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Announcements Science

Superconductors as Electrical Grid Surge Suppressors 162

Posted by CowboyNeal from the keeping-power-flowing dept.
securitas writes "The New York Times published a story about Intermagnetics -- a company that plans to use 'superconductors as valves on the electric-utility power grid, letting their temperature rise to choke off the flow of power,' a day before the largest blackout in North American history. The timing couldn't have been better. On the day of the blackout, Intermagnetics announced a $6 million contract from the Department of Energy to develop and install superconductor 'valve' prototypes by 2006 in the Niagara Mohawk distribution system. Considering that one of the leading theories for the cause of the cascading blackout is a surge in the Niagara Mohawk power grid, this announcement seems incredibly timely."
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Superconductors as Electrical Grid Surge Suppressors More

Superconductors as Electrical Grid Surge Suppressors

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  • I must say... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    those bastards!

    nic.

  • Linux (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Amsterdam Vallon ( 639622 )
    That's one thing I like about my Linux hardware -- almost all of it uses less power than its proprietary counterpart.

    Actually conserving power instead of upgrading the power grids is an underrated option. We need to customize our appliances better, and in some cases, Linux might very well be the answer.
    • That's one thing I like about my Linux hardware -- almost all of it uses less power than its proprietary counterpart.

      What, pray tell, is "linux hardware"? If you're talking about your PC that's running linux, then you're not talking about linux hardware, you're talking about hardware that's running linux. And I fail to see how hardware running linux is going to use markedly more or less power than hardware running any other operating system.

      • Re:Linux (Score:2, Funny)

        by mopslik ( 688435 )

        I fail to see how hardware running linux is going to use markedly more or less power than hardware running any other operating system.

        Actually, Windows requires less energy to run, since users spend half their time powering down and rebooting.

        • Just like starting a car, more power is required to start a computer than to run it. Especially if you end up with un-used hardware that can be powered down.
        • Not that I want to ruin a perfectly boring anti-MS joke, but I think rebooting requires *MORE* power on average than just running in waiting-for-user-input mode. Especially when it's a hard reboot, where the harddisk has to spin up etc.

      • Linux hardware (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by DrSkwid ( 118965 )
        25Mhz 386
        32Mb RAM
        40GB ide
        512k Trident 8900c
        AT case
        100W PSU
        14" EGA Monitor
        10BaseT BNC NIC
        102-Key Keyboard
        No mouse

        and you can probably run it off a couple of AA batteries

  • Or sabbotage? ;-)

    -psy
    • Give it a rest with the conspiracy theories and the 'if only we can link microsoft to this' nonsense. There were known problems with the grid so obviously its management would have been looking for solutions to resolve this. In this case its not like they destroyed the power grid becasue they have a fix waiting, the technology still has to be developed fully.
      • The winky (";-)") indicates it was a JOKE. Where's your sense of humour?

        I still have a sense of humour and I'm in a city that's still technically in a "State of Emergency", has water problems related to the power outage, and has no reasonably priced or available gas for cars ;-)

        As for the transmission system, yes...needs updating....especially on the U.S. side. The sole reason that Quebec was isolated was because of the multi-billion dollar upgrades that took place after the '98 ice storm....

        -psy
      • It wasn't Microsoft. It was the Zhti Ti Kofft. [uncoveror.com] Put on your tinfoil hat!
    • Definitely a conspiracy. Run for your lives!
  • Interesting technology, but it would seem to have the potential to make things worse due to the high instantaneous current that such a storage device could inject into the grid. Once the system starts oscillating (for whatever reason) it is the protective devices add to the oscillation as each attempts to protect their part of the grid.

    It seems to me we need more synchronous condensers [toshiba.co.jp] to absorb fluctuations, not more protective devices.

    sPh

    • From the article:
      Allowing larger electricity flows through substations without fear of overpowering the circuit breakers would let power companies move more energy through the grid, Mr. Pellegrino said.
      That is a major goal of the government and private companies, because new power lines are hard to build.
      Well DUH...

    • Re:Would seem to have the potential to make it wor (Score:5, Informative)

      by siliconwafer ( 446697 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:28PM (#6713234)
      How is this a storage device? It's supposed to increase its resistance when a large, sudden change in current takes place. In other words, it sounds like it would dampen an oscillation. I don't see how it could "inject" current into the grid.
      • How is this a storage device? It's supposed to increase its resistance when a large, sudden change in current takes place.
        Damm, you are right. I was thinking of the superconducting storage ring technology that EPRI was working on about 10 years ago and thinking it had been commercialized. Wrong application.

        sPh

      • The power generation facilities are not exactly delicate; however, the are prone to destruction when electrical voltages get way out of range.

