Canada says U.S. nuclear plant caused outage

From Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14284376.htm

-SNIP-
It was caused by a power outage at a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania," said Thoren Hudyma, a senior spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa.

But U.S. grid operators dismissed the comment, saying Pennsylvania's nuclear plants had been operating smoothly and that the blame lies elsewhere.

"The only plant that was lost in our region was Oyster Creek in New Jersey and it tripped as a normal protective measure when the northern New Jersey area tripped," Phillip Harris, president and chief executive of PJM Interconnection, the Mid-Atlantic power grid operator, told reporters.

Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum said on Thursday night the U.S. military had advised him the outage at the nuclear plant did not involve an act of terrorism or sabotage. The Defence minister offered scant information, saying he had few details.
-SNIP-

Do we have to be lied to about every damN thING EVER!!!


Jay

Everyone in this state would know about it. Not one mention on any local news networks or anything. I might be inclined to believe the story, if PA lost power today, but it didn't except for around Erie.

Author Patrick White or Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum?

Jay

have offered up 3 different reasons for the blackout.

Which one is it, if any??

from Nuclear power? Doesn't Haliburton get almost 50% of it's revenue from services to nuclear industry?

I have serious doubts that, with this administration, we'd know if something happened to a nuclear power plant.

I bet former PA governor Ridge and Bush have an elaborate plan for hiding the truth, which they 'justify' as necessary to keep people from freeking out, when it's really to protect Cheney's profits.

> I'm sorry but, if a nuclear plant in PA caused this, everyone in
> this state would know about it.

No, you probably wouldn't know yet.

Huge networks of anything, whether it's data (the Internet),
people (the Democratic Party), or power (the "grid") have
all sorts of latent instabilities that NO ONE really
understands or can fully anticipate.

I'm certain that this will wind up having been just another
proof of that basic truth.

Somewhere, some engineers have had, or will soon have, a
conversation that goes like this:

"Hey Jack, look at this..."

"George, you don't suppose...?"

"Nahhh, THAT couldn't have happened!"

"Ohhh. Wait. Oh-h-h-h-h shit. You're right!"

And the original cause may have or may not have been some nuke
somewhere "tripping", or it may have been an overloaded tie-line
failing in East Podunk, PA, or a circuit breaker tha blew up in
Ontario. But the REAL cause will turn out to be the
automatic-but-incorrect response to that event, leading to a
cascade of automatic-but-incorrect responses, leading to 50
million people sitting in the dark.

And the engineers will ensure that THIS PARTICULAR PROBLEM
CHAIN never occurs again, and we'll go on until the next
unanticipated event does it all over again.

That's just how technology evolves.

Atlant
(Been there, done that, but never on this scale)

Old software joke:

"If architects built buildings the way programmers
designed software systems, the first woodpecker to
come along would destroy half of civilization."

All the finger wagging and fault finding in this mess just underscores your point.

This is exactly right. A great article (written in the dark but full of light). Bob

I think they really don't know exactly what happened yet, and are just throwing blame around as a kneejerk reaction.

How many Wag the Dogs has he performed now?

This is unbelievable.....

He is abusing the law religiously.....the Skull and bones way!

Sometimes I wonder over here to see what is up on DU. As I thought, you are now blaming a power blackout on President Bush. You guys are unreal..... maybe we could blame him if the sun doesn't shine tomorrow, after all, I'm sure he can make some money on it!

this thread or another to your site so we can see?

You WANDER over here. We WONDER why you bother. :eyes:

go to the section 'LET THE FACTS SPEAK' on the left sidebar...
then look by year...these include nuclear power plant accidents and other types of nuclear accidents...

http://prop1.org/2000/accident/acclv.htm

all nuclear plants in America are VERY very OLD...and old stuff breaks down, especially after being irradiated for over 30 years...nuclear power plants are an ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN...

bush* has cut all regulation on nuke plants, so his rich friends can just gain more profits and put less into safety, and maintenance and all that...

in the library, with a lead pipe

Clue?

pennsylvania didn't have any outages except near lake erie

as far as anyone knows a lighting stike at the niagra mowhawk hydroelectrc plant screwed up the power

although i find that highly unlikely and even bush called the canadians on that...it's almost as if they had an accident and don't want anyone to know

I mean they eat mayo on absolutely everything, democracy will change that yu betcha.

