[Lowfer] Power Outages

[Peter Barick]

>>> mitch.powell@sympatico.ca 08/15/03 09:24PM >>>
>> Okay it's not you. What about Mitch?

>Bit of an update - Lost power here ( in my neighborhood ) for 11
hours.

>MP update - back on the air   137.780  today ( Friday 9PM EDT ).
>Mitch
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Heh-heh, good that's important. Yah, thought about Mitch Thurs., the
last day I was Web connected, he being right on top of the "Lake Erie
Grid." That's the first I heard of that artifact too.

Being near the Chicagoland area and nearer to one of the power nukes I
am aware of the power distribution fields that emanate west and head
east into a network, but didn't know where that extended: to Ohio? PA?
NY? Didn't know and, like most, didn't care before 8-14. Now,
post-Thursday, it's the talk: The Power Grid! Ipso facto, guess the IL
one extents to Indiana and foregoes that Erie "round-about." Nice
concept when it works ... hmm. I have a few questions from the past few
days of news accounts and some reporting gaps. Maybe some on the list
are power industry savvy and could answer.

1) How is a power generator taken off (or put back on) the power grid?
I think some envision a large knife-switch being operated, which I
reject, but somewhere contacts have to be broken, no? (Ha, maybe this is
where the concept of electric welding began.)

2) Do all plants generate 3-phase? What are they timed to?

3) What controls the period, currently 60cps? Is it the armature speed
at some integral of 60?

4) Can a generating plant have it's load removed (say by some event
outside the plant, unplanned) without consequence to the generator, ie,
one moment pushing mega electrons, the next not?

5) Knowing of this recent "cascading effect" of the generators going
down, as on Thursday, is that a very robust system or an engineering
crap shoot? If the latter, how'd they get away with dumping it on the
public and their national security?

Enuf, any care to shed some "light" on this socio-engineering issue?

Peter