows no serious solar flare. Don't know what the time lag from detection to web page is.)
The system protects itself (Score:4, Informative)
In the event of a large scale failure, you can have huge surges and sags in the power grid. The effect then spreads out over the grid and reaches other power stations and equipment. Those systems see it for the problem it is and automatically shutdown to avoid damage. ("Shutdown" might be a bit of a euphemism; it could be something as simple as a very large fuse blowing.) We are talking about systems with hundreds of thousands of volts and an ungodly current capacity here. It's one thing if your CRT gets hit with a surge and smokes. At a major power plant, it could be like a bomb going off. Far better to have a major outage that takes a few hours to clean up, then a cascade failure that does lasting damage everywhere.
It is also worth pointing out that Niagara Falls provides a huge amount of power to the surrounding regions. A failure there could mean a serious loss of capacity.
Re:EM Pulse Weapon? (Score:3, Informative)
There would be no cars or anything else working if it was a pulse weapon. Not to mention if the pulse was large enough to take down an area that large a goodly portion of the organic material around the target site would most likely be incinerated.
Y2k and terrorism are no where near as catastrophic as simple bad planning and lackadaisical execution.
Re:Manhattan (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Manhattan (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Informative)
Yay to the Big Apple Tours. It looks like they're trying to set up a shuttle.
Yay to regular new yorkers. Ordinary people are directing traffic as well, and you know what? They're pretty good at it. And even more important - the people in the cars are *listening*...
Yay to Mayor Bloomberg. That guy has a *presence*... he's going to speak on the radio, and he's going to say and do what needs to be done.
People are alltogether okay - most are walking towards the bridges - it's one way Manhattan right now, like it was on 9/11 - cars allowed out, but not in. I'm going to leave around 6:30. Before sundown by a long time, but after most of the traffic has bailed.
Anyway, there's not much more to share, so I'll chill with the updates, I guess. Thanks for the concern for the fish, but I don't have any UPS capable of being moved to the tank, and even if I did, I doubt it could power pumps for long.
New Yorkers are taking it well. Honestly, we're getting used to this shit. So hey. That's okay. =)
1965 Blackout (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.cmpco.com/about/system/blackout.html [cmpco.com]
BAH! :) (Score:5, Informative)
As equipment gets old it becomes less and less efficient. This includes the transformers that bring the power from high voltages to low voltages to your home, and the generators that produce the power. AND it includes all those Air conditioners that are running in hot weather.
No-one has been able to afford to bring new generators online recently. And probably not to upgrade/replace old less efficient equipment. And I'm sure most people haven't bought new ACs either because of the economy.
It wasn't so long ago that something similar happened to Chicago during a heat wave there. And we all remember a few years ago that California had rolling blackouts because the grid couldn't handle the power. And NYC suffered similar blackouts for the same reason in the 60s and 70s I believe.
Unfortunately since its such a large grid its going to take a while for it to come back up. You have lots and lots of main power generators. Each one has to be brought back onto the grid one at a time. Each one has to be synced to the current AC 3 phase system within 5-10 degrees of what's there or when that generator comes on it might cause all the generators to drop out. Syncing a generator takes time and patience.
Then you have to bring the consumers back on. Every time you bring a new section on you have a hell of alot of inrush current as Air Conditioners and motors start up. This is why your lights dim a bit when you turn on certain pieces of equipment. Imagine the dimming you get as 1000 Air conditioners come on at once. If its too much a relay might trip off and the grid might collapse under the strain as a generator falls offline. And yes this is a real meaning to the word offline, the generator is not on the power lines anymore.
It will take time for everything to come back up, and con-ed isn't going to rush it. They will take it up in stages, make sure that everything is ready to go before bringing up the next stage. A collapse this large can happen again and again if they rush. But it might be quicker, the reports don't saay how big the failure was and how many generators fell offline. It could just be that all the distribution substations tripped, but I doubt it. For this to be so widespread the generator protection relays probably all fired off and took their generators off the power grid.