        To protect the generation facility, they have sensors which automatically disconnect should a surge come along with "that generator's name on it". If big surges like this had to go through a portion of the circut which increase resistance, thus "leveling out" the spike, the generator may not need to disconnect to protect it's equipment.

        It wouldn't have helped the

  • NYTimes name change (Score:5, Funny)

    by duvel ( 173522 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:22PM (#6713195) Homepage
    > The New York Times published a story ........... a day before the largest blackout in North American history

    In related news, NYTimes is considering a namechange to NYFutureTimes

    • Wasn't there something about future articles being blocked out in robot files at NYT? And death announcement articles form the 'future' (pre written) being searchable via Google?

      Somebody post the link(s)...

  • Hmm. (Score:4, Funny)

    by xenoweeno ( 246136 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:22PM (#6713199)

    this announcement seems incredibly timely.

    A little too timely.

    /me twirls handlebar moustache

    • A good installation time for something as mundane as a new remote transmitting unit at a power substation is around a year. As the equipment gets more exotic, the install times just seem to get longer and longer.

      Remember, that there's a need to perform planning, documentation, building of equipment, factory testing (if possible), updating of electrical load flow databases, delivery of equipment, waiting for appropriate load and weather conditions, installation of equipment, onsite testing, and finally the

  • Problems (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JamesP ( 688957 )
    I don't know how is this supossed to work.

    Ok, so you can have a very tiny wire, that when superconductiong can carry several amperes... But if it heats and looses its superconductivity, it would just break like a fuse...

    I mean, why not use a regular fuse??

    • Re:Problems (Score:4, Informative)

      by Al-Hala ( 447007 ) <al-hala AT technobauble DOT ca> on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:27PM (#6713229) Journal
      Given the amount of power flowing through these lines, you cannot use a normal or even semi-normal fuse.

      A fuse works by breaking the conductor path, stopping the current flow. At high currents and voltages, the breakpoint will heat up, ionize, and provide a LOW impedence path, which is difficult to break.

      Some devices that are used to interrupt mains current are switches with contacts immersed in heavy oils, those that use an air blast to disperse the ionized air path, and other more exotic systems.
    • hmm we're talking several gigawatts here when operating PROPERLY, that's a hell of fuse.
    • It's in liquid nitrogen, so it'd be kept fairly cool. I would imagine that the amount of current needed to "Break" the device is more than the transmission lines would ever be subjected to, even during a fault.

      • Re:Problems (Score:2, Interesting)

        by menscher ( 597856 )
        Actually, the problem is that when the device *does* break, it heats up a LOT. That means that the liquid nitrogen is no longer a liquid. It vaporizes so quickly that you have to have a pressure-release valve to avoid an explosion. Assuming your device doesn't melt, cooling it back down again is a lenghly process.

        They have these sorts of issues at particle accelerators, like at Fermilab [fnal.gov].

        • Re:Problems (Score:4, Insightful)

          by theMightyE ( 579317 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @06:40PM (#6714457)
          Actually, the problem is that when the device *does* break, it heats up a LOT. That means that the liquid nitrogen is no longer a liquid. It vaporizes so quickly that you have to have a pressure-release valve to avoid an explosion. Assuming your device doesn't melt, cooling it back down again is a lenghly process.

          Very true - as a student I used to work at a superconductor research lab that did this kind of work. We would run 100kA through a superconducting coil cooled with liquid nitrogen as part of our experiments, creating a magnetic field with about 3 megaJoules of stored energy. One day a tech mis-wired part of a safety circuit that was used to dump the energy at the end of the experiment run (and then very nicely faked his check-off sheet afterward), and the superconductor heated up so fast it vaporized the one inch aluminum stabalizing rod it was attached to as well as several hundred gallons of liquid He. A nine inch port blew out of the top venting all the (now gasseous) helium into the lab and we all ran like hell to avoid being smothered by the sudden lack of O2 in the room.

          Nobody got injured (except the tech, who got fired), but I couldn't help but think about the alternate scenario where the lab staff somehow got trapped inside the room, and the last thing I'd hear before passing out would be "We're all gonna die!" in a Mickey Mouse helium voice.

    • Re:Problems (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mikewolf ( 671989 )
      well, if you would just RTFA.

      from the article "the surge is so large that it will arc across the circuit breaker's contacts, defeating its purpose."

