Attack-Proof Power Line to be Installed Under NY

Podcaster writes "American Superconductor Corporation and Con Edison have announced a joint effort to develop and deploy a new system that utilizes high temperature superconductor power cable technology in Con Edison's grid in New York City. The project, called Project Hydra, will aim to establish 'Secure Super Grids' that can withstand extreme weather and terrorist attacks."

Comments

Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Podcaster]

Don't want to RTFA? That's fine, this is /. after all. Here's a summary of the main points to get you started:

• "Project Hydra" is named after the mythical Greek monster that grew back multiple heads when one was severed. The grid is expected to be able to self-regulate power surges and maintain supply under extreme conditions.
• The system's reliability comes from the large number of interconnections that will be made to the power grid under NYC. This is also the driving force behind the need to use HTS materials because the electrical resistance of copper is too high for it to be used.
• The superconductor cable is expected to cost nearly $40 million, funded in part by the US Dept of Homeland Security.
• The cable is expected to be commissioned for operation in early 2010.
• This link is the best place to start if you want to find out more about Team Hydra.
• I, for one, welcome our new multi-headed superconducting subterrainian overlords!

-P

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm torn ... the /. summary was less condescending, but your bullet points are a nice touch.

If I had mod points ... and hadn't posted this reply ... well, you know the rest. ;-)

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Deagol]

The superconductor cable is expected to cost nearly $40 million, funded in part by the US Dept of Homeland Security.

That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.

However, I think the grid's greatest enemy is it's own users. This country is too power hungry.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Podcaster]

The superconductor cable is expected to cost nearly $40 million, funded in part by the US Dept of Homeland Security.

That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.

However, I think the grid's greatest enemy is it's own users. This country is too power hungry.

I tend to agree with you. I'm not sure that this system addresses any part of the power infrastructure that might actually be vulnerable to human attack. Natural disasters are fine, but have any NYC blackouts in recent decades been caused by nature, or have they all been SNAFU?

-P

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[jandrese]

I don't work in the industry, but I have to say that $40M for a long haul power line sounds pretty cheap, especially when you give it the old anti-terr'ism spin. Personally, I'm impressed that they can run a cryogenic cable underneath NYC that cheaply.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Smidge204]

"Project Hydra" is named after the mythical Greek monster that grew back multiple heads when one was severed.

After reading that, I immediately assumed you were talking about the resulting network of bureaucratic asshats who would stall the project and drain the funds like so many vampires... just like the WTC rebuild project.

Then I read the rest of your post and found it much more informative than that. Kudos!

(I still expect a bureaucratic boondoggle, though...)
=Smidge=

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[saleenS281]

We're talking about a government funded project: Do you think that this will ever be finished under budget or on time?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[furball]

That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.

How do you feel about the Eisenhower system? Can you live without it?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Deagol]

I assume you're referring to the interstate highway system? I could certainly live w/o the Feds holding highway funding over state's heads when they try to show an ounce of sovereignty. State-level roads are sufficient. The US economy would not collapse if the interstate highway system suddenly vanished. Hell, maybe the rotting US rail system would get a much needed kick in the ass as a result. :)

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[LiquidCoooled]

That sounds like the superconducting array embedded within the scrith of the RingWorld ;)

I wonder if you could make use of the EM field which that will give off or if it will effect us in some way?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Un pobre guey]

toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive...

You're just jealous because none of the gravy will drip onto your plate.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[DerCed]

Wow, thank you very much for this short summary of the article! I wonder if this could also be a general new idea for this website. Why don't the submitters just summarize the article and highlight the main points? This could really work! ...

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[suitepotato]

However, I think the grid's greatest enemy is it's own users. This country is too power hungry.

Yeah, I can't tell you how much electricity I've wasted keep my milk, meat, fish, and fruits and vegetables fresh or my family for that matter since they invented refrigerators. We should have lived simply and died pathetically at a young age like many people did in previous millenia.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Deagol]

Don't be an ass.

People waste power left and right. I live in Utah, and it get's damned hot during the summer. However, I don't need an air conditioner (or even an evaporative cooler) in summer because I'm smart and bought a brick house, which stays very comfortable in even the July heat. That's just one example. As with everything else in this consumerism-driven country of ours, people don't think long term about anything.

If people were smart (same goes for society as a whole, too), we'd build houses that took much less energy to heat and cool. Instead, houses are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics.

Don't get me started on all these "always on" devices that draw power even when they're "off".

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[drinkypoo]

Natural disasters are fine, but have any NYC blackouts in recent decades been caused by nature, or have they all been SNAFU?

So let's say I'm working as a cop. If I've never been shot, I guess that means I shouldn't bother to wear a vest?

Now, I agree that too much money is being spent on the spectre of terrorism, mostly because in general the money is wasted - not because an attack is unlikely, but because they are doing stupid shit that wouldn't help anyway. But not only does this make the system potentially more secure, but it has other substantial benefits.

And, I might add, as conventional military might becomes more and more marginalized, the odds of terrorist attack increase because other means of combat become less and less viable.

It's not like we're stopping our usual dirty tricks, which is what brought terrorism upon us to begin with. So taking precautions against future terrorism seems like a sound idea. Of course, not meddling overmuch in international politics (in this case, meddling being defined as bombing) to begin with would be a sounder strategy.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[modecx]

Heck, if the cable cost $40 million in materials it would be a steal.

It's probably going to cost $40 billion dollars to install, and the project will disrupt more lives than some acts of terrorism, knowing government contractors.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[malsdavis]

It's all the racing around that goes on these days which is to blame for the recent blackouts.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

What is that, about 40 miles of conventional power lines?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Anonymous Coward]

Although no distance is mentioned, it's not long-haul (it's between two substations in Manhattan). $40 million can only sound cheap in some context, and neither you nor I being part of the industry or even knowing how long this cable will be and how much capacity it will have, we both have no context. For all we know, this is a horrible price being justified for "anti-terrorism" purposes.

I personally suspect the project's criteria focus more on weather and accident concerns, with a bonus of testing a relatively new technology. but talking heads love saying the T-word, so they make sure to ennunciate that one more clearly. Just running it underground gives them the opportunity to pretend it has some new level of protection.

I rather doubt they're pursuing the cheapest option here, but perhaps reduced power losses and maintenance over the long term will pay off. Although neither link has much information, digging around amsuper's website, I did find that the superconductor cable being used is a current offering of theirs, suggesting this NY project is not unprecedented, except perhaps in scale.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Tickletaint]

However, I think the grid's greatest enemy is it's own users. This country is too power hungry.

The country perhaps, but New Yorkers consume only about one-third the energy, per capita, as do Americans sprawled across the rest of the country. This has everything to do with the inherit energy efficiency of city living, and in a broader sense, federal subsidies that encourage environmentally unfriendly rural lifestyles—subsidies both overt and hidden that will surely diminish over the next few decades as the country starts emphasizing energy conservation.

Pretty good summary here, but this honestly should be common knowledge, and I'm surprised these conclusions aren't as universally obvious (ha!) as evolution.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[DragonWriter]

That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project.

Hey, stop whining and find a way to make it work for good. Like come up with an excuse that free 100MB/s symmetric network connections to every home in America help fight terrorism.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[imsabbel]

Reductio ad absordum:

Lets say i am a cop, and i have never been shot at. Does that mean i _shouldnt_ drive around in an M1 Abrams with 5 Apaches giving air coverage?

Getting reactionary, and losing all sense of proportion is a really nice door to facisms...

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Chineseyes]

If overgrown trees count, then yes the blackout of 2003 was caused by nature.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are a complete idiot

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[amuro98]

Isn't Terrorism the new boogieman of the 21st century? During the late 20th century, it was "Nuclear Attack/Annihilation"

That was the original point of the internet, wasn't it? A redundant self healing communication network capable of surviving a nuclear attack?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[smackt4rd]

"State-level roads are sufficient. The US economy would not collapse if the interstate highway system suddenly vanished." Ahahahah. That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. You obviously don't live in Los Angeles, or any other major city.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[drinkypoo]

Getting reactionary, and losing all sense of proportion is a really nice door to facisms...

If you can explain how running an efficient, buried power line leads to fascism (note spelling) I'd be highly interested.

I'd also be calling the men in the clean white suits to come and pick you up.

Try using the following gauge; if it's a good idea, and it's being done in the name of preventing terrorism, do it anyway. If it's a bad idea, and it's being done in the name of preventing terrorism, don't do it. It's just that simple.

And I picked the vest because - *ahem* - it's a good idea to wear a vest. I didn't pick your ridiculous example because that's not a good idea. But when I read this my first reaction was "it's about fucking time!" We lose somewhere from five to ten percent of our power in transmission. If we can reduce that through the use of superconductors, then we should.

One thing computing has taught me about technical developments is that there is always something better over the horizon, but to wait for it is foolish in many cases. Is this one of those? I don't know. But until we get true room-temperature superconductors, we won't know how long that will take, and in the meantime we could be enjoying the benefits of the "high-temperature" superconductors we have now.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[TeknoHog]

If people were smart (same goes for society as a whole, too), we'd build houses that took much less energy to heat and cool. Instead, houses are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics.

Don't get me started on all these "always on" devices that draw power even when they're "off".

Funny, I've just read about an experimental house that is heated by the waste heat of household electronics. The extra insulation means it only needs additional heating for a couple of weeks in the winter, and this is in Finland of all places :) Article in Finnish

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Tickletaint]

What, in New York? Yes, please. The Eisenhower system was perhaps the biggest economic mistake of the 20th century, the negative repercussions of which we're only beginning to address by enticing people back out of their cars, seduced by the American dream of open roads and white picket fences whose material realization became hours stuck in traffic and dependency on polluting foreign oil.

The urban redevelopment and health care costs (you know, particulate matter?) are going to be fucking enormous over the next fifty years, and we'll be lucky to emerge still a world power in the 22nd century. Not only that, but China and India, with the U.S. as their model, are adopting the same self-destructive cultural worship of the automobile as did our parents. Apologies if this sounds condescending, but this is the sort of thing that collapses civilizations.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[rbanffy]

It must be US$ 40 million a mile.

US$ 40 million for a power grid made of superconducting cryogenic cables is incredibly cheap, considering it's the Minipax^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Homeland Security Agency that's funding part of it.

Anyway, if this demonstrates that superconducting cable is a more efficient way to build a power grid (don't forget to count the energy that's required to keep it superconducting), I am all in. Maybe a project this scale is what's needed for the technology to be refined and really take off.

Just imagine the bad sci-fi movie in that a terrorist uses an EMP attached to the superconducting grid to generate a time-warp that sends New York a million years into the past...

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Gregory Arenius]

However, I think the grid's greatest enemy is it's own users. This country is too power hungry. The average New Yorker uses about 4700 kWh of electricity a year. The average American uses 10650. The average in San Francisco is about 6750 and in Dallas its a whopping 16100! New York really isn't doing that badly in terms of per person energy usage.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[6Yankee]

houses are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics

Aha, so that's why bums are always asking for change... to put in the meter. Now I get it.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Anonymous Coward]

Levar Burton coming out of a man hole yelling coolant leak, power grid going down.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we blame the builders and their drive for every penny of profit. I remember when "Made in USA" actually meant something. Too bad these days that tag tends to drive people away. The capitalistic mentality of American business has everything from the home right down to your socks being made more and more cheaply to maximize profits. I want to live when people were concerned with making a good product to ensure return customers instead of looking to the short term profit margin.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[ChrisMaple]

It's been decades since there has been any significant amount of above-ground power cables in Manhattan. The city is honeycombed with tunnels; it's unlikely they'll have to do much new digging.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[ChrisMaple]

Your "walkable streets" link is an informative summary of NYC. A quick summary is: people who live in cesspools don't use much electricity.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[merreborn]

The US economy would not collapse if the interstate highway system suddenly vanished. Hell, maybe the rotting US rail system would get a much needed kick in the ass as a result. :)

The economy hit a bit of a speedbump due to a couple of towers collapsing, and the grounding of all flights for a few days, and you think the highway system disappearing overnight wouldn't be noticed?