Be afraaaaaaiiiid!!!

 Canadian officials insisted a massive blackout Thursday across the Northeast and parts of Canada originated in the United States, though U.S. power workers denied that and American officials blamed Canada.

In the hours of confusion after the outage the biggest in U.S. history Canada's government offered conflicting explanations for the blackout, blaming it first on lightning in Niagara, then a fire at a Niagara plant, and next a fire at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant.

Canada's defense minister later backed off some of those theories, though remained firm that the source of the problem was in the U.S. section of the intricate power grid shared by the northeastern United States and Ontario.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/14/national/main568409.shtml

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

At least two people have posted that Pennsylvania did not lose power, except around Erie, and that the power plants in Pennsylvania were running smoothly.

Why do certain sectors of the liberal community always have to have this sort of knee-jerk accusatory attitude toward nuclear power? When posters just 'automatically' accuse folks of lying, when there is no basis for the accusation, you guys really make liberal Dems lose a lot of credibility!

People need to be factual when they discuss stuff. There's nothing wrong with accurate accusations, such as about *shrub's ballooning deficit, or about supply problems in Iraq. But the kind of false accusation that is in this post is just another blow to liberals' credibility. C'mon, stop it. Please.

Right now, we don't know what caused the outage, but whatever it was was probably not in Pennsylvania.

can't get that song out of my head!

I didn't say it was Canada. I said it wasn't in Pennsylvania.

Anyone ever heard of Logic 101? Not-Pennsylvania includes lots of the United States, not just Canada.

Hmmmm. I think that teaching some of the people on this board to 'think' was a futile exercise in Liberalism in the Teaching Profession....

Some students just don't learn. That's all.

> Why do certain sectors of the liberal community always have to have
> this sort of knee-jerk accusatory attitude toward nuclear power?

It's probably because the worst possible disaster involving a
conventional thermal power plant only involves destroying an
area extending slightly beyond the plant fence, whereas even
NON-WORST CASE SCENARIOS but that have
ACTUALLY HAPPENED have spread radioactivity
throughout Western Europe, outright killed many, many people
who had nothing to do with the power plant, and caused
tens-of-thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of new cancer
cases.

Oh, and rendered a significant swath of Kiev uninhabitable, while
we all still get to worry about the corpse of the reactor still
doing more radiological damage.

Probably somthing like that.

Or maybe it's because nuclear power creates waste products that
remain deadly for tens of thousands of years and for which we
have NO disposal method other than "Try hiding the waste over
there. And make sure the paint on the sign is guaranteed for 10,000
years!"

Someday, when we actually do "lose Detroit" (or Harrisburg), you may
come to understand our feelings about (fission) nuclear power.

Atlant

and north american nuclear power plants that need to be factored into worst-case scenario predictions.

and could you please supply a reference for the new cancer cases caused by chernobyl? thanks!

http://www.chernobyl.info/en/Facts/HealthLongterm/LeukaemiaChildrenAdults

Meanwhile, no need to lecture me on why a graphite-moderated reactor
with a positive reaction rate coefficient isn't like a water-moderated
BWR or PWR with a negative reaction-rate coefficient. So we won't
mention the very-similar accident at the Windscale graphite-moderated
reactor in the UK, used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
After all, it only contaminated 200 square miles of countryside.

So okay, let's talk about how a leaky PORV at TMI led to melting the
nuclear fuel in that particular reactor.

Or maybe we can talk about how "troubleshooters" searching for air
leaks WITH A CANDLE almost caused a loss of control at Brown's
Ferry when they lit the control cables on fire with their candle. And
wasn't it funny how the "redundant" control system passed through the
same duct with the primary cables that were now on fire?

http://www.time.com/time/daily/chernobyl/860512.history.html

Or not.

By the way, I notice a serious lack of rebuttal on the nuclear
waste issue. Nothing to say about that?

Atlant

it's most informative. so far, however, i've failed to see the "tens or hundreds of thousands" of new cancer cases documented therein (but i'll keep looking).

in addition, i didn't realize the the UK was in north america, but i'll recheck my maps on that one, what with continental drift and all, who knows where the UK is nowadays.

also, about nuclear waste, there's a current thread over in the energy/science forums:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=518

over there, i've presented technical information on what appear to be feasible technologies for waste ablation, but they've been dismissed as pie-in-the-sky wastes of money (however, no technical rebuttal has been offered, only innuendo).