      From what i can tell, you can only allow so much power to go through circuit breakers, otherwise it could arc across the breaker. With these new superconducting switches, you can push more energy through the grid.

      "Allowing larger electricity flows through substations without fear of overpowering the circuit breakers would let power companies move more e

    • Re:Problems (Score:2, Informative)

      by Euler ( 31942 )
      Besides the issue with interrupting high currents, this superconductor would help to keep power plants from tripping offline in the first place. When working with very high power, it is difficult to build regulators that can handle enough power. Switches/breakers are much easier to build, but they are only on-off. The superconductor apparently allows for some current regulation by varying the external magnetic fields.

      Power plants trip offline because they have only 2 choices: stay online and fry, or go

  • Fancy gadgets will help? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:25PM (#6713218) Homepage
    They were supposed to have protection systems to prevent a cascade failure like this. Making the protection systems fancier isn't going to help too much if they don't install/maintain them properly.

    Or as Kosh said, "Once the blackout begins, it is too late to order pizza."

    • Making the protection systems fancier isn't going to help too much if they don't install/maintain them properly.

      This is not a simple matter of making the protection systems fancier... this is a fundamentally different approach to preventing cascade failure. It's orders of magnitude more robust (no arcing current, etc, as mentioned in the article) and there is no good reason why we shouldnt' have more robust systems.

      These sort of things won't all be maintained properly, however it is my hope that aft
      • Oh , I don't know about the maintenance - if you don't maintain a superconducting fuse widget (eg keep it cold.... er what else is there?) , I suspect that it'd stop working pretty quickly.

        This is opposed to 'normal' protection devices that fail to actuate when broken, a superconducting thingo would actuate when broken.

        (Notice my use of the technical terms 'widget' and 'thingo', and bow down to my enormous knowledge on the subject ;-)
        • Oh , I don't know about the maintenance - if you don't maintain a superconducting fuse widget (eg keep it cold.... er what else is there?) , I suspect that it'd stop working pretty quickly. This is opposed to 'normal' protection devices that fail to actuate when broken, a superconducting thingo would actuate when broken.

          Wow, that's actually a very good point. I think though that your conclusion is exactly opposite of what it should be, however... Think of it this way: It is my experience that in la

    • Re:Fancy gadgets will help? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mkweise ( 629582 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @05:26PM (#6714209)
      They were supposed to have protection systems to prevent a cascade failure like this. Making the protection systems fancier isn't going to help too much if they don't install/maintain them properly.

      Actually, the primary purpose of the protection systems in place is to prevent grid trouble from physically destroying generators, transformers, transmission lines and other infrastructure hardware. And they worked, otherwise it would have taken weeks rather than hours to get the grid up again. IIRC, in the blackout of 1965>, major infrastructure damage resulted from a grid collapse and it was from this experince that many of the currently implemeted ideas were learned. [gmu.edu]

  • Timely?.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:28PM (#6713231) Homepage
    Actually, it seems very untimely to me... Like the announcement about installing bulletproof doors in jet liners two days after 9/11.

    Where were they three days ago, I wonder?

    • Re:Timely?.. (Score:1, Troll)

      by signe ( 64498 )
      Read the goddamn summary, if nothing else. They announced their product concept the day before the blackout. They got their contract the day of (big surprise there).

      Just when you thought the masses couldn't get any dumber, along comes someone like you.

      -Todd
    • Bulletproof doors would not have stopped the hijackings. The hijackers succeeded because they were threatening and killing the passengers, not because they could shoot the pilots. The pilots, pre-911, would have opened the doors if the flight crew and passengers were being threatened. Of course, today pilots would not open the doors -- but that is because of 911. The hijackers succeeded because no one had tried what they were doing: slamming the planes into targets. Pilots would cooperate before 911. Now th
  • This is very difficult to do. Anyone who knows anything beyond EE 101 knows that trying to stop electicity over 30,000 volts is heading for trouble. Unless you have a huge insultor that is at least 500,000 Ohms, the electricty will just jump over it without even slowing down.
    • And I'm assuming they're going to be using these devices on 345kV, 500kV and 765kV lines.
    • One of the articles points out that this is a problem with most circuit breakers--the current just arcs across the open switch.

      Their gizmo, "a matrix fault current limiter", just increases the resistance without arcing (and a number of parallel circuits to decrease power gradually). I dunno, I don't think I'd want to stand too close to it when it loses superconductivity. Keeping power circuits at 77 K will take some serious cooling!