Trains don't go everywhere. There are only so many miles of serviceable rails left in the country, and only so many locamotives. The infrastructure for converting entirely to rail just isn't there. It'd take years for it to get there.

By 2008, the trucking industry will haul 9.3 billion tons, or over 64 percent, of total U.S. freight tonnage. By 2008, 87 cents out of every dollar of U.S. freight revenue will go to the trucking industry. 70 percent of U.S. communities depend solely on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities.

The trucking industry employs more than 9 million nationwide. (That's 3% of the population, and about 5% of the workforce)

Most of the nation's half million trucking companies would collapse overnight, entire cities would become uninhabitable over the course of the following months, and the economy would take a nosedive. It'd take decades to fully recover.

I'd gladly accept that we could probably do without the allocation of federal funds to the highway system at this point, if the states could themselves could capture those tax dollars and mange them themselves, but to suggest that "the interstate highway system suddenly vanish[ing]" wouldn't cause significant economic turmoil is completely unrealistic.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Old Benjamin]

As much as I hate government waste, this is a somewhat reasonable project. In reality, LA, DC, NYC, other landmark cities- the ones that would deal a real blow to the country if they came down (Less than say Lincoln, Nebraska, or Pierre. or Bismark). That said, 1: Whats going to generate the power? and 2: What about a backup generator? If it really only cost 40 mil it wouldn't be so bad. but it'll probably cost about 400 mil.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Jahz]

The superconductor cable is expected to cost nearly $40 million, funded in part by the US Dept of Homeland Security.

That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.

That's silly to say. Power is definitely considered critical infrastructure. Virtually nothing works without it, including the entire emergency response system. In a dense city like New York, its important that everything from the police-band to the traffic lights stay powered. (Imagine responding to a cross-town fire in rush-hour without traffic lights). True, we need to be protected against foreign and domestic terrorists... but Homeland Security goes beyond that. That department is supposed to keep us safe from more than just terrorism.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[mikael]

Natural disasters are fine, but have any NYC blackouts in recent decades been caused by nature, or have they all been SNAFU?

Not NYC, but there was a major power failure in the Bay Area when construction workers accidently earthed the entire grid. They threw a grounding switch before disconnecting power lines from the grid for regular maintenance work. The entire region went down. We figured it wasn't just our office when workers from the other office blocks started pouring out of their offces onto the streets.

The following web site has a list of power failures and their causes. The weirdest one is:

June 21 San Francisco
Tangled hen causes power mess The fowl was tied to about a dozen helium balloons and set adrift and floated into power lines

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[rujholla]

That walkable streets link is disturbing. It seems like the author wants to force people into living in NYC like areas.

It believe what it says about people using less energy etc. but what the author proposes will never work, because people move to the suburbs exactly to get away from city conditions, not because they want to waste energy, but to escape from the wretched city.

The ideas listed that would make it more and more expensive to move out to the suburbs would basically reinstate an elite class, as only the super rich could afford to move out and would maintain large estates.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Hoi Polloi]

Ironically, they didn't consider the cold war and thermonuclear bombs to be justification to build hardend power lines. So a couple of guys with a truck full of TNT is a bigger threat now?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[dasunt]

An energy efficient house doesn't command a premium on the market.

Considering that most people do not live in the same house for a long time, why should they build a house and pay much more for an energy efficient house than they'd spend heating a less efficient house for the few years they live there?

PS: I think you are attacking the problem from the wrong angle -- while energy conservation can be useful, going against human nature is hard. The world is going to crave more energy, especially with a richer third world. Lets concentrate on developing new energy sources and encouraging the more widespread use of existing, greener energy sources.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[profplump]

No, no no. Neighboring states would never build inter-connecting roads if they didn't get money from the federal government. Because it's not like anyone in the individual states would have an economic interest in continuing to fund the highway system.

Seriously, I wish states would just suck it up and do without the federal highway funding. But that's only sensible under a system where it's possible to get the federal government to stop taking the money from states in the first place -- the states wouldn't have to "get money" from the federal government if the feds didn't take it away.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[aaarrrgggh]

Not NYC, but there was a major power failure in the Bay Area when construction workers accidently earthed the entire grid. They threw a grounding switch before disconnecting power lines from the grid for regular maintenance work. The entire region went down. We figured it wasn't just our office when workers from the other office blocks started pouring out of their offces onto the streets.

Are you referring to the outage in ~1997 or a more recent incident? The irony of your comment in this context is that it was specifically the 66kV grid tie between substations that made a simple mistake (elsewhere in the system) a catastrophic outage. If my memory serves me, one of the transmission lines coming up the Peninsula was down, and the worker grounded a different line.

The problem with these ties is that they become extremely complicated to operate if they are anything more than two point links, and it takes a gridded structure to provide the reliability improvement.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[netcrusher88]

Any NYC blackouts in recent decades have indeed been SNAFU, and they've had nothing to do with the physical layer (if you'll indulge me in applying the OSI model to power lines). And yeah, there have been a lot as grandparent and parent say, that were human error - whether overdraw, or whatever. Those in my time (not very long, shall we say) have had nothing even to do with humans. The one that comes to mind was VERY recent, and was much bigger than NYC. Took out the entire northeast, and part of Canada. It was a software problem - cascading failovers that hearkened back to the AT&T debacle in 1994. I can guarantee you that this cable, although certainly a good idea due to its inherent boost to grid capacity, will do nothing to stop that sort of thing. So although I tend to agree that users are a problem, a bigger problem is that machines just don't listen.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[newt0311]

efficient, buried power line I am not so sure about the efficiency part. The lines are made of ceramic and have to be cooled by liquid nitrogen to -385 F. I would be very interested in finding out how they deal with the logistical issues of the liquid nitrogen as well as possible line breaks and maintainence. But... If they manage to do it cost effectively, all the more power to them.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[newt0311]

not quite government funded (thankfully) and definitely not government managed (really thankfully but government subsidized (not good but not as bad as the previous two).

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[saleenS281]

I dunno, verizon was government *subsidized* in PA, and I think we can all agree that's as bad, if not worse than pretty much any government run/funded project in history...

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[newt0311]

I know what you mean. My mother used to work at Verizon (I still know some people who do) and that place is a management hell.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Tickletaint]

That sounds backwards to me. In my reality, only the super rich can afford to live in Manhattan. Who the hell wants to live out in the red-state boonies?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Loudog]

>If people were smart (same goes for society as a whole, too), we'd build houses that took much less energy to heat and cool. Instead, houses >are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics.

Unless you live near a major active fault line, in which case a "flimsy cardboard box" would be a really good idea. We don't see many brick houses around here.

That said, my community requires advanced energy planning for construction projects. However, it *does* cost money to meet these goals. I was willing to pay it. Others aren't. You may spend more resources trying to bring your house up to energy code than you'll save. This isn't a good idea. Sometimes it's just better to have a throw-away house.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[diskis]

>Unless you live near a major active fault line, in which case a "flimsy cardboard box" would be a really good idea. We don't see many brick houses around here.

Why do you live there? Not like you are running out of space in that country.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[remmelt]

Your efficiency has a high penny wise, pound foolish content. Where does this power come from? Where does it go to beyond Hydra? How much is lost there? How much is saved by building a 40M$ power line? Will it really be 40M or will the actual cost be lots higher? Still, I think it's a good idea. Bit lame that it should need the terrism flag to finance it, but what can you do these days?

My point is that I'm sure you people can come up with something better to do with 40M$ than building a fucking power line. Really, I'm sure. I'm quite sure you don't need any suggestions from me, either.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[laejoh]

Try using the following gauge;

Try to realise the truth, there is no following gauge!

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[AndersOSU]

Amen to that. I had a high school history teacher that said all we really need to stir revolutionary sentiments in the US would be a trucker strike. A couple of days of people getting no food tends to make them want to change things. Which way things would go I don't think anyone can tell, but disrupting the nations freight system (either highway or truckers) would have dire and long lasting consequences.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[tsalaroth]

Did everyone in this thread miss the term "superconductor"?

Better power efficiency, lower loss over the long haul. 40 million is cheap for this. I wish they'd use this tech for the real long hauls.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Minwee]

I think you missed the words "per foot" in that description.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[MobyDisk]

in summer because I'm smart and bought a brick house, which stays very comfortable in even the July heat Brick is not a very good insulator. Wood is better. Wood with fiberglass insulation in between is about 10 times better. Or is a brick house good in Arizona because it breathes? I live on the U.S. East Coast, where insulation is the key to a cool summer because you want to keep the humidity out. Maybe the "dry heat" thing out west changes things?

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[squiggleslash]

Absolutely. This is why two bedroom apartments of the type everyone wants if it wasn't for the fact you have to live in a "city" with its "public transport" and "entertainment" and "good restaurants" go for a mere $700,000-$2,000,000 in Manhattan, whereas crummy three-four bedroom homes with their own "gardens" and "swimming pools" and such cost $300,000-$400,000 an hour on the LIRR or so away in Long Island.

Because people want to live in the countryside and only live in cities because they can't afford to move out.

Seriously, some people move to the suburbs because "they don't like the city". They're the exception. In some cases, such as NYC circa 1970-1990, a city itself was actually a bad place (just as some suburbs, and indeed some areas of the countryside are.) The economics right now say that if you really want to live outside of the city, you are genuinely better off doing so. The fact most people chose not to demonstrates, to a very real extent, that the cities are a more desirable place to live for the vast majority.

It's not even hard to see why. You give up so much freedom by living away from the population centers where people can organize and create a world for you to live in. Despite the increased space, living outside of a city is effectively living in a cage. Your options are limited. Most people end up living day to day entirely inside their homes, cars, and workspaces. They travel only to work and shop. Their entertainment is provided via a cable or a satellite dish. When you're older, and you want quiet and privacy, when the people around you belong to a younger culture you no longer feel you can fit in to, there may be a desirable aspect to all this, but in some ways even then it's a defeat, it's a negative reason, not a trip to a more positive environment.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[squiggleslash]

If someone nuked NYC, I think getting the power back on would be the last thing on most people's minds.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Hoi Polloi]

So what? That didn't stop them from building civil defense bunkers in the 50's. They even built a massive bunker for Congress in West Virginia so they could administer the rubble.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[gnuman99]

Superconductors are much more efficient at transferring large amounts of power with very little cost (ie. cooling). They would suck at powering your house (200A or so cable there), but are great at transferring power from a substation to the city core where you need 100,000A or more at 5kV or so and it is just not practical to transfer 100A at 5MV!

There are loses from cooling and other loses (100,000A produces a somewhat significant electromagnetic field, which causes current to be induced elsewhere, which causes power loss in superconductors, which costs $$$ - Actual loss depends on the structure immediately around the wire).

Also remember that copper wire costs are through the roof in recent years which makes the superconductor cheaper. Base copper price is near $3.5/lb - it was at $0.80/lb 5 years ago.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[gnuman99]

My devices are always on because they are always on, you insensitive hippie clod!!

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Bishop]

I recently moved from the country back into the city. Country life was great on the week days when all I wanted to do was relax on the patio. But it sucked ass on the weekend.

I suspect that many people would take exception to your characterization of rural or suburban living as living in a cage. Many would say that they prefer it. That is fine, it doesn't make it any less of a cage.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Sterling2p]

But what if the terrorist attack was a staged operation to get the American people to build it's military force and go into other countries... Then you might think 40 mil to build underground power grid might be a bit much.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Jon Kay]

that would deal a real blow to the country if they came down

True. But this will only DECREASE security.