> in addition, i didn't realize the the UK was in north america,

Whoa! Nice strawman! Did I ever mention "North America"? When
last seen, we were discussing Chernobyl (which I'm pretty sure
isn't in North America either). Perhaps you were confused by my
citing several North American reactor "incidents".


> thank you for the link on chernobyl it's most informative. so far,
> however, i've failed to see the "tens or hundreds of thousands"

Sorry, I only Googled for leukemia, and my post only spoke of the
immediate neighborhood of Chernobyl. I'd leave it as an exercise
for you to track down the other cancers in other regions, but I see
there's already another post thattracks down thousands of likely
cases of thyroid cancer.


> i've presented technical information on what appear to be feasible
> technologies for waste ablation...

Waste transmutation using lasers? Please don't make me laugh.
Maybe they can fund it by transmuting base metals into gold using
particle accelerators.


Feel free to have the last reply; I usually give up arguing when
a person starts throwing up obvious strawmen and (essentially)
mis-quoting what I said.


Atlant

i posted:

"there are fundamental design differences betwee chernobyl and north american nuclear power plants"

your direct response to this post referenced UK facilities - you set up the strawman, not me. :eyes:

do you even understand the waste transmutation technology? please explain exactly what about it makes you laugh (over in the other thread would be good) - it is based on sound scientific principles you know!

The worst case scenario that has yet to play out in North American nuclear power plants may be quite different from what happened at Chernobyl.

But, for the second point, look at "Chernobyl's cancer world record":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1615299.stm

"The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has produced the biggest group of cancers ever from a single incident, according to UK and US scientists.

"Almost 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer have resulted from the reactor explosion at the Ukrainian power station 15 years ago.... Another study suggests that workers who were sent in to try to clean up the plant following the explosion are at a significantly increased risk of lung cancer."

Several interesting links on that page to other aspects of the story.

is more in line (compared with hundreds of thousands) with reasonable estimates i've seen over the years in new cancer cases from chernobyl. btw, consult the link i posted above for getting rid of radioactive iodine, apparently the cause of the 2,000 cancer cases in question.

their claim:

"The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has produced the biggest group of cancers ever from a single incident, according to UK and US scientists."

seems a bit off however, perhaps hiroshima and/or nagasaki qualify as single incidents that caused more cancer?

of course, the situation in hiroshima and nagasaki have proved very complex, because although there was an apparent spike in cancers, long-term survivors seem to have lower levels of cancer possibly due to hormesis effects under discussion in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=370

overall, i wouldn't be surprised if chernobyl ends up effecting a net reduction in cancers.

No biggee, I guess.

Wasn't it Reagan who said, "When you've heard one tree pig, you've heard them all"?

much like your own, i suspect, so perhaps he did say that.

back in the real world, the situation is more complex. any reasonable person will take it as a given that the 2,000 cases of cancer caused by chernobyl are atrociously far too many (and a fair tally of nuclear-power caused cancers should include a few dozen cases in uranium miners). but exaggerating this number to become 'hundreds of thousands' is also way out of line (that was the context of the 'only 2000' sentiment you picked up, not any attempts to minimize the victim's suffering) furthermore, in comparison to the millions of cases of cancer caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the toll from nuclear power is truly minimal.

ok, do i have any proof that fossil fuels cause millions of cancer deaths? well, if you look at coal alone, it releases a potporri of proven carcinogens. these include sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid, oxides of nitrogen, arsenic, chromium and nickel, radionuclides such as radon and uranium, and POM such as benzopyrene (and there's more, consult http://www.sierraclub.org/rcc/midwest/cancer_link.asp if you're interested). in addition, fossil fuels are destroy the ozone layer which will undoubtable lead to increased skin cancer deaths. where the situation becomes complex is for persons exposed to relatively low, beneficial levels of carcinogens. these people experience hormonetic effects and likely develop less cancer than otherwise expected (if you wish to mock this concept, please reply in this thread, if you wish to participate in a rational discussion check out http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=370 ).

the bigger question here is is it fair and reasonable to offset cancers not incurred against those that are when evaluating risk?
for example, one of the links provided above discussing chernobyl states that 5 million people were exposed to elevated levels of radiation. in the long term, if only one in a thousand of these people who would otherwise get cancer does not, that means that 5,000 cases of cancer were avoided, completely offseting the 2,000 cases that were caused. assuming these numbers are accurate (and there's no way that epidemiological studies will ever be able to prove they are or are not) is this a reasonable trade-off from a public policy-making perspective?

