Well Larry,
I think it?s a popular notion for the media and politicos to do the woe are me, the sky is falling, the grid is rickety, etc. I?ll go along with old but given the load its carrying capability I?d say maybe not so rickety after all, just old. What it?s trying to handle is about 60 times the generating capacity of Hoover Dam and that?s a bunch, big bunch. So when the feathers, beaks and feet stop flying around the hen house a bit, I?m thinking we are going to find out they hit the finite capability of the existing grid and it could be that the ambient heat in combination with a new high load defined a place where they haven?t been before. I doubt the exercise in extensive mathematical analysis that would be done today was done way back when so there could be some surprises and newly defined limits. We?ll see what we see. I do know of one defined failure so far and that was the gismos that were supposedly to isolate a fault and keep the rest from crashing. Back to the drawing board on that deal I guess for that didn?t work at all.
As to China, all payment are in hard currency posted in a western bank before much happens. This called a Letter of Credit and is SOP with any country that does not have a recognized hard currency or has a habit of ratting out on bills like our pals in Mexico. I have no idea how much China is spending on modernization of their power Generation system but it has to be a staggering amount. My part of the deal can run up to several, several $million per powerhouse and that is just equipment costs. The Chinese are doing all the installation/construction work so those costs are what I?d called very controlled.
One comment about a Grid that may help Larry is that it isn?t a hard wired deal where everyone is irreversibly connected, far from it. I?m thinking that when your storm hit everyone disconnected and your local distribution system was isolated so that there wasn?t a cascade effect. That?s very usual. When I lived in eastern Tennessee I know that when tornado season was at hand, they kept a real close eye on the grid so an area could be isolated if it became necessary.
Scamp
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