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.
On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, the airports are closed so the British can't come and invade your home.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
Horse manure.
A few obvious observations:
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
That's because we're a bunch of bad motherfuckers.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you so worried? You seem to be more afraid of each other, then other things!
Well, let me tell you a couple facts about major US cities. I figure it is probably true in urban areas in other countries, but I can't directly speak for them.
Before there was any hint of a power outage on the east coast, police who would be working tonight knew it could be a tough night. It was going to be hot and muggy tonight but no rain. People would be out on the streets because the houses and apartments without air conditioning would still be hot from the daylight hours. It is a summer Thursday night and a lot of people would be getting their weekend startend early. It is almost payday for a lot of people. Checks hit on Fridays or on the 15th of the month for most people. Usually, if you have direct deposit, they hit a day early. So you combine all these factors and you are going to see a rise in domestic disputes and general violence. Now, turn off the lights and everybody's air conditioning and you have just multiplied the problem. Now you have a lot of hot people without their nightly drug (TV) or the money they expected (ATMs are down) with nothing to do but interact with other hot, annoyed people. Smell trouble?
My other question is...isn't the 2nd Amendment about creating a mulitia to defend your country...not about defending your house?
The simple answer, without politics, is yes. But how do you define 'militia'? Historically, at the time it was written, it meant all able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45. When the militia was called upon, they were an irregular force used to suppliment or replace regular soldiers. Often, they would take over a fort or garrison when the regular troops were needed elsewhere. Usually, this meant defending their own homes, although the British in the colonies were known to pull the militia out to other areas and force the homes to be left undefended. This would have the effect of upsetting the militia.
When the militia was called up, they were expected to bring their own weapons and provisions, hence the need for keeping weapons in their homes and knowing how to use them. The Swiss use this method to this day.
And is it the gun culture of the USA that brings about this fear?
No, it is really the media that inspires this fear. When we wake up Friday morning, we are going to be shown every bad thing that happened overnight in the blackout areas. If there isn't major unrest, we will hear about 'heat-related deaths' and traffic accidents. That is the American media mentality. I guess it must be our own fault for watching all the trash we do. What you won't see covered are things that are going on right now in New York: People are buying food and water for strangers when the shop keepers aren't just giving it away for free. People are taking in their friends and coworkers and giving them a place to stay for the night if they can't get home. People are sharing their cell phones so strangers can call home and let their families know they are alright. I saw a man walking with candles to the houses of older members of his church to make sure they were alright and had what they needed to make it through the night. What is going on right now is the true American spirit and it crosses all racial, social and economic lines. And this is true of 99.99% of the people caught out in this mess tonight. The other 0.001% will be splashed across the front pages and news broadcasts around the world and people will wonder how terrible it must be to be in that situation.
And last, but not least, this is the night that will have a ripple effect throughout the entire area. No TV, nothing to do and the condom stores are closed? Expect a mini baby boom next May of 'black-out babies'!
Re:To answer your questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay...I'm curious. Why would cut down anyone "who's head stick up too
good question!
Rosey Golds, a social commentator for ABC radio (Australian Broadcasting Commission) says:
"The tall poppy syndrome expressed our great reluctance to defer to authority figures (and thus establish a new class system) and our abhorrence towards a society predicated on the worship of money. We mocked the desire to impress. There was a great Australian proverb used to describe the wealthy graziers who came down from the country on holiday breaks flaunting their Akubras - the wider the brim the smaller the property "
We do it because of our background. We are by nature very cynical of authority figures. Many friends of mine in the USA think they are cynical of their political figures...but they haven't seen Australian cynicism. We often give our pollies no respect at all.
A certain amount if cynicism is good. But not too much. Another advantage of our "tall poppy syndrome" is that we treat people based on their substance...IE who they are...not how big a car they drive, what title they have, or other such social standings. In social interaction, we very rarely introduce ourselves with titles (IE Doctor, Professor, Coach, Reverend etc etc). Nor do use those titles (An exeption would be a doctor of medicine, but we would only call them doctor whilst at the hospital. At the pub we would call them Bruce). I was amazed once when visiting the states with my parents (My mum is a General Practicioner...ie a Doc). When shoping in a department store, people would call us "Sir" or "Maam" (Which is weird for us!). But when they saw Mum's credit card with "Dr" on their...we all of a sudden would get red carpet treament. Sales assistants would be there ready to help, calling her "Doctor". It was very strange, unheard of to get better treament because of your profession in Australia. When Dad visits the USA (or has colleauges visit him), every American calls him "Doctor" (He's got a PHD). I've never seen it happen here.
With all cultural things, there are often reasons why things happen that way...but as always too much can be very bad.