It's deeply unclear to me why a grid requiring WORKING ULTRACOOLING CHILLERS
IN ALL SPOTS would be considered to be a security improvement. You need
flowing nitrogen at all spots now.

Not only will this be alot easier to break maliciously, but the superconductor chillers will tend to break down alot. A LOT. This is very complicated and inherently failure-prone equipment. Even in computer rooms and labs. On Manhattan streets, a given line is likely to fail ALOT. They'll have to either accept a very high failure rate or spend a fortune on maintenance crews.

It's estimated to be $50M for one test line. This plan implicitly would take ALOT of those lines to work.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Deagol]

Brick is a far better source of thermal mass than wood. In the winter, it soaks up heat from the sun, which helps to keep the place warmer at night. In the summer, we open the windows at night, and enjoy the cool interior during the day. Indeed, low humidity in the summer (average of 10% in these parts) helps very much in staying cool in the summer.

Adobe and other earth-made homes in the southwest are a tried-and-true low tech method for reducing power consumption.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Deagol]

Unless you live near a major active fault line, in which case a "flimsy cardboard box" would be a really good idea. We don't see many brick houses around here.

See many brick banks or government buildings? It can be done, even in fault zones.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[mpe]

Did everyone in this thread miss the term "superconductor"?

This would be fine if you could make a superconductor which worked an ambient temperatures. Otherwise lose the cooling an you wind up with a "super-insulator".

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Firethorn]

They installed a number of these a while back in Chicago.

If I remember right, they replaced 7 oil cooled copper lines with 3 superconducting ones, while increasing capacity something like 50% (It turns out that there are still capacity limits for superconducting lines).

They were actually going to make some money based off from the sale of the copper. As for the nitrogen requirements: The copper lines had to be oil cooled, they were shipping so much power. The energy saved by using the superconducting wires was going to be more than enough to keep them supplied with LN. The lines were extremely well insulated, and designed such that the LN could boil out of the insulation, so you didn't really need pumps, you just needed to keep the pipe topped off.

It'll be a while before they even consider running superconductor lines to your house, but for extreme power requirements, such as those of a large city, it's making more and more sense.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Firethorn]

I think that the easiest explanation for that would be AC. New York and San Francisco are both in cooler areas than Dallas.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Firethorn]

I like it though I'd prefer an area with a good chinese restaurant. Hint: Having a steamtable is an automatic disqualification.

It's nice and quiet, the air's clean, and I only have to walk across the street to get to the post office or restaurant/bar.

Big cities have their place, but so don't the smaller areas. Different people have different preferances. I personally enjoy not having to hear the neighbors constantly.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Firethorn]

That didn't stop them from building civil defense bunkers in the 50's.

To keep people alive

They even built a massive bunker for Congress in West Virginia so they could administer the rubble.

'Destroy the earth X times over' comments aside, they never expected even a nuclear exchange to utterly obliterate the country; there would have been plenty of surviving small towns.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[Firethorn]

Sigh...

I read up on the Chicago install a few years back. They replaced 7 oil cooled copper lines with 3 superconducting ones.

Nitrogen supply can be from either end, not 'all points'. These are NOT the general use 240 volt lines running all over, these are specialized interconnects shipping vast amounts of power.

The insulation is interesting: It's liquid tight but not air tight. As the nitrogen heats up some of it boils and the gas simply escapes the insulation. This means that keeping it filled with nitrogen is fairly easy. A nitrogen reserve tank that you keep topped off is sufficient; more liquid flows down to replace that turned to gas.

In addition; between the insulation and amount of nitrogen in the lines it would actually take around a week of not adding nitrogen before the line would warm up enough to no longer be superconducting. The insulation is actually good enough that you can hold the pipe in your bare hands. Remember, only outside temperature matters; superconductors despite transfering megawatts don't produce heat because there's no resistance.

So for this run there's likely only going to be one chilling plant, not many.

Re:Reasons why NYC needs 'Team Hydra'

[tsalaroth]

FTS:

"American Superconductor Corporation and Con Edison have announced a joint effort to develop and deploy a new system that utilizes high temperature superconductor power cable technology in Con Edison's grid in New York City. The project, called Project Hydra, will aim to establish 'Secure Super Grids' that can withstand extreme weather and terrorist attacks."

smekel666

[User 956]

The project, called Project Hydra, will aim to establish 'Secure Super Grids' that can withstand extreme weather and terrorist attacks.

But will it survive human error and project mismanagement? I think not.

Re:smekel666

[Robber Baron]

But will it survive human error and project mismanagement? I think not. What are you, a commie?!?

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm a commie- and even I think the free market has a better idea at this point. Instead of doing multiple redundancy in New York City, why not move the entire damned stock market into cyberspace where it belongs, on geographically redundant servers? It would have all sorts of good effects- you could then make the entire finanical industry work by telecomuting, and because people wouldn't have to live in that hellhole that is NYC anymore, they could see a huge exodus from the impossible housing prices.

Re:smekel666

[drinkypoo]

because people wouldn't have to live in that hellhole that is NYC anymore, they could see a huge exodus from the impossible housing prices

You're always going to need people on the trading floor, because news propagates there and is automatically filtered by the crowd in a way that may never be possible through purely technical means. But it's already true that the people who support them (and all the people trading from someplace other than the floor) already don't need to be there.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You're always going to need people on the trading floor, because news propagates there

Then those people need to step into the 21st century and get their news on the blogs like the rest of us.

and is automatically filtered by the crowd in a way that may never be possible through purely technical means.

Ever hear of this thing called slashdot?

But it's already true that the people who support them (and all the people trading from someplace other than the floor) already don't need to be there.

Which is as it should be. The rest of the country should get *something*.

Re:smekel666

[drinkypoo]

Then those people need to step into the 21st century and get their news on the blogs like the rest of us.

The lag experienced sending a packet across the internet can literally mean the difference between a successful or unsuccessful trade, based on who gets their order in first.

Ever hear of this thing called slashdot?

Dude, don't even TALK to me about this place. Slashdot is a circus of stupidity. Moderation is a complete failure, it is abused constantly every day. And even as it is, the system frequently takes a crap and cannot handle the load.

Slashdot is a prime example of how NOT to run a website. You should use it only as a counterexample, and as an exception to any rule about needing a well-executed website to draw in traffic.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

Ever stop to think maybe there's a reason urban real estate is so expensive? This is where people want to live, because it's where information arrives first. Here in the media capital of the world you get all the benefits of being wired to the internet—what, you think you give up the internet when you move to the city?—as well as the conscious and unconscious advantages of claiming membership in the most intricately entwined human networks in society.

Based on experience, I submit that information-dependent industries will always cluster around physical hubs where the built and human infrastructure exists to support them.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The lag experienced sending a packet across the internet can literally mean the difference between a successful or unsuccessful trade, based on who gets their order in first.

So the whole trading system needs an upgrade to the 21st century- if a 700ms ping is the difference between a successfull and an unsucessfull trade, then certainly HUMANS, with a minimum 900ms response time on the trading floor, are WAY too slow.

Dude, don't even TALK to me about this place. Slashdot is a circus of stupidity. Moderation is a complete failure, it is abused constantly every day. And even as it is, the system frequently takes a crap and cannot handle the load.

But it seems to do way better at diseminating information to a vast number of people than the trading floor at the NYSE does- or maybe that's the point? Controling information in an effort to become the dictators of American free enterprise?

Slashdot is a prime example of how NOT to run a website. You should use it only as a counterexample, and as an exception to any rule about needing a well-executed website to draw in traffic.

We weren't talking traffic- we were talking dissemination of news.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ever stop to think maybe there's a reason urban real estate is so expensive? This is where people want to live, because it's where information arrives first.

And it is now technically feasible to have the ENTIRE GLOBE recieve EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION within 700 ms. Urban doesn't matter anymore to anybody who isn't a luddite.

Here in the media capital of the world you get all the benefits of being wired to the internet--what, you think you give up the internet when you move to the city?--as well as the conscious and unconscious advantages of claiming membership in the most intricately entwined human networks in society.

Human networks are suboptimal methods of delivering information- didn't you ever play telephone in preschool? In comparison to the internet, they're worthless.

Based on experience, I submit that information-dependent industries will always cluster around physical hubs where the built and human infrastructure exists to support them.

Why? What need do information-dependant industries have of meatspace to begin with? Or at least, what do information-dependant industries that are actually dependant upon TRUTH instead of LIES and RUMOR have need of human beings who can't seem to get away from negative and false forms of information? I submit that the entire economy would be better run by expert systems- human beings should not be allowed to have money or stocks.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

At the risk of strawmanning you, did you also think we'd move to a "paperless economy" in the '90s, when in fact the volume of paper rose exponentially as the internet grew? Seems to have been a similar argument, and flawed for similar reasons.

Also, how can you argue against the fact that people in cities will always be at least as well off as those who depend solely on the internet for information? After all, city-dwellers have access to "meatspace" networks (ugh I hate that term), in addition to the internet.

Re:smekel666

[complete loony]

Or earthquakes?

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

At the risk of strawmanning you, did you also think we'd move to a "paperless economy" in the '90s, when in fact the volume of paper rose exponentially as the internet grew?

I think we will move to a paperless economy one day- but display technology has not kept up with Moore's law, and we've got to kill off the Baby Boomers first. I suspect we'll need direct NIC cards for human brains before we move to a paperless society- though I know a couple of guys who are working on it.

Seems to have been a similar argument, and flawed for similar reasons.

The flaw exists in putting up with imperfect human brains for information. NEVER believe what a human being tells you- they're all liars and cheats.

Also, how can you argue against the fact that people in cities will always be at least as well off as those who depend solely on the internet for information?

I don't care if they are "at least as well off". They're idiots to trust other people at all- there isn't a single person in the urban areas who isn't just out for their own enrichment.

After all, city-dwellers have access to "meatspace" networks (ugh I hate that term), in addition to the internet.

The meatspace networks are null value at best, and negative value at worst, spreading nothing more than lies and ignorance. Likewise those portions of the internet that depend upon human beings for input. I trust only automated sensors- anything else is subjective and impossible to know the difference between truth and lies.

Re:smekel666

[drinkypoo]

But it seems to do way better at diseminating information to a vast number of people than the trading floor at the NYSE does- or maybe that's the point? Controling information in an effort to become the dictators of American free enterprise?

Assuredly that is part of the point. But no one is preventing the information from being disseminated via slashdot or similar. The issue is one of latency. There may be several minutes before any given piece of information appears and they still can't manage to keep us from seeing "Nothing to see here" messages when clicking on a story.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The point is, why not create an NYSE.COM, which puts out the stories immediately, kind of like technocrat.net did when Bruce Perens got fed up with seeing "Nothing to See Here"?

Re:smekel666

[drinkypoo]

The point is, why not create an NYSE.COM, which puts out the stories immediately, kind of like technocrat.net did when Bruce Perens got fed up with seeing "Nothing to See Here"?

The point is that the most dedicated will always want those few tenths of a second difference between live and canned. Just watching the ticker on the floor puts you ahead of reloading a web page! If everyone is going to be close to the action you're going to have real issues with resolving conflicts and trades will have to be delayed by as much as seconds for all trades to be reconciled in the correct order. This is a clusterfuck waiting to happen...

Re:smekel666

[LunaticTippy]

I live in a city, and it has absolutely nothing to do with information arrival times.

Most of the jobs are in the city, so I rarely have to drive. There are more bars, restaurants, theaters, museums, and interesting people in the city. I'm willing to pay a premium for that, although sometimes it seems the suburbs are pretty damn expensive.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

Yup... everything's more accessible in the city, and pretty much always will be.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

http://www.felixsalmon.com/000839.html

Blogger. Could live and work from anywhere, according to you. Read this to find out why he doesn't.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What I see there is something that could just as easily have been an online discussion over webcams- in fact, I've hosted such discussions (here at ODOT, we have rules about unneccessary waste of travel time and the technology not to). Worse yet- he was sitting in on pretty much an echo chamber of climate change- one to which dissenters were simply not available due to his location.