    • Re:Unfortunatley. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by QuantumFTL ( 197300 ) * on Saturday August 16, 2003 @02:38PM (#6713513)
      Anyone who knows anything beyond EE 101 knows that trying to stop electicity over 30,000 volts is heading for trouble. Unless you have a huge insultor that is at least 500,000 Ohms, the electricty will just jump over it without even slowing down.

      And anyone who knows any physics knows that that statement is bullshit without some sort of geometrical context.

      Look at all the 350k powerlines out there... You don't see them arcing every day, because it's not voltage the makes the problem, it's electric field strength! These pipes are probably rather long, so the E-field strength that they will be experiencing should be quite small (E-field = potential / distance). The superconductors lose superconductivity during a surge, becoming a resister whose resistance is proportional to temperature. Due to I*R^2 ohmic heating, the resistance will shoot up rather quickly, thus cutting off the surge. Much of the surge's power will be turned into waste heat (I'd hate to have to design that cooling system) but it's much better than the alternative.

      It should also be clarified that arcing occurs precisely because circuit breakers, being mechanical, are not large enough to keep the E-field to a level that won't ionize the surrounding atmosphere (allowing arcing).

      Disclaimer: I'm a year away from my bachelors in Applied Physics.

  • stock change (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jetlag11235 ( 605532 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:44PM (#6713298) Homepage
    Wow, I suppose this isn't too surprising, but it isn't every day you see an established company have their stock [yahoo.com] increase by 17% in one day.

    -- jetlag --

  • Is it just me, for in this "New" world, everytime I see a coincidence, me thinks conspiracy ....

    If Pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm could start walking on two legs, and a war could be staged for Halliburton to get billions in contracts .... could a power outage have been staged ...

    please spare me the flames; I am already close to dying laughing at my own stupidity ....

    • Is it just me, for in this "New" world, everytime I see a coincidence, me thinks conspiracy ....

      To write off one coincidence as a conspiracy theory may be regarded as misguided; to write off more than one coincidence as a conspiracy theory is naivite.

      You are not alone. The fact that we can't trust those in charge any more may have something to do with the lack of accountability and openness.

      The lack of openness could be put down to justified fear, given global opinion of the United States at the momen
    • For more coincidence, check out American Superconductor [amsuper.com], which just recently had its stock soar with the news that its second-generation high-temp superconductor wire outperformed the predicted estimates. Nice timing for both companies, in the very least.

  • Yahoo news (Score:5, Informative)

    by DRWHOISME ( 696739 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:47PM (#6713306)
    says the cause of the blackouts were 3 OHIO transmission lines. [yahoo.com]

    • The root cause is defined as the event that happened, which if didn't happen would have avoided the incident.

      The loss of the 3 Ohio lines appears to be the trigger for the blackout, but not the root cause. Lines trip all the time (a list of the lines that have tripped in Ontario over the past year are listed here [theimo.com]... before you flame Ontario, the US list is no better.) Something that happens all the time, by definition, is not the root cause.

      Given that lines trip all the time (and the trigger event of

    • Doesn't suprise me at ALL. First Energy is the same company that operates the David Bessy nuclear plant that fell into such disrepair that the Federal Energy Commision ordered them not to restart it. The reason was an 8" hole in the reactor containment unit which had been eaten by corrosive acid! Even after the containment cap was replaced the commission was reluctant to allow the plant to restart as there were other worries about the plants safety and self-inspection records. Basically these guys suck and
  • Allowing larger electricity flows through substations without fear of overpowering the circuit breakers would let power companies move more energy through the grid

    Ccircuit brakers are not limiting the amount of electrical power that can flow through a high-voltage line

    The diameter of cables limits the current and the distance between cables limits the voltage. Lines are designed for a specific capacity. You can't upgrade them only by chaging the breaker.

    Besides, they say that a normal circuit breaker

    • What would prevent an arc between the ends of their ceramic rods?

      At a guess, since they "valve" the current rather than just chopping it, they can dampen out the inductive kick that a circuit breaker gets.

      As for using superconductors for the whole line or generator coils, I think they need to keep their switch at 77 K.

      • At a guess, since they "valve" the current rather than just chopping it

        I don't believe they can "valve" anything. If you heat superconductor above the critical temperature it loses superconductivity in an instant. They say the material used is made of bismuth, strontium, calcium, copper and oxygen. That is probably some kind of ceramic superconductor. And ceramic superconductors are insulators above critical temperature. That means instant cut off.