Since you felt the need to attack my credibility on this subject, here are my gloves. Let me break things down for you a bit.

Firstly, the Reuters story was written by Patrick White. In the story Patrick writes:

"A severe outage at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant seemed to be the cause of the massive power blackout that hit large areas of North America on Thursday, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said."

and

"Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum said on Thursday night the U.S. military had advised him the outage at the nuclear plant did not involve an act of terrorism or sabotage. The Defense minister offered scant information, saying he had few details."

Now if you believe that nothing happened in PA (which I do) then you must come to the conclusion that someone associated with the article is not telling the truth.

Is it the office of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien? According to the article they say it "seemed to be" caused by a nuclear plant in PA. Since they offer little detail on how they came to that conclusion, we need to look further into the story. When we do, we find that the assertion is backed by Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum. John McCallum, the story claims, was in contact with the US military and they confirm that there was an outage at a plant but the outage was not due to sabotage or a terror attack. Is John McCallum lying? Is the US military lying? According to the piece they say that there was an outage at a nuclear plant. Is the stories author lying?
Did Patrick White make the whole thing up? Is Reuters lying? Did they make the whole story up and falsely attribute it to Patrick White?

Secondly, I fail to see how, from reading my post, that you could come to the conclusion that it has anything to do with the safety, security or economic viability of nuclear power. In fact, the post has very little to due with nuclear power.

And Finally, what exactly about my post is not factual? They story was written and someone is not telling the truth. Maybe before you go around accusing people of false accusations you should study the subject matter of that accusation a little more thoroughly. Based on your post below I assume that you are a teacher. If that’s the case I sure hope you not teaching anyone to read.


Jay

-Edited For Content-

Why do certain sectors of the "rational" community say stuff like "there is no basis for" an accusation when there is, in fact, a quite reasonable basis for the accusation?

...and no one has a clue as to the cause?

Sound familiar? The media is on the job with human interest stories and no investigation of the etiology of the largest blackout in American history.

These sorts of things happen all the time, although the scale
of the event is usually a LOT smaller. :-)

Atlant

Failures happen all the time in Wondows. Some teeny little
defect propagates and before you know it, "Koboyashi Maru",
err, I mean "Blue Screen of Death".

So you reboot.

Windows comes up and behaves just fine.

You didn't fix anything, you just started fresh. The same
defect is still lurking there, waiting to BSOD you again.

And maybe someday it will. Or maybe you'll never hit that
particular set of circumstances again, no matter how long
you run Windows.

The power grid is like that. They just re-booted it. :-)

Atlant

It's not that I don't believe your analogy.

It's just that I'm not about to go "yeah, sure" until I get a better explanation.

AFAIAC, the most reasonable explanation I've heard so far is that this was a stunt to get the energy bill to fly through Congress and to award a power grid rebuild to some Bush cronies.

Now that explanation makes sense because I'm sure a large swath of the "power grid" can be taken out purposefully. But since it's never happened in the last 30 years at this scale, the idea that it was accidental will require a little more explanation than "trust me, our power grid works just like Bill Gates' horrendous operating system."

See this note:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=97613&mesg_id=97613#97815


As to why it happened, here's my best guess:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=68011&mesg_id=68035&page=

Either that, or...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=179983&mesg_id=179983#180034

this will put pressure on them to give kenney boy all that he was promised!

my electric just came back on an hour ago...people in the city in hotels slept in the streets ebcause it was too hot to stay inside.

this is the pointing finger game. Regardless of what caused it. Damage assessment has yet not been forthcoming and I do not see how this conclusively rules out terrorism considering with all this finger pointing they have not yet narrowed in on the cause. I am giving this topic a rest. It is too aggrevating.