That is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that person-to-person contact only gets you lies.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The point is that the most dedicated will always want those few tenths of a second difference between live and canned.

And doing so will always result in bad decisions.

Just watching the ticker on the floor puts you ahead of reloading a web page!

Doesn't have to- the ticker on the floor is just data, there's no reason why it can't be displayed on a streaming push application as easily as on a web page or on the ticker disply on the floor itself.

If everyone is going to be close to the action you're going to have real issues with resolving conflicts and trades will have to be delayed by as much as seconds for all trades to be reconciled in the correct order.

Oh, gee, everybody's equal, such a horrible fate.

This is a clusterfuck waiting to happen...

Only if you're stupid enough not to process it in parallel.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

I submit that perhaps there aren't that many dissenters regarding climate change in New York City because we've been the most consistently exposed to all sides of the arguments and dismissed the reactionary, red-state stance a long time ago.

Re:smekel666

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I submit that perhaps there aren't that many dissenters regarding climate change in New York City because we've been the most consistently exposed to all sides of the arguments and dismissed the reactionary, red-state stance a long time ago.

And thus have created for yourself a bubble every bit as impenetrable as George W Bush discussing the invasion of Iraq- and you consider this a good thing?

The red staters are RIGHT- you are a bunch of elitest pricks who just don't give a shit about the rest of the nation as long as YOU are protected to have your $1000 omelettes.

Re:smekel666

[Tickletaint]

Be that as it may, we're still not nearly as full of ourselves as are, apparently, you. Get bent.

Attack-proof?

[Lockejaw]

That sounds like a challenge. Hope nobody in NY agrees with me...

Re:Attack-proof?

[Ironsides]

That said, in today's environment, doesn't it seem a bit moronic to name your project after a mythical monster slain by a mythical hero from the Middle East?

Umm... I think you may be a bit mixed up. The Hydra was slain by Hercules. You know, the one from Greece?

Re:Attack-proof?

[smackdotcom]

"slain by a mythical hero from the Middle East?"

They've moved Greece to the Middle East have they? And here I'd always thought it was part of continental Europe, and arguably the birthplace of Western Civilization as well.

Re:Attack-proof?

[NullProg]

That said, in today's environment, doesn't it seem a bit moronic to name your project after a mythical monster slain by a mythical hero from the Middle East? Isn't that just asking for people to see the US as the bad guys? Why, they didn't call it Ali Baba and the forty thieves. They called it a Hydra, you know, a creature from Greek mythology.

My Big Fat Greek programmer / cow-worker sitting in the next room would be insulted if you said he was from the Middle East.

Enjoy,

Re:Attack-proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, iceberg-proof ship to sail the Atlantic...

Re:Attack-proof?

[dlanod]

That said, in today's environment, doesn't it seem a bit moronic to name your project after a mythical monster slain by a mythical hero from the Middle East? Isn't that just asking for people to see the US as the bad guys? I'm sure the Greeks would be highly surprised to find out that they reside in the Middle East, not Europe.

Re:Attack-proof?

[sohp]

It's what Bruce Schneier calls Movie Plot Security. A waste of money and effort, but someone is getting rich off it.

Brand new attack vectors

[geoff lane]

IIRC, superconductors tend to loss their superconducting properties when strong magnetic fields are applied.

Look out for terrorists buying large amounts of copper wire and batteries...

Re:Brand new attack vectors

[Control Group]

I'm not worried; I've duct-taped all my windows.

Re:Brand new attack vectors

[cheater512]

Thats ironic because there will be lots of spare copper wire lying around from the old powerlines. ;)

Re:Brand new attack vectors

[cno3]

You should have used electrical tape.

Re:Brand new attack vectors

[happyslayer]

Or, how about an old one?

Just a thought, but worrying about little guys with little bombs may make the city more vulnerable to bigger guys with big bombs.

Re:Brand new attack vectors

[egreshko]

It will not be some terrorists or weather that first brings this system down. It will be a rat chewing through some of the cables.

misprint in article

[Anonymous Coward]

Superconducting cable must be cooled with liquid nitrogen to -382 degrees Fahrenheit (-230 Celsius). At that point, conductivity resistance falls, allowing the cables to carry the extra power.

It should read: -196 Celcius or 77K at least, that is the boiling temperature of LN2 at 1 bar.

Re:misprint in article

[stratjakt]

How is it you're so sure that the boiling point of LN2 is the same as the 'superconducting' point of the cable?

Re:misprint in article

[toQDuj]

Probably because that is the method of cooling with liquid nitrogen. If you want to go lower, use liquid helium.

B.

Re:misprint in article

[Wonko the Sane]

Probably because that is the method of cooling with liquid nitrogen. If you want to go lower, use liquid helium.

Um... plenty of things are cooled with liquid water; but at less than the boiling point of water.

Surely it is conceivable to cool liquid nitrogen down a little below it's boiling point.

Re:misprint in article

[toQDuj]

"Surely it is conceivable to cool liquid nitrogen down a little below it's boiling point."

Well, yes, in theory you can do that. I haven't read up on my cryogenics, but the trick is to exchange heat efficiently in order to lower the temperature of the liquid nitrogen. One way to do that is to use an even colder medium and a heat exchanger, which is kind of futile, since the colder medium can be used directly. The other method is to use compressible phase-changing gases, such as found in refrigirators. At this moment I cannot think of a reason why that is impractical. Perhaps there is a lack of suitable elements/gases..

This website http://www.uigi.com/nitrogen.html, however, gives a very good reason:
"When liquid nitrogen is vaporized and warmed to ambient temperature, it absorbs a large quantity of heat. The combination of inertness and its intensely cold initial state makes liquid nitrogen an ideal coolant for certain applications such as food freezing."

So the energy/heat required for the phase change of nitrogen from liquid to gas is quite a respectable one, making operating with liquid nitrogen at that temperature (i.e. the b.p.) a preferable one.

I do know, however, that with special techniques, it is possible to cool liquid helium a little further towards the zero Kelvin point. This is used, for example, in MRI scanners to minimize the boiloff of helium. I believe they have now acheived zero (!) boiloff.

B.

Re:misprint in article

[Wonko the Sane]

making operating with liquid nitrogen at that temperature (i.e. the b.p.) a preferable one.

I know that in many steam condensors, the water is subcooled a little below the boiling point on purpose, because pumping a saturated liquid is a PITA. If you take a saturated liquid into the suction side of a pump, the lower pressure will cause unwanted boiling (caviation) and really takes a toll on the pump impeller.

So from a practical pumping standpoint, you would want the fluid you are pumping to be at least a few degrees below the boiling point.

Re:misprint in article

[sdpuppy]

Freezing point of Nitrogen is 63K. boiling point is 77K. Very narrow range (assuming standard pressure)

Re:misprint in article

[sdpuppy]

Zero boiloff - not quite. They do have systems which recover the Helium and recondense it. You still need to refill the magnet, but a lot less often.

Sensationalism gone wrong

[Goalie_Ca]

See the title. It says "attack-proof". Yet the cool bit is the high-temperature superconductor bit. Is anyone actually that worried about a terrorist attack? People don't leave the house without a diaper anymore!

Hey hosers, happy two-four eh!

Re:Sensationalism gone wrong

[Control Group]

"Cool bit" is something of an understatement, don't you think? 43 Kelvin is well past "cool" and into "cold," possibly even "frigid" territory.

Re:Sensationalism gone wrong

[conteXXt]

Somebody's never been to Winnipeg in February.

43 Kelvin is spring.

Re:Sensationalism gone wrong

[Control Group]

If your counter-argument depends on the assumption that a Winnipeg February isn't frigid, I think you've got some shoring-up to do.

Re:Sensationalism gone wrong

[njchick]

That's 43 Canadian Kelvin.

My greek mythology is a bit rusty...

[niceone]

From TFA:

The Department of Homeland Security will fund up to $25 million for the nearly $40 million superconductor cable, it calls "Project Hydra," after the mythical Greek monster that grew back multiple heads when one was severed.

Wasn't Hydra was the mythical monster that managed to think of multiple ways to get government money in the name of fighting terrorism each time one was cut off?

Re:My greek mythology is a bit rusty...

[u-bend]

Well, at least it's not another elaborate way for anyone to spy upon us... or is it?
This moment of rampant paranoia brought to you by... me!
:)

Re:My greek mythology is a bit rusty...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's the patriot act. This is enitrely different. That giant "superconducter" cable is actuqlly just a politician's bank account. HYDRA is simply an acronym.

Ha
You
Dumbasses
Really
Are Gullible

Re:My greek mythology is a bit rusty...

[pdbaby]

Ha You Dumbasses Really Are Gullible

HYDRA G? Why that'd be ~5 times faster - where do I sign?

Re:My greek mythology is a bit rusty...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right next to the gullible part ;)

anti-terrorist corruption

[malsdavis]

It seems if you know the right people you can get public funds in the name of "anti-terrorism" for anything these days!

Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully it is not made my Oracle!

PFFT...

[way2trivial]

screw terrorism, screw weather, is it BACKHOE proof?

Re:PFFT...

[Anonymous Coward]

only in soviet russia...

Re:PFFT...

[Tackhead]

> screw terrorism, screw weather, is it BACKHOE proof?

Depends on the backhoe, doesn't it? An God-fearing American backhoe will do what comes naturally - severing both the power cable and the jacket that carries the liquid nitrogen coolant.

But a terrorist backhoe, that's the problem. It'll happily chomp away at the cable, knowing that as soon as it breaks the liquid nitrogen containment, its innocent operator will notice the plume of boiling liquid nitrogen, and immediately throw it into reverse!

A few moments later, the intact cable warms up just enough to becomes the world's longest fusible link. The innocent operator then blamed while the terrorist backhoe diesels quietly in the background, unnoticed by all.

I'd tell you more about the threat of terrorist backhoes, but it'll take at least hundred million in funding.

Re:PFFT...

[CormacJ]

That was my initial thought. I'd give it a year before someone digs through it, or drives a foundation piling through it, or steals it for scrap to feed their meth habit.

Re:PFFT...

[drinkypoo]

The system will almost certainly be segmented, which makes it both more fault-tolerant AND easier to install/repair/et cetera. I know you were just being funny, but I thought I'd throw that out there for the engineering-impaired.

Re:PFFT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. That's what they said about the Titanic, too!

:)

I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[Anonymous Coward]

So we are going to spend how much more to protect one city out of hundreds in our country. And we're going to do it in a manner that makes no sense to me. Let's bury all the cables, because terrorists have demonstrated that they want to blow up electric towers. Now they will just aim for the generation facilities.

In the meantime, Seattle, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Miami, Houston, Washington DC, etc all will have 'vulnerable' powerlines. So in reality, we are just throwing another giant chunk of money in the Anti-Terrorism wastebasket. If it was that big of a threat, wouldn't we be spending billions doing it everywhere?

And what about bridges? Right after 9/11 there were numerous threats against large bridges and major roadways... yet what have we done about those? Oh, that's right....nothing.

We bought the bait hook, line, and sinker. We have given up freedoms to be safe. We spend lots of money in the hope that it buys safety, when in reality all it buys is a bigger house for our politicos and their corporate cronies, and no actual safety for the populace.

I, for one, am ashamed of our Big Brother Overlords. The USA is done. Stick a fork in it.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[stratjakt]

One city? You do know that all the cities are interconnected, and the last time NYC went dark, there I was 4 hours by car away in Maryland without power.

It's about time the feds took an interest in upgrading our power grid.