        Even if they would somehow manage to gradually increase

        • I have my doubts too. If a superconductor suddenly converts into a heat-producing wire, I don't see why there isn't an almighty bang as it then converts into plasma. Even a ceramic, conductor one moment, insulator the next would have some heat, I would think. They do say that they use a number of parallel circuits, but...

          Somehow I doubt that this is an installed, tested, and shipping product--good timing on the announcement however. :^P

    • Righto!

      Besides, they say that a normal circuit breaker would arc across.

      Absolutely true. Here's a link to an industrial line switch. Keep in mind this is a manually operated and "vanilla" type:
      Vac-Rupter [joslynhivoltage.com]

      What would prevent an arc between the ends of their ceramic rods?

      They'd need to break the arc using compressed air blown across the gap, or by submerging the contacts so the arc couldn't form in the first place.

      If they want to use semiconductors, why don't they use them for the entire line? Or
      • They'd need to break the arc using compressed air blown across the gap, or by submerging the contacts so the arc couldn't form in the first place.

        That are exactly the countermeasures that are used today on normal circuit breakers. Why then waste millions on technology that doesn't bring any improvement?

        no semiconductor could handle the power losses

        I agree with that. It was a typo. I meant superconductors.

    • I think they are thinking you can bring more lines into a power facility if your facility can be upgraded to handle more power via these new "valves".

      Additionally just because these rods are superconductive in some conditions doesn't mean they are totally non-conductive when they are in other situatons. So in theory you might be able to have a 2 state valve which would allow them to drop the voltage at the existing circuit breakers preventing arcing. The use of these "valve" to aid existing circuit breaker
    • What would prevent an arc between the ends of their ceramic rods?
      Possibly the same thing that prevents arcing from the wires to the towers they are attached to.

      Distance.

      The electricity will only arc so far (do to resistance of the air)

  • This is a good start (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Judg3 ( 88435 ) <jeremy@@@pavleck...com> on Saturday August 16, 2003 @01:58PM (#6713348) Homepage Journal
    This is a great start, especially with the way the power grid is now.
    Essentially right now a surge large enough to damage substations creates a large chain effect, where the incoming substation sees the surge, shuts itself down to protect itself, which adds more power to the surge, which heads down to the next station, which shuts off to keep itself from being blown, which adds more power to the surge, etc etc.

    With a way to contain a large surge into the system, we could prevent blackouts like the one that occured in NYC in 1977 (Exactly because of this reason). In 1977 a summer storm knocked several high-voltage power lines out of order. Because of the suddenly reduced load, the power tried to flow back to the substation, which knew it couldn't handle it and shut down. This added more power to the grid, which was sent to the next station along the line, which shut itself off, etc. This cycle of power overload, substation shut down happened for about 55 mins till it hit the main generators (which, although they could shut themselves down, had no way to offload this excess power down the line) and took them out for 25 hours.

    I said it before, I'll say it again. Get rid of our 30+ year old nuclear reactors (no new orders for units since 1977) and replace them with newer more powerful solutions and second generation solar equipment.
    When reactors are running at 102.41% [doe.gov] capacity, it's time for an upgrade.
    We've got the technology now to produce cleaner, safer, more powerful nuclear reactors - but that Three Mile Island paranoia still looms with us I guess.
    Look at European nations, they derive up to 50% of their power from modern nuclear facilites without any problem and no blackouts. The USA? Just 20% of our power comes from Nuclear energy, the rest from coal fired power plants and "peak use" and "daytime use" gas turbine generators.

    Hey, I don't want to live right next door to a huge nuke power plant myself, but if it means cleaner, safer, more reliable power I'd be more then happy to.

    • Re:This is a good start (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dude, that 102.4% only means that the plant operated more efficiently than normal. The amount of power generated by the core did NOT exceed 100%. However, the generator output exceed the maximum dependaple capability (MDC) as a result of higher conversion efficiency. The MDC is a lower bound on what the plant -as a whole- can reliably deliver to the grid. All it takes to achieve better efficiency is lower than "normal" temperature of circ water to the condenser. This can simply be caused by weather conditio
    • I agree that the fact that no nuclear power plant has been built here in 25 years is a disgrace.

      The only reason I wouldn't want to live next to a nuclear plant is because they keep all the spent uranium in a swimming pool right there. If there were a national waste depository it would be a huge step towards making the whole system work. I can't believe that the DOD and Homeland Security havn't put their foot down and said that we can't have tons of potential dirty bomb material spread all over the countr
      • No more feasablility studies (which I think at last count have cost a few BILLION dollars), we're just going to build the thing and Greenpeace can sue us for the next 17 years.

