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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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'

[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.

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.

Attack-proof?

[Lockejaw]

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

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.

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...

[pdbaby]

Ha You Dumbasses Really Are Gullible

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

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.

PFFT...

[way2trivial]

screw terrorism, screw weather, is it BACKHOE proof?

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.

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...

[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).

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

[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

[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]

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:Titanic

[spun]

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

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?

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:Sensationalism gone wrong

[conteXXt]

Somebody's never been to Winnipeg in February.

43 Kelvin is spring.

Sheer genius

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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..)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.