This has shit all to do with 9/11, that's just media dipshittery.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[Rakishi]

And we're going to do it in a manner that makes no sense to me. Let's bury all the cables, because terrorists have demonstrated that they want to blow up electric towers. Now they will just aim for the generation facilities. The cables in manhattan asfaik are already buried, this is just an upgrade to the current system. since they are already buried the cost is minimal compared to having to actually move them underground.

In the meantime, Seattle, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Miami, Houston, Washington DC, etc all will have 'vulnerable' powerlines. So in reality, we are just throwing another giant chunk of money in the Anti-Terrorism wastebasket. NYC as a whole has 8million people, the greater NYC areas has something like 20 million. The power grid is so highly interconnected that you probably have 50 million people that'd be affected at worst. It is the single largest city and urban area in the US by far and houses the most important financial markets in the US so yes it is the first choice in such matters.

If it was that big of a threat, wouldn't we be spending billions doing it everywhere? Well I don't think NYC can tell other cities what to do but if they want to then they can request some money for their own projects as well.

I, for one, am ashamed of our Big Brother Overlords. The USA is done. Stick a fork in it. what in god's name are you smoking, how the hell is this big brother? They're not watching you, they're not controlling you, they're not restricting your freedom. They're building a f-ing cable. You're the one whose paranoid, except its not about safety but about losing it which is just as bad in some ways (cry wolf and missing the obvious losses of it).

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that the funds come from DHS.

And I think it is foolish to assume that any of this comes from the power outages of 2 years ago. They may bring it up to hopefully get the American public to link them, but this did not grow out of the previous failures.

Personally, I am all for updating the grid. But make it a real effort, not an effort focused on one metro area. The replies to the parent justify upgrading NYC, but then what of the Bonneville Damn that provides much of the power for the West. What will be done to protect those power lines? Or wait, maybe the West coast doesn't contribute enough to our economy like NYC. Whatever.

I just want to see us call a spade a spade. But everything is shrouded in anti-terrorism crap these days.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Like running superconducting cables bathed in nitrogen from towers is practical....

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[amuro98]

Considering the thousands and thousands of miles of power cables you're talking about here, it's just not feasible to do them all at once. Also, this is a pilot program - a life-sized prototype, if you will. There's sure to be plenty of kinks that'll need to be worked out as this thing is built and tested. I'm also sure that if it proves successful, we'll see similar installations going into other cities, and eventually, they'll link together.

Look at how long it took the internet to get to where it is today - and it's STILL got quite a ways to go in terms of raw geographical coverage.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[amuro98]

Two things:

1: Funds from DHS - hey, it got the Hydra project funding, didn't it? And from TFA, it will make that small segment impervious to attack/disasters/blackout.

2: Considering that the whole infrastructure has to be upgraded, you gotta start somewhere. Rome wasn't built in day, neither was our electrical infracstructure, and neither will its replacement/upgrade.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have given up freedoms to be safe. We spend lots of money in the hope that it buys safety, when in reality all it buys is a bigger house for our politicos and their corporate cronies, and no actual safety for the populace.

Um... duh. Welcome to 2003. See you in 4 years.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[DerekLyons]

Let's bury all the cables, because terrorists have demonstrated that they want to blow up electric towers. Now they will just aim for the generation facilities.

Ah yes - the old recourse of the ignorant, "We can't stop all attacks, so why bother to try at all?". I guess that since so few policemen get shot at - none of them should wear bulletproof vests. All those rarely used liferafts on ships? Into the trash bin with them!

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[moosesocks]

The thing is that NYC's power infrastructure is already severely strained, much like the rest of the city's infrastructure which was severely neglected for the latter half of the last century.

Last summer, there was a pretty severe blackout in Queens that lasted for over a week, and affected over 100,000 people, and disrupted subway service.

The overload of the grid caused several of the feeder lines to Queens not only to shut down, but to fail catestrophically. So --- irregardless of security issues, NYC does need to have its electrical capacity increased.

Re:I for one could give a shit about NYC...

[Buelldozer]

So we're going to spend a moderate amount of cash on protecting the delivery system to NYC customers. I've got no problem with this plan as it is, but it doesn't go anywhere NEAR far enough.

For instance, what about the supply of raw materials to "make" that electricity?

That last time I checked something like 30% of the electrical power on the East Coast was being generated through the use of coal that comes from Wyoming! Snarl up the rail lines in North Platte, Nebraska (the largest rail yard in the world) and that supply will come to a grinding halt.

There's a hundred more examples I could give, but the common point is the same. There's little point in securing the end delivery system if you can kill the thing by disrupting the supply of necessary raw material.

So building a special armored power delivery system for NYC is great, but it's really just another feel good measure that won't enhance anyones safety or security.

New target

[ushering05401]

Uh.. according to TFA this system must be cooled to -382 degrees farenheit to work properly. Of course they use liquid nitrogen to do the cooling.

So now, instead of having a system that can be patched relatively quickly with stock parts by people wearing goggles and cover-alls you will have a system that depends on a teams able to deal with radical temperatures within the system, cordoning off segments from the liquid cooling system, performing maintenance, and reintroducing additional coolant before the patch can be brought back online.

While they may find a way to make this new power system harder to take down completely, the process of getting it back up after a destructive event would seem to be exponentially more difficult.

If anything, this technology could inspire terrorist types to try hitting the power grid... something they have not done in America yet.

Let's hope not.

Regards.

Re:New target

[Abcd1234]

While they may find a way to make this new power system harder to take down completely, the process of getting it back up after a destructive event would seem to be exponentially more difficult.

So, the question is, how hard is it to take down completely? If the answer is "extremely hard", then who cares if it takes a lot of effort to repair it?

Re:New target

[khallow]

Liquid nitrogen isn't that big a deal. Many businesses routinely handle the stuff. The key problems here are maintaining a supply of liquid nitrogen and the safety issues surrounding a cryogenic liquid that can displace oxygen when in gaseous form and which boils below the boiling point of oxygen. It can be dangerous, but not unusually so for an environment involving high voltage equipment.

Re:New target

[DirePickle]

...I'm confused. Liquid nitrogen boils at -196 C (-230 F).

Re:New target

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.. according to TFA this system must be cooled to -382 degrees farenheit to work properly. Of course they use liquid nitrogen to do the cooling.

Since liquid nitrogen freezes at 63 Kelvin and they're cooling it to 43 Kelving, the whole thing is probably pressurized to keep the liquid nitrogen from freezing, which adds even more to the cost of repair if something does go wrong.

Re:New target

[drinkypoo]

If anything, this technology could inspire terrorist types to try hitting the power grid... something they have not done in America yet.

If they wanted to do that there would be a lot of much easier ways to handle it than attacking a buried cable.

The first thing that comes to mind is to rent a whole fleet of U-Hauls and just drive them through the gates of multiple substations and blow them all up at once, which would eliminate the ability to route around the problem and knock out large areas.

Another thing is to knock out some of the places which are geographically remote (with natural barriers around them) but which are still fairly populous. For example Santa Cruz, CA which has traditionally been a focus of military attention (including a Japanese submarine...) due to its strategic value (croplands, mountain barriers for defensibility, etc) has only one high-tension connection to the outside world. Knock it out, and power is out for days to weeks. Do this in enough places and you have some serious problems.

Simply by burying the system significantly you more or less ensure that people will attack easier points. Nothing is sure in this world but death and taxes, though, and lifespans are getting longer...

Re:New target

[Anonymous Coward]

Having previously seen pictures of New York City's aqueducts with larger then permitted on highways trucks moving in them while maintenance was being done, I have to wonder if the aqueducts could be used in a safe manner to generate electricity for New York City. The NYC water supply rarely uses any pumping, even the tallest skyscrapers receive water at the top from these gravity fed aquifers. It would be quite an engineering feat and great caution would need to be used to avoid polluting the drinking water, but with today's climate it might just be time to put money into such an engineering study. A successful implementation could not only alleviate some terrorism fears but also improve the environment. While worries of the water supply getting polluted by the equipment would have to be addressed the common complaint about harming fish with hydroelectric generation would be mostly muted. With the length of these aqueducts there could be a lot of generators placed imo but ianae.

Re:New target

[zippthorne]

Well a conventional power system with the same precautions would be equally hard to take down, but without the expense of topping off cryogenic coolant or the hassle of cooling-related downtime.

Re:New target

[networkBoy]

mmmmm
LOX

Yup, that is one of the most hazardous bits right there. Not only does the boiling N2 displace the oxygen in the (assumed to be) confined space, it also produces one of the most reactive liquids known to man.
-nB

Re:New target

[layer3switch]

Look up Verizon in NYC. Major telcos have been already doing this for years. Or just come to NYC and you'll see nitrogen tanks all over the street corners around the blocks of Manhattan.

Re:New target

[DragonWriter]

Well a conventional power system with the same precautions would be equally hard to take down, but without the expense of topping off cryogenic coolant or the hassle of cooling-related downtime.

Isn't the point that a conventional power system with the same precaution would suffer too much transmission loss to make it viable?

(Anyhow, it seems to me that this just means that terrorists, if they want to take down the grid, attack closer to the generators rather than in the cities where the power is being used. The grid doesn't do you much good if there isn't enough juice pumped into it.)

Re:New target

[imsabbel]

Help me a bit...
What "most reactice liquid known to man" are you talking about?

(just for my info, as i have made, among other things, ice-cream with LN2 and never felt any ill effects...)

Re:New target

[Tickletaint]

Hey, it's New York. Engineering and maintenance projects that would be ridiculous elsewhere are nothing special here, if only because we have the requisite manpower and skills. As another poster said, nitrogen-cooled ducts are already commonplace around the city.

Re:New target

[khallow]

Yup, that is one of the most hazardous bits right there. Not only does the boiling N2 displace the oxygen in the (assumed to be) confined space, it also produces one of the most reactive liquids known to man.

Check out the design of a liquid nitrogen dewar sometime. Because heat is always leaking in, liquid nitrogen is always boiling. The gaseous nitrogen constantly vents out (which is of course the way that the remaining fluid remains at liquid nitrogen temperatures). One of the features of the usual dewar is that regular atmosphere never touches the liquid nitrogen. So you don't have to worry (much) about gradually increasing levels of liquid oxygen in the liquid nitrogen.

Re:New target

[khallow]

He's talking about liquid oxygen. If you leave liquid nitrogen in contact with air, it'll gradually collect liquid oxygen as oxygen condenses in the liquid nitrogen.

Re:New target

[Schaffner]

Huh? Santa Cruz, CA was never attacked by a Japanese submarine. However, one did attack the oil fields down south, near Long Beach. Also, there are 3 power connections to the outside world. During SCO Forum one year one of the power connections was down for maintenance and the other was brought down due to a car running into a tower. Most of Santa Cruz county was blacked out.

Re:New target

[Jaime2]

Liquid nitrogen isn't a big deal as long as you aren't intentionally trying to make it dangerous. Capping the vent would be a "bad thing". I worked as an electron microscopist for a few years and I know first hand that 99% of the fun things you can do with LN2 don't involve freezing stuff, but rather putting a bit of liquid nitrogen into various sealed containers.

Re:New target

[networkBoy]

I would tend to say that I am quite familiar with LN2. How 'bout you?
You're assuming the construction guys are too?

Also, dewars tend to leak atmosphere to the vacuum over time, and those transfer hoses do get cold enough to weep LOX if you are not anal about not moving them when cold (insulation cracks, LN2 seeps out, boils on metal armor, LOX wets the ice) and in a production there's always someone who doesn't pay attention and bumps frozen lines.
Once we had someone (terminated on the spot) lick a frozen line... you thought a frozen lamp post was cold? He'll never taste "sweet" again.

OT Ever put your bare, un-gloved hand in LN2? Quite an experience.