Sites you may find interesting is
this one [convictcreations.com]. I found it using google, so haven't read it before (and thus may not agee exactly with what it says).
Mike
I've lived in Australia most my life, but have spent several years living in the USA and UK
Silver Lining Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WHAT IF THIS IS ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK? (Score:5, Funny)
Blah.
Secret plot.... (Score:4, Funny)
Let's all turn on our lights at 4:13pm.... shh... don't tell anyone
</tinfoilHat>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.
The Enron connection (Score:5, Interesting)
There is also the Enron factor. A couple of years back when Cheney gave Enron the green light to manipulate the California energy market California was making deals to buy any capacity it could
During the period the market was being manipulated the cover story was that it was California's fault for not allowing new plants to be built. Power plants have a major lead time so the only way to get generator sets for new power plants to be built in the West was for NYC to give up the generator sets for a bunch of gas turnbine systems planned to be deployed in the East.
Thank Bush, Cheney and their big friend 'Kenny boy' Lay for putting the interests of Enron before the national interest. First they screwed California and now NYC may well be getting hit by the unexpected results.
Re:The Enron connection (Score:5, Interesting)
The California energy crisis was caused by legislation that Republican Governor Pete Wilson promoted and signed.
In the case of the manipulation of the energy market by Enron and others it is a matter of record that there was a conspiracy. It is also a matter of record that the conspirators were the largest contributors to the Bush campaign. If you want to dispute these facts try Google, but I doubt you will even find NewsMax or Faux news trying to deny them.
So far right wing conspiracies involving Bush, Cheney, Tom Delay and other Republicans have prevented the votes being counted in the presidential election, they have helped Enron and others commit a major fraud against the people of California. Oh and only a few years after impeaching a Democratic President for lying about fucking an intern they are claimint that it is perfectly OK for a President to lie to the US people about the reasons for a war.
I don't know if that meets your definition of 'vast right-wing conspiracy', but it certainly there are certainly conspiracies and the majority seem to be perpetrated by a tiny number of senior Republicans.
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:5, Funny)
The end is here. God bless you all.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
We all know that this works -- just use sshnuke to exploit ssh1 vunerabilities, set the password to "zion", and then you can shut down power nodes 20 to 40.
Or was that just a movie?
IRC Livenews about the Power Failures (Score:5, Funny)
It's available on: irc.striked.org #livenews
Top headlines: "Microsoft knocks out east coast power grid to prevent DDoS attack on windowsupdate.com"
Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Informative)
Some reports have suggested that Boston, MA, US was affected. Downtown is operating normally.
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Funny)
+++NO CARRIER+++
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Funny)
Just trying to help.
Re:Central Boston not affected (Score:5, Funny)
I just got reports from Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Casablanca and they are all unaffected. Baghdad is still out but that seems to be an independent cause.
Power? (Score:4, Funny)
UPS advice (Score:5, Funny)
That was a great demo: "Hey, watch it shut itself down when I pull out the plug!"
???
And California? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And California? (Score:5, Funny)
And yeah, you can bet Davis is jumping up and down, pointing towards the east and yelling, "SEE? SEE? I TOLD YOU IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE!!"
Re:And California? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And California? (Score:5, Funny)
I think that they are some sort of migratory waterfowl ...
Re:And California? (Score:5, Funny)
MUHAHAHAHAHOHOHEHEHEHE
How do ya like, all ya damn east-coasters. And for our encore, we are going to export earthquakes too!
Re:And California? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And California? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And California? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to defend the GOP, though. The "deregulation" (it wasn't, really. There was all sorts of bizarre price controls. Calling it deregulation was a propaganda myth.) was, in the end, a completely bipartisan clusterfook. But anyone using it to dump on one side or the other is just being pig ignorant and mentally ill.
Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
Tell the whole story please (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
That's the problem. They let the magic smoke out.
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
ps: checked out diaperdevil - very cool! As a father of 3 kids under 18 months, I think I'm going to have to place an order...
Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, the Mayor is shoveling bullshit.
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.
Timing is everything... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Timing is everything... (Score:4, Funny)
too much work on the brain, time to head home, oh wait the subway is electric, damn.
Manhattan (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the radio, the 14th street power station is burning. Of course, it also is talking about blackouts from Cleveland to Toronto. With no power, my poor tropical fish have less than a few hours to live, and I already hear a crowd in the street screaming, but it's mostly good natured right now.
I'm sorry, this seems like sabotage. I've got 100 gallons of fresh water, and a sword.
And I'm posting on slashdot.
Oh well. I guess I just wanted to say hello. =p
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Funny)
Do you suffer from anxiety attacks when you do not read/post to Slashdot for more than a day?