Don't you just love cascading failures? Overloaded power grid; all the generators are close to their shut off point. One fails, all generators go into the range of shutoff, and off they go one right after the other. They probably all fell offline withing 30 seconds, and will probably take 3 days to come back on fully.
historical precedent (Score:3, Informative)
As anyone who saw the first episode of James Burke [smithsonia...ciates.org]'s original series Connections or the comedy movie Canadian Bacon [imdb.com] would know, this is not first time New York has been involved in a major blackout. "While the [power] grid, which remains intact today, has proven to be highly effective, the night of November 9, 1965 [gmu.edu] serves as a reminder..." (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "At 5:27 p.m., November 9,")
If someone else has better links, please post them. This is just the first one I found.
*sigh* (Score:2, Informative)
More of my rant:
http://www.mailtown.org/geeklog/article.php?story= 20030814144536624 [mailtown.org]
-ted
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:2, Informative)
What happens in a cascade power outage is something that isn't supposed to happen happens, a switch opens for example.
Let's say three power lines run power to a place from power stations, and they are all at 75% capacity. One turns off for some random reason. Now the other two lines are running at 112% capacity. To keep those lines from melting down, they turn off. Now, there is a crudload of power being generated with nowhere to go, so to keep the generators from getting screwed up, they trip their breakers and shut down. That puts more load onto the working circuits and generators. The working circuits become overloaded with the additional demand placed on them, and their breakers trip to prevent Very Bad Things (tm) from happening. When those trip, their generators trip, shut down, and the load transfers to yet more lines, which trip their breakers... cascade.
At least that's my understanding.
And History repeats itself... (Score:2, Informative)
Urban Legend (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You callous bastard. (Score:3, Informative)
Lighten up.
It's turning it back *on* that's the problem (Score:3, Informative)
A rough esitmate of the people in the area affected is probably between 30 and 50 million. When the power went off, most of them didn't go around turning off their light switches, TVs, air conditioners or whatever else was running. Not to mention traffic lights, street lights, subways etc.
So even if the power is fixed or alternate sources are routed in, turning the lights back on is really hard. It may take a while, even if they already fixed the original problem.
But blackouts aren't all bad. In the 1965 NYC blackout, My dad walked five miles across Manhattan to check on my Mom, and ended up proposing. So all you east coasters, pull the batteries from those laptops, check on your friends and neighbors, and go make some stories to tell your kids, when in happens again in another thirty - forty years.
NERC press release (Score:1, Informative)
Princeton Forrestal Village, 116-390 Village Boulevard, Princeton, New Jersey 08540-5731
August 14, 2003 Power Outages - Announcement
Starting at about 4:15 PM EDT, major losses of electric load occurred in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in the Eastern Interconnection.
No cause is known at present, but the outages do not appear to be the result of a terrorist attack.
The areas most affected center around the Great Lakes plus New York City, northern New Jersey and parts of New England. We do not know if these blackouts are related for sure, but it is likely.
Con Edison in New York lost its entire system, it is not known when service will be restored.
Immediate outages totaled about 28,000 MW, at this time 5-10,000 MW remain out of service.
The power in Ontario is being brought back on line through connections with Manitoba.
In Ohio, Perry Nuclear plant went off-line. Major transmission lines were out of service at the time of the disruption. It appears that ten nuclear plants went offline, probably as a result of fluctuations in frequency.
Preliminary indications are that the problems may have started in either Ohio or the Niagara Falls area.
Although the event was felt throughout the entire Eastern Interconnection, the south and midwest were unaffected.
NERC is having regular conference calls among the NERC reliability coordinators and will provide additional information as we know more.
We do not know the cause of the disturbances at present but will continue to evaluate the situation throughout the rest of the day and evening.
5:40 PM
Almost (Score:5, Informative)
to keep in sync, so that when it's
time to ramp up, sync is not an issue.
Mostly true.
Gas turbine plants are made for peaking, and can supply whatever is demanded within a second or two- but their capacity is limited.
Many of the baseline load plants, steam plants, take sometime to change power output. Nuclear power plants are the worst.