Re:New target

[drinkypoo]

Huh? Santa Cruz, CA was never attacked by a Japanese submarine. However, one did attack the oil fields down south, near Long Beach.

The Submarine was spotted near the entrance to the harbor in Santa Cruz.

Also, there are 3 power connections to the outside world.

Well, maybe there are now. When I was discussing the issue with a handful of national guardsmen with whom I used to play roleplaying games, there was only one.

Out of curiosity, which incarnation of SCO Forum was this?

Re:New target

[CKW]

Well I'll be damned, I don't remember hearing about that in the safety briefings in grad school, but it makes sense once I look at the boiling points of the two liquids.

BUT - I'd bet you'd boil away most of the Nitrogen in doing so. The nitrogen has to cool down the room temperature oxygen to it's temperature, which means it is absorbing heat, boiling it.

And if you're letting that much liquid nitrogen boil away - well then there's something wrong to begin with.

Re:New target

[khallow]

I vaguely understand it's more a gradual problem. Ie, if you have a dewar that oxygen can get into, it'll gradually build up over time, much as water does in gas tanks. But just as in gas tanks, if you drain the liquid nitrogen occasionally, oxygen can't build up. The problem occurs in situations where you just keep adding nitrogen to a tank and never drain it.

Re:New target

[khallow]

No hands-on experience. I looked into cryo fluid storage for a client a while back. They wanted to storage something colder and more dangerous than LN2 to save space (a dewar can be under certain circumstances a lot more compact than the corresponding room temperature tanks). There was a serious weeping LOX problem (well one of many safety problems obviously) with the design when the liquid was dispensed. No idea what came of it.

Re:New target

[CKW]

Right - because when you run your car or use some of the liquid nitrogen in experiments, you end up having to re-fill the tank with pure gasoline/liquid-nitrogen, which dilutes what little water/oxygen was there. So it never builds up. (drain != empty the tank, can also simply be "use a majority of the liquid and re-fill").

Still, I'm supprised it was never mentioned in the safety seminars.

Interference

[jshriverWVU]

As a ham will this cause noise interference like some power lines do? (specifically broadband over power)

Re:Interference

[Ironsides]

As a HAM, you should know the answer. Broadband over Powerlines only causes interference due to the frequencies in the power lines being the same as you might try to transmit at. In these, the frequency is going to be 60hz, the frequency of your electrical outlet. I highly doubt you are ever going to be transmiting at 60hz on purpose.

Re:Interference

[Anonymous Coward]

Most hams these days are sadly appliance operators. They buy a $400 radio from RS or one of the many online/catalog stores, buy a $100 antenna, and $100 worth of accessories and then plug them all in and hope they can talk to some dude across the world.

Theory? Knowledge? Mathematics? Don't need 'em!

Re:Interference

[ichigo 2.0]

I highly doubt you are ever going to be transmiting at 60hz on purpose.

It's not the sound that kills you, it's the smell.

Re:Titanic

[spun]

Nekkid Kate Winslet? I'd go down on that ship.

Extreme weather?

[jc42]

... that can withstand extreme weather ...

By which they mean anything above about 40K.

(That's about -230C for the physics-impaired.)

(and around -380F for SI-impaired American readers. ;-)

Re:Extreme weather?

[stratjakt]

There's more to weather than temperature.

I do believe they plan to bury the lines to protect them from the much more damaging force of wind.

Or whatever, the government is doing it so it's dumb I guess.

Re:Extreme weather?

[Mattintosh]

And around 180R for those of us who prefer a logical, yet higher-integral-accuracy temperature measurement.

Re:Extreme weather?

[jc42]

... a logical, yet higher-integral-accuracy temperature measurement.

Hey, let's have none of that around here.

Next you're going to expect that we RTFA before replying.

Hydra...really?

[Itninja]

I know they were thinking of the mythical monster when the name Hydra was decided upon. But don't any of the geek on the staff read comics? Don't they know that HYDRA is the code name for a global terrorist organization? I mean c'mon! Why don't they just call it Spectre?

Re:Hydra...really?

[Anonymous Coward]

C.H.A.O.A.

Attack-proof?

[Red Flayer]

sorry, the claim of it being 'attack-proof' is just PR spin from DHS. The ConEd site about the project, and all the other info I've found on it, don't mention proof against terrorism as a primary part of the project. It's designed to carry a heavy load in a low volume of space, and to resist current faults (surges). It does have redundant substations, but that's to resist faults as much as terror attacks.

DHS always tries to justify public expenditure by playing the terror card, but in reality, the blackout of 2003 (or whatever year it was) has far more to do with Hydra than any terror threat.

That said, in today's environment, doesn't it seem a bit moronic to name your project after a mythical monster slain by a mythical hero from the Middle East? Isn't that just asking for people to see the US as the bad guys?

And, of interest possibly only to me:

for that there shold be such a serpent with seven heads, I think it unpossible, and no more to bee beleeved and credited than that Castor and Pollux were conceived in an egge

-Topsell

I never knew Ralph Wiggum masqueraded as a 17th century English naturalist.

Technical conclusions from a non-tech article

[Radon360]

You're probably right with the misprint.

Articles like this are just fodder for the less technically educated masses, and typically written by somebody with a less technical background (afterall, it _is_ coming from Reuters). When they get posted here, the real fun is watching the interpretation, extrapolation and speculation begin on what is really being done from a technical standpoint.

Re:Technical conclusions from a non-tech article

[wiresquire]

...the real fun is watching the interpretation, extrapolation and speculation begin on what is really being done from a technical standpoint.

Don't you mean from a technical, political, socio-economic and religious standpoint?

Re:Technical conclusions from a non-tech article

[toQDuj]

religious? how does that go? Perhaps something along the lines of:

"Mankind was never meant to play with liquid gases!", or:
"Superconductivity is the work of the devil! The Devil, I tells ye!"

B.

Re: Obligitory

[Clockworkalien]

Upon completion of the power line, green costumed agents appeared and chanted: "Hail HYDRA! Immortal HYDRA! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!"
A link for those who do not get it.

Superconductors push magnets away.

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, and it's been a while since my last physics class, the magnet will attempt to induce a current in the superconductor (which would be infinite), so a counter-force is generated to push the magnet away. The stronger you push it towards the superconductor, the stronger the superconductor rejects the magnetic field. After all, it cannot allow an infinite current to be induced!

If memory serves, this is how you can have magnets levitate over a superconductor, giving you those cool pictures of things floating.

Re:Superconductors push magnets away.

[MS-06FZ]

IIRC, and it's been a while since my last physics class, the magnet will attempt to induce a current in the superconductor (which would be infinite), so a counter-force is generated to push the magnet away. The stronger you push it towards the superconductor, the stronger the superconductor rejects the magnetic field. After all, it cannot allow an infinite current to be induced!

If memory serves, this is how you can have magnets levitate over a superconductor, giving you those cool pictures of things floating. This is only true up to a certain point. Once the magnetic field is strong enough, it penetrates the superconductor and affects its ability to carry current.

But this is where the redundancy of this system comes in, right? It'd be a real tall order to create a powerful magnetic field over all the redundant power lines...

Re:Superconductors push magnets away.

[reverseengineer]

Superconductors have a critical applied magnetic field associated with them, above which they are no longer superconducting. An external magnetic field stronger than the critical value tears apart Cooper pairs, making them behave as single electrons with their boring old regular current. An advantage to Type II superconductors (like the niobium alloys often used in very high field magnets) is that they generally can withstand higher applied fields than Type I superconductors because they can function in a mixed mode of normal and supercurrent.

Magnetic levitation in superconductors occurs due to the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect, which is slightly different than what the parent describes. The parent's memory may well not be faulty, however, as the Meissner effect is often erroneously explained in terms of perfect diamagnetism and Faraday's Law of Induction. While it is true that as a perfect conductor, a superconductor is also a perfect diamagnet, and can be expected to generate an opposing electromagnetic field in response to a changing magnetic flux through it, a superconductor also opposes a constant field.

This can be demonstrated by placing a magnet on top of a superconductor above its critical remperature, then cooling the superconductor below the critical temperature. When the superconductor hits the critical temperature, the applied field from the magnet will be expelled out to the London depth (about 50 nanometers in most superconductors), and the magnet will levitate. It's a subtle difference from the perfect diamagnetism explanation, but it was one of the key clues that led to the explanation of superconductivity as a phase transition and as a nonclassical process.

Its pretty bad...

[kabocox]

It's pretty bad that in order to get funding for upgraded power lines, it has to be billed as "terrorist proof" for DHS money.

Nothing really against the project, except that I'd have thought it would be a strict DOE project. Oh, I'm still too naive.

Terrorist... attacks?

[Weston O'Reilly]

Why would it need to withstand terrorist attacks? I thought those were just a myth.

I know !

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's have a major media headline immigration bill introduced in the Senate that uncaps H-1Bs and will affect tech salaries for decades and not report about it on Slashdot. Way to stick your head in the sand, Taco !

IT is what IT is !!!

Well, if they didn't think of it BEFORE this,

[TheDarkener]

They will have thought of it now. Especially since they're touting it's indestructibility.

What's next, the whole project goes *kaboom* after someone does something stupid, and we get Patriot Act v2.0?

Yeah and we all know what happened to Hydra...

[presarioD]

...it only took a Hercules calling up his nephew Iolaus to neutralize Hydra by the "scorch-the-neck-stumps-after-decapitation" method (patent pending you mofos)...

Sheer genius

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nothing says "fault tolerance" better than a requirement to keep 40 miles of wire at -400F.

Question for power grid experts...

[KokorHekkus]

Will this have any effect at all on the problems brought on by massive powergrid fluctuations (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_North_America_bl ackout ). A cascading failure happened because the power grid didn't work well in what you could call "island operation mode" (i.e. local powerstations being effectivly isolated into their own "island" by separating them from the full grid).

I suspect that should someone really hit the grid they would most likely take down some of the major trunk lines out in open country which are much more accessible than any in-city line.

Minotaur would be more fun... Hydra is appropriate

[Ajehals]

So a check-list:

Name? -> Fine,
      Protection from environmental issues? - nil,
      Protection against terrorism? - May stop Greek Historian Fundamentalists.

Self Regulating? -> Fine
      Protection from environmental issues? - moderate, will route around local issues.
      Protection against terrorism? -> See above

Large number of interconnects -> Fine
      Protection from environmental issues? - moderate, its redundant (see Self Regulating).
      Protection against terrorism? -> See above

Superconductor requires extreme cooling -> Hmm
      Protection from environmental issues? - Nil, (may help fight global warming?)
      Protection against terrorism? -> Hope they don't damage the cooling infrastructure, or the
                                                    containment, or the management systems. I guess that would
                                                    break it

Cost @ $40 million -> Good
      Protection from environmental issues? -> Nil
      Protection against terrorism? -> Nil
      (Doesn't seem to high for something unique, just think of the tourists (not terrorists,
      *tourists*))

Funded in part by the US DHS -> Hmm
      Protection from environmental issues? -> Nil
      Protection against terrorism? -> Nil, but propaganda coup for DHS!!

Its amazing how many things appear to have a secondary benefit in preventing terrorist attacks. I would hate to see what kind of projects we'd get if there were a spate of shark attacks... (A new inland housing development, it provides cheap, affordable housing... and protection from sharks..)

The TERRORIIIIISTS!!!!!

[Joce640k]

Is somebody's pet project too unreasonable/expensive? Just invent a movie plot and say the magic word....

Re:The TERRORIIIIISTS!!!!!

[timeOday]

I'm just happy to see DHS funds buy something useful for once.

Here's what I think this is really about:

. A power outage in Queens, New York last summer, and the August 2003 blackout that hit parts of the U.S. Northeast, Canada and the Midwest, have raised concerns about power delivery in New York's financial district, seen as vital to the nation's economy.

