Topic 89 of 96: rippling down the grid: BLACKOUT
Sat, Aug 16, 2003 (15:03) |
Paul Terry Walhus (terry)
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
Rippling Down the Grid
t seems almost unbelievable that an electrical grid whose reliability had
supposedly been bolstered after severe blackouts in 1965 and 1977
nevertheless failed in a matter of seconds on Thursday, leaving much of
the Northeast, upper Midwest and Canada without electricity. Whatever the
initiating event may prove to be — experts think the collapse started in
the Midwest — the most disturbing failure was the inability of the system
to isolate the damage before it could spread. It is not enough to dismiss
the blackout as a rare event or a freak accident. The grid clearly needs
better protection against catastrophic failures or, in an age of
terrorism, against a deliberate act of sabotage.
NYT
1 response total.
Topic 89 of 96 [news]: rippling down the grid: BLACKOUT
Response 1 of 1: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Aug 16, 2003 (15:05) * 17 lines
John Long was there. Bob just missed it.
Two of my friends were either there or just there.
The NYT Editorial goes on:
The best guess now is that the blackout started when a power plant or
transmission line failure in the Midwest caused an enormous, instantaneous
reversal of the power flow that had been moving from west to east, causing
some lines to be overloaded and shut down. That in turn triggered a
cascade of failures as dozens of lines and about 100 power plants took
themselves out of service. In one sense, the system worked as it was
supposed to, with lines and plants shutting down to prevent damage. But
the system is supposed to isolate the problem in a limited area, not
propel it onward.
Somthings real wrong with this picture.
news conference 
Main Menu