I just started working at a nuclear powerplant, so my understanding may not be fully up to speed, but here's what I know so far:
When our plant is disconnected from the grid (not easy, because we have three lines running out on seperated paths, but it happened last year), we have a whole lot of energy in the system, and no place to put it- so we trip the plant. that basically means that the control rods drop into the core within seconds of being disconnected from the grid, and the plant starts to cool down.
We have in-house diesels to safely shut down the plant with, but they can't put out the voltage or power required to run the largest motors in the plant, which are needed to start power generation back up. Essentially, we need to be connected to the grid to start and run the plant.
These large motors, combined with everything else, use up about 3% of our plant capacity. I don't think we can run at 3% capacity, but I'm not positive. Basically, even if we knew ahead of time we where to be disconnected, I don't think we could ramp down the plant far enough to run only house loads off the main generator.
Short version:
1) A nuclear power plant can't start or run without being connected to the grid.
2) Once connected, they take about a day to get up to full power output.
3) Nuke power plants are typically a grid baseline load- meaning they're the last to have to cut production in the face of reduced demand. Nuke plants account for 20% of our electrical consumption.
2) The grid doesn't have to be brought up with
all generators and exchanges linked, they
can be brought up as islands and rejoined later.
4) Generators can only keep in sync when the grid is there to sync to. If the grid is disconnected, one plant starts, and everyone syncs to that. But I don't believe it takes very long to sync, maybe minutes. Though it is possible that if it's only one plant per 'island' they could drag the sync back to match with other islands.
That's all based on the assumption that other plants work roughly the same as Seabrook Station in Seabrook, NH. I do not claim authorative knowledge.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:2, Informative)
Read the whole line: "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
In or out of context, this is plain english giving me the right, not the 'privilege', to own firearms.
It makes perfect sense. (Score:3, Informative)
Short answer: If they have no place to put all the power they generate, they have to shut down.
My plant [seabrookstation.com] generates 1207 Mega-watts (which rounds to 1.21 gigawatts... hehhehe), and we only use 40 MW for in house loads- about three percent of our total output. We cannot ramp output from 1207 MW to 40 MW instantly, if we can at all (I'm new, so I still have much to learn. The only option, then , is to unplug everything and blow as much of the energy into the ultimate heat sink (ocean) quickly.
Once the plant goes offline, it takes about a day to start back up again- and we can't start without being connected to the grid, because our diesels only put out 12 MW at 4160 Volts. This is enough to shut down the plant safely, but far short of the 40MW (most of it at 13600 Volts) needed to run the seven big motors that are needed for circulating the reactor coolant and dumping waste heat into the ocean. Even if we could run off of only one waste heat and one reactor coolant motor, we'd still have to hook up the plant wiring in a creative way to do that, and it would take a long time to convince the NRC that was a good idea.
Re:inrush current? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
Horse manure.
A few obvious observations:
Re:On the other hand... (Score:3, Informative)
Generally speaking, losing power in sparsly populated areas anywhere in the world is less troublesome than losing power in a densly populated city for several reasons. One, the people in rural areas tend to depend on power less and have an easier time enjoying nature and getting along with their neighbors (each person has more space to themselves). However, in a city, the people depend on the power grid to get them home, provide them with comfortable surroundings, and provides much of their entertainment. When there's no power in a dense city, there really is no escaping the heat island or even getting a quite sanctuary of your own (at least outside).
My other question is...isn't the 2nd Amendment about creating a mulitia to defend your country...not about defending your house? And is it the gun culture of the USA that brings about this fear?
The 2nd amendment was mainly for securing the rights of forming a militia, but was written broadly enough to allow any citizen to 'keep and bear arms.' Also, the militia's purpose was to protect the 'security of a free state' which is closely tied to protecting the citizen's liberty and property (ie, house). The fear has next to nothing to do with fear of guns. Rather, it is fear of mob mentality that leads to riots like in LA. I think NYC has come a long way since 1977 and almost certainly won't experience the riots they did then and doubt that many others fear that possibility occuring now.
