Slashdot Mirror
Satellite Views Of The Blackout
An anonymous reader writes "These Before and After satellite views of the blackout, from the NOAA, show the geographic extent and intensity of the outage. Toronto, Ottawa, and Detroit seem the worst hit. Currently, a cnn article mentions that a reverse of power flow around Lake Erie may have caused an overload that triggered the programmed shutdown of the power grid. Would be interesting to know how the system and software works, but then again, that information could be dangerous in the wrong hands."
Read the reports in various newspapers, you will have come across many articles saying how antiquated the power transmission system has become.
Power companies have specifically stated that putting in new power grids is very problematic because people don't want this anywhere near their property.
This view is exactly like those bastards at Cape Cod. They scream themselves hoarse that they are enviornmentalists and then fscking say no to wind mills 6 miles off the shore.
Same thing with this power grid. Companies that want to lay new power grids cannot go foward and lay lines because the residents will not waste anytime taking them to court. "We don't want it in our backyard".
Well, somebody has to pickup the cost.
Also, Canada has an excess of power generation capacity. If the US had better lines, it could have taken up the excess power Canada generates.
[ "The strain on transmission capacity is particularly acute in New York State, which is known in the industry for having far too few high-voltage power lines",
"community resistance to new lines has been high and continues to prevent new lines from being built, particularly in high-density areas like the northeast. While the federal government can step in and insist on construction of natural gas pipelines, it has no such power related to electrical transmission lines. "People want more power, but they don't want those lines"".
"Most of New York City's and Long Island's power at peak times must be generated in the city and on the Island, because it is physically impossible to transmit that much power into the area along the existing lines." ]
Have you had a chance to compare this picture with a concurrent cloud map? IIRC, optical imaging has problems seeing through clouds...
Thankfully. Any decent electrical engineer knows something about hvac grids and tripping them. They are supposed to work exactly how they worked. I suspect that the grid frequency went down below a certain threshold and the grid tripped. This is a very essential feature because all the machinery on the grid and off the grid is designed for 60hz power freq. If it goes any lower, their efficiences wud go down hill and each piece will produce tremendous amounts of heat, which can possibly lead to mass fires/transformer explosions across the grid.
Why this happens is simple - the generators are asked to provide more power can they can ever generate - and they slow down(just like a motor loaded with a mechanical load)- also some generators that are supposed to come on-line but they didnt. Thankfully the grid equipment works by sensing - you know it - the grid, which is good because asshats cant interfere with it without getting soot on their hands. I am glad that cows like the ones that frequent slashdot dont write software for the grids. Its done by more deligient and more perfectionist electrical engineers (I am one - any doubts??).
As far as terrorists are concerned,I wouldnt worry too much about they getting this info (they have it already), because all it takes to know info about a grid is a decent electrical engineer, of which there is no dearth - american or non-amercan.
It may have stopped short of Rhode Island, but apprently it may have actually started in my home town. Check this.
--Kevin
Most universities have couses on power systems. As a mechanical engineering student, I took several courses on nuclear power plant design and operation. These classes included several tours to working power plants and training sites. This information is not really hard to get.
I can't speak on power plants in general, but I can comment a bit on nuclear plants. Most plants running in the US are quite old, thanks to public perception preventing any new plants from being built. So, most of them run pretty old systems. Most I've seen run on unix variants, mostly HP-UX and AIX. The software used is really just a backup, the plants can operate pretty much without the computer systems. The hardware is pretty much big old mainframes and mini-mainframe type stuff. IBM, Sun, HP, etc.
The primary function of the computer systems it to simplify some operations and to more easily report on conditions. For example you can view the power output of both reactors on one screen at the control center rather than having to walk over to the analog dials to check it out. They also monitor safety systems and can report on the state of different valves and things in the plant, rather than requiring you to go look at all the lights for individual valves.
Most plants are starting to modernize and new software is being developed to allow complete control of the plant. Currently most of the software used is for monitoring only, but it's starting to be deployed for control as well. So, rather than having to walk over and switch a lever to close a vavle, or turn a dial to up reactor power, you can just click. But this isn't really widespread yet.
There is some windows software out there for this stuff, but it's not widely used, at least in the US. Some of the newer advanced control systems are focusing on windows, so it looks like in the future there might be more windows in the plants.
I've got a composite of the difference that the blackout made areas that were darker during the blackout are in red. Areas that were bright at both times are white.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.