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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."
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.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
That sounds like a challenge. Hope nobody in NY agrees with me...
(IANAL)
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.
Method of processing duck feet
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
Be my friend.
screw terrorism, screw weather, is it BACKHOE proof?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
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.
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:-Topsell
I never knew Ralph Wiggum masqueraded as a 17th century English naturalist.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
Because nothing says "fault tolerance" better than a requirement to keep 40 miles of wire at -400F.
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.
I read the internet for the articles.
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..)
How do you feel about the Eisenhower system? Can you live without it?
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.
"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......
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".
Method of processing duck feet
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.
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.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.