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is this rated Funny?? I suggested exactly this to a friend who has a large tank and was expressing concerns about power failures just a few weeks ago. She was mostly concerned about the filter shutting down long enough to kill the bacterial from lack of water flow (I think her estimate of how long this would take was very conserative, but the concern about the issue was real, and it certainly can happen, it's just an issue of how long an outage is required). Contrasted to other expenses involved in a large tank, a UPS is an extremely reasonable investment.
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.
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Funny)
I'm in California right now, near San Francisco. All power is on across Silicon Valley. Traffic lights are functioning normally, and the BART can't hold "hundreds of thousands" of people like the NYC subway system apparently can. I'm connected through an ethernet cable to the wall on a laptop, with the power adapter plugged in.
My tropical fish also live on electricity, but they are thankfully in no danger. Regardless, I'm going to freak out like everyone else.
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the going radio theory is that there is a problem near the Niagra New York/Canada border. The Pentagon is saying that there is no indication of terrorism. That being said, I wish most cellular was working, so I could get in touch with my wife.
Brilliant performance awards go to:
NYPD, already directing traffic brilliantly.
FDNY, ditto.
Verizon, still got full phone, and internet. Considering New York is right in the center of this blackout, seriously. God damn, good show, Verizon.
Nextel, I still have full service.
MTA, every bus is rolling.
Parks, amazingly, this full power outage has not affected the base functionality of any park, citywide.
Boos: Cingular. No service.
I've got 77% battery left. I'll post again, when I'm bored. =)
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. =)
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Funny)
Get a straw and BLOW FOR THEIR LIVES, MAN!
Re:Manhattan (Score:5, Funny)
With no power, my poor tropical fish have less than a few hours to live
Let's see... Decisions, decisions. Fish or Shashdot..., fish or Slashdot... Hmmm.
Hey! the toilet will still flush without power. Slashdot it is!
from drudge website (Score:4, Informative)
Sun Spots could be partly to blame? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sun spots, transformers, and you. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't believe that sunspots can trigger power outages? Think again [nasa.gov].
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.
Air conditioners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like California.... (Score:5, Funny)
Weird day. (Score:5, Interesting)
You know your a geek... (Score:5, Funny)
CNN is reporting... (Score:5, Interesting)
So this one isn't terrorism (so they say), but I'm sure terrorists will be delighted to know that they can throw five major cities into utter chaos by taking out one substation and getting an assist from the domino effect.
~Philly
Whoops... sorry... (Score:5, Funny)
I always wondered what that wall switch was for and today I finally turned it off. My bad. After dinner I'll go turn it back on.
Aieee! (Score:5, Funny)
NO CARRIER
outages like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, "officials" are saying this probably isn't terrorism. But I bet it's giving al-Qaeda some ideas.
If an accident can make this happen, I'm sure a cleverly-placed explosive can make it happen much more easily.
And once all those cities are out of power and essentially crippled, the real strikes start.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get some tea on for when the FBI guys come knocking on my door. Does Ashcroft take one lump or two?
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.
Blame Canada (Score:4, Funny)
Canadians that object will be labelled terrorists and put in camps where they will be working on new pipelines, new electricity lines and clearing out forrests. All others canadians will be subjected to pay the USA's debt as a thanks for now becoming part of the world's oldest democracy.
It happened at 4:11 (Score:5, Funny)
officals are looking... (Score:5, Funny)
Who did it? (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdotted already (Score:4, Interesting)
Supposedly the electric company that started it all.
Re:Slashdotted already (Score:5, Funny)
Great...now we've done it. We Slashdotted the East Coast power grid. We're gonna get modded down BIG TIME for this.
Not Just "Predictable" -- PREDICTED. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm typing from 30 miles southwest of Boston. I've heard reports that Boston is affected; but here in the suburbs, we're not having any problems.
It's worth noting that, no matter what caused the initial problem: The results we're seeing are exactly what happens when the populace fails to concern itself with potential problems. We Americans, even today, suffer from a serious case of "It'll-never-happen-to-me." Experts have warned for years that our power grids had dangerous "pressure points," where small problems could cause massive failures.
Unfortunately, when we hear the phrase "potential problem," we hear the first word and never bother to listen to what follows. "If it's not a sure bet, why worry about it?" Well...here's why.
crib
If the past is any indicator (Score:5, Funny)
Have fun folks
There is a building... (Score:5, Funny)
Net seems way faster now! (Score:4, Funny)
Where there's smoke.... (Score:4, Funny)
Actually the smoke was from the Mayor's handlers trying to spin the fire story so as not to cause panic.....