        They're insane anyways. Not insane as in schizophernic, insane as in split personality. The only major clean sources of energy we have right now are hydro and nuclear. Please, no more polluting the hell out of our home and pretending it's a-okay since it's not nuclear. It's time to shut down coal and oil plants for good and replace
        • I'm an engineer. An European engineer. We never-ever have that magnitude grid failure.

          What about this [electricite-de-france.fr] (search for blackout)? A couple days of snow and winds and France loses power to 10 million citizens and 22,000 pylons fall over. Great engineering. The NE US faces weather like that every year.

          The US and Canada is a huge geographic area populated by nearly 300 million people, supplied by the largest integrated power transmission systems on Earth. Arguably the transmission system in the Northeast of
          • What about this (search for blackout)? A couple days of snow and winds and France loses power to 10 million citizens and 22,000 pylons fall over. Great engineering. The NE US faces weather like that every year.

            Oh yes, famous annual French blizzards.. French have not abolished monopoly on power. All their electricity is produced by a monolithic monopoly corp which is answerable to nobody. We all know how well that sort of thing correlates with quality.
          • A few more observations if you don't mind..

            French != Europe, unless you're french. Moreveover, even after severe physical damage to their grid, the blackout did not cascade beyond physically cut off locations. Instead the grid worked as it is supposed to and isolated the disturbance to as small area as possible.. Not letting it propagate to Germany and Belgium..

            For what it's worth, up here in Finland we have severe weather all the time and it's considered a scoop if, 20000 people are without electricity f
      • Likewise, all that waste is sitting around in pools (though warm as they are, I wouldn't want to swim in them) because Carter signed an executive order banning reprocessing (known as Presidential Directive 8 [vanderbilt.edu], subsequently reaffirmed as President Clinton's Presidential Directive 13.) There are certainly issues to consider with reprocessing, but it's a fact that we wouldn't have all this nuclear waste lying around if we recycled it into useful component elements.

        Interesting discussion:
        PBS Frontline [pbs.org]
        Unive [umn.edu]
      • I tend to think that feasability studies are ways for politicians to put off projects that may or may not benefit them.

        Where I live they wanted to build a bypass of a busy inner-city road.

        They spent 3 years doing a feasibility study.
        Based on what they learned from the feasability study they decided against the bypass.

        The total cost of the 'study' was nearly 3 times the projected cost of doing the bypass.

        What is wrong with this picture?
  • I give it 2 months until Verizon runs the power grid for the east in a joint venture with SBC, GE, and AOL/TimeWarner, with Microsoft running the software that controls the power stations.

    The new company formed will be called SCOnumber2 ultra LLC

    And you will all have to buy licenses at $699 a pop to have electricity run to your home (one license per home).

    "Bow to me" - Gates and friends

  • The day before the grid went down, this was probaly dismissed by the CEO of the powercompanies, politicans and other top brass as 'too expencive' to install.
    Today the very same people are likely to ask people lower down in the system why such a device wasn't installed in the first place.
    Human nature I guess...

    Anyway, there are other systems out there that can prevent a cascading failure like we say in the US now. Trouble is, every system - including the one described in the article - comes with a pric

  • Considering that one of the leading theories for the cause of the cascading blackout is a surge in the Niagara Mohawk power grid

    This does not appear to be the case anymore...in fact, this seems like very old news...everything I've read suggests that all the interest focuses on Ohio and possibly Michigan...but somewhere in the great lakes [and on a side note, neither state is midwest, midwest doesn't start until central time, why doesn't CNN understand that?] not the N-M system.

    I want to say that the blac
    • Last night on the news they had power company reps on talking about how it was caused by a line outside of Cincinati, and how if certain stations didn't hold back the cascade, it would've hit the rest of the country.

      People are just quick to blame canada, it's probably the whole french fries and mayo thing.

  • The fix is to force MaxLoad less than Supply (Score:3, Interesting)

    by douglasgodfrey ( 698581 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @02:24PM (#6713448)
    The fix is to force MaxLoad less than Supply.

    This can be done by replacing the local
    stepdown transformers that convert from
    17KVA Power Lines to the 220/110V 3 Phase
    local Power Lines with saturation mode
    transformers that will not allow more
    than their maximum rated power to pass.

    Power Stations can be protected by
    Superconducting Air Gap Transformers
    that inherently limit the transfer of
    power to the rated capacity of the
    station. Power Stations would then be
    able to stay online through a major
    overload without damage.