More info (Score:5, Informative)
That's an oversimplification, I know. But I don't understand this case: A major power producer goes offline, but the consumers don't. Why can't the remaining producers take up at least some of the slack?
www.howstuffworks.com might have some good information, but I don't have any direct links.
The grid is composed of three parts: producers, transmission, and consumers.
Now when a major plant goes offline, typically other plants do take up the slack, so you've got the right idea. For example, in October, Seabrook station will go offline for refueling, and no one will notice, because we're paying other plants to generate the electricity we committed to. The excess peaking capacity of the grid goes down, so there's a smaller margin for peaks, but brownouts are largely avoided.
Now in comes the transmitters: It's often referred to as 'The national electric grid' but that's not quite correct. The system is capable of transmitting power from Maine to California, and Florida to Toronto, but there's a lot of sub-grids with sometimes minor connections between them, and these are typically open- there might be a small connection for keeping sync, so they can close on demand.
Each inter-grid connection can only carry so much current- the lines would heat up and start to sag, substations would catch on fire, that sort of thing. This can't really be tolerated, so when a connection's capacity is overloaded, the breakers pop open and the 'donor' grid just gives a big 'fuck off' to the recieving grid.
So when this happens, it starts to ask even more of the other grids it's connected to, increasing the chance that it will cause an overcurrent trip on these other lines.
These connections can also be manually opened and closed by the grid controllers- in NH, the control room is in manchester, and I think it's run by a company called ISO. An overcurrent trip may require a lineman to visit the substation in question, i'm not sure.
Now, every plant except nuke plants runs lower than it's actual capacity to keep some peak demand reserve, so in general, they can pick up the slack when one goes down. Each powerplant does have it's limit, though. If demand on a particular plant exceeds it's capacity, the voltage will drop, and the plant will likely trip on undervoltage, or a grid connection might trip, or the plant operators might shut the plant down to preserve the equipment. (Most things in my powerplant like to run at one-steady state speed. Since voltage is proportional to speed, lower voltage means the main generator and turbine slow down. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, it's no fun)
Shutting down one plant will of course increase demand on other plants. So I'm sure you can see by now that once a cascade starts, things can really start to go to shit.
This is ideally avoided by having ridiculously over-rated transmission lines, and grid excess generation capacity well above the output of any one or two or three plants. However, I don't think we've really beefed up our transmission lines since the 70's or 80's, and new powerplants are often stalled or killed by NIMBY's and groups like greenpeace who haven't the slightest clue how a nuke plant works, how it's different from a bomb, and how many robust safety systems there are between the radiation and the public.
We've been setting ourselves up for problems for sometime now. It's time to build new power plants, and beef up transmission lines, cause demand sure as hell won't recede.
Corrections to my statements are welcomed from people with more than my meager two months in the power industry.
**Nuke plants typically run at full power
Re:outages like this (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.greenenergyohio.org/default.cfm?exec=Pa ge.View&pageID=135 [greenenergyohio.org]
If you can find some counter-statistics, please post them. Not arguing, just trying to find the truth. :)
They produce 18.6% of our power. (Score:4, Informative)
There are only 104 nuclear powerplants in the US, you're right on that.
However, These plants have 1-3 reactors at each site, each producing roughly a gigawatt of electricity- enough for a million homes.
So you've got at a minimum, 150 gigawatts output of just these 100 powerplants. Take your electricity bill, and figure out your average hourly kilowatt usage. Now divide 150 GW by your average consumption.
Do you still think I'm wrong? Or does it kinda look like nuclear power could run every home in the United states by itself? (Of course, if we wanted to run businesses and industry, we'd have to bring all the other plants back on.)
check
http://www.nei.org/ http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power.ht
http://www.seabrookstation.com
Seabrook is where I work, and How stuff works says 15% for the US, the US department of energy says 18.6%, both of which are close enough to the 20% I stated.
Re:Almost (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to get anywhere in a nukeplant, start in operations. As an Nuclear Systems operator (NSO), I'm gonna be running around the plant, taking equipment in and out of service, opening and closing valves, and whatever the licensed operators in the control room tell me to do.
