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Electric Grid is a Vast Machine

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the con-edison-and-cohorts dept.

Guinnessy writes "The latest issues of the Industrial Physicist suggests that 'the vast system of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution that covers the United States and Canada is essentially a single machine-- by many measures, the world's biggest machine.' The article says that because deregulation ignored the physics of the machine, we have blackouts, a fact the industry warned regulators about in 1998. It has some nice hard science data for those interested in why we're going to get some more blackouts in the future unless Congress gets its act together."

8 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Same over here by stewwy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A recent report in the UK suggested the same thing ... but we're getting them after the US as usual :(

  2. Actually, the world's largest machine... by cliffy2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would imply that there's some sort of net work (read net_work, not network) being done. The electric grid spanning the continent produces no net power because of the consumption taking place. Yes, individually the plants are machines, but taking the composite grid into perspective, it is no longer a machine.
    Sorry. I like arbitrary semantics.

  3. Garage Generators by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why can't I just plug my car's engine into my house? At over 100KW, the engine outputs >20x my average consumption. And at $2/gallon, that's about $.05/KWh, about 1/3 my utility electric rate. I wouldn't rely on the grid, I'd have a "battery" in the garage. When H2 stacks are affordable, I'd have >10x the fuel economy. How do I hook this up?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Garage Generators by ikewillis · · Score: 2, Interesting
      One of the great advantages of moving to a hydrogen economy is that cars *would* be able to do this. Specifically, GM's AUTOnomy vehicle contains fuel cells which are capable of generating electrical power for general purpose use, as GM even states on their page:
      "With its robust 42-volt electrical system, the car is configured to run any number of devices in the passenger compartment, from homes to entire farms."
      After moving to a hydrogen economy, and at 95% efficiency, you'd certainly be getting a lot more "bang" for your buck out of fuel cells than you would out of an ICE...
    2. Re:Garage Generators by mt-biker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why can't I just plug my car's engine into my house?

      A great idea, and one that gets discussed by Amory Lovins in Natural Capitalism (See chapter 2, "Reinventing the Wheels", about half way through).

      Lots of details to be worked out, of course. What happens when your car's not there? When it breaks down? Do you store energy yourself at home (H2, whatever), or do you rely on the grid?

      What does the grid become? I was shocked (groan... bad pun) to learn how much power the transmission lines lose. What if lots of people are doing the same thing with their cars, and supplying surplus power back to the grid? Then there's not so much power being transmitted over long distances because the power you use is being generated within a mile or so of your house. But can such a system be stable/reliable enough?

      And, of course, we'd need to take a good look at pollution. The idea of everybody's car engines running 24 hours a day instead of 2 hours isn't a pretty one, but we'd need to do the math, and work out how much pollution is being reduced by closing down power plants.

      But since it's already possible to sell power back to the grid in many places, I guess someone is probably already doing just what you suggest...

  4. Armillaria ostoyae by bhima · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This reminds me that the worlds largest living organism is an underground mushroom in the US somewhere.

    No they do not taste good.

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
  5. Ice Storm Blackouts by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Electrical power going out in the northern united states and Canada for an extended period of time during winter would kill hundreds of thousands of people.

    I suggest that the system be reconfigured and backed-up so as to default to providing emergency power to those regions for the months of November through March.

    The boiled frog scenario aside, no one ever died from being too hot.

  6. Re:Meanwhile in the land of Oz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The evidence is overwhelming that the free market does indeed need to be kept in check just as John Maynard Keynes theorized in 1936. The fallacy that perfect equilibrium between supply and demand would lead to full employment and high economic productivity has been totally disproved. The government as Keynesian economic theory states should play a role in organizing capital investment, keeping control over flow of capital from market to market and planning for economic stability which leads to a climate of certainty and prosperity.

    The opposing theory, supply side economics (often called mcRaygunonics) calls for market control of nearly every form of economic activity. The major problem with this theory is those who hold the largest share of the market power have a vested interest in corrupting said market. This is where Enron, WorldCom, Tyco etc have come into play. Governments, especially democratic ones can play a role as regulator of the market and prevent those with market power from corrupting the free marketplace. It sounds contradictory but so does supply side economic theory. A perfect example of this is pharmaceutical prices in the United States and Canada. In Canada where the government plays a role in the pharmaceutical marketplace drug prices are steady and significantly lower than in the US. The US government vehementally opposes interfering in the pharmaceutical marketplace but many states are now considering indirectly doing so by buying drugs from Canadian companies.