    Any major overload or failure of the
    Transmission Grid would cause a brownout
    but would not cause a blackout.

    Any localized overload would cause a
    local browout without causing any
    voltage or current instabilities on the
    high voltage Power Lines.

  • Just a tutorial (Score:5, Informative)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @02:26PM (#6713456) Journal
    for all of us who failed electronics/electrical engineering: blackouts for dummys [howstuffworks.com]

  • Intermagnetics hype (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @02:33PM (#6713484) Homepage
    This is hype. That technology isn't ready for prime time. Read the paper. [intermagnetics.com] The "high temperature superconductor" they're using needs temperatures below that of liquid nitrogen.

    Utilities have been testing various superconductive devices for decades, but nobody has deployed them in volume. Superconducting generators have been built by GE and others, but they only offer an 0.5% efficiency improvement over conventional machines. That's not enough to compensate for the added complexity of running a big machine at cyrogenic temperatures.

    If this technology worked at liquid nitrogen temperatures, it might have a chance. But anything that needs to go colder than that is probably going to be more expensive and less reliable than what's used now. Scroll down to the end of the article and see the comments from utility companies.

    Look who's doing this: General Atomics and LANL, the senior activity centers for over-the-hill bomb designers.

    If room-temperature superconductors are ever developed, all this will change, but right now, this is basically big-budget overclocking.

    • Re:Intermagnetics hype (Score:4, Informative)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @08:50PM (#6714884)
      uhh hello? I dont know why this is modded to +4 since it's just plain wrong. If you'd actually read the article you linked to and the NYT article you would've known that they're now using BSCCO high temperature superconductors which have critical temperatures well above the boiling point of liquid N2(over 100K).

  • Hmm... Black Out... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @02:38PM (#6713511) Homepage Journal
    Greg Pallast has some Interesting Comments [gregpalast.com] on the blackout. He cites energy deregulation, passed by George Bush, Sr. under lobbying pressure from Enron (Yes, them again!) Very intersting comments, if true. Politicians and Corporations teaming up to line their own pockets while endangering the public. Nice.

    • Palast's piece was invigorating and/or infuriating, regardless of the reader's own politics. I give him a hearty cheer for intent and a solid +5 Flamebait for phrasing his argument in such a way as to polarize everyone reading it. I wanted to say both "Bravo!" and "Can't we all just get along?"

      Bruce Sterling reprinted Palast's ZNet piece in his latest Vridian Note [viridiandesign.org]. A typically inflammatory extract:

      "Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where Republican Governor George Pataki and his industr

  • World Wide Electric Grid by 2030 (Score:3, Informative)

    by cyberguyd ( 50420 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @03:04PM (#6713618)
    Source: Wired Mag September 2003 - paper copy

    Talk about timely articles. The day of the blackout the September issue of Wired was in my mailbox. In this months infop0rn, it describes a plan that Buckminster Fuller dreamed up 30 years ago to connect the world on the same grid. "Electric companies dismissed the notion as pie in the sky - and then proceeded to build such a grid." The article states that all the contries in the Western Hemisphere will be interconnected within the next ten years. About half the countries in the world are interconnected in some way already. Those that aren't connected or can't be is because of a geographical, industrial infrastructure, or politcal nature, ie Cuba, a few contries in Africa like Ethiopia and Sudan and Polynesia, Austrailia, and New Zealand.

    The article says that this should smooth out market spikes when demand is high in one region it is almost certainly to be low in another. The US uses about 3.8E+18 kilowatt hours a year with about 71% of the energy used produced from fossil fuels. The US is also the largets importer of electricity, most likely the majority from Canada which produces about 58% from hydropower. France is the leading producer of electricity from nuclear, about 75%, and Brazil from hydro, about 86%.

  • "Quenching" a superconductor (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16, 2003 @03:44PM (#6713762)
    Once upon a time, it was discovered that if you cool certain materials below a critical temperature, they lose all resistivity, i.e. superconducting magnets are only superconducting below a certain temperature. Once their temperature exceeds that critical temperature, "quenching" occurs. The resistance suddenly becomes "normal," i.e. dramtically increasing. This can be catastrophic, the temperature and resistance suddenly becoming directly related and both increasing at accelerated rates. All that energy in the magnetic field suddenly becomes heat.

    When I was an undergraduate at Rice University, I got to use the NMR machine in the chemistry department. Essentially, it's a large superconducting magnet that is used to investigate the structure of chemical samples with radio waves.