I think it would have been better for the Mayor's minister of dis-information to have done this on television with a flaming transformer in the background.
uh oh... (Score:4, Funny)
Looting (Score:5, Funny)
LBL data shows the blackout (Score:5, Interesting)
Type 2 security failure at JFK airport (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry I'm missing this... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was five years old for the first one and scared out of my wits when the lights went out. It was an early evening in November, around 5:30 PM, and I was sitting on the kitchen floor, watching TV (the Winchell-Mahoney hour). Lights, television, even the streetlamps outside went out. My first thought: "Mommmmmmmmm!!!!!".
We ended up walking over to my aunt's house a couple of blocks away and eating the cake that my mother had baked that day. That was our dinner. Blackout cake. She never made it again after that, but I remember with all the flickering candles it seemed like someone's birthday.
My father got stuck on the subway for 36 hours, though. Bummer for him.
When the '77 blackout hit, I was living with my father on the 15th floor of a building on East 96th St. I'd just gotten home from my summer job and turned on the radio. The DJ was complaining about the turntables running too fast (overcompensating for low voltage?). Looking out my bedroom window, I saw the blackout roll uptown: the Empire State Building went out first, then the rest of Midtown, the Upper East Side, and then us. It was a hot, humid night and you could see the occasional flash of heat lightning.
I checked on my neighbors, an elderly couple, before heading down to the street, where I bartered a couple of cold beers for a handful of candles. People were bewildered, wondering if the Indian Point nuclear plant had blown, or if the Rooskies were attacking. It took about an hour for the looting to start north of us and for most of the night there was an endless parade of NYPD patrol cars headed uptown, four or five cops in each, all in full riot gear.
I don't want to downplay the millions of dollars of damage that happened that night, but my neighborhood was pretty peaceful. It was like an instant block party, people sharing food and beer and the occasional joint, oldtimers (I guess that's me now) talking about the '65 Blackout (which, like today, started at the Mohawk grid and covered roughly the same area).
Fifteen flights up was nothing for me back then; I ran track in high school.
A couple of years ago my neighborhood in Boston lost power for 36 hours. Nothing big, maybe 25,000 households, but I was bereft. No cable, no Internet, just a battery-operated radio and, of course, candles. Off the grid.
But it was educational. I never realized how dependent I was on technology and the network, how much of my time is spent in front of the silicon devils (TV and computer). Thirty hours with nothing but books and an acoustic guitar for entertainment. When the power came on, the first thing I did was fire up a web browser. It was like a refreshingly cool shower of meaningless information after having to sit and stew with my thoughts.
Shit. I think I'll go to the basement and throw the main breaker. Just for old time's sake.
k.
Shutdown -r black_smoke (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:First Question. Is it terrorism? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First Question. Is it terrorism? (Score:5, Funny)
We know you are lying. Slashdotters don't know any girls.
Re:Blaster (Score:5, Funny)
was revoked by SCO.
Hold your breath! (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, major failures of interconnected electric distribution systems are usually very complex events and it takes a long time to track down the root causes.
sPh
Re:Baby Making Time (Score:4, Interesting)
This Salon article [salon.com] debunks that myth that started with a blackout in New York in 1965 (see page 3 [salon.com]).
See also the Snopes article on the 1965 NYC blackout [snopes.com].
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Come On Now.. Overreaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Come On Now.. Overreaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I wasn't. I heard about this first here. My first thought was W32/Blaster. And I would have laughed...
I don't think terrorists are organised enough yet to pull something like this off. Just like SARS, West Nile, Mad Cow; I think terrorism is way over hyped. I think we need to be aware of them and deal with them, but drunk driving, not wearing seatblets and undercooked meat kill far more people, and are often overlooked.
Re:Great Blackout of 2003 Caused by MSBlast Worm? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's preview the baseless speculation that we'll likely hear in the next hour or so as 24-hour news pundits rush to scare the crap out of the public in their overzealous attempt to add more color to the simple news item that they intend to milk for all its worth over the next day:
* CNN interviews a taxicab driver whose cousin thinks this may be the work of Saddam Hussein
* Fox "confirms" the "terrorist attack" using as evidence, an unnamed "washington insider" noticing a dark-skinned man walking down the hallway of an unspecified building seconds prior to the outage.
* Red Cross is immediately planning "Power Aid 2003" featuring an all-new remake by Vicki Lawrence of "The Night the Lights Went Out in George" - proceeds of $100 billion are expected, $11.43 of which will actually be used to improve the power grid.
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:Nice to see that one failure can do this (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of like a domino effect.
The system is probably way too slow to handle (or predict?) near-by grid failures, which is why other grids are popping, too.
Re:Damage control (Score:5, Funny)
That's the same chance you have of rolling a '1' on a single six-sided die!
Wow! Mind boggling improbable!
Urban Legend (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Domino effect (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read that the stability of large power grids is still a poorly understood problem. Normally they are reliable, but what happens when they are already running close to the limit of safe operation and a major generating facility goes off line?
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