better get your emergency cache ready...

[reeb]

Larry,

One hell of a way to have a rehearsal, huh.?

But , I agree with you, but it seems as if the Govt dont.

I just jeard on the CNN that there are many many "law Suits" already filed cause the bussiness lost monies.

My God Man.

What pessons wont do for money now days.

Texas wasnt effected, cause we have our own line of electric. From where I aint got the foggiest. None of my bussiness ifn it dont effect me. We have a gas generator to run this trailor anyhoo if something does happen.

enough........

[MORTARDUDE]

This would be funny if it wasn't so damned serious. Now they are saying two GM plants in Michigan caused this. Anybody with an IQ above 20 and a body temperature above 80 degrees is not going to buy any of this bullshit...but then we have all bought a lot of their incredibly stupid lies before ( lone assassin for JFK, Agent Orange, and on and on...)

Larry

[revwardoc]

Last evening on the Boston CBS affiliate they said the blackout orginated in an overloaded Cleveland station and that, when that system failed, the current automatically flowed to another station that was at peak capacity causing it to fail which caused the current to flow to another station, etc. etc., until everything blew. That, I believe, is theory #52 of "What can we get the general public to believe?"

[Seascamp]

I don?t think a hacker can get hold of a Power plant. Anything having to do with direct plant control is buried well behind firewalls, and are without any outside access. In that these devices most usually use firmware rather than software it would be real tough to get in and mess with them. At any given plant, only a few people have access to the control equipment and the specialized equipment it takes to change any of the firmware. Those are the Kings Jules so to speak. Software driven systems would watch the parameters coming out of the control systems but that?s a read only situation.

Inter Company communication is via WAN or LAN and sometimes microwave and is a totally separate system with no interconnects to the control system at all. This is very typical of a power plant, chemical plant of petroleum refining plant. So if anyone is messing with the controls it would have to be an inside job. Grid status boards are fairly simple read only devices and the ones I have seen get their data off a secure and coded microwave link. And if anyone is paying attention trouble can be seen developing and there maybe time to pull the plug and get off the grid. The east grid is connected all the Rocky Mountains so theoretically it could all get knocked down. But the way grid regions are organized precludes that possibility. The New England States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania saw it coming and pulled the plug and I?m guessing others didn?t have time or weren?t watching. For the rest of the hot season I can reasonably assume all the grid status boards are being watched very closely and the plug is ready to be pulled.

No one is optimistic the grid will hold so we could see several rounds of loosing the load until it cools off. But I?m thinking now that everyone is heads and ears up there may only be localized blackouts.

Scamp

[BLUEHAWK]

I feel SOOOOO sorry for the power companies, they have SOOOOOO few financial resources with which to upgrade our transmission lines... I guess we taxpayers are just gonna hafta shoulder their burden for them so we can keep Patriot Files online.

[nang]

We finally have full power. It was very freaky though. The first night we had no running water,no elec(of course),no phone reg or cell. What is scary to me is that it happened so fast and so wide spread and the same thing could happen tomorrow. You can bet I'm not going to be without a good supply of water from now on. I just want to find one of those T-shirts that say " I survived the Blackout of 2003".

[Seascamp]

Blue, there are a lot of things we could do once like build transmission lines, interstate highways, trans US railways, Bolder Dams, etc. But I?m thinking those days are past. As I write, US technology, expertise and world class equipment is being used to build China?s grid system. My deal isn?t distribution systems but I?m heavy into refurbishing/replacing old powerhouse turbines and turbine control systems. I?m on PRC powerhouse project number 58 right now and a lot more to go. At the same time a much need transmission line between New York?s Long Island and Connecticut is languishing in court. This was to be an undersea line but as I understand the flail, it?s alleged this would bother the clams. So I don?t see much help on the horizon for getting our transmission lines sorted out. With all the special interest groups blocking everything that is proposed, it would just be an exercise in all heat and no light. Out west we have a lot of BLM land and National Forest land and they don?t cooperate with anyone, including them selves, then there is Indian reservation lands. Then add on outfits like the Sierra Club and you can bet about all that is going to happen is going to be a lot of court action and no progress.

Welcome back to the ?enlightened? Nang. Hopefully the grid will hold until cooler weather arrives. And I?m sure that the presses are up and running and pumping out T-shirts. A while back I don?t think it was a day or so before we had the ?I survived the Harvey?s bombing? T-shirts all over the place.

Scamp

[MORTARDUDE]

Scamp :

You are well informed on this topic. If the Grid is so rickety, why have we only had large scale blackouts in the Northeast in 1965, 1977, and 2003 ?
Seems like it would happen regularly.
What was done in 1965 and 1977 to prevent this that obviously didn't work ? Do any of the supposed 14 different reasons for the blackout sound fishy to you ? The news media is a total loss on this one. Any idea what the cost of the electrical work in China is ? How are they paying for it ? Thanks for sharing your expertise with us.

Larry

P.S. : When we had the 100+ mph straight-line winds and massive power outage, the national media ignored us. Why didn't a massive total power loss to over 1.2+ million people take down other power grids ? None of this makes any sense to me.

[Seascamp]

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