    The superconductor is contained in a large steel thermos. The inner layers are cooled by liquid helium (4 K), outer layers by liquid nitorgen (78 K). Superconductors are used because a large amount of current can be used, producing a larger magnetic flux, etc. The more powerful the magnet, the easier the determination of structure.

    Every few days the liquid helium and liquid nitrogen would have to be added to maintain the temperature control.

    I was warned that if the magnetic every quenched, it would sound like a freight train. Remaining liquid nitogen or helium would boil and the magnet itself would probably melt. One moment it's a multi-million dollar instrument, the next it's a steam whistle with a heart of worthless slag.

    I was told that if this happened on my watch, I should run to my car, drive to Mexico, and hope the my professor's hitmen never found me.

    Magnets are transported to the location of installation before being cooled and and superconducting is initiated. Once installed, they are precarious to relocate. Major concerns:

    1) slight bumps can disrupt internal structures causing annoying variations in the magnetic field- don't be the chemist who brings a wrench in the room and gets it permanently attached to the side of the container
    2) loss of temperature control - the quenching phenomenon.
    3) a very high-powered magnetic field- you can exactly push down the hallway without causing damage to nearby objects or its own the magetic field

    If this quenching was used to control current, it would have to be carefully controlled to avoid catastrophic damage to the superconductor itself. This seems a nontrivial engineering problem.

  • In response to all the current and future posts talking about how this is too perfect to be accidental: this is a manufactured coincidence, which is not really coincidental at all.

    At any given moment, there are many, many people working on a given problem. There are surely advances in science and engineering that could be applied to power grid management on a more or less continuous basis. When do we care? Right after a major failure of the power grid. So a story like this only rises to the top when th

  • Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/vt - nsp081403.php
    Semiconductor Emitter Turn-off (ETO) thyristor has similar properties with significantly decreased costs, above linked. When it is closed, it is capable conduction 10,000 amps of current in non permanent setting. In permanent installation, 1,500 amps could be conducted within interval below 125 degrees C. Advantage further in frequency possible, to 3 kHz from 60hz, permitting more efficient operation of motors at specific VA.

  • Nothing to do with the recent blackout (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grumio ( 454331 ) on Saturday August 16, 2003 @07:49PM (#6714675)
    These devices don't have much to do with the recent US blackouts. They are intended to help manage high short circuit currents in electricity transmission and distribution networks.

    As electricity transmission networks grow larger and more interconnected, the current that flows following a short circuit also grows. The maximum level of this short circuit current is a critical parameter when selecting circuit breakers, as all circuit breakers you have must be rated to interrupt the highest possible level of short circuit current that can occur. As transmission networks get larger, eventually you begin reaching circuit breaker short circuit ratings, and the fun begins. You can either start wholesale replacement of your circuit breakers at around $100-200k each, depending on the voltage, or you start splitting up your transmission network to reduce maximum short circuit currents.

    What the devices in this article are intended to do reduce short circuit currents, without affecting normal load current. Under normal load conditions they will behave as a super conductor, but under fault current conditions they will rapidly revert to a high resistance, and hence reduce to fault currents to within circuit breaker ratings.

    Unfortunately the 'liquid nitrogen' aspect of them makes them impractical for real world, large-scale use. Power transmission equipment routinely has uptimes measured in years (recent blackouts excepted of course), and until room temperature, uncooled superconductors come along, I believe this technology is unlikely to be more than an academic curiosity.

  • Superconductors can have serious drawbacks (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Interesting stuff, i am working at CERN (european particle physics facility)in a division that is designing system to make sure
    the superconductors do not quench. The problem
    is that most likely the superconductors will
    burn very fast and destroying everything around them.

    This is very serious here as the beam would no longer be bent around the ring and would therefore burn a lot of other stuff and make the tunnels extremely radioactive(it already has to cool for two weeks just from synchrotron radiation befor
    • hi can you explain more about the "has to cool for two weeks just from synchrotron radiation" part you were talking about? I thought that the synchrotron radiation would dissapear the instant the beam does since it's only photons......?
    • The only thing that concerns me is these things are terribly nonlinear. Once you get a hot-spot resulting from the transition from zero to normal resistance, you will get tremendous dissipation in that one spot. These rods don't appear to be all that big.. I wonder which would have more energy in it, the stored rotational energy of a large hydroelelectric dynamo, or a good-sized stick of TNT?

      They are cooling them with liquid nitrogen... if you dump a helluva lot of energy into it, you get a phase change

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