It's a perfectly valid concern. Because of terrorists? Not primarily, just RTA:

"We have asked AMSC and Consolidated Edison to demonstrate superconductor solutions in New York City that will serve to keep our centers of commerce on line under all conditions - including grid events related to severe weather, accidents or terrorist attacks," Jay Cohen, the Department of Homeland Security's undersecretary for technology, said in a statement on Monday.

See? Terrorism is down there at #3. I think that's quite reasonable. The current power grid does need some help, it's old, and the software controlling it is limited. If they could pull it off for $40M (which I doubt), it might even be justified on power savings alone. But if it's actually more reliable (again, if), then it would probably pay for itself the first time it was really needed. Those big power outages should be something we can solve! And a practical application of superconductors is very neat technically.

Re:The TERRORIIIIISTS!!!!!

[__aaclcg7560]

Alligators in the sewer lines? I'm sure they would love to chew on the new underground grid. Won't be long before NYC is requesting money for a above ground grid to protect against alligators.

Re:The TERRORIIIIISTS!!!!!

[Jon Kay]

it might even be justified on power savings alone.

Why do I somehow doubt that something needing superchilling for every wire used for this will save power? And wouldn't it almost certainly be alot cheaper (and more power-efficient) to just conventionally cool a handful of the very worst cables?

I notice no sign of justifying math or studies here indicating it would be anything but a loss for any of the goals given. It might even be a loss for cable capacity, if the cooling equipment is too wide.

Attack proof?

[boyfaceddog]

Surely they mean "Attack Resistant". No sane person would use the 'proof' word in this world.

Re:Attack proof?

[Chosen Reject]

No sane person would use the 'proof' word in this world.

I've been saying that about mathematicians for years.

Kevin Bacon

[dosle]

You guys ever seen Tremors?

What superconductor?

[sokoban]

For an "attack proof" power line, I wouldn't think a superconductor would be the best idea. I mean, just boil off the liquid N2 and you've got a fairly high resistance material. Same thing happens if you go over the critical magnetic field.

I still wanna know what they're using. 123YBaCuO and most other high temp superconductors are kinda hard to draw into a wire, but I guess a thick cable might be easier.

Re:What superconductor?

[default luser]

Yup, pretty worthless if you ask me. Might be more cost-efficient over the lifetime of the line to lay 10 regular conductors than one superconductor.

And since when did "high temperature" refer to -230C?

Oh, I guess I was thinking of Room Temperature Superconductors, which are still a pipe-dream.

Re:What superconductor?

[sokoban]

High temperature superconductors are ones that work in liquid N2. Other ones need even colder temperatures.

Hey, this is great

[houghi]

Now I can not only steal the electricity to run my computer, I can also let the city do the cooling of my PC.

If it was in Brazil...

[partenon]

... this cables wouldn't last one single day. People here (in São Paulo) steals low-tech copper telephony cables. How about high-tech "high temperature superconductor power cable"?

Re:If it was in Brazil...

[KokorHekkus]

I think it would. It's not as easy to sell a high tech gadget as some raw materials. With the rising price of copper worldwide I think there has been a definite increase in copper related heists everywhere. Even here in Sweden they steal copper roofings, power cables for trams and trains (for those who know swedish http://www.gp.se/gp/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=113&a=3161 42 and http://www.nwt.se/ArticlePages/200704/05/200704050 55436_NWT825/20070405055436_NWT825.dbp.asp)

According to the last article copper cable fetches around $4/lbs here when you sell it to a junkyard. Fast transaction, jobs made by strapped for cash small time thiefs that has no real connections is what I'm guessing... wherever in the world it happens.

Re:If it was in Brazil...

[Anonymous Coward]

People here (in São Paulo) steals low-tech copper telephony cables

It happens in the USA and Canada too.

In fact, sometimes the idiots don't check if the wire is carrying electricity first and get electrocuted.

Re:If it was in Brazil...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It happens in the USA and Canada too."

It happens all around the world.

And here's the reason:

http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/base/spot-co pper-5y-Large.gif

New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[Etherwalk]

Economy of New York

If it were a country, its GDP would be the 17th largest in the world. It makes a prime target for economic reasons, and major terrorist action in New York would have a significant impact on the rest of the nation.

This does sound like a grab for homeland security money, certainly; but it's not unreasonable, on the whole, to keep a special eye on New York when it comes to preventing terrorism.

Re:New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[martin-boundary]

Bah, Silicon Valley is the fifth largest GDP or so in the world. So by that argument, they shouldn't be wasting money protecting insignificant places like NY before they've properly protected California at least.

Re:New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[Rakishi]

Silicon Valley has a larger area and is more decentralized, as a result the cost of any initiative is much larger and more complex.

Re:New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[martin-boundary]

That's nuts: it's too expensive to protect the important parts of the country (northern California, if you measure importance by money), it's not worth protecting the poor parts of the country (not important, since no money), but NY is just the right mix of medium importance to achieve protection against the terrorists!

No, the money argument is bullshit, this is still just a thinly veiled pork barrel project couched in cheap terrorism buzzwords.

Re:New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[Rakishi]

Could you please provide a source for that statement?

All I find is that SV is 16% of the California GDP. The later is $1.6 Trillion so SV comes out to roughly $256 billion. The data I find on New York City lists its GDP as roughly $457.3 billion while the NY metro area (a better comparison to SV than NYC alone) come out at $901 billion.

So apparently, or rather unless you have better sources, NYC is a more important economic center than SV.

Re:New York is one of the world financial hubs...

[Rakishi]

No, I was wrong in my previous reply. If measured by money and number of fortune 500 companies than NYC beats the whole Bay Area. If you include more than just the city (the Bay Area does cover a larger area asfaik) then it trumps by a factor of two if not more. Btw, The Bay Area would come out 29th if compared against the economies of the world while as was mentioned NYC comes out quite a bit higher.

So while this is a pork barrel project it is nonetheless true that NYC is probably the single most important economic area in the US.

Similar article on AOL news

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar article, but with simulation video also. Pretty cool.

Re:Similar article on AOL news

[Anonymous Coward]

Like they expect us to believe that that can actually happen. seriously.... even if all of those things happened at the same time... but the explosion was awesome!!

Burying them underground may prevents some attacks

[Eevee]

But it just makes it easier for the Drow.

The Price of 'TeRRoRist-Attack-Safe' ???

[NoSuchGuy]

can withstand extreme weather and terrorist attacks
What's the price of the label "Terrorist attack safe"?

Special discount at WalMart: Terrorist attack safe coke! Buy 2 get 1 free!

I'd be a lot more impressed ...

[Alligator427]

... If Con Edison could just consistely supply power to western queens without week long blackout or go a single month in the summer without having a manhole explode or electrocute some poor passer-by.

Re:I'd be a lot more impressed ...

[Joe U]

You forgot to mention the annual 14th street substation explosion and fire. Bring beer and franks, it's a blast.

Also, the fun brownouts in central Queens. Hey, your voltage is at 90 and the outside temp is 100, party time!

Well, I figured out what the CON stood for years ago.

Hydra Funding Idea: +1, Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: An altnernative to looting the New York City Taxpayer

The Hydra Project could be funded from the slush funds of Rudy Giuliani.

Sincerely,
Philboyd Studge

Oh great

[bmo]

So when is Con Ed going to stop electrocuting dogs and passers by?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopic s/people/l/jodie_lane/index.html?query=CONSOLIDATE D%20EDISON%20INC&field=org&match=exact

Fix THAT first.

--
BMO

Because ConEd can't keep the lights on

[Foerstner]

This is being put in New York because NYC has a history of huge, debilitating power outages. Three times in the past half-century, the entire city (and the surrounding region) has been blacked out, causing massive economic losses. New York needs it, Seattle doesn't.

"Terrorism" is just a keyword included on all public works funding requests nowadays. This has nothing to do with terrorist threats, real or implied.

Re:Minotaur would be more fun... Hydra is appropri

[DefenderThree]

No worries, man. If the sharks learn to burrow the substation chains should be able to handle it. Assuming Jeff Goldblum is managing those substations, that is.

Also ConEd may have used the terrorist angle

[Sycraft-fu]

Not with the public, but with DHS. It's how it goes in any field: Whatever is the popular scare, just relate your shit to that to get funding. You a library that needs funding for a security guard to keep vandals out? Oh, sorry, no can do, budget is too strapped. Well, just respin that shit as an anti-terror imitative. We need to reassess security to keep terrorists for getting bomb making information and targets from publicly available material. Oh look, all of a sudden you have funding.

I could see ConEd doing that with DHS here. They say "We need a new addition to the grid to keep blackouts from happening," government says "No, sorry, no money." So they just say "Uhhh, it'll be harder for terrorists to attack," all of a sudden, you gots funding.

Just how the game is played, and government isn't the only place it is like that. If you take a look at research fields, the way you get money is by dealing with trendy topics. It can be real hard to get funding if your research is against the grain, and easy to get dollars for BS things so long as you relate it to the trendy thing.

Powerlines aren't the weakspot

[Suzumushi]

It's fairly easy to replace downed or damaged transmission lines. The real vulnerability in a power distribution system are the transformers, all of which are easily destroyed and extremely difficult to replace. So attack proof powerlines are nice, but really doesn't solve the problem in the bigger picture.

Ding!!!

[Un pobre guey]

...because terrorists have demonstrated that they want to blow up electric towers...

Well, well. Funny you should mention that. Have any electrical power towers been blown up by terrorists in the US recently? Ever? Have any credible plots planning to do so come to light?

Guess what folks. That is evidence that there are extremely few terrorist cells in the US, not the other way around. Wise up, everybody, the "War on Terror" is a lie. It is a scam built around 9/11, which itself still holds a few dark secrets. 9/11 is the best thing that ever happened to these lying, cheating, thieving , murderous bastard businessmen-politicians.

And, um, keep your wallet handy.

Sure, the gird'll survive...

[vought]

But what about the power plants? If those go off-line, won't the city still go dark?

Anyone who think this project means NYC will withstand a coordinated attempt to black out the east coast (or even gross incompetence) is sorely mistaken.

Re:Sure, the gird'll survive...

[the-amazing-blob]

For every Watt lost, 3 Watts are regrown by The Grid. Don't worry.

ConEd: NYC's Biggest Monopoly

[Doc Ruby]

ConEd neither knows nor cares about how to make reliable electric grids. They're a huge $BILLION monopoly on which all of NYC depends every second, every day. When over 100K people in Queens lost power for a week or two last Summer, Bloomberg praised ConEd, which still hasn't figured out what caused the blackout. That's after ConEd's failure to cope with the cascading outages that left NYC dark during the vast 2003 Northeast Blackout.

Now they're getting superconductor money to play with. They probably think it has something to do with trains. Why not? That's another monopoly they can understand.

What about the LiqN2?

[The Great Pretender]

The spiffy graphic presentation tells me that the LiqN2 goes in the middle, but I'm not seeing an explanation of how they get the N2 in the cable and what happens to it as it warms up, or do they not have to replenish it? I did notice in the presentation that the super cable is cold-blue and old power cables are danger-red and that a jaggy white line can hit the cold-blue cable 3 times without doing anything, but it kills the danger-red cable in one strike. I wonder how much they spent on that presentation?

just cut off the N2

[bill_mcgonigle]

I mean, just boil off the liquid N2 and you've got a fairly high resistance material.

Or just interrupt the supply of liquid N2. That doesn't even seem like much of a challenge.

The BIG question

[hurfy]

"that can withstand extreme weather and terrorist attacks."

But can it withstand the squirrels down the street that have an affinity for transformers?

Whadya mean squirrel-proof is another 40 million......

Terrorist Proof????