It's basically a well-paid (I'm about 12% over the starting pay for Mechanical Engineers in New England) blue collar job, open to only to those with engineering degrees or Navy experience.
However, the guys in the control room- all were NSO's. The plant manager- started as an NSO. And a good portion of the plant engineers started as an NSO.
So your easiest entry into the nuclear field is going to involve getting dirty for the first few years. Once you know the plant (they're all similar), if you have the right academic credentials, you'll be in a great position to post for new plant engineering positions as they open, at your plant or others. Just don't let your engineering knowledge rust those years you're spinning valves.
Do I like it? So far, yes, but I've only been learning about the plant. The systems are incredibly complex, and thus insanely cool to engineering-minded folks.
The work itself, as an NSO, often involves long periods of boredom, interspersed with the occasional work and the rare crisis (by crisis, I mean something has to be fixed FAST or the plant has to be shut down by NRC rules. Almost never does this mean that a worker, or the public, is in any iminent danger. A crisis is usually a buearocratic affair.) Mostly, as an NSO, you monitor. But it opens up every other job in the plant to you, because you know the plant inside and out.
Of course, if you can go right to an engineering position, good for you, if that's what you want. Try calling a few area plants and asking about internships.
Fire in a nuclear power plant (Score:1, Informative)
Electricity back in Syracuse (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like a safety flare-off to me (Score:5, Informative)
There are many stages to the processes that turn oil into gasoline, plastics, and other petrochemical products. Whenever there is an upset to the process, such as a power failure, complex systems (on backup power, of course) are designed to shut down the plant in a controlled manner to prevent a catastrophe, and many times that involves venting unprocessed flammables to safety flare-offs to be burned off.
About 7 years ago, a transformer failed at a major substation over by where I live, plunging a large area into darkness. Within seconds, a series of loud explosions were heard at a nearby plastics plant. People living in the area were panicking because they thought that the plant blew up, but the TV and radio newscasters calmly explained (to those who could recieve the broadcasts) that it was part of the safety shutdown procedure, that the loud booms were caused by safety pop-off valves and what looked like burning Iraqi oil wells was the safety flare-off stacks burning.
How power works? (Score:2, Informative)
A link to help us understand power grids...
I just arrived at home in NJ from Manhattan... (Score:2, Informative)
The most shocking thing has been the total ausence of authorities any where. Basically, the presence of police controlling the situation was minimum. Also, it was impossible to get any reliable information from any transport official.
So I wasn't just dissapointed by seeing something like this happening but also by the reactions I saw from the authorities.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:1, Informative)
You mean IS this media fear mongering?
From this page [hardylaw.net]:
9. Fear. Bowling probably has a good point when it suggests that the media feeds off fear in a search for the fast buck. Bowling cites some examples: the razor blades in Halloween apples scare, the flesh-eating bacteria scare, etc. The examples are taken straight from Barry Glassner's excellent book on the subject, "The Culture of Fear," and Moore interviews Glassner on-camera for the point.
Then Moore does exactly what he condemns in the media.
Given the prominence of schoolyard killings as a theme in Bowling for Columbine, Moore must have asked Glassner about that subject. Whatever Glassner said is, however, left on the cutting-room floor. That's because Glassner lists schoolyard shootings as one of the mythical fears. He points out that "More than three times as many people are killed by lightning as by violence at schools."
Re:Almost (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing has to be neccessarily retrofitted, just checked over extremely well. Moreover, Davis-Besse knew they had a boric acid leak and corrosion for quite some time, they just chose to ignore the scope of it, and not seek the cause of their chemistry abnormalities. All their management has now been cleaned out, I believe, top to bottom.
But yeah, that was pretty significant. If it had gone unnoticed for a few months longer, it could have been three mile island #2- but I'd like to point out that there was NO SIGNIFICANT RADIATION RELEASE from TMI, and their wouldn't have been from this, either.
Fuckin Davis-Besse assholes....
Re:On the other hand... (Score:2, Informative)