[gweihir]

Personally I would expect a cryogenic cable to be even more vulnerable. After all, you can attack it directly and you can attack its cooling. Seems to me the ''terrorist'' angle is shamless lying for profit.

Re:Terrorist Proof????

[markov_chain]

It better be well protected, or if it warms up past superconduction it will *become* severe weather and terror attack!

Attack proof assumptions

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Adding complexity generally makes systems more fragile and more prone to attack.

Exisgting conductors use either bus-bars (hunks of metal) or cables. These are pretty reliable and well understood. Sure they can break and corrode, but they are by no means fragile. So-called "high temperature" superconductors still need cryogenic cooling which means a more complex system to maintain (pumps, piping, etc etc)

Gee I wonder which system is more likely to break down due to natural events (earthquake, flooding etc) or direct human sabotage (bomb, ax-wielding pipe hacker)?

Re:Attack proof assumptions

[amuro98]

None of those things can hold a candle to the biggest threat to underground cables - The Backhoe.

Granted, as deep as this cable will be buried, you'll need a larger backhoe.

Re:Attack proof assumptions

[epee1221]

If only we had a way to prevent that.... A backhoe in Green Bay killed our internet last year.

practical?

[Eto_Demerzel79]

I worked on a closely related project while I was at Argonne National Lab many years ago. The main problem was that once you run too much current through the lines, the self-induced magnetic field from the current running through the line will cause superconductivity to collapse. Does anyone know the technical details, such as how big the lines are and how much current can they run and at what voltage?

The type of ceramic also matters. Y-Ba-Cu-O type ceramics need to be in a crystalline form that has texture since superconductivity is present in only one crystal plane, which would be difficult if not impossible to implement as a wire (at best they could use something rigid akin to pipes). I will assume that they are using metal sheathed Ba-Sr-Ca-Cu-O ceramics, which have lower current carrying capacity, but maybe will be more practical. This would probably increase the size of the lines and drive up the cost of cooling. If anyone has more technical information, please share

"Middle East"?

[Brown]

Last time I was there, Greece was in southern Europe, not the Middle East - maybe it went south for a holiday?

-C

I'll tell God to stop making Earthquakes

[WillAffleckUW]

After all, we don't want Her being accused of being a Terrorist, do we?

The most dire threat to the grid...

[Zhe Mappel]

...turns out to be the American Couch Potato, whose multi-room McMansions and gigantic TV sets are sucking up way too much juice.

The consequences: environmental destruction, massive public waste.

All this so a few who care nothing for the rest of us can watch Bruce Willis hunt down mythical terrorists on bigger and bigger screens?

High temp

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't super conductor technology based on *low* temperatures? The uber geek who wrote this is not too smart.

Re:Titanic

[Hektor_Troy]

Kate Winslet? Nah ...

Kate Beckinsale? Hell yes!

Being power hungry is NOT the problem

[WindBourne]

It is our unwillingness to pursue better technology. We have alternative power which is slowly coming on-line. In addition, it is within our grasp to use nuclear and power ALL of our needs for the next 100 years. All based on current nuclear fuel stockpiles. We simply need to re-start and finish the IFR project that poppa bush started nearly 2 decades ago.

They can't use LN2

[kf6auf]

They indicate that the superconductor only superconducts below 40K, which means that LN2 cannot be used for cooling since it freezes at 63K. Liquid helium is going to be necessary which means that it will be pretty expensive to keep this thing cold. Oh, and if it gets too warm, you'd better stop putting current through it real quick, because it'll get really freaking hot and melt.

Horrid overhead wires

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, the first thing I noticed when I moved to North America many years ago, was the horrible mess of overhead cables everywhere. Most US towns and cities look like Spiderman gone mad. In the rest of the civilized world, cables are buried. It looks better and is much more secure against wind and ice rain.

Re:Horrid overhead wires

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit Japan sometime.

Re:Horrid overhead wires

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of it has to do with costs. According to an article by the Seattle Times (see below), it costs between 10 to 15 times as much to bury a powerline than to restring above ground. That cost goes down for new construction because it is easier to do so (easier right of ways, equipment on site, current surveys, etc...). Furthermore, I believe that there is a federal law in the US that requires new construction use underground lines. http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/ texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=underground09e&d ate=20070109

withstand terrorist attacks my foot

[nurb432]

Can the lines be serviced? If so, they cant completely withstand really creative and patient terrorists.

If any human is involved, it can be attacked.

Global warming?

[flyingfsck]

...but won't this super cold cable be affected by global warming? I guess that is why they had to spin the anti-terrorism bit...

Secured againts "Terrorist Attacks"?

[Yousef]

Given that a terrorist attack can be pretty much anything that terrorises, how can they claim that they are protected against one?

2017 - The Night the Lights Went Out...

[WeblionX]

Wow, 40 million dollars for a system that's just going to be turned off 7 years later! Must be a public works project.

Ding dong

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, dipshit, domestic terrorists have succesfully attacked power lines in the U.S. usdoj.gov Do your research fucknut. Similarly, when Clinton was terrorizing Belgrade, the power grid was his first target. http://www.beograd.org.yu/cms/view.php?id=201271

Re:Ding dong

[Un pobre guey]

Ah, yes. A user of the word "fucknut." I stand corrected. Domestic terrorists have "committed arsons with improvised incendiary devices made from milk jugs, petroleum products and homemade timers in a series of attacks in the five states." Without a doubt this justifies the expense of a vast network of liquid nitrogen-jacketed superconductors buried deep underground, no question. The War on Terror is a harsh taskmaster, and there are many Anonymous Cowards out there to constantly remind us, even if it is necessary to mention entirely irrelevant details such as wartime attacks on power grids by formal, uniformed, state-sponsored armies representing a specific national government.

The terrorists we are supposed to fear deeply are not organized state-sponsored armies. It may have escaped your notice that they are ragtag bands of deranged fanatics, many of them undecuated impulsive simpletons, to put it charitably. They are sponsored by wealthy and powerful individuals and organizations who hide in distant shadow. These bands of terrorist nitwits serve many purposes, not the least of which is maintaining a psychology of imminent emergency and cataclysm among our more gullible fellow citizens. This 1) maintains a high per-barrel price of oil, 2) supports contentions by political officials that hundreds of billions of dollars must be funneled to specific private concerns, 3) causes the public to accept a massively bloated military apparatus, and damn the human and financial cost, and 4) justifies the systematic elimination of our civil rights and the acceptance of an unprecedentedly powerful and ever more Soviet-style government here in the US.

I could go on, but why bother? People who call each other "fucknut" tend to be neither good listeners nor thoughtful interlocutors.

Which is more likely to happen?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Extreme weather or terrorist attacks?

RTFFP !

[droopycom]

Hum... and exactly what make you think people who dont read the RTFA will Read This Fine First Post ?

I'm all in support of this...

[rgaginol]

... as long as the end result somehow resembles the Black Mesa underground maps from Half Life 1. And having a few metal walkers going through toxic spill will be a nice bonus:) Oh yeah - and a security guard like Barney:)

True... $40 million is cheap for a gov. project

[Joce640k]

The government usually doesn't get out of bed for less then $100 million.

$40 million seems suspiciously cheap to me.

Attack proof and weather proof, yes...

[Khyber]

Now how well will this hold up against any reasonably powerful EMP?

Oh Great!

[ydra2]

Now Osama knows all the details of this "Attack-Proof" power supply! Why don't you publish the secret self destruct code "1234" while you're at it? -- ydra

Attack proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who read the headline and immediately thought "Titanic"?

Spend taxpayers' money on a cool new power distribution system if you like, but don't justify it behind "Terrorism" and "Think of the children" fer fek's sake...

Enron power

[k-zed]

...can they withstand the provider companies selling all the juice to other places while embezzling the money?

Woohoo for the free market.

oh really?

[martin_henry]

1912: unsinkable Titanic sets sail
2007: attack-proof power line powers up

hmmmm.....

would you please write a little

[Anonymous Coward]

more about the sensation/experience of the bare hand in LN2. Im suprised you still have the use of your hand

picture/video or it didnt happen. you could top youtube B{D

Re:would you please write a little

[networkBoy]

No pix or video. You have no idea how hard it was to get the pictures of my setup.
The physics, however, will explain nicely:
as the LN2 boils it produces copious amounts of N2 gas.
This gas forms a thin, but "solid" barrier between your hand and the liquid and acts as a heat transfer medium.
The transfer cools your hand, but slower than the liquid its self would.
(now is a good time to pull your hand out)
Eventually (<1 sec) your skin temperature drops to the point that the vapor barrier starts to break down.
This is as noticeable as someone stabbing your hand with a shard of incandescent solar material (as in: serious pain)
(Now is the point that you would involuntarily remove you hand, suffering frostbite as much as 1mm into the flesh across a large portion of your hand)
Now that liquid is in contact with your hand flesh rapidly turns to ice, permanent (and irreversible) tissue damage is happening.
(At this point you've likely passed out from the pain (I know I would have))

Total elapsed time? <5 seconds. The first 500-900ms (depending on moisture in your skin) are the safe zone.

However ..

[cheros]

.. it's a sod to rewire quickly after a disaster..

The reason most countries start overhead is because it's quicker and cheaper (and in places which flood regularly I can imagine it being safer as well). Aesthetics tend to come a lot later :-).

Yes, because it makes money..

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the primary religion of the "developed" world revolves around the dollar sign you won't be able to change much.

"Economy" drives will never succeed if over 70% of the revenue from that goes to government. They're used to throwing away billions (calling it "spending" would make it appear more planned and controlled than it really is), so it's unlikely they're going to cut their own income unless they can compensate elsewhere. Too many snouts buried deeply in the trough you and I fill..

Power surges?

[abb3w]

The grid is expected to be able to self-regulate power surges and maintain supply under extreme conditions.

Given this is NYC, one of the two top targets for attack on the US, and given that I am Quite Mad, I wonder exactly what manner of "power surge" would get transmitted within the superconducting grid by the EMP of a terrorist (or not) nuke at (say) one of the distribution endpoints? And how much of the attached US power grid infrastructure would get taken out (temporarily and long term) because of the efficient propagation of the EMP via superconductor?

And does my surge protector's warranty cover this? =)

You drank the Kool-Aid

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold the fucking phone. If ANYTHING is being done in the name of preventing terrorism, if it is NOT preventing terrorism, DON'T DO IT EVEN IF IT'S A GOOD THING. Slippery slope. We will be conditioned by all the good things that are done "to prevent terrorism". Then when something not as good is pushed through, well it's ok, we're preventing terrorism. Then everything becomes acceptable because whatever is done to prevent terrorism must be good, right?

Are you THAT STUPID?

HAHAHAHA

[Velocir]

As a New Zealander with no training in terrorism (like most NZers), the first thought that popped into my head when I read the article was, "Man, if I was a terrorist I'd just damage the cooling system." Attack-proof is such a silly term to use with something that has to be kept so far below not only ambient but also resistance-induced temperatures...

Re: Obligitory

[Nullav]

And it's to help prevent terrorism. ...Role reversal, anyone?

Um... pointless?

[DarthVain]

No I didn't rtfa however, wasn't the last large scale black out caused by a switching station malfunction/failure in like Michigan? How is a redundant interconnected cable under NY city going to ensure that power is working? Unless of course NY City is on an independant grid, and produces enough power within that grid to meet all its power needs....

If not then, what is the point?

I think upgrading the aging power infrastructure itself would better fix this issue (tho I guess this is one small step), and news flash it will cost a hell of a lot more than 40 million dollars. It is also not a NY problem, but a national one. Power is a national problem (international really when you consider Canada importing/exporting power), and must be dealt with as such.

Re:Um... pointless?

[Buelldozer]

If you really want to enhance the electric grid against natural and man made attack we need to decentralize power generation. It's just that simple.

uu

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